facing allegations that funds were illegally misused. new york's attorney general accused the trump foundation of engaging in a shocking pattern of illegality. the charity's lawyer described the attorney general‘s statement as misleading. and lawyers for president trump's former national security adviser, michael flynn, have accepted a judge's offer of a delay in his sentencing because he's still cooperating with prosecutors. mr flynn has admitted lying to the fbi. and this story is attracting huge interest across the world. jose mourinho has been sacked as manager of manchester united after the club made its worst start to a season in 28 years. he's faced a barrage of criticism over his signings and the team's style of play. more later. now on bbc news, hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur.

how do we decide what is important? how do we balance the personal priorities of the here and now, with the big picture challenges that will determine the future of human civilisation? my guest today is used to considering the biggest of canvases. martin rees is one of the world's leading astrophysicists, but recently he has been gazing into the future of our own planet. the next century, he says, will determine humanity's long term destiny. so, are the prospects good or grim? martin rees, welcome to hardtalk.

good to be here. we are used to you training your gaze to the furthest most corners of the universe and yet here you are having just published a book on the prospects for humanity. so now yourfocus is here, on the blue planet, on earth, and you appear to believe that this century we are living in is the most critical humankind has ever known. why? well, because the earth has been around for 45 million centuries but this is the first when on species, namely the human species, has the power to affect what happens next. and this is for two reasons. first, there are more of us, 7.7 billion, number growing, and we are more empowered

by technology and we are already affecting the earth's biosphere, the climate and biodiversity, etcetera. and secondly, we are empowered by technology, which means that even a few people have the power to disrupt society completely. so that makes society fragile. so this is the first century when we have had these new threats — those we cause collectively and those we are able to cause even in small groups. and this is the first time this has ever happened. and if you are to give the threat a sort of weight and a scale, what are the threats that you see out there today which we could call existential, which in your view actually threaten the survival of human civilisation as we know it today? yes, i think, in any case, we have a bumpy ride through the century. just how bumpy does depend on choices that we make politically but i think there are two things we can predict 30 to 50 years ahead. one is the population will be larger. we have to cope with more than nine billion people. and secondly, the climate will be warmer. we have to cope with that.

so i think ,if you ask about the time scales, on the next 10 or 20 years, we are going to be worried, in my view, more about bio and cyber and the misuse of those technologies but if we look 50 to 100 years ahead then we are going to have to worry about these global trends. and i think one of the issues i raise in my book very strongly is to what extent do we make sacrifices now in order to remove risks from people at the end of the century. normally, if you are a builder putting up a building, you'd want your money back by 2050 — you'd apply a 5% per year discount rate or something and you wouldn't care about what happens beyond 2050. some people who address the climate issue, like bjorn lomborg, who is a sort of boogieman among environmentalists. he takes this view and downplays the importance of climate change compared to more immediate ways of helping the world's poor. but that is because he writes off beyond 2050, whereas many of us feel that, in the context of human lives, which ought to apply smaller discount rate and be prepared to think now about what risks might be confronted by babies born today who will still be alive in 2070.

so your contention is that human beings, whether they be simple citizens like me... me. ..oryou, or political leaders who actually wield real power, we should all of us be thinking and planning and strategizing in time frames that go far beyond even the five decades span. well, in some context we do. obviously, in some context we can't plan even 10 or 20 years ahead. i mean, the ubiquity of smart phones, for instance, would have seemed magic just 20 years ago. so some technologies we can't predict that far ahead but when we can plausibly predict 50 or 100 years ahead, as we can in the case of population, biodiversity and climate, then i think we should take account of that... the thing is, if i may interrupt, you have been at this for a while, you've been concerned

about the prospects of humanity for several years. in fact, i'm mindful that in 2003, you wrote a book, our final hour, in which you gave — correct me if i'm wrong, i think you gave civilisation a 50—50 chance of surviving the 21st century. it does not seem to be that in the 15 years since then, there is any reason to believe the odds have got better, in fact, surely they've gotten worse. i think they are about the same but slightly more specific about ordering what risks are serious and what can be dismissed. so when we get down to what's to be done... yes. ..do you agree with sir david attenborough, for example, who at the un climate meeting, a big international conference in poland, just the other day, said, "we're facing a man—made disaster of global scale. our greatest threat in 1,000 years. it's climate change and, if we don't take action, the collapse of our civilisation and the extinction of

much of the natural world is on the horizon." do you agree with him and feel that climate change has to be — has to be — the dominant issue for all of us, leaders and citizens? i wouldn't be quite so apocalyptic as him, but it clearly is an important threat to address and especially difficult because we are asking people now to pay regard to what will happen 50 or 100 years ahead, in remote parts of the world, and that's clearly a hard sell to politicians. and the reason that people like attenborough are important is that politicians will listen if there is strong public support and, of course, it's people like david attenborough who can help that. if i can give another example, i was a bit involved in a scientific conference that led to the drafting of a papal encyclical in 2015, which was before the 2015 paris climate change... before the paris accord was signed. ..and it had a big effect. the pope got a standing ovation at the un. whatever you think about the church, you cannot deny

its long—term vision, its concern for the world poor, its global range and i think, if we are to address these issues at all, then it has got to be because the politicians are aware that there's public support for them and public support comes from people like david attenborough and the pope. the thing is, there is an idealism to your view of what humanity must do. you talk repeatedly about the need for rationality, for collective action, for an international approach to this and, of course, climate change is perhaps the most obvious example where only collective international action can truly be said to be effective but it is not happening, is it? in fact, if one looks around the world, the impulse in many parts of the world is away from the collective action to much more nationalistic policy and strategy. yes, yes. and indeed it is grounds for pessimism. and indeed i would counter the optimists, like steven pinker, who say things are getting better by pointing out that there are many ways they are in the present era

the gap between the way things are and the way they could be is wider than ever because we do have the technology to provide a better world for the 7.5 billion people around now and to address these issues in ways which i comment on in my book. but they are not doing it. so the gap between what we could do and what we are doing is depressingly wide and this is an ethical indictment of our age in a sense. interesting phrase "ethical indictment". do you see it as your role today to be less of the scientist, as you have been for so much of your life, fascinated by seeking explanations of the origins of the universe, black holes, dark matter, all of that stuff we know you for, or do you find yourself more and more inclined to focus on an effort to persuade all of us but in particular our political leaders, that they have to take seriously the messages from science about the future of the planet?

well, i'm scientist, i'm also a citizen and also a university teacher and, in those contexts, surely one ought to make people aware of these. i'm not a great public figure but i think it is very important to ensure that the public is informed and our students are informed... let's be practical. you are not a citizen of the united states but nonetheless i'm sure you watch like the rest of us what happens in the most economically powerful nation of earth. when president trump gets to see the latest analysis from his own federally funded scientists about the dramatic impact that climate change will have on the us over the next decades and he says, quite frankly and openly, i do not believe it. what is your conclusion? well, it's deeply depressing but it re—enforces what i said earlier which is the only way to get to politicians is via the public. they will not listen directly to experts, they will listen though if there is a strong public feeling and if we think of great changes in the united states, slavery and its abolition, black power, gay rights, they all started with public movements and only when the public was clearly onside did the politicians respond and that is why i think in these issues it is important to engage

with the wide public. but it is no easier, is it... it's no easier, no. ..to connect with the public than it is with leaders like donald trump or one could say vladimir putin, or one could say the new president of brazil, all of whom seem to believe that policy—making is some sort of zero—sum game where, if their nation doesn't win then their nation automatically loses, which is a mindset absolutely antithetical to your message about the future of the planet. it is depressing but in this country, where things are not that bad, the politicians are on the whole positive but, of course, unless they know they have public support then they won't privatise this issue. in fact, as jean—claude juncker said in a different context, we know what to do, we don't know how to get re—elected when we've done it. and that's the view of many politicians and they will only be responsive if they feel that they won't lose public support

and that's why i think it's important to influence public opinion. so education and you are, afterall, if nothing else, an educationalist. that's right. you must regard tapping into the mind, the collective mind of the public as the most important role you have. of course, and in the context of students, who are the ones i have the most contact with, to ensure that they are aware of these issues that will come up in their lifetime. and i should mention, i'm gratified by the number of students who do have these long—term concerns. science should show humility though, shouldn't it because many of the problems that you've just alluded to, whether it be the climate change issue, of course based on carbon emissions and everything that's come with industrialization or, on a different sort of frame but equally dangerous, in your view, weapons of mass destruction, whether they be nuclear or biological or indeed cyber terror of the future, all of these things are the product of science, people like you. of course they are, yes, but scientists should be

aware of the uses to which their work could be put and we don't know this. for instance, the inventor of the laser, had no idea that his invention would be used not only as a weapon but for eye surgery and for dvds. you have no idea and that is true of all inventions, they have a benign consequence and others. i think these scientists have to make sure that the politicians and public are aware but also all the decisions on how to use science involve ethics, economics and politics. and scientists, of course, are just citizens in those respects. they are not experts so scientists can offer advice, expertise but, of course, they have a role as citizens as well. and of course i mention in my book the great men who were involved in making the first atomic bomb, joe rotblat and hans bethe, people like that and they returned to civilian life but they felt they had an obligation to do what they could to harness the powers they'd helped unleash. they did not succeed but they felt they had a special responsibility. and i think scientists but they can't expect that their word will be the one that holds sway. indeed they cannot and they cannot

know where some of their inventions, as you've just put it, will take humanity. but ijust wonder and it strikes me that you are now looking back over the course of a very long career and friendships with stephen hawking and many other things, i'm just wonder whether you feel now that actually, what matters most is not the expansion of human knowledge, the stuff you have been working out all of your life, but understanding human nature. it is ultimately human nature that will dictate whether we as a species continue to thrive or whether we self—destruct. two points. there is no conflict between those things. indeed there is a positive correlation between those who think about one and the other. but also thinking about science, i think, if we look back, despite all the downsides, it is clear that we could not have 7.7 billion people at least being fed in this world without the technology that has come in the last 50 years

so i think we do not really want to stop science, we just need to ensure that we can avoid its downside. but i'll tell you what i'm fascinated by, not least in the book, it's when you start looking forward. ers, we're in a bit of pickle and you've got some prescriptions for how we can avoid the worst of the pickle, but then you start thinking very creatively about where intelligence may be going next, and you're suggesting that it may go beyond the sort of organic human intelligence that we have and that we've made the most of, to a certain extent, in the last 1000 years. you're suggesting there may very soon be a crossover point where we marry our human intelligence with inorganic, electronic intelligence. i just want you to explain what you mean. well, first of all, i'm interested in this.

astronomers are perhaps more aware than most people of the far future. most educated people know we're the outcome of four billion years of darwinian selection, but they tend to think we humans are the culmination, but no astronomer could believe that. we know the earth's less than half way through its life and we may not be even the halfway stage of evolution. but then, going back to us being in a special century, one of the things that may change this century is that electronic intelligence may, in many respects, become comparable with human intelligence of an organic kind in our brains, and this is a real game changer because this may mean that future evolution is not darwinian but it's sort of a kind of secular intelligent design, when we design species. and this is scary in a way and this is an ethical question, of course, and already people talk about genetic modification, et cetera, and cyborg technology where you can plug a bit of extra memory into your brain, et cetera. and these are issues

where we clearly need to have wide discussion and consensus, and my book is a small a way to draw these issues to people's attention, but these are happening this century. and you link this to space exploration, because your argument is that because of everything we've discussed, from growing population to growing resource use, and carbon emissions and man—made climate change, there is an ever greater impetus for us, as a species, to explore beyond the frontiers of the planet, and ultimately, to find other places in this universe we can live. but your argument appears to be that we can only really contemplate doing that if we do leave behind our organic state. well, just to correct you a bit, i very solemnly criticise people like elon musk and my late colleague stephen hawking, for talking about mass emigration to mars. i think that's a dangerous delusion.

there's nowhere in our solar system which is as clement as the top of everest or the antarctic. so although i would cheer on crazy adventurers who want to go to mars, i certainly don't think it's any solution, and it's a dangerous delusion to think that we can terraform mars rather than dealing with climate change on the earth. but to put it bluntly, do you not believe that, actually, this melding of human intelligence with artificial intelligence gives us, in the longest of long terms, the capacity to imagine a post—human era, where intelligent beings, whatever we call them, because there'll be certainly a modification of our organic humanness, these post—human beings will have the capacity to travel over unimaginable differences, and perhaps colonise places and planets that we haven't even thought of? yes, yes. well, of course, the use

of word us is important. my scenario is human stay on the earth and don't change all that fast, but the post—human evolution will start with crazy pioneers who get to mars by then, in a century, because they'll be away from the regulators, who are going to be controlling these things on prudential and ethical grounds, and they will have every incentive because they'll be very ill adapted to mars, and so i think the first post—humans are going to be created on mars and then, as you say, if they can be electronic, they might be essentially immmortal, and then, of course, they can go off to the great blue yonder. it's a fascinating set of thoughts. when you have these thoughts, is this you being playful, or do you want us to spend serious amounts of time furthering that thought process? well, i mean, i think some people should think about this, and actually, i think there are only

a few hundred people thinking about these far future scenarios and extreme risks in the world, and that's a good thing, but i think... but you know what, itjust strikes me they're not really far future because as you've just said, given the history of the planet, the tiny blink of an eye timelapse that human civilisation represents on this planet, if we're talking about another 1000 years until perhaps come of this could come into fruition, in terms of geological time or planetary time, that's absolutely nothing. 0h, of course, that's true, but the timescale of politicians and of individuals is far shorter, and i think in terms of where we put our resources, i carefully say that if i was an american, i wouldn't support nasa's manned programme... no. you wouldn't put any public money into a mars programme? i'd put no public money into manned space flight because robots can do all the practical things better than humans now, but i would cheer on the private companies, like elon musk‘s company, because they can use private money and take higher risks than nasa could impose on taxpayer

funded civilians. so, i would cheer on the private sector, but i would spend any public sector money on this because there's more urgent things to do on earth. so you have actually think that — because you've said that this may be so very important to the future of us as a species and for us getting to a point where we're actually then contemplating, as you say, a post—human era. yeah. you're saying the market will sort of allow this to happen in the long run? well, it depends. you're using the word us, i think us on earth... no, i appreciate that but, in an ironic sense, you're saying it's the us on earth who will be the catalyst for the them, who you say might colonise other stars, other corners of our universe. none of that can happen without us. well, it can happen without any political decision supported by us. sure, and that's what i'm interested in. but i think going back to the astronomical timescales, we've got as much time for evolution in the future as we've had

up till now. moreover, darwinian evolution takes about a million years to evolve a new species, whereas technical innovation takes only a century. so this future evolution is going to be far faster and far less predictable but, of course, i certainly don't think we can imagine that we humans are in any sense the culmination but we should, i think, regard our species, be sort of chauvinistic about our species and not want it to change too much. we've talked in this interview about technologies and we've also talked about ethics and values. what we haven't talked about is spirituality, but as you, later in your studies and your life and your career, as you reflect on everything you've learned, do you find you have a space in your own thinking for a power beyond understanding, beyond rationality, beyond science? well, i mean, i share the sense of mystery and wonder with many people who are religious.

i mean i am not religious in any dogmatic sense, but i do share that sense which they do have, and i also realise... what is that sense them? it's not in a formal religion or a formal god, but what is it? well, it's a sense of looking at the universe and realising it's something we'll never understand. indeed, i tackle it in my book, in which i discuss the limits of our understanding. we can never understand in detail how our own brains work, so we're going to be limited in ourunderstanding, but that doesn't mean we have to accept a particular dogma. although when i do mention religion, i simply say it's an important creative force — the new mcgregor book is wonderful on that topic incidentally — and it's something which is more important and more valuable to us now for its ritual and its unifying context than the dogmas. so to sum up, are you saying that despite everything your work has contributed to, which is a vast expansion of human knowledge about the universe around us, that ultimately, a very great deal of what is will remain mysterious,

beyond our comprehension? well, beyond our in the sense of of human but, of course, when we talk about post—humans, we don't know how much more they can understand. goodness me, there is a lot to think about. martin rees, i thank you very much for being on hardtalk. thank you very much. hello. after tuesday's rain most of

us hello. after tuesday's rain most of us will get to see some sunshine in the day ahead. there will be showers around. as we take a look at the big picture, this is tuesday's weather front that has now moved out to the east. this weather front approaching from the west will pep up the showers across western parts late in the day. a cooler start to the day for wednesday. there may be a touch of frost, sheltered glens in scotland. some of us are in low single figures. early showers towards south—east england and east anglia. the bulk of these will fade going into the afternoon. showers scattered about through western parts, heavy ones, maybe a rumble of thunder. gusty winds as well. not as windy as it was on tuesday. the showers get heavier and more widespread late in the day. it is not a cold wind direction, but temperatures are down compared with tuesday's readings. some of us will sink down into single figures. it is not as windy. there will be sunshine around. fora time not as windy. there will be sunshine around. for a time going into the evening, the first part of the

night, some of the showers will work eastwards a cross night, some of the showers will work eastwards across the uk, and again, some heavy ones around. for the second half of wednesday night they are mostly around southern and western coastal areas. quite breezy out there. still some temperatures heading down towards low single figures. for most of us we are a good few degrees above freezing as those day begins. the big picture again for thursday, you notice low pressure to the north—west of the british isles. areas closest to that most likely to see further showers on thursday. that is across scotland, northern ireland, north—west england, north—west wales, some pushing further eastwards on it through the da y. it is still quite breezy out there. for large parts of the midlands, southern england, and some towards the north—east of scotland it will

be largely dry there will be the best of the available sunny spells. temperatures are fairly close to average but on the mild side the further south you are. that is out thursday is shaping up. going into friday, an area of rain moving northwards with sunshine following on the island. it may hang around parts of northern ireland, southern scotland, and northern england. the far north of scotland may stay dry with just the odd shower. quitethere will be the best of the available sunny spells. temperatures are fairly close to average but on the mild side the further south you are. that is how thursday is shaping up. going into friday, an area of rain moving northwards with sunshine following on the island. it may hang around parts of northern ireland, southern scotland, and northern england. the far north of scotland may stay dry with just the odd shower. chilly side across northern scotland. there could be early fog to start the day. looking into the weekend, it looks like saturday is going to be the driest day. on sunday, outbreaks of rain or showers around. welcome to newsday on the bbc. i'm mariko 0i in singapore. 0ur headlines: president trump agrees to shut down his personal charity after the new york attorney general accuses it of a "shocking pattern of illegality". jose mourinho‘s out, but who's in? manchester united seek their fifth manager in five years. we're not going to win the title. we'll be lucky if we get in the top

4 now, so let's just forget this season. i'm babita sharma in london. also in the programme: the gender gap: a new report says it could be another two centuries