Going viral - Lessons for sustainability from Memes & the Romans

About this episode

Emma Burlow explores the connections between memes, historical ideas, and workplace sustainability in this solo episode.

In this intellectually stimulating solo episode of Straight Talking Sustainability , host Emma Burlow draws unexpected connections between Richard Dawkins' 1976 concept of memes from "The Selfish Gene," Professor Alice Roberts' book "Dominance" exploring Christianity's spread across the Roman Empire, and the historic Green Party by-election win in Manchester to explain why some workplace sustainability ideas thrive whilst others die despite passionate advocacy, brilliant facts, and months of effort. The answer is not about working harder or having better data; it is about understanding that survival of the fittest means fit for the conditions, not strongest or most factually correct. Emma opens with her girl crush on Professor Alice Roberts (anatomist, trained doctor, Birmingham University professor) whose Dominance book tour revealed a crucial insight: Christianity succeeded across the Roman Empire because conditions made the idea fit, not because the idea was objectively superior. This led Emma to discover that Richard Dawkins coined the term "meme" in 1976 (not the internet), derived from Greek mimeme meaning "something imitated," shortened to sound like gene. Memes spread…

People in this episode

Host: Emma Burlow

Topics covered

• sustainability
• memes
• cultural evolution
• workplace dynamics
• historical analysis
• Christianity
• Green Party

Keywords

• sustainability
• memes
• Richard Dawkins
• Alice Roberts
• Green Party
• cultural evolution
• Christianity
• workplace ideas

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Green Party

Books & works: The Selfish Gene, Dominance

Places: Manchester

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