Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford

It’s D-Day and the Allies are about to invade Nazi-occupied France. For the landings to succeed, American soldiers on Omaha Beach will have to break through some formidable coastal defences - Hitler’s Atlantic Wall. Sherman tanks will come in very handy - and the Allies have come up with a novel solution for getting them to the beach. These tanks will swim. Everyone from Winston Churchill down thought swimming tanks were a great idea… but were they?
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Thomas Midgley's inventions caused his own death, hastened the deaths of millions of people around the world, and very nearly extinguished all life on land.
Midgley and his employers didn't set out to poison the air with leaded gasoline or wreck the ozone layer with CFCs - but while these dire consequences were unintended... could they have been anticipated?
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We usually bring you failures of the past, but today we're sharing an episode from someone who uncovers failures as they happen. Amy Westervelt is an award-winning investigative climate journalist and the host of Drilled, a true-crime climate change podcast exposing how corporate corruption and political operatives built decades of climate denial and delay. Each season unravels new evidence of deception, disinformation, and the power structures keeping real climate solutions out of reach.
Drilled's latest season, Carbon Cowboys, examines a group of people who've turned climate policy into a profit engine. In September 2025, a group of Brazilian government ministers flew to North Dakota to watch a presentation on a new type of clean energy project, one that promised to help them deliver Brazilian President Lula’s dream of turning Brazil into “the Saudi Arabia of sustainable aviation fuels.” It was the latest in a string of projects from Midwest Republican kingmaker and corn ethanol magnate Bruce Rastetter, whose investments in Brazil might just transform him into a global carbon czar, even as his Summit pipeline carbon project faces fierce opposition from Iowa to North Dakota.
Here's episode 1 of Drilled: Carbon Cowboys. Find Drilled wherever you get podcasts and hear episodes early and ad-free with a Pushkin+ subscription. Sign up on the Drilled show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm/plus.
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Part Two: When Tudor polymath John Dee meets a man who claims he can speak with angels, his path to understanding the universe suddenly becomes clear. At their instruction, the pair begin searching for the fabled philosopher's stone. But the angels grow increasingly demanding, and soon Dee must confront a terrible ultimatum.
Centuries later, a strange incident in a French town suggests that angels may still be with us.
For a list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com
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In Tudor England, the line between mathematics and the mystic arts is vanishingly thin. Straddling both worlds is John Dee, a brilliant scholar and astrologer whose intellect grants him access to the highest circles of power. Dee navigates the politics of the court by making bold prophecies, which win him royal favour. But even correct predictions may come with a price - and laying claim to the future is a dangerous game.
For a list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.