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Costing the Earth

<p>Fresh ideas from the sharpest minds working toward a cleaner, greener planet</p>

BBC Radio 4

Tom Heap introduces Rare Earth, a programme exploring major stories about our environment.

Introducing Rare Earth

Steve Backshall lives in a new build house which is very energy efficient and almost totally off-grid.  However, achieving this has been extremely time consuming, expensive and pretty stressful.  For this episode of Costing the Earth, Steve explores why --  when the cost of heating our homes is so high and we’re being encouraged to reduce our carbon footprint -- it’s so difficult and pricey to make where we live more energy efficient and access renewable sources of power.  Steve describes exactly what he’s done to his house including triple glazing, batteries for electric power and even a bore-hole for water.  He then hears about a research facility at the University of Salford where two new builds and a Victorian end-terrace have been constructed in temperature controlled chambers. There they test the efficacy of various energy saving and renewable technologies on the kinds of homes that most of us live in.  Back in studio, Steve speaks to the Energy Saving Trust about the cost for householders of putting some of these measures in place and what grants are available.  He also hears from the Sustainable Energy Association, a trade membership body, about what they believe should be done to make all of this more accessible and affordable.  Producer: Karen Gregor

Steve Backshall Goes Off Grid

It's said that a teaspoon of soil contains more life than all of the humans on earth. Microscopic life that is - bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematode worms and microarthropods like springtails and mites, but there's increasing evidence that this invisible world, the earth's microbiome, is under threat. Author, biologist and presenter Gillian Burke is fascinated by soil and has fond memories of playing with the ochre-red soils of Kenya. Gillian digs into the science of soil to ask how to get more people to understand and care about this the trillions of organisms that exist beneath our feet in the same way that we do about the malnourished polar bear on an ice-cap or the endangered mountain gorilla, and what are the consequences of doing nothing?Contributors:
Dr Colin Averill, senior scientist at ETH Zurich and co-founder of 'Funga'
Chris Jones, Woodland Valley Farm
Charles Nicholls, The Carbon Community
Dr Elaine Ingham, Soil Food Web
Dr Elze Hesse, The University of ExeterProduced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Toby Field

Save the Microbes!

Climate resilient gardens are a feature of this month's Chelsea Flower Show, but how can the experts help the typical British gardener prepare for the future?  To find out, botanist James Wong asks whether the way we garden could protect us against the effects of climate change, and if we can protect our gardens against more unpredictable weather patterns?  James joins Chelsea designer Tom Massey as he chooses plants for a mould breaking show garden. He learns tips for dealing with more unpredictable conditions at the Royal Horticultural Society's flagship Wisley garden, and from climate savvy gardener Kim Stoddart in West Wales. In the heart of London, amid the brutalist concrete of the Barbican centre, James meets Professor Nigel Dunnett, and considers how plants could make human habitats more liveable during heatwaves and heavy rain.Producer: Sarah Swadling

Gardens of the Future

Many of us can remember returning our pop bottles to the shop in return for cash and wonder why we can’t use a system like this today to reduce, reuse and recycle. In Scotland a Deposit Return Scheme has been on trial, but in a complex material world it’s not as simple as the schemes we might remember.Tom Heap and Sepi Golzari-Munro turn detective to find out why the DRS (Deposit Return Scheme) is under threat and if it can survive to launch as intended. The scheme is causing issues for small businesses like craft brewers, it's angering politicians who are concerned about the added cost to consumers and it's being questioned by some waste management experts who believe the gains in recycling rates may be small in comparison to the huge costs of implementation.Defenders argue that we need to take action and that change is never popular but that similar schemes in Europe have achieved over 90% recycling rates.There are no simple answers with this one so it’s going to take some hard line detective work by our Costing the Earth crack team. Tom and Sepi step up to uncover the truth and consider the best future for bottle recycling. Producer : Helen Lennard

Investigation DRS

Sewage is now discharged into our rivers and seas on a regular basis. It's joined by agricultural pollution and a host of microplastics. In this special debate programme, Tom Heap asks what's gone wrong with our water system. How did we get into this situation, what will it cost to put it right, and how can we go about sorting out the mess we seem to be in? Tom is joined by a panel of experts to discuss the history, the finances and the future of cleaning up our waterways.Producer: Emma Campbell

Water pollution solutions

When castles collapse into the sea or ancient burial places succumb to floodwaters we lose a slice of our shared culture.  Qasa Alom reports from the Norfolk coast on the threats to our heritage and asks if we all need to prepare for the emotional impact of climate change.Researchers from around the world are taking a global look at personal and community responses to climate change, and they're finding that we react in much the same way whether our homes are falling from crumbling Norfolk cliffs, our shrines are swallowed by Bangladeshi floods or the road to market is blocked by expanding Sahara sands. Archaeologists from the University of East Anglia and Museum of London Archaeology discuss the emotional impact of losses already suffered and offer lessons from historic changes in climate, whilst researchers from the University of Ghana explain the cultural price being paid on the crumbling coastline of West Africa. Producer: Alasdair Cross

Losing Our History

Costing the Earth - The Power of Nature Writing

After a winter of spiralling energy prices, Tom Heap asks whether our attitudes to energy consumption have changed. What lessons have we learned in the last twelve months, both as individual consumers and as a society - or are we putting our heads in the sand and carrying on as normal? Last week the government announced its plans to update the UK’s net zero strategy, but what do its announcements tell us about its priorities when it comes to our energy use? Fuel poverty is hitting many people hard, but some environmentalists argue that the invasion of Ukraine and everything which has followed could prove to be a turning point for environmental change. In this programme Tom hosts a panel discussion on how the energy landscape is changing.Producer: Emma Campbell

Energy Lessons

Waves crashing on the shore, footsteps crunching on the forest floor. Stress levels plummet when we immerse ourselves in nature.  Nick Luscombe meets the Japanese scientists working to bring the healing power of nature into the heart of the city. Nature's secret, they believe, isn't the sound you can hear, it's the high frequencies you can't hear.  Only in our interactions with natural materials are these particular frequencies produced, frequencies that have a direct effect on our bodies.Producer: Alasdair Cross

The Sound of Nature

UK commitments to phase out gas boilers and petrol cars may be good news for the environment, but do we have the skill to realise our ambitions? Where are all the trained workers able to fit heat pumps in our homes and electric car chargers along our roads? In this programme, Tom Heap joins trainees as they learn the skills they'll need in a greener economy, and asks how we will staff up the next industrial revolution.Presented by Tom Heap and produced by Emma Campbell.

Jobs for a Green Future

New technologies are vital in the drive to turn our fossil fuel-based economies green and drastically slash carbon emissions.  That technology requires investment and an enormous slice of the cash required is controlled by the financial markets of the City of London.  Tom Heap meets the City's movers and shakers to find out if they- and the wider financial services industry- are willing and able to finance the revolution.Producer: Reuben Smith-Burrell

Greening the City

Where do the prawns in your takeaway curry or pad thai come from?  Peter Hadfield travels to South-East Asia to investigate the environmental impact of prawn farming.Producer: Alasdair Cross

Prawn Free

As sea levels rise, tough decisions are going to have to be taken about the flood defences of coastal Britain. How realistic will it be to continue to maintain them in future? In this programme, Qasa Alom asks whether we are facing up to this yet, and visits two places where the effects are already being felt. At Cwm Ivy on the Gower peninsula in South Wales, he visits a nature reserve where the decision has already been made to let the sea take back land which was originally claimed from it centuries ago. He walks along the sea wall which once kept the waves at bay, but which is now being left to gradually crumble away. The result is a landscape very different from the pasture and rough grazing which was here a few years ago. It's now being transformed into saltmarsh - a rarer and more valuable environmental habitat. It was a move which took careful consideration even for a nature reserve, but it's a much harder and more complicated decision when people's homes are involved. Qasa also visits the coastal village of Fairbourne in North Wales, which was earmarked for "decommissioning" almost a decade ago. He finds out what this could mean, asks whether it will really happen, and learns what the uncertainty of being labelled "the UK's first climate change refugees" has meant for the village's residents.Producer: Emma Campbell

Surrendering to the Waves?

Months of governmental chaos have seen contradictory policies on the environment come and go.  Tom Heap asks where the Conservative Party now stands on the environment.  Should we expect more onshore wind or a continuing ban, will farmers be paid to help wildlife?  And what are the underlying trends in the Conservative Party?  Are most activists and MPs signed up to a Green Growth agenda or are climate change sceptics and fossil-fuel fans still a powerful force in the party that has governed the UK for most of the post-war era?Producer: Sarah Swadling

A Greener Government?

Community energy might conjure up images of off-grid villagers working together to put up solar panels on a remote community hall. This is one model, but Tom Heap finds that there are now many more ways to join the clean energy revolution.From urban solar rooftop projects which train up young people as fitters to huge wind farms owned by a growing online army of committed enthusiasts, community energy is having a moment.It seems an incredible but simple idea. If we all own a bit of our energy system then we can decide the price that we pay to keep warm and keep the lights on. So what is standing in the way of more community energy? Tom Heap discovers more about how all of us could get involved with the future of energy.Producer: Helen Lennard

Community Energy

Since becoming pregnant, environmental historian and broadcaster Dr Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough has aspired to bring up her two children as sustainably as possible.  In 2017, a Canadian study recommended that people could reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by reducing the number of children they have by one. It also pointed out how much bigger the carbon footprint of a child is in the West, compared to a child brought up in Malawi. Despite Eleanor's best efforts, she has found that raising 'eco babies' is not all that simple. From clothes and toys, to food, nappies and transport – parenting brings with it a whole pram-load of unexpected environmental impacts. And regardless of good intentions, parental pressures like a lack of support, the need for convenience and the price of eco-alternatives often means people fall back on more carbon-intensive options. So what needs to change to make it easier? Being a new parent is tough enough, without the feeling of failing the planet being added to the burden. In this programme, Eleanor sits down with her good friend Pamela Welsh, who also became a mother during the Covid pandemic, to discuss the areas where they are 'winning', and the occasions where they have been unable to make the greener-method work. They think about solutions and remind us that it is ok not to get it right all the time. Eleanor also meets individuals who are are attempting to come up with solutions to some of those difficulties - from mending clothes, recycling nappies, opening up cycling to parents with more than one child and renovating schools. Can the future of parenting be more eco? Presented by Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough
Produced in Bristol by Natalie Donovan

How can I be a more sustainable parent?

The COP 27 summit in Sharm-El-Sheikh is welcoming world leaders and climate negotiators to Egypt. In a year that has been rocked by the war in Ukraine and global economic instability, can COP refocus the world’s attention on climate? Tom Heap and Matt McGrath will take a look back at some of the pledges made last November in Glasgow for COP 26 to find out whether countries across the world are keeping to the agreements made on areas such as deforestation, methane reduction, finance and technology. Everyone agrees that current geopolitics will make significant global agreements to decrease emissions difficult but there may be signs of hope in the actions of individual countries. Tom and Matt will try to decipher where we are and what we might be able to expect from this years ‘Conference of the Parties’.To help them pick through the details our panel of experts include Bernice Lee from Chatham House, Danny Kennedy from New Energy Nexus, Mia Moisio from Climate Action Tracker, Piers Forster from the University of Leeds and Ben Caldecott from the Oxford Sustainable Finance Group.Producer: Helen Lennard

COP27: Meeting the Promises

Anna Turns investigates what over 30 years of post mortems on dolphins, porpoises, and whales has revealed about the state of the seas. The Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme in England and Wales, and the Scottish Marine Animal Strandings Scheme, have carried out thousands of autopsies. Anna goes into the pathology lab with Rob Deaville from ZSL as he examines a Harbour Porpoise for clues about how it died, and how it lived. As Anna finds out from toxicologist Dr Rosie Williams and veterinary pathologist Dr Andrew Brownlow, evidence from post mortems shows animals' ability to survive and breed is threatened by pollution from long banned but peristent chemicals, known as PCBs. To find out how these chemicals could still be leaching into the environment Anna travels to the Thames Estuary with Professor of Environmental Geochemistry Kate Spencer.  Producer for BBC Audio in Bristol : Sarah Swaddling

CSI Oceans

The world's glaciers are melting at an unprecedented rate. 2022 has been a particularly disastrous year in the Swiss Alps, where new figures show that glaciers have lost 6% of their total volume of ice during this summer's heatwave. Three glacier-measuring stations have had to close this year, as there simply isn't enough ice left to measure. In this programme, Jheni Osman travels to the Alps to see for herself how much the glaciers are retreating. She meets up with Swiss archaeologists, trying desperately to save ancient artefacts which are now emerging from the melting ice, after thousands of years frozen in time. She talks to a mountain leader, who explains that routes used by generations of hikers and mountaineers are now closing, as melting ice makes more and more of them too dangerous to walk on. Jheni asks the head of Switzerland's glacier monitoring team whether anything can be done to save the remaining ice from eventual destruction. She also talks to a cartographer at University College London, who shows her how maps are having to be re-drawn, and even international borders re-considered, to take into account our vanishing glaciers.Produced by Emma Campbell

The Lost World of Ice

Life can be pretty tough for the pangolin. This scaly-skinned ant-eater is the most heavily trafficked mammal in the world. Followers of some branches of Chinese medicine believe pangolin parts can cure anything from blood clots to cancer and they're willing to pay big money for poached animals.As a boy growing up in rural Vietnam Thai Van Nguyen watched his neighbours capture and kill a mother and baby pangolin. His disgust inspired an intense urge to help the pangolin and the threatened habitats in which it lives. Founding an independent conservation organisation in Communist Vietnam isn't easy, nor is facing down heavily armed poaching gangs engaged in the trade with China. Despite the challenges Thai has set up the country's first effective anti-poaching unit, disrupting the trade and catching hundreds of smugglers red-handed.Peter Hadfield travels to Vietnam to see Thai and his team in action and gauge the impact of his work on local communities and the country's attitudes to its native wildlife.Producer: Alasdair CrossPhoto courtesy of Suzy Eszterhas

Saving Vietnam's Wildlife

Early humans adapted and survived in the face of a changing climate. Eleanor Rosamund-Barraclough joins an archaeological dig in Malta to learn the lessons for our own time.A team led by Dr Eleanor Scerri of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History is making remarkable discoveries about waves of human and animal habitation of the Mediterranean islands, but what can the fate of giant dormice, pygmy elephants and the hunters who may have relied on them for survival tell us about contemporary island life in a dangerous period of rising sea levels and searing summers?Producer: Alasdair Cross

The Prehistoric Hitchhiker's Guide to Climate Change

For many dog owners, watching your pet race around after a crow or leap joyfully into a stream is a source of great pleasure...but these natural behaviours all have an impact on the environment. Estimates of the UK dog population vary from 10 million all the way up to 13 million and the number has been rising in recent years, so their environmental paw print is growing.In this programme Tom Heap visits a nature reserve where dogs have been banned from some areas after being blamed for frightening wildlife, damaging rare habitats and adding excess nutrients to the soil via their excrement. He meets a farmer and dung beetle expert, who shows him how the drugs found in flea treatments and worming pills can leach out into nature. And what to do with all that poo - especially when it's wrapped in plastic bags?Meanwhile, across the world free-roaming dogs are having wide reaching effects. Dr Abi Vanak from the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment says the 60-80 million free-roaming dogs in India are putting some native species at risk of extinction.Producer: Heather Simons

An Environmental Paw Print

In the UK, more than half our electricity is generated without using fossil fuels. Despite that, the rocketing price of gas has lead to matching increases in our electricity bills. Why the disconnect? What could we be doing differently so that consumers benefit from cheap renewable power? And what will the current crisis mean for our long term aims of reducing our use of fossil fuels?In this programme, Tom Heap asks an expert panel how our energy market can be reshaped to produce smaller bills in a low carbon future.He's joined by:
Glenn Rickson - Head of European Power Analysts with S&P Global Commodity Insights
Emma Pinchbeck - CEO of Energy UK, the trade body for the British energy industry
Michael Grubb - Professor of Energy and Climate Change at UCLProducer: Heather Simons

The True Cost of Energy

Running 12500km from the Arctic Circle to the borders of Greece, the European Greenbelt is one of the most ambitious conservation schemes ever devised.  The idea was to use the no man's land of the Iron Curtain that divided Communist East from Capitalist West as a wildlife corridor to allow rare and endangered species to travel unimpeded across the continent.On the 20th anniversary of the Greenbelt, the writer and anthropologist, Mary-Ann Ochota takes to the road, from the industrialised peat bogs of Finland through the Baltic states and Germany's dying forests to the peasant farms of the southern Balkans.  The wildlife of these borderlands is rich and varied but the conservationists feel that they're battling forces bigger than those that created the Iron Curtain in the first place.Producer: Alasdair Cross

Wild Highway

Nature and wildlife tourism has surged in recent years.  Millions of us seem to want to want to follow in the footsteps of David Attenborough; meeting mountain gorillas, ticking off Africa’s big five mammals or hitting the waves to meet whales and dolphins.  But is wildlife tourism good or bad for the world’s most sensitive environments?The Covid-19 outbreak gave us a sudden, unexpected opportunity to answer that question.  Some of the most magnetic natural places on the planet lost their international tourists for two years.  Naturalist and broadcaster, Mike Dilger has been to the cloud forests of Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands to gauge the impact.  Both of these extraordinary environments depend on tourism to pay for their protection, but should they continue to rely on travellers emitting vast quantities of carbon dioxide to get their fix of hummingbirds and marine iguanas?Mike is joined in the studio by Fiore Longo of Survival International, travel writer Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent and Vicky Smith from the eco-travel website, Earthchangers.Producer: Alasdair Cross

Future Tourists

Steve Backshall explores whether slowing down and quietening noisy shipping could help protect Canada’s whale population.A busy shipping lane between Vancouver Island and the Canadian mainland – known as the Inside Passage - is home to a community of Orcas.  These are the unmistakable, sleek and distinctive, black and white members of the dolphin family otherwise known as Killer Whales.  They’re smart and social and have a sophisticated language of clicks and whistles which helps them hunt and communicate within their family pods. Paul Spong runs OrcaLab which, for over 50 years, has carried out research into these whales.  He and his partner, Helena Symonds, have long suspected that noisy boats impact whales.  Their experience of listening to these Orcas and monitoring their behaviour has shown that some family groups, associated with these waters, have left.  Others only appear at the end of the cruise-liner season.   There are hydrophone recordings which illustrate how propeller noise forces the orcas to ‘shout’ or stop communicating altogether which impacts family-pod relationships and hunting.   Broadening the research is Janie Wray of BC Whales.  While Paul and Helena concentrate on Orcas, BC Whales also research Fins and Humpbacks.  Janie's team has recently increased the string of hydrophones which now stretches along the entire coast of British Columbia. This development coincided with the pandemic when the oceans became a little quieter: for a while the cruise liners and whale-watching boats disappeared.  This phase could provide a breakthrough - if the recordings made during these quieter months can prove that the whales benefitted from the peace, can boats be persuaded to slow down or even change route?Another vital member of the research team is Dr. Ben Hendricks, he’s a software designer who has written a programme that can analyse vast amounts of recorded whale song very quickly, meaning humans no longer need to listen to everything in real time. All these different threads of research, when pulled together, could be enough to gather the evidence needed to further protect Canada’s resident and transient whale populations. Also taking part in the programme is Erin Gless of the Pacific Whale Watch Association.  She says whale watching vessels have made improvements to ensure they view wildlife in a non-invasive way.   The programme image is of Steve kayaking alongside an Orca.Presenter: Steve Backshall
Producer for BBC Audio in Bristol: Karen Gregor

Steve Backshall Listens to the Whales

It's said that the environment is the silent victim of war. In this programme, Tom Heap finds out how the conflict in Ukraine is affecting environmental work in the country. With so many people forced to flee, what happens to projects which were trying to protect fragile wildlife habitats? He talks to an award-winning Ukrainian environmentalist who has had to temporarily abandon his conservation project around Chernobyl in order to help with the humanitarian aid effort. Meanwhile, with airstrikes taking place in some of the most industrialised areas in the east of the country, the risk of long-term contamination from damaged coal mines and nuclear installations is very real. Tom asks what lessons can be learned from previous wars around the world, and discovers how long-lasting the environmental impacts of military action can be. How can environmental concerns be can be given a voice, instead of remaining the silent victim, at a time when the focus is understandably on saving human lives?Produced by Emma Campbell

Ukraine: A War on Nature

Two of the biggest sports events of the year, the Commonwealth games in Birmingham and the FIFA world cup in Qatar have pledged to be the most sustainable and green sporting events to date. Both have made bold statements 'the first  sustainable commonwealth games' and the ‘first carbon-neutral FIFA World Cup'.
 
Qasa Alom  finds out if they can really deliver and just how sustainable and green these global sports events will be. Starting off with his home city of Birmingham Qasa discovers some of the changes taking place, from stadium infrastructure to transport and offsetting. Will these commonwealth games be the first games with a carbon neutral legacy and set a benchmark for future games?The sporting world is starting to rise to the challenge, and it must, already major International tournaments are being adversely affected by a warming climate. At the FIFA World Cup in Qatar teams will be playing in artificially cooled stadiums with games held, controversially, in the cooler month of November and December. Qasa finds out if future world class sports events will require radical solutions in a changing climate, and what sporting events can do to curb their own emissions. Producers for BBC Audio in Bristol: Perminder Khatkar and Helen Lennard

Sustainable Sport for the Future

Making your finances work harder against climate change. Tom Heap speaks to Richard Curtis, British film director and architect of Comic Relief, about his Make My Money Matter campaign. This encourages everyone to find out where their pension money goes. He also speaks to the boss of a UK bank, Bevis Watts, and to the campaign director of switchit.green about how easy it is to move your bank account elsewhere. A special episode for anyone worried about what their money is - or isn't - doing to keep the planet green.Interviewees:
Lisa Stanley of Good With Money
Bevis Watts of Triodos
John Fleetwood of Square Mile Investment Consulting and Research
Sophie Cowen of switchit.green
Richard Curtis of Make My Money MatterThe presenter is Tom Heap and the producer in Bristol is Miles Warde

How Green Is My Money?

Green industry is heading to Scandinavia's far north.  Fossil fuel-free steel and clean, green wind energy are in great demand but what does this rapid development mean for the indigenous people of the region? Richard Orange reports from Sweden.Producer: Alasdair Cross

Green Power in the Far North

Millions of trees were brought down by this winter's storms. Storm Arwen in November proved particularly damaging, taking out whole swathes of woodland in Scotland and the north of England. It comes at a time when there is more focus than ever on planting trees, with the urgent need to both tackle climate change and produce more home-grown timber. At the moment, the UK imports more than 80% of the timber it uses.In this programme, Tom Heap visits two forest estates in the North East of Scotland, to see for himself what havoc the high winds have wrought. One estate manager tells him that they'll be clearing up for the next three years, with an estimated 45,000 tonnes of timber now lying broken on the ground. Tom finds out what this means for the work of foresters on the estate, and how it will affect the value of the timber they'll be able to sell. Meanwhile he discovers why the National Trust for Scotland is seeing the damage caused by Storm Arwen as an opportunity to re-think the kind of woodland it has on its land.Tom talks to the Royal Forestry Society at their research site in the Chilterns, and finds out what techniques can be used to improve the resilience of woodlands to future storms. He asks whether - when the clear-up is over and it's time to re-plant - we may need to explore using different species of trees, better able to survive in the climate we expect to have in another fifty years' time. He also meets a meteorologist from Reading University, who explains what changing weather patterns may mean for storms in the future.Producer for BBC Audio in Bristol Emma Campbell

Timber!

The government announced its new energy strategy last week, outlining plans to tackle energy supply over the coming decades. In this edition of Costing the Earth, Tom Heap chairs a panel discussion which looks into the detail of the strategy, and asks what it will mean for both net zero targets and household bills. He is joined by a panel of experts: Roz Bulleid, Deputy Policy Director at the independent think tank Green Alliance; Chief Political Commentator at the i-newspaper, Paul Waugh; and environmental journalist, author and campaigner Mark Lynas.Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Emma Campbell

Government Energy Strategy

It's not easy fighting for nature in many of the former Soviet states. Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent reports from Tajikistan, on the trail of the snow leopard and the extraordinary people who protect them.This high corner of Central Asia is home to the world's biggest species of wild sheep and goats, prey of arguably the most beautiful of the big cats- the extravagantly furred snow leopard. After the fall of the Soviet Union a vicious civil war killed 100,000 people and saw many more displaced and starving. Kalashnikovs and hungry people are never good news for wildlife and, sure enough, the wildlife of the mountains was decimated.In the last few years local conservationists have taken it on themselves to declare reserves and persuade their neighbours to reduce their hunting. With minimal funding from the government and international agencies these conservationists have had to find their own ways to pay for the protection of the reserves. Most of the money to employ rangers has come from selling licences to hunt small numbers of Marco Polo sheep, Ibex and Markhor wild goats. It's a controversial approach but, in sheer numbers of endangered species, it seems to be working. Can the improvements continue as climate change brings ever harsher winters and drier summers and regional instability keeps the wildlife tourists away?Antonia meets the conservationists trying their best to protect their wildlife in the face of enormous odds.Producer: Alasdair Cross

The World's Toughest Conservationists

The pandemic has changed the way we work and shop meaning a growing number of offices and retail outlets are empty. So, what do we do with them? Knock them down and start again or find a sustainable way to reuse them? The buzz word is ‘retrofit’: redesigning and refurbishing an existing building. Elsie Owusu is an architect and, in this episode of Costing the Earth, she explores this current and contentious issue. It’s usually cheaper to build new, so what can be done to encourage developers and architects to change their plans.She visits Selkirk House on Museum Street in London. Developers want to demolish this 1960s concrete tower-block and build something bigger in its place. Campaigners say that a vast amount of CO2 emissions would be saved it the building is retrofitted.Architect, Peter Fisher, takes Elsie to a 1950s, concrete, former print-works which is being refurbished. Just five years ago Peter says the decision would have been made to demolish but, times are changing, and by choosing retrofit CO2 emissions will be reduced by 50%.Smith Mordak takes a wider view of the debate, arguing that a cultural shift is needed across architecture and the associated disciplines. The automatic response to a design challenge of building new, or even building at all, should be rejected; there are more creative and greener ways of thinking to explore first.Contributors: Simon Alford of the Royal Institute of British Architects; Howard Crawshaw of the Knight Property Group; Jim Monahan of Save Museum Street; Simon Sturgis of Targeting Zero; Peter Fisher of Bennetts Associates; Smith Mordak of Buro Happold.Producer: Karen Gregor

Rip It Up And Start Again?

In Northern Ireland peace and prosperity have long been prioritised over environmental protection.  Tom Heap asks if a new generation can push nature and wildlife up the agenda.For decades a blind eye was often turned to suspect developments in natural areas and breaches of pollution regulations.  A more recent upsurge in large-scale dairy, pig and  poultry farming has added to the burden on Northern Ireland's once green and pleasant land.  New laws to fight climate change and a new subsidy regime for agriculture give Northern Irish politicians and regulators the chance to put things right.  With the help of BBC Northern Ireland Environment Correspondent, Louise Cullen, Tom Heap considers the issues in advance of the Stormont Assembly elections.Producer: Sarah Swadling

Northern Ireland's Environmental Future

Energy prices have hit new heights.  Gas and electricity bills will rocket for most people at the end of this month as the price cap is lifted and nobody filling their car could fail to notice record prices at the pumps.  Energy too is at the heart of the biggest conflict in Europe for decades.  Russia’s war machine is paid for with oil and gas and the West’s response is shaped by our reliance on that power source.What does all this mean for the environment? Can we maintain focus on carbon emissions when Russian tanks are belching their way down Ukrainian streets?  Or is it an opportunity to hasten our detox from fossil fuels as we see our addiction funding war? Tom Heap discusses our energy future with James Murray of Business Green magazine, Emma Pinchbeck, Chief Executive of Energy UK and the expert on new energy finance, Michael Liebreich.Producer: Alasdair Cross

Energy Prices

Landowners are being offered big money for land to absorb carbon dioxide emissions. What does it mean for British farming and the shape of the countryside? Tom Heap reports.Producer: Sarah Swadling

Carbon Farming

Perfluoroalkyl substances - or PFAS - are a group of thousands of man-made chemicals which have been widely used in everything from frying pans to firefighting foam. Anything which is non-stick, water-resistant or stain-repellent is likely to have been produced using PFAS. In the USA they have been linked to mass poisoning of water supplies, as the Hollywood film 'Dark Waters' documented. In this programme, Leana Hosea sets out to discover whether they are having an impact here. She teams up with environmental journalist Rachel Salvidge to investigate. They take water samples from drinking water around the country and have them analysed for the presence of PFAS. In Jersey Leana meets residents who believe their ill health is down to contamination of their drinking water, and whose blood has been shown to contain PFAS. She hears what the links are with health concerns, and finds out why firefighters are an at-risk group.Producer: Emma Campbell

Britain's Dark Waters

On a hot summer's day the River Wharfe in Ilkley in West Yorkshire is a tempting place to swim.  In 2020 it was designated as the first inland waterway to be safe for bathing.  Just over a year later the water was found to be polluted by animal and human faeces and locals and tourists were advised to stay out of the river.The River Wharfe certainly isn't unique, Britain's rivers are taking the brunt of rising populations, antiquated sewage treatment and intensive agriculture.  Too much waste- human, animal and chemical- is entering our rivers, exposing swimmers and wildlife to infection.  Extreme weather as experienced in February is only making matters worse.Charlotte Smith and Caz Graham search for solutions to Britain's polluted rivers.Producer: Hermeet Chadha

The Right to Swim

There have been big promises about tree-planting numbers over the last few years - but is there much point in planting more trees, if we're not looking after the ones we've already got? The Woodland Trust estimates that only 7% of the UK's native woodlands are in good ecological condition - with pests, diseases, climate change and development all threats to tree health. Meanwhile a report from Botanic Gardens Conservation International says that a third of the world's trees are at risk of extinction.In this programme, Peter Gibbs finds out what's ailing our trees, and asks what can be done to nurse them back to health. He talks to scientists, campaigners and the government's Chief Plant Health Officer, and  finds out about a project where researchers are on the hunt for trees with natural resistance to ash dieback, which may be able to re-populate the ash woodlands of the future.  He also visits a 'research forest' in the Midlands, where scientists are piping extra carbon dioxide at some of their trees, to find out what the impact of rising CO2 levels is likely to be for trees in years to come.Produced by Emma Campbell

Seeing the Wood for the Trees

The public wanted to name her Boaty McBoatface, but in the end she got a slightly more stately name. The UK's newest polar research vessel, the RRS Sir David Attenborough, has just set out on her maiden voyage to Antarctica, where she'll enable scientists to research climate change and its impacts on the polar regions.Following a hundred years of polar exploration, this ship will write the next chapter in UK polar science.In this episode, ocean physicist Helen Czerski gets aboard to poke around the new ship, and meets the crew members and scientists who will be taking her to the ends of the earth in search of the answers to some of the most pressing questions of our time. She finds out how the ship has been designed specially to encourage collaboration and bring together scientists from different fields. And she tries out the bunks and learns what life at sea will be like.Find out why krill can fight climate change, how you cook at sea in a storm and what the massive hole in the middle of the ship is for!Producer: Heather Simons

All Aboard the Sir David Attenborough

Britain's rivers are in crisis, with only 14% of them deemed to be in a good ecological state. Chalk streams are particularly vulnerable, as so much is taken out of them for use in our water supplies. Pollution from sewage and agricultural run-off only add to the problem. In this programme Tom Heap takes a canoe trip along a waterway he knows well, the River Cam, to see for himself what's going on. He talks to environmental groups and local people, and asks whether the rapid expansion of homes and businesses in the area can sustainably continue in such a water-stressed region. He concludes that urgent action is needed if rivers like the Cam are not to run dry.Producer: Emma Campbell

Canoeing the Cam

Golf courses do not have a good reputation when it comes to the environment. Keeping the greens and fairways looking immaculate usually means using pesticide, fungicide and fertiliser - as well as large amounts of water. Wildlife such as pecking birds and digging moles, which can damage the pristine playing surfaces, are seen as a nuisance. But attitudes are starting to change in the golfing world. In this programme, Sybil Ruscoe finds out about efforts which are being made to make golf more environmentally-friendly. She visits a golf course in Bedfordshire, where the greenkeeper puts up bird boxes and encourages areas of wildflowers. During her visit, she meets a conservation advisor from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, whose job focusses specifically on golf courses - part of a new partnership set up last year between the RSPB and the world of golf. She talks to the sport's governing body and the golf greenkeepers association, to ask whether the game is doing enough to change its ways. She also hears from a geographer who argues that the game of golf is fundamentally environmentally unacceptable in a time of climate emergency. It all leaves Sybil, a golfer herself, wondering 'how green is my golf course?'Producer: Emma Campbell

How green is my golf course?

We are all surrounded by synthetic chemicals in our everyday lives - from pesticide residues in food to chemicals used in the manufacture of household products - but most of us are not aware that they also make their way into our bodies. In this programme, environmental journalist Anna Turns investigates her own 'chemical body burden' - the amount of persistent, synthetic pollutants that have accumulated inside her system. A blood test shows her that traces of pesticides which were banned before she was even born can still be detected in her body. Analysis of the contents of her vacuum cleaner reveals that chemicals used to make furniture and electrical goods more fire-resistant are there too. Anna goes around her house, room by room, identifying the key sources of chemicals, and asking how they've travelled from the carpets and cleaning products into her own body. She talks to chemists and environmental scientists and asks what the threat to human health may be, and whether it matters that we now all carry around our own toxic cocktail.Produced by Emma Campbell

My Toxic Cocktail

World leaders have offered up a suite of promises at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow but how many of them will make a real dent in our greenhouse gas emissions?  Tom Heap talks to experts in sustainable finance, methane emissions, deforestation, clean technology and energy to gauge the impact made so far.  He's also joined by two veterans of many COP meetings, University of East Anglia climate scientist, Corinne Le Quéré and Bernice Lee of Chatham House.  What do they make of the conference that the world is watching?Producer: Alasdair Cross

COP26: A Turning of the Tide?

As world leaders gather in Glasgow you can be certain of one thing - the loudest voices won't be coming from the people most impacted by climate change. Inuit hunters on melting ice and Pacific islanders losing their homelands to rising sea levels won't be flying Business Class to Glasgow - they won't have the chance to fight for their rights amongst the world powers and corporate interests.  Tom Heap brings those voices to the banks of the Clyde for the first of two special editions of Costing the Earth from COP26.He hears from the Adivasi people of India, marching to stop their land being taken for new coal mines and meets Yessie Mosby, a Torres Strait islander who believes the Australian government should do much more to prevent his islands disappear beneath the rising seas.  In Glasgow he talks to Sarobidy Rakotonarivo about the tensions between conservation and livelihoods in the forests of Madagascar and hears how conflict and climate change are inextricably linked in the humanitarian crisis around Lake Chad.Producer: Alasdair CrossPhoto: Courtesy of Vijay Ramamurthy

COP26: The Unheard Voices

Abandoned by its entire population in 1930, St Kilda has been uninhabited ever since. What's it like to spend six months with the birds on one of Britain's most isolated islands?Conor McKinney is a naturalist and broadcaster with what might be- depending on your personality- either the best job in the world or the worst.  St Kilda is seriously isolated- it’s an archipelago of islands over one hundred miles west of the Scottish mainland and 40 miles of rough Atlantic waves away from the nearest pub or shop.  That isolation means that it has a unique environment. It’s packed with rare and endemic wildlife and the owners of the island- the National Trust for Scotland- want to keep it that way.  The Ministry of Defence has a construction project on the main island of Hirta and it’s Conor's job to make sure that the boats and builders that will be coming and going don’t bring unwanted guests with them- things like sea squirts, Japanese knotweed or- worst of all- the rats that would very quickly decimate the extraordinary seabirds of St Kilda. Producer: Alasdair Cross

Six Months on St Kilda

Taking inspiration from President Kennedy’s Moonshot which united people around a goal to put man on the moon and spurred the development of new technology in the 1960s, the Earthshot Prize is centred around five simple but ambitious goals for our planet.  Chhavi Sachdev announces the winners of the inaugural prize and discusses how smart ideas from individual innovators and small companies can influence the upcoming climate debate at COP26 in Glasgow.  Prizes like this prove that there are clever ideas being developed to ease our pressure on the environment, but how can those ideas be harnessed and scaled up to make a big difference globally?  Chhavi is joined by Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme and by Juliet Davenport, founder of the green power company Good Energy, to discuss the best ways to make smart ideas part of the solution to the planet's biggest problems.  Producer: Alasdair Cross

Earthshot: The Winners

Taking inspiration from President Kennedy’s Moonshot which united people around a goal to put man on the moon and spurred the development of new technology in the 1960s, the Earthshot Prize is centred around five simple but ambitious goals for our planet. Chhavi Sachdev profiles more of the prize nominees from all around the world.This week Chhavi concentrates on the innovators working to reduce waste, provide clean water and develop clean energy solutions for communities without access to power.  Japan is notoriously prone to natural disaster which makes it a perfect testing ground for disaster-management solutions.  The Wota Box arose from the urgent need for clean water in locations hit by earthquakes or tsunamis.  Using the latest techniques in artificial intelligence it controls a series of filters to remove pollutants and provide essential washing facilities where they're needed most.  In Nigeria, Olugbenga Olubanjohas invented a portable battery which can be rented from a vending machine to power mobile phone chargers and laptops, bringing modern communication options to some of the poorest areas of Africa.Producer: Julian Siddle

Earthshot: More Fresh Ideas for the Environment

Taking inspiration from President Kennedy’s Moonshot which united people around a goal to put man on the moon and spurred the development of new technology in the 1960s, the Earthshot Prize is centred around five simple but ambitious goals for our planet.  Over the next three editions of Costing the Earth, Chhavi Sachdev meets the prize nominees from all around the world.This week Chhavi concentrates on the innovators working to protect nature on land and in the oceans and meets those striving to improve the air quality of our cities.  Vinisha Umashankar, an Indian schoolgirl, reveals her solar powered ironing cart which cuts pollution in her neighbourhood and the Living Seawalls team show off their beautifully carved additions to Sydney Harbour- works of art which provide marine life with a place to hide, feed and breed on the previously sterile sea walls of the harbour. Producer: Julian SiddlePhoto: Life returns to Sydney Harbour- courtesy of Leah Wood, Living Seawalls project

Earthshot: Fresh Ideas For the Environment

Qasa Alom has always been told that his family farm in Sylhet, Bangladesh is his heritage. His parents have spent their time and money trying to maintain the estate and his father has always hoped Qasa would take on some of the strain. Born in Britain, Qasa had other ideas about how he wanted to spend his time but he now faces a new challenge; how to protect his family’s roots from climate change.Bangladesh’s low elevation and high population density make it one of the most vulnerable countries as climate change accelerates extreme weather conditions such as heat and floods and sea-levels rise. Qasa’s village has always faced flooding but the future looks more unpredictable. Now as Qasa considers his future commitment to the farm he finds a country that is battling extremes but also finding solutions.Early weather warning systems which incorporate local knowledge and using community resolve to insure everyone gets to safety are one example. Changing crops, farming shellfish and growing jute to build up soil naturally are also being trialled and, most importantly, migration by climate refugees is being planned for. As a leader in climate adaptation Bangladesh is leading the world but will it be enough to keep Qasa committed to helping to maintain his family’s way of life here?

Qasa’s Farm - Building Resilience in Bangladesh

Naturalist and broadcaster Mike Dilger takes to the road to map the impact that global warming is having on Britain's plants and flowers.  From the highest peaks of the Highlands to the lowest points of the East Anglian Brecklands our flowers are adapting to the changing seasons, but how many will survive and thrive into the future?Producer: Alasdair Cross

Britain's Changing Flowers

Adrian has a big idea. His home of Braunton, a village in North Devon, has a problem with flooding. Over the last decade he has seen it get worse. The village flooded badly in 2012 just after a million pound flood defence scheme was completed, and there was more flooding in 2016.  Braunton has since had those defences upgraded, but more work is needed further up the valley. Instead of more expensive schemes, Adrian has an alternative solution - bringing back beavers to do the work for them.Beavers are nature’s engineers, their dams prevent flooding by holding water upstream and slowing the flow in rivers, while simultaneously creating new wetland habitats for species of insects, amphibians, birds, fish and plants to flourish in. These industrious rodents were hunted to extinction in Britain about 400 years ago, and are now beginning to make a comeback. A record number of beavers will be released by the Wildlife Trusts this year, but so far pretty much all licensed beaver reintroductions have been on individual private estates or within fenced enclosures.What Adrian is proposing would be the first community-led reintroduction of beavers on a landscape scale, and if successful in gaining permission, the project could provide a model for others. Working together with the Beaver Trust, Adrian now has nearly 50 local landowners on board and the project is gaining momentum. However there are many obstacles to overcome, not least that not everyone is in favour of beavers flooding their land.  We visit Braunton as it begins its beaver journey and hear what can be learnt about managing the species from the River Otter Beaver Trial in South Devon, and from Scotland where there is a wild population in Tayside causing problems for farming. Can we move beyond keeping beavers in enclosures and learn to live alongside them?Presented by Lindsey Chapman and produced by Sophie Anton

Beaver Town

Government action on climate change is sluggish. Could rich individuals cut through red tape and fund measures to cool the planet from their own pockets? And should they be allowed?Presenter/producer: Jolyon Jenkins

"Greenfinger"

How will Britain's power system need to change for a zero carbon world?  Tom Heap investigates.Producer: Alasdair Cross

New Grid for the New Age

Australia's government is famous for its lack of interest in climate change.  Despite increasing problems from bushfires and droughts, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his Liberal-led coalition government continue to promote coal-mining and dodge efforts to reduce the country's carbon emissions.  It's all the more extraordinary then that one Australian state, governed by Mr Morrison's party is streets ahead of most of the world in its conversion to renewable energy.  Peter Hadfield reports from Adelaide on the South Australian miracle.Producer: Alasdair Cross

The South Australian Miracle

When a cargo ship blocked the Suez canal for nearly a week, the eyes of the media focussed on shipping. Hundreds of vessels were stuck as tailbacks built up at the entrance to what is one of the world's busiest trade routes. What effect does the sheer quantity of goods which we routinely move around the globe have on the environment? Are there ways of 'greening' shipping and lessening its environmental impact? In this programme, Lucy Siegle chairs a panel discussion which aims to find out.Producer: Emma Campbell

Shipping

The UK has dramatically reduced the amount of waste which goes into landfill over the last 25 years, but there are are still decades worth of rubbish underground, buried by generations gone by. Until the 1970s there were almost no rules about what could be put into landfill and very few records were kept before the 1980s, so no-one really knows what's lurking underground. The 1990s saw a change of attitude, with the EU landfill directive and the introduction in the UK of the landfill tax. But coastal erosion means that some our old landfill sites are now disgorging their contents, and leaking rubbish from half a century ago back into the environment. Tom Heap visits a site on the Thames estuary, and sees bin bags, old tyres, broken glass, corroded batteries and bits of asbestos spilling out onto the shore. With more than a thousand UK landfill sites now believed to be at risk from erosion or flooding, Tom learns that the ghosts of our old disposal habits are coming back to haunt us - and asks what can be done about it.Producer: Emma Campbell

Landfill Legacy

How well protected is Britain's coast and its wildlife after Brexit?  Chef and fisheries campaigner, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall joins Peter Gibbs to examine the health of our seas.Can our network of Marine Protected Areas be strengthened and expanded?  What impact is climate change having on our waters?  How can we lift the curse of plastic pollution from our beaches?  Surfers, fishermen, campaigners and conservationists join Peter and Hugh to consider the issues.Producer: Jonathan Wiltshire

Maritime Nation

The powerful gene editing technique CRISPR that allows us to rewrite DNA may soon provide a tool to help save our planet’s biodiversity. CRISPR has been described as ‘molecular scissors’ and is used to make targeted, precise changes to the DNA of plants and animals, with all the ethical questions it raises. Since it was developed by scientists 9 nine years ago, research into uses of CRISPR has been increasing in medicine and agriculture, as well as entering the fields of public health and environmental conservation, where genetic engineering had previously not been a realistic possibility. With the threat of climate change and the loss of species and habitats worldwide, gene editing has the potential to be able to help revive endangered species, and help them adapt to changing temperatures. And by combining CRISPR with a ‘gene drive’ – a technique that forces genes to spread through a population, we now have the ability to bend the rules of natural selection and control populations of invasive species or a pest that carries disease. But what are the risks and potential consequences of meddling with the complex processes of the natural world? Jheni Osman talks to scientists currently researching potential uses of gene editing for environmental conservation, including combining it with a gene drive to control grey squirrel populations, using CRISPR to find the genes responsible for heat tolerance in coral, and editing genetic diversity into species on the brink of extinction. At this early stage of the development of the science, Jheni hears about the particular ethical and practical considerations of altering the genomes of wild species and releasing them into the wild. Should we use this power to edit nature, and if so, how should it be controlled?Producer: Sophie Anton

Gene Editing Nature

Realising your pet cat has brought home a 'gift' or perhaps a snack they plan to eat in front of you is never pleasant. Many owners will scramble to intercept and release the poor prey but that may be too little, too late. Cats have been blamed for an estimated 100million wildlife kills in the UK each Spring and Summer but it's hard to know what really goes on when they're out on the prowl at night. Birds, mammals, insects, amphibians...and sometimes the odd snake in some cases...but others don't seem fussed at all. Scientists have been monitoring and logging cat kills to build a clearer picture of their behaviour and take this beyond what they choose to bring home. Miranda Krestovnikoff explores the factors that may influence a cat's desire to kill and speaks to Hannah Lockwood from the University of Derby whose 'What the Cat Dragged In' project charting hundreds of cats and even using cameras to reveal the hidden truth about their nocturnal behaviour. She hears about more drastic measures and proposals outside the UK which put more responsibility on cat owners for what they hunt and gets practical advice about how cat owners might deter their pretty kitties from being savage predators, while still keeping it happy. Presented by Miranda Krestovnikoff and produced by Anne-Marie Bullock for BBC Audio Bristol.

Killer Kitties

Dame Glenys Stacey is charged with the job of keeping the government on track toward a greener future. She talks to Tom Heap in her first interview as the head of the new Office for Environmental Protection.If public bodies in England such as the Environment Agency, Natural England and local authorities fail to keep rivers clean and city air breathable then it will be Glenys Stacey who will try to make them to do better  She was a well respected regulator of examinations at Ofqual and has plenty of experience of holding authorities to account, but does she have the powers and budget to keep the government green?Producer: Alasdair Cross

The New Environmental Sheriff in Town

Dr Seuss' fable of needless consumerism and environmental ruin, The Lorax, is half a century old this year. The 'shortish, brownish, oldish and mossy' character who 'speaks for the trees' increasingly features on placards at demos. Michael Rosen looks at the book's influence on the modern environmental movement and charts its journey from ignored to censored, embraced by the mainstream and inevitably turned into a Hollywood movie and used to sell SUVs.With Children's Laureate Cressida Cowell, Writer George Monbiot, Economist Kate Raworth, Playwright David Greig, Advertising 'guru' Rory Sutherland, Ben Stewart from Greenpeace, Steve Brezzo, Josh Golin, Terri Birkett and more.Producer: Ellie Richold

The Lorax

How has one year of lockdown changed our environment in the UK and around the world?  Tom Heap is joined by air quality expert, Ally Lewis, psychologist Lorraine Whitmarsh and the BBC's South Korea correspondent, Laura Bicker to find out how we- and the natural world- have been changed by the pandemic.Producer: Maggie Latham

Lockdown Planet

The COP26 conference in Glasgow in November is going to be a very important moment in tackling climate change. We are currently not on track to meet the goal of limiting global temperature rise to between 1.5 and 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels. According to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we need to halve total emissions by the end of 2030 if we’re to be on track to hit the 1.5 degree target and avoid the worst effects of a changing climate. To close the gap between pledges and action, countries need to sign up to policies and strategies that start to reduce emissions now. This is the challenge for the summit in Glasgow.
 
Tom Heap is joined in the studio by Nigel Topping, the High Level Climate Action Champion for COP26, to discuss the ambition of the summit and the momentum that is building not just among governments but cities, investors and businesses to deliver net zero by mid-century. They hear from three experts who will give us real world practical solutions to achieve far-reaching carbon cuts by 2030: Dr Rhian-Mari Thomas, Chief Exec of the Green Finance Institute; Dr Stephen Cornelius, Chief advisor on Climate Change at WWF UK; and Dr Angela Wilkinson, CEO of the World Energy Council.  Can we really halve emissions by 2030?Producer: Sophie Anton

How to Halve Emissions by 2030

In September at the UN General Assembly China announced that it will aim for carbon neutrality by 2060. Celia Hatton and guests discuss how China might meet this target, and what this means for the world.  With Barbara Finamore, Senior Strategic Director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sha Yu, Co-Director of the China Program at the Centre of Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland, and Steve Tsang, Director of China Institute at SOAS University of London.Producer: Toby Field

China 2060

As some places in the world become too hot for humans to live, Tom Heap explores the cost to the environment of air conditioning.Air conditioning is one of the fastest growing sources of energy consumption, but it's already placing enormous strains on power grids, while also contributing to climate change. Across the world, building codes are making it virtually impossible to build new offices without it, and are setting "comfort standards" that don't take account of geography, climate or culture. As a result some of the hottest places in the world, such as Qatar, have buildings that are so cool that workers shiver and have to bring warm clothing to work. Meanwhile poor countries like Sudan have abandoned traditional architecture which allow a degree of natural cooling in favour of modern international building styles that require air conditioning in order to function. Which might be fine, except that the capital has frequent electricity blackouts which turn off the air conditioning and makes buildings unbearably hot. As more parts of the globe head towards temperature and humidity combinations that would make human life impossible without air conditioning, we are in danger of setting up systems that, should they fail, would have disastrous consequences.Meanwhile, the more we get used to living in temperatures that rarely change much, the less well equipped are bodies are becoming to deal with big changes when they occur.  Luckily, there are techologies that could help solve some of the problem. It may not be necessary for us to cool and dehumidify the air around us in order to feel cool. Devices that suck radiant heat from us, like a cool sun, could keep us fresh at a fraction of the energy cost. Producer: Jolyon Jenkins

Too darn hot

As our planet continues to warm, and climate issues move rapidly up the political agenda, the environmental movement itself is also changing shape.In the second of a two-part series looking at the past, present and future of the environmental movement, Journalist and Black and Green Ambassador Jasmine Ketibuah-Foley looks to the future. Speaking to academics, futurologists, and the activists and campaigners on the front lines, she asks how things are changing, who is changing them, and what they'll need to do to make sure the message gets through.  From tactics to technology, from local to global, and from the affluent western world to some of the places climate change is hitting hardest, Jasmine follows the campaign for climate justice into the coming decades, and finds out what it might look like.Produced by Emily Knight

The Future of Environmentalism

It's fifty years since the first blossoming of environmental campaign groups. Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the organisation which was eventually to become the Green Party were all set up in the early 1970s - all within just a few years of each other. In part 1 of this two-part series, Tom Heap takes a look back over the last half century of environmental protest. He talks to some of the big names involved in green campaigning - from the early days up to the present and the rise of Extinction Rebellion. He asks what the movement has achieved and what challenges still lie ahead.Producer: Emma Campbell

A short history of environmental protest

Last year wildfires in the Amazon made headlines news. This year we've hardly heard about them - but that doesn't mean they're not happening. In fact the number of rainforest fires in Brazil rose by almost 20% in June, reaching a 13 year high, according to government data. Some estimates now point to 2020 being an even worse year for forest destruction than 2019. Meanwhile, from California to Siberia, fires have been devastating landscapes and throwing more greenhouse gases up into the atmosphere.  In this programme, Lucy Siegle and a panel of experts explore the causes of fires around the world, and asks what can be done to tackle them.Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Emma Campbell.

World on Fire

Record-breaking temperatures and months of severe drought fuelled a series of massive bushfires across Australia last winter.  Dozens of people died and millions of hectares of bushland and forest were burnt.Australia's plant and animal life are well adapted to natural fire but the additional burden of climate change ensured that many of the fires were more intense and widespread than ever before.  Much of the country's unique fauna had nowhere to hide.Peter Hadfield travels through the fire-ravaged regions of New South Wales to discover how local people are working to return injured animals to the wild and prepare habitats for a future that can only get hotter.Producer: Alasdair Cross

Bushfire Animal Rescue

Do you know how much water you use? Despite campaigns to reduce our personal water usage from around 143 litres each per day  to closer to 100, it's not improving. Meanwhile Tom Heap has discovered that an innovation to a product we use every day, an innovation which promised to save water is actually making things worse. Billions of litres are being wasted every week – enough to supply the cities of Edinburgh, Cardiff, Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol and Belfast  combined  – welcome to the Great Leaky Loo Scandal. We reveal how this is happening and what can be done. Tom gets a revealing look behind the scenes at a plumbing manufacturer where flushing systems are tested and the science of 'solids discharge' is analysed. When water is being abstracted from rivers and being treated to meet our demands we ask if we need to take the resource more seriously. Produced by Anne-Marie Bullock for BBC Audio in Bristol

The Great Leaky Loo Scandal

Ellen Husain investigates the presence of pathoghens in the marine environment. She learns how surfers and regular sea swimmers may be more likely to have anti-microbial resistant bacteria in their bodies, and finds out about the ways in which antibiotics find their way into our oceans.  Is the way we manage our seas actually fuelling the rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria and increasing the risk of untreatable disease in future?Producer: Emma Campbell

Swimming in Superbugs?

With an ever greater demand for more housing, and Boris Johnson calling for the country to "build buld bulid" post lockdown, Peter Gibbs looks at current trends in house-building. Are the government's plans for "garden communities" as environmentally-friendly as they sound? And how could developers be encouraged to build in a way which incorporates nature rather than squeezing it out? Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Emma Campbell.

Build, Build, Build

Lockdown saw many more people jumping on bikes and walking - as much as a way to get out of the house as get around - but pollution levels dropped and nature could be heard without the background roar of traffic. Jheni Osman asks if this the way it could or should be? Has this given us a new way of thinking about how we get around and can city leaders bank on this to change the infrastructure to be 'car free'?After 100 years of city design being built around the private car, this is a rare opportunity to bank on the behaviour change to reduce pollution, improve air quality and get more of us active. Temporary moves to give over more road space to public transport, bikes and pedestrians may give way to more permanent measures and has accelerated plans for 'Car Free Cities'. Jheni explores models that have been applied elsewhere, looks at changes coming in across Milan, Bristol and Birmingham and asks what's needed to make them work? Will we be zooming about on e-scooters and goods transported underground instead? Plans aren't without cost or controversy but is this a rare moment to make a radical change the new normal?Presented by Jheni Osman
Produced by Anne-Marie Bullock for BBC Audio in Bristol.

Autopia to Utopia? Car-Free Cities

Just a few months ago politicians across the spectrum were promising trees, glorious trees, in abundance. In an unlikely game of Top Trumps the numbers of trees promised reached into billions, ultimately settling at an ambitious promise of 30,000 hectares a year by 2025.So, how are we going to reach this target over the next 5 years and is it even the right goal? Things have not begun well with thousands of saplings left to rot after they could not be planted due to coronavirus restrictions and campaigners condemning the government targets as ‘inadequate’. At the same time many experts urge caution as the current push for more trees could result in trees being planted on land which should be used for agriculture or on landscapes which are important carbon stores such as peatland.Even if we can find the space we may not have the tree stocks or the skilled workforce to create sustainable woodlands. The current coronavirus crisis has highlighted just how vulnerable the UK nursery industry is without long term planning. We need a trained workforce to plant and care for trees as well as plans for the trees grown to be used sustainably.However, there are other ways. Natural regeneration and nurturing existing woodlands could be a better way to capture carbon long term and improve biodiversity. What we plant and how will have a huge affect on how much carbon the tree absorbs depending on how long they will be left standing but landowners will want to see some return on land used for tree planting. Peter Gibbs delves into the detail behind the mantra of ‘right tree, right place’ to find out what we should be planting, where we should plant and how to create a forest fit for the future.  Producer Helen Lennard

Forests of the Future

What's the best way to prevent flooding? Caz Graham finds out whether there might be environmental alternatives to building ever-higher flood defences. She talks to a campaign group in Kendal in Cumbria, where there are multi-million pound plans to build flood barriers through the town centre, and asks the Environment Agency whether there could be more imaginative alternatives. Is Natural Flood Management the answer? Caz talks to academics and experts to find out what new solutions there might be, and what other countries are doing.Produced by Emma Campbell. 
Photograph by Stuart Atkinson.CORRECTION 22/06/2020
In the programme we said: "Those with doubts about the Environment Agency’s walls point to alternative strategies like Natural Flood Management – which holds water further upstream, slowing the flow into town, so the flood peak is lower.  That’s phase 3 of the Environment Agency’s plan, and gets a tiny fraction of the £76 million budget – just £800,000."  In fact the £800,000 for Natural Flood Management is actually in addition to the overall budget.

Flooding Britain

A decade ago, many people saw carbon offsetting as an excuse for carrying on bad behaviour. Need to fly? I can still fly ... look at me - I'm not so bad after all. And the critics lined up to shoot it down. So what has changed, asks Tom Heap, and is it something we should all be doing?
With contributions from Juliet Davenport of Good Energy, Charlotte Ashton in Zimbabwe, Tim Brown of Tradewater, Mike Childs from Friends of the Earth and Professor Julia Jones who tells us about her experience of conservation projects in Madagascar.The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde

Is this something I should be doing?

Sound is what the world does.  From the tiniest bugs to the largest whales, animals use sound to communicate, for example,  they sing to attract a mate and establish a territory. But this is all happening against a background of man-made noise that was, until the last few weeks, increasing in volume all the time. So what happens if you can’t hear or make yourself heard or you are too stressed or distracted to behave normally? Andy Radford, Professor of Behavioural Ecology at the University of Bristol explores the impact of this global pollutant and the mitigation measures that could help. Producer: Sarah Blunt

Silencing with Noise

In June last year the UK government committed us all to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050.  To reach that ambitious target we're going to have to change the way we travel, heat our homes and farm our food.  Tom Heap is joined by an expert panel to measure our progress and gauge our chances of reaching net zero.Tom's joined by physicist Helen Czerski of University College London, James Murray, editor of Business Green and the author of Our Final Warning, Mark Lynas.Producer: Alasdair Cross

Zero Carbon Britain

In November 2019 the band Massive Attack announced it was working with the Tyndall Centre in Manchester to devise a strategy for touring without emitting carbon dioxide.  They join a host of acts including Coldplay, The 1975, Radiohead and Billie Eilish all of whom intend to tour in as green a way as possible in the future.  Tom Heap speaks to Chris Jones of the Tyndall Centre to find out what the key components are to produce a 'green' gig and how this could provide a template for bands in the future.  But what of the smaller bands for whom touring is their main source of income?  This is the question he puts to Kate Stables of the band This is the Kit who talks about the difficulties of balancing her environmental conscience with her desire to play music to a live audience.  He also speaks to musicians Fay Milton and Sam Lee from the organisation Music Declares Emergency about what a band can do and where their responsibilities start and finish.  Murray Matravers from the band Easy Life explains how shooting a video on a plastic recycling site in Morocco brought these issue home to him, and Surrey-based artist Bruch talks about how the environment sits at the heart of every decision she makes as a musician.  Also featured are BBC Introducing bands Brand New Friend, Roving Crows, Lucy Leave and October Drift.  This is more than just a debate about who should and shouldn't play live.  This is a discussion about the role music plays in our lives and how we can best experience it whilst acknowledging its impact on the planet.Producer: Toby Field

Music's Green Day

Tom Heap talks through the environmental issues emerging during the coronavirus pandemic and asks what the legacy might be.   He's joined by climate change expert Dr Tamsin Edwards from King's College, London to examine the effect of the lockdown. With millions of people now working from home, planes being grounded and fewer cars on the roads, what level of environmental improvement has there been, and will that be reversed once our lives return to normal? With the help of experts from the fields of climate change, remote working, ecology and environmental standards, we track the changes in air pollution and global temperature.
 
What will the return to ‘normal' look like? With the UK aiming to be carbon neutral by 2050, Tom asks whether the pandemic can be seen as a trial run for a zero-carbon world.  And, with the international climate meeting COP26 postponed, Tamsin considers how international climate targets might be affected. With contributions from Christiana Figueres - architect of the Paris climate agreement, environmental psychologist Lorraine Whitmarsh, air quality expert David Carslaw,  Gina McCarthy of the Natural Resources Defense Council, business communications specialist Jon Sidwick and Julian Newman from the Environmental Investigation Agency.Producer: Melvin Rickarby

Covid-19: the environmental impact

Plastic waste is the scourge of developing countries. Many have poor waste collection and virtually no recycling. But there may be ways in which local people can put the waste to good useIn Cameroon a child called Pierre Kamsouloum wanted to play football, but had no ball. He got the idea of melting soft plastic, the kind that food is wrapped in, and moulding it into a crude football. A few years later, without a job and looking for a way to make money, he came back to the idea, and realised that if you mixed the molten plastic with sand, you could turn it into tough paving slabs, competitively priced. Now, with the help of NGOs, thousands of people across Cameroon and Gambia have been trained in the technique.In the Netherlands, design student Dave Hakkens had the idea of creating machines that people could use to recycle their plastic locally. Using quite basic technology, these machines shred, melt and then extrude plastic into moulds to make flat sheets, bowls, and even giant Lego-style house building bricks. The designs are all open-source and online, and a movement of thousands of people has grown up, building, improving and using Dave’s machines. In Guatemala, German environmentalist Susanne Heisse was depressed by the plastic pollution collecting at the side of Lake Atilan. Inspired by the actions of a neighbour, she started stuffing the waste into plastic drinking bottles, and so the idea of the eco-brick was born – a building block that can be strong and durable and at the same time sequesters the plastic and stops it breaking down into dangerous plastics.None of these ideas is without its difficulties and each has its critics. But until we find ways to live without plastic, could they be part of the solution?Presenter/Producer: Jolyon Jenkins

Fantastic Plastic

Every year billions of products are sold around the world in plastic packaging. But some countries lack a waste system to collect and recycle or dispose of the rubbish. The result can be that waste is dumped, set on fire or used as an accelerant in domestic fires.A new report by Tearfund claims to reveal the scale of the uncontrolled burning in six key countries. Tom Heap finds out what the implications of this are and asks if the product manufacturers which profit have a 'moral responsiblity' to help clear up. 
 
Producer: Anne-Marie Bullock

Plastic Burnout

Cherry blossom is a perfect symbol of Japan's relationship with nature and the broader environment.  It's beautiful, flawless and disappears with the wind.  The organisers of the Tokyo Olympics are keen to use the event to push the nation further toward a sustainable future.  When the delayed Games finally go ahead they're promised to run on 100% renewable energy and use recycled rainwater.  Even the medals and podiums will be made from old mobile phones and recycled shampoo bottles.Peter Hadfield, a  journalist based for many years in Japan, examines the efforts of the organisers and asks how far their efforts can push the Japanese people toward a greener future.Producer: Alasdair CrossPhoto courtesy of @nickluscombe

Turning Japan Green

The demand for housing is pushing through developments of millions of new build homes. So why aren't these all being built to the best energy efficiency standards possible with the technology that's now available? Tom Heap reveals how the scrapping of zero carbon homes has meant years of construction has not had to meet the higher standards hoped for. The new Future Homes Standard has just been consulted on but Tom Heap hears it's not just missing the mark for some groups but is at risk of reducing some standards altogether. Homes now come with an EPC - an Energy Performance Certificate - to test how reliable they are Tom trains thermal cameras onto a new build house to reveal any leaks or hidden short cuts that may be lurking behind the walls.Tom also gets a vision of the future - where clever design on village scale and with artificial intelligence could see us living in a low carbon way without even having to think too hard about it. Presented by Tom Heap 
Producer: Anne-Marie Bullock.

Eco Homes Now!

The Naga people of north-east India and Myanmar have long been famed for their hunting prowess.  In the days of traps and catapults a balance was maintained but the influx of high calibre guns and the arrival of the Chinese Medicine Trade have wiped out much of the jungle wildlife. Tigers and Asian Black Bear are now very rare sights and even deer are increasingly hard to find.Travel writer, Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent visits Nagaland to meet the local tribal people who have decided that enough is enough.  They've banned hunting around their villages and created their own wildlife refuges.  Already the signs are positive, with the revival of the Amur Falcon which was once hunted by the thousand and now nests peacefully in enormous flocks in the forest canopy. Producer: Alasdair Cross

Fate of the Falcons

When a frustrated farmer dumped a bag of VHS video tapes onto the desk of Cincinnati lawyer Rob Bilott it kick-started a legal process that would ultimately reveal that one of the world’s biggest chemical companies had poisoned thousands of people.  The story of DuPont and their manufacture of the non-stick chemical family PFAS matters to the factory workers of Parkersburg, West Virginia but it also reveals the extent to which virtually all of us have been exposed to a chemical that for decades has lined our frying pans and takeaway food containers and guarded our sofas and carpets against stains.Rob’s story of his two decade battle with DuPont has inspired 'Dark Waters', a Hollywood film starring Mark Ruffalo and Anne Hathaway.  In the first of a new series Tom Heap meets Rob and Mark to discuss the impact on the environment and human health of a family of chemicals that can build up in our bodies and take tens of thousands of years to decay.Producer: Alasdair Cross

Mark Ruffalo vs Chemical Pollution

Britain's politicians have been promising the Earth on climate change.  Tom Heap chews over the plausibility of their pledges.He's joined by Angela Francis of WWF, green finance expert Michael Liebreich, Ellie Whitlock from the UK Youth Climate Coalition and the editor of Business Green, James Murray.Producer: Alasdair Cross

Election 2019

What would the British countryside look like if we all adopted the vegan diet recommended by many environmental campaigners?  Tom Heap hosts a discussion with panellists from the National Farmers Union and the Vegan Society. We also hear from expert witnesses from Oxford University, Aberystwyth University, Harvard Law School and Rothamsted Research.Producer: Anne-Marie Bullock

Vegan World

Whilst this Autumn’s heavy rainfall has caused some rivers in the north of England to burst their banks and flood neighbourhoods there are rivers in the south-east with barely a drop of water in them. Tom Heap asks what impact this is this having on aquatic ecosystems. He talks to water companies and environmental campaigner Feargal Sharkey to find out how flora and fauna are changing as a result of the shortage of water. It's a particular concern for chalk streams, which provide a unique wildlife habitat found in very few places in the world.  Tom asks who's the blame - the water companies for taking water out of the rivers, the Environment Agency for giving them permission to do it, or us consumers for using more water per person than we ever have before?Producer: Emma Campbell

Dry Me A River

The Iron Curtain was an accidental wildlife haven. 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Tom Heap walks the borderlands to see how nature has continued to thrive.Before the fall of the wall naturalists in West Germany had noticed that some bird and mammal species favoured life in the deathzone with its lack of human disturbance. When the Soviet bloc crumbled they joined friends and colleagues in the East to declare a Greenbelt through Europe, from Trieste on the Adriatic to Lubeck on the Baltic.Against the odds their campaign has met with great success, creating new migration routes for some of Europe's biggest mammals whilst keeping developers away from most of the old border between East and West.Producer: Alasdair Cross

Iron Curtain Turns Green

The last decade has seen a huge rise in the number of people opting for artificial turf in their gardens. Meanwhile businesses and corporations are making more use of plastic plants in both indoor and outdoor spaces. What effect does choosing fake over real plants have on the environment? Peter Gibbs investigates.Producer: Emma Campbell

Plastic Gardens

Britain urgently needs a zero carbon source of reliable energy for our homes, industry and the new generation of electric vehicles.   This summer's electricity blackouts suggest that we're a long way from achieving the goal.  Tom Heap and a panel of power experts offer their solutions.Tom is joined by Jillian Ambrose, Energy Correspondent of The Guardian, the Chief Executive of the Committee on Climate Change, Chris Stark and CEO of power company Good Energy, Juliet Davenport.Producer: Alasdair Cross

Powering Britain

Orkney's strong winds and powerful tides have attracted renewable energy pioneers for decades.  For much of the year the islands produce more energy than they can use.  Turbines are shut down and green energy goes to waste.  The UK government has spotted an opportunity, funding the REFLEX project which aims to use that excess energy to develop new ways to power a community.  Tom Heap visits Orkney to see how hydrogen storage, huge batteries and electric ferries and cars can be lashed together with clever software to remove fossil fuels from an entire energy system.Producer: Alasdair Cross

Carbon Free Islands

From the Loch Ness Monster and  mammoths to the Amazon river and uncharted river flies - 'environmental DNA' is revolutionising how we tell what species are present in a certain landscape. Traces of skin, mucus or gametes can be left by creatures in their environment and scientists can use samples from the water, air or soil and sequence the DNA found within to test for a specific species or to get a broader picture of what is there. It can help monitor for invasive species and even look back to ancient history. Samples can be taken by non-experts, in remote locations, quicker than some traditional methods and it's non invasive. Scientists say this can speed up and revolutionise how we chart our living world....which in some cases might flag up the most urgent need to intervene where species are threatened. The technique has been used recently by Prof Neil Gemmell from University of Otago working with experts from the Loch Ness Centre - to search for evidence of what is and isn't present in the depths but it's also being used in more applications around the world. Jheni Osman explores why scientists are so excited about this modern technique, how long the traces last and what it might reveal in the future. Produced by Anne-Marie Bullock

The e-DNA Revolution

Plastic nets and equipment left in the ocean by fishing boats is estimated to make up over 10% of marine rubbish and in the 'Great Pacific Garbage Patch' over 40% of the accumulated plastic is lost fishing gear. Even worse these plastic 'ghost nets' can go on catching fish and attracting other wildlife which then become entangled too. Often these nets are very old and once they finally do start to degrade they add to the problem of 'microplastics' which are ingested by sea creatures. It's a big global problem but as Lucy Siegle discovers in Cornwall and Italy there are lots of solutions on offer and teams of enthusiastic volunteer divers who want to get these old nets out of the sea and into a recycling scheme.With the help of 'Ghost Fishing UK' Lucy takes a look at what can be done to prevent more 'ghost gear' being lost and to help get existing nets out of our oceans.

Ghost Fishing

How can we prevent a repeat of the devastating fires in the Amazon? Tom Heap and Lucy Siegle search for solutions.Producer: Emma Campbell