Costing the Earth

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

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

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 Exeter

Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Toby Field

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 Cross

Photo courtesy of Suzy Eszterhas

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

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

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 UCL

Producer: Heather Simons

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

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

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

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

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

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 Matter

The presenter is Tom Heap and the producer in Bristol is Miles Warde

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 Cross

Photo: Courtesy of Vijay Ramamurthy

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

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

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