Doha Debates Podcast

How do we work together to address climate change when there's no consensus on the solution? Host Nelufar Hedayat explores multiple solutions to climate change with Per Espen Stoknes, a Norwegian psychologist who specializes in the psychology of economic choices for climate change. She then speaks to Harvard geologist Dr. Daniel Schrag about how the scientific community could improve its messaging...

Host Nelufar Hedayat talks about being called out online, and speaks to a crisis management expert about the best way to handle such situations. She then talks to two journalists who have faced online harassment and real-world consequences for their opinions. Finally, she hosts a roundtable discussion on cancel culture to try and parse when, if ever, canceling someone is appropriate.

Social media has made it easier than ever to share ideas around the world and galvanize people into action. Host Nelufar Hedayat looks at the double-edged sword of free speech from the perspective of social media influencer, a free speech lawyer and two tech veterans who say that today's tech companies wield too much power in determining what kind of speech should be permissible.

Why does it matter that different people have different perceptions of the truth? If you're trying to run a country, it can make a big difference. In this episode host Nelufar Hedayat speaks with former U.S. Republican Congressman Denver Riggleman, "godfather of fake news" Jestin Coler and Belarusian politician Svetlana Tikhanovskaya about disinformation's effect on politics and leadership.

Can reparations help repair generations of systemic racism? Beginning in the late 1940s, the British government invited Caribbean citizens to immigrate to England to help rebuild the country after World War II. Known as the Windrush generation, the immigrants and their descendants have frequently been denied basic British citizenship rights. We talk to a member of the Windrush generation who wants...

How have different countries have dealt with the pandemic? What is best for society when we do things with shared interests in mind, versus looking out for individual needs? Featured voices include Swedish physician Johnny Ludvigsson, who is against lockdowns, and British economist Noreena Hertz. *A note to listeners the interviews for this podcast were recorded over the winter and so some of the...

In the second season of Course Correction, host Nelufar Hedayat is taking on a new challenge: Listening to people she disagrees with. Each episode addresses one polarizing issue, and Nelufar will engage with people whose opinions are very different from her own — and try to keep an open mind.

In the final episode of the season, Nelufar speaks with conflict resolution expert and friend Dr. Govinda Clayton about how to listen, how to be heard and how we can all change for the better. Read the episode transcript here.

This special episode is a live recording from the Sundance Film Festival, with Filipino journalist Maria Ressa and filmmaker Ramona S. Diaz. Diaz’s most recent film, A Thousand Cuts, documents Ressa’s work to fight disinformation and the weakening of the Philippines’ democracy. Read the episode transcript here.

Menstruation is normal — so why is it still taboo to talk about in some parts of the world? Nelufar has a heart-to-heart with her childhood friends about period stigma. Then she talks with Mandu Reid, the leader of the British Women’s Equality Party and founder of the Cup Effect, an organization that offers menstrual cups to people in need. Read the episode transcript here.

Artificial intelligence has as much racial and gender bias as the people who create it. Joy Buolamwini, a computer scientist and digital activist at the MIT Media Lab, talks with host Nelufar Hedayat about how to build artificial intelligence systems that don’t perpetuate social inequalities. Read the episode transcript here.

Your phone is tracking you all the time. Tech companies are monetizing your personal data. Is there anything that you can do about it? Nelufar talks to Danny O’Brien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation about why data privacy should be a human right. Then we discover some surprising ways social media ad targeting is being used to do good in the world. Read the episode transcript here.

The public’s trust in governments is at an all-time low. Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein is a veteran diplomat and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. He talks with host Nelufar Hedayat about standing up to governments — and the enemies he made along the way. Read the episode transcript here.

As the coronavirus rages, 89 percent of students around the world are out of school and turning to online platforms to keep studying. That has its limits and its own set of challenges, but it’s far better than no school at all. Nelufar speaks with Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy, about internet inequality and the future of education in a post COVID-19 world. Read the episode transcript here.

While confronting a friend who voted for Brexit, Nelufar goes on an ego-dampening journey that takes her from a conflict circle in Iraq to a prison in southern Illinois, as she learns why conflict resolution is more about confronting ourselves than others. Read the episode transcript here.

What do our decisions about COVID-19 say about who we are as societies and the systems we take for granted? This week, we chat with global strategy expert Parag Khanna and anthropologist Jason Hickel about the novel coronavirus, the global economy and the institutions we must trust to get us through this. Read the episode transcript here.

How do we solve a problem that has displaced 25 million people globally? Nelufar talks to journalist Marc Lamont Hill about the role racism plays in the global refugee crisis. Read the episode transcript here.

Nelufar gets an unpleasant surprise when she finds out how much carbon she’s personally responsible for emitting into the atmosphere. But even if we all work to reduce our carbon footprint, will it be enough to fix the climate crisis? Or does real change have to come from the top? Read the episode transcript here.

The gap between rich and poor is widening at an unsustainable rate. Author Anand Giridharadas says that to really change the world, we need to challenge capitalist power structures. Read the episode transcript here.

What would it take to live without globalization — and is that even possible? Host Nelufar Hedayat attempts to go hyper local in London and talks to author Parag Khanna and Ghanaian agripreneur Nana Adjoa Sifa. One thing is for sure, globalization is a lot more complicated than you think. Read the episode transcript here.

Garbage is Veena Sahajwalla’s passion. And the trash is piling up: The more stuff we consume, the more waste we create. She’s inventing new ways to turn trash into useful items — like using old tires to make steel and transforming plastic waste into tiles and furniture. Read the episode transcript here.

Is it possible to live without single-use plastics? Host Nelufar Hedayat learns that recycling our forks, bags and coffee cup lids just isn’t enough. She also talks to a Vietnamese activist who's pioneering the zero-waste movement in a country beset with other people’s plastic waste. Read the episode transcript here.

“Equal Pay!” was the chant that rang through the 2019 Women’s World Cup. Although women players often bring in more money for their soccer or football federations, they earn a just a fraction of their male counterparts’ salaries. Host Nelufar Hedayat learns that soccer is more than just a game — it’s a battlefield for equality. Read the episode transcript here.

As a girl, Georgie Badiel walked three hours every morning to get clean water for her family in Burkina Faso. Host Nelufar Hedayat talks to Badiel, who today is a fashion model and an activist for clean water access in her home country, about the right to clean water and why it’s a matter of gender equity in sub-Saharan countries. Read the episode transcript here.

Host Nelufar Hedayat’s family fled Afghanistan as refugees 25 years ago, when Nelufar was a young child. Nelufar's mother tells her story for the first time in our first episode of Course Correction. Nelufar also talks with a more recent refugee about what it’s like to seek asylum today, and how we can be more empathetic and supportive of our refugee neighbors. Read the episode transcript here.