Rare Earth

PFAS chemicals are all around us. They're used in frying pans, food packaging and waterproof coats but they have been linked to thyroid disease, liver damage and cancer. The trouble is that PFAS just doesn't go away- these 'forever chemicals' build up in our bodies and the environment.

Tom Heap and Helen Czerski look back at the invention of these miracle chemicals, their use in the Second World War and the Space Race and meet Robert Bilott, the American lawyer who held the PFAS manufacturers to account, going head to head with the enormous DuPont corporation. They're also joined by Stephanie Metzger of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Hannah Evans from the environmental charity Fidra and by the journalist Leana Hosea of Watershed Investigations.

Producer: Alasdair Cross

Assistant Producer: Toby Field

Rare Earth is produced in association with the Open University

40 years ago a hole was discovered in the ozone layer. It provoked an international effort to ban the chemicals that were destroying our protection from the sun. Tom Heap and Helen Czerski are joined by Jonathan Shanklin, one of the team that realised that CFC chemicals used in aerosol cans and refrigerants were helping to create a 20 million square kilometre hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica. Also on the panel they speak to Alice Bell, author of ‘Our Biggest Experiment: a history of the climate crisis’ and head of policy, climate and health at Wellcome, and Bristol University's Professor Matt Rigby who helps monitor how well countries are sticking to their promises on protecting the ozone layer.

They discuss the unparalleled international unity that swiftly banned the worst of the ozone-destroying chemicals, and ask why we can't come up with a similar solution for manmade climate change. Tom will be meeting the detectives dedicated to hunting down the chemicals that still threaten the ozone layer and come with an enormous cost to the climate.

Featuring contributions from:

Jonathan Shanklin - Emeritus Fellow, British Antarctic Survey

Matthew Rigby - Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry, University of Bristol

Alice Bell - Head of Policy: Climate and Health, Wellcome

Producer: Beth Sagar-Fenton Assistant Producer: Toby Field

Rare Earth is produced in collaboration with the Open University

The wolf has mounted an extraordinary comeback. Once hunted to extinction across Western Europe, the wolf has taken advantage of the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the depopulation of the countryside to spread from east to west, reaching the suburbs of Amsterdam and Brussels. Only Britain, Ireland, Malta, Cyprus and Iceland now lack the top predator that haunts our fairytales.

Tom Heap and Helen Czerski go face to snout with the wolf to find out the secrets of its success. They're joined by writer, Adam Weymouth, who tracked the route of a pioneering wolf called Slavc that made its way from Slovenia to Verona, kick-starting the return of the wolf packs to swathes of northern Italy. Erica Fudge of Strathclyde University shares her research into werewolf tales of the early modern period and BBC Central Europe correspondent Nick Thorpe digs into the relationship between farmers and wolves in their Carpathian heartland to reveal the conflicts we can expect as the western wolves increase their population.

Producer: Alasdair Cross

Assistant Producer: Toby Field

Rare Earth is produced in association with the Open University

Special thanks to Wolf Watch UK

For the Arctic, 2024 was the second-warmest year on record, with temperatures rising much faster than the global rate. The region's resources- oil, gas, iron ore, uranium, even diamonds and the rare earth metals used in electric cars- suddenly seem accessible. That's caught the attention of China, Russia and the US, with President Trump, eager to mount a hostile takeover bid for Greenland.

In the first of a new series of Rare Earth, physicist Helen Czerski and environment journalist, Tom Heap consider the impact of this sudden global interest on the people, wildlife and landscape of the far north.

It's not the first time that climate change has determined the fate of the region. For 500 years the Vikings occupied Greenland, using it as a base for their discovery of North America. By the late 14th century temperatures were falling, their crops failing and supply ships from Scandinavia struggling to make it through the expanding icepack. Communications faltered and then stopped completely. Historian, Eleanor Barraclough joins Tom and Helen to explore the fate of the last Norse Greenlanders- one of the great mediaeval mysteries and a warning of the power of a changing climate.

They're also joined by Duncan Depledge from Loughborough University and the Royal United Services Institute who fills them in on the military and political backdrop to the Arctic Goldrush. In 2007 Russian explorer, Artur Chilingarov led a submarine expedition to the North Pole where he planted a Russian flag on the seabed. It was a blatant land grab by the Putin regime and a warning of Russian expansionism to come. The other Arctic nations are responding, with Denmark ploughing cash into the defence of Greenland as the United States and China stake their own claims to the riches of the frozen north that isn't quite as frozen as it was.

The impact of climate change on the region's wildlife is so often encapsulated by the image of a polar bear on an ice floe, but ecologist Helen Wheeler of Anglia Ruskin University is more interested in the northward march of the beaver. These landscape engineers are actually moving ahead of the treeline, using rocks and mud to dam the rivers of the far north. The dams are blocking travel routes of Inuit hunters and fishers and may even be helping to raise the temperature of Arctic lakes.

Producer: Alasdair Cross

Assistant Producer: Toby Field

Rare Earth is produced in association with the Open University

Could 2025 be a year of progress on climate change and the nature crisis? Tom Heap and Helen Czerski search for some tentative green shoots with former Green MP Caroline Lucas, editor in chief of Business Green James Murray, and climate comedian Stuart Goldsmith.

Producer: Emma Campbell

Assistant Producer: Toby Field

Rare Earth is produced in association with the Open University

An ancient Babylonian text, Hammurabi’s Code of Laws, forbids the cutting down of street trees without permission. Nearly 4000 years later, threats to our urban trees still arouse the strongest passions. Coventry residents organised a record-breaking mass tree hug in November to save 26 trees marked for the chainsaws and the battle to save thousands of Sheffield's street trees from the council's contractors inspired folk songs and expensive legal battles.

As so many of us bring a tree home for Christmas, Tom Heap and Helen Czerski consider our feelings about street trees, the sweet hit of nature that provides year round shade and wildlife habitat in the least promising of city circumstances.

They're joined by Jon Stokes of the Tree Council, landscape historian Sonia Dümpelmann and Paul Powlesland, barrister and founder of Lawyers for Nature.

Producer: Alasdair Cross

Assistant Producers: Ellie Richold and Toby Field

Rare Earth is produced in association with the Open University

With fans travelling halfway across the country, stars expecting first class flights and venues serving up beefburgers and drinks in plastic cups the worlds of professional sport and live music share a pretty poor reputation for environmental impact. Add in the wasteful habits of high end film and TV productions and it starts to look as though anything that's fun has a disproportionate impact on the planet.

In Liverpool, they're hoping to change all that. The United Nations has asked the city to use its reputation as a hotbed of culture to devise ways to cut the carbon cost of live events and film production. To launch the project the city is hosting a conference and a series of high profile gigs with Massive Attack, Idles and Chic to showcase best practice and spread the word that fun doesn't need to cost the planet.

Helen Czerski and Tom Heap host a panel from the worlds of sports, entertainment and science to discuss a green future for fun, in front of an audience at Liverpool's Exhibition Centre.

Producer: Alasdair Cross

Assistant Producer: Toby Field

Rare Earth is produced in association with the Open University

It's been a hard year for the Amazon rainforest. The toughest drought on record has helped spread fires that have been the worst in two decades. That combination has hit the local people. “If these fires continue, we indigenous people will die,” says Raimundinha Rodrigues Da Sousa who runs the voluntary fire service for the Caititu indigenous community in the Brazilian Amazon. Her land is supposed to be protected but outsiders come in and set fires so that they can clear the land for agriculture.

For Rare Earth, Tom Heap and Helen Czerski take a look at the state of the Amazon rainforest, analyse its role in the global climate and consider the political battle over its future. They're joined by BBC South America correspondent, Ione Wells and by Angela Maldonado who has worked for 25 years in the Amazon, protecting night monkeys that are stolen and traded for medical research. Based on the Colombia-Peru-Brazil border, Angela has a unique perspective on the long-running war between development and conservation in the region.

Patricia Medici explains her work to conserve the extraordinary tapir, South America's largest land mammal and Niki Mardas reveals the latest results from Global Canopy's Forest 500 campaign which examines the involvement of 500 major companies in the supply chains which hasten the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.

Producer: Alasdair Cross

Assistant Producer: Ellie Richold

Rare Earth is produced in association with the Open University

Some of the wealthiest tech entrepreneurs share a vision of life beyond the horizon. They see a future for humankind that abandons our tired, dirty planet and creates new colonies of health and creativity on the Moon, on Mars or even further into deep space. Is this a wise precaution for all our futures or an insurance policy for the super-wealthy as they continue to trash our home planet? Tom Heap and Helen Czerski are joined by British astronaut, Tim Peake to consider the big moral questions of space colonisation and the practical problems of devising ways to make the best of the extraordinary possibilities of space without increasing the pressure on Earth’s resources. If we do colonise another planet how do we avoid making the same mistakes again? How do we grow food and find or produce freshwater? How can we travel to, from and around these planets without burning more fossil fuels? Could the answers help us all live a better life right here, right now? Joining Helen, Tom and Tim in studio are Eloise Marais, who leads the Atmospheric Composition and Air Quality research group at University College London and co-chair of the Environmental Task Force at Space Scotland, Andrew Fournet, and Tom pays a visit to a company in Bletchley who are developing nuclear fusion propulsion.

Producer: Alasdair Cross Assistant Producer: Toby Field

Produced in association with the Open University

Our love affair with plastic has grown beyond all expectations since we were first introduced to the substance in the mid 20th century, and the rate at which we're using it shows no sign of slowing. But the tidal wave of plastic pollution we've unleashed is causing serious environmental problems. In this programme, Helen Czerski and Tom Heap hear how some of our plastic waste is burnt in incinerators or sent overseas, causing pollution far from our shores. In their search for solutions, they visit the Plastic Waste Innovation Hub at University College London, where Professor Mark Miodownik shows them how science is trying to keep up with the proliferation of plastic pollution. Back in the studio, they're joined by Professor Steve Fletcher from the University of Portsmouth, Sally Beken from Innovate UK, and environmental journalist Leana Hosea from Watershed Investigations, to talk about how we got here and how we can change our relationship with plastic. In the 2000s the amount of plastic waste generated rose more in a single decade than it had in the previous forty years. It's in everything - from our clothes, cars and cosmetics, to the 2.5 billion disposable drinks cups now discarded every year in the UK. It seems we can't live without it. So Helen and Tom ask: who's in charge now - us or plastic?

Producer: Emma Campbell

Produced in association with the Open University

Nothing beats the sight of a top predator as it hunts. In the British Isles that means looking up. Our birds of prey are bouncing back after decades of shooting, poisoning and habitat loss. Buzzard numbers are up by 80% since 1995 and Red Kite by 2000%. Peregrine Falcon are thriving in London and Marsh Harriers have returned to our wetlands.

Helen gets up close to Black Kites and an Eagle Owl at the Owl and Raptor Centre in Kent and travel writer Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent describes the extraordinary migration of tens of thousands of birds of prey through the Batumi Gap on the border of Georgia and Turkey.

The RSPB's Mark Thomas and Robert Benson of the Moorland Association discuss the threat that birds of prey still face on some of Britain's shooting estates and Jennifer Ackerman, author of 'What An Owl Knows' joins Tom and Helen to explore the science behind the night-hunting skills of so many owls.

Producer: Alasdair Cross

Assistant Producer: Toby Field

Rare Earth is produced in association with the Open University

How can we build new green infrastructure without wrecking the countryside? Helen Czerski and Tom Heap debate the issue with a panel of experts, and ask what the measures outlined in last week's budget will mean for planning decisions and the environment. On the panel this week: Emma Pinchbeck, new CEO of the Climate Change Committee; Roger Mortlock, chief executive of the CPRE - the Countryside Charity; and Professor Matthew Kelly, modern historian from Northumbria University.

Producer: Emma Campbell

It's four metres long, the weight of two grizzly bears and dangerously delicious. The Bluefin Tuna is back in British waters so Tom Heap and Helen Czerski are here to celebrate the role of the tuna in food, culture and nature.

Unseen since the 1960s, these enormous fish have surprised surfers and anglers by leaping clear out of the waters of South-West England. Rare Earth takes a deep dive with the tuna to examine their unusual biology and their cultural importance to people all around the world. They can live up to 60 years, dive up to 1km below the ocean surface and swim as fast as 40 km per hour. Unfortunately for the bluefin, they’re particularly tasty, prized for their meaty sashimi, with some fish reaching prices close to £2m in the ceremonial new year auction at Tokyo’s fish market.

Tom explores the intense Japanese relationship with tuna while Helen makes a plea to give this fish the respect it deserves- we should celebrate its extraordinary biology rather than stuffing it in a tiny can with a ‘dolphin-friendly’ stamp on the label.

Producer: Alasdair Cross

Assistant Producer: Toby Field

Rare Earth is a BBC Audio Wales and West production in conjunction with the Open University

US elections always have an outsized impact on the planet. As the world's second largest polluter and one of the primary sources of green technology and finance, America's lead on environmental issues is a vital part of our battle against climate change.

Tom Heap and Helen Czerski analyse the efforts of the Biden regime and examine the rival policies of Harris and Trump. Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act is said to have helped channel half a trillion dollars into clean technology and renewable energy. Has all that money brought down emissions or funded fresh answers to the planet's biggest challenge? Trump talks tough on the environment, supporting oil, gas and coal companies but did his presidential term really accelerate global warming?

Tom and Helen are joined by Professor Leah Stokes from the University of California, Santa Barbara, Trisha Curtis, CEO of PetroNerds and presenter of the PetroNerds podcast and by Pilita Clark, Associate Editor and environment and business columnist for the Financial Times.

Producer: Alasdair Cross

Assistant Producer: Toby Field

Rare Earth is a BBC Audio Wales and West production in conjunction with the Open University

The environment and wildlife show returns with a celebration of the humble microbe. Tom Heap and Helen Czerski are joined by a ‘microbe explorer’ who travels to some of the Earth’s most hostile environments in search of microbes with a huge appetite for carbon dioxide. They also be visit the crop trial field station of Imperial College London where researchers are studying changes to bacteria in soil that could help agriculture and the environment.

Producer: Emma Campbell

Assistant Producer: Toby Field

Rare Earth is made by BBC Audio Wales and West in association with the Open University.

Seabirds face many challenges - avian flu, plastic pollution, overfishing and climate change have all had an impact - but despite all of this, these resilient birds are surviving and in some cases, thriving. Tom Heap and Helen Czerski explore all things seabird, from the urban kittiwakes of Tyneside to the sea cliffs of Shetland.

They're joined by Adam Nicolson, the author of The Seabird's Cry. He's determined to recover the reputation of the puffin from the cute star of seaside mugs and tea towels to its rightful place as a brave and powerful navigator of the toughest ocean environments.

Mike Dilger, resident nature expert on BBC TV's The One Show, reports from Shetland on the extraordinary colony of storm petrels that breed in the brickwork of Iron Age brochs.

The kittiwakes that nest in the heart of Newcastle and Gateshead are the furthest inland colony in the world. Helen Wilson of Durham University discusses her research on the birds and their developing relationship with the people who live and work alongside them.

Many of Britain's most dramatic seabird colonies breed on the most isolated islands of the west coast of Scotland. Film-maker and adventure leader Roland Arnison has spent the summer in a kayak, paddling from island to island, recording the sounds of thirty species of seabird. He tells Tom and Helen about his Call of the Loon expedition and his dramatic scrapes with riptides, hypothermia and the most predatory of Scottish seabirds- the great skua.

Producer: Alasdair Cross Assistant Producer: Toby Field Researcher: Christina Sinclair

Rare Earth is a BBC Audio Wales and West production in conjunction with the Open University

Tom Heap and Helen Czerski meet the people with fresh ideas to combat rising sea levels, from Enfield to Indonesia.

Average sea levels across the world are rising fast. That puts 570 cities with a combined population of 800 million people at significant threat of inundation. Add in the impact of extreme rainfall events and you have a huge slice of our urban planet that needs protection from flooding. Tom and Helen are joined by Professor Richard Dawson of Newcastle University who considers the engineering solutions available, from huge chunks of concrete and steel to the clever use of parks and gardens that can slow down the flow of water into the streets.

Emma Howard Boyd, former chair of the Environment Agency, tells them about her London Climate Resilience Review which shines a light on the urgent need to raise the city's embankments and suggests some quirkier options. Could the 160,000 large holes that are dug ever year in London be repurposed as emergency water buffers?

Helen visits New Orleans, 19 years after one of the world's most disastrous urban floods, to meet Dana Eness who leads the Front Yard Initiative which helps city residents floodproof their homes with native flower gardens and rainwater butts. And journalist, Peter Hadfield, discusses his visit to Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia that's sinking fast. There are ambitious plans for new sea defences linked by artificial Dubai-style luxury islands, but the national government has decided to abandon the city in favour of a new capital over 1000km away.

Producer: Alasdair Cross

Assistant Producer: Toby Field

Over the centuries, bottom-trawling activities have transformed our coastal seas both ecologically and physically, mostly for the worse. As the habitat has declined, so has the success of fisheries. Is it time we said goodbye to bottom trawling? Or can we manage our coastal seas more effectively to protect nature and provide seafood and jobs?

Tom Heap and Helen Czerski discuss the issues with a panel of experts.

Producer: Emma Campbell

Assistant Producer: Toby Field and Christina Sinclair

Rare Earth is a BBC Audio Wales and West production in conjunction with the Open University

Is the rise in global wild fires unstoppable? Helen Czerski and Tom Heap discuss the terrifying march of the flames and search for fresh answers. They're joined by John Vaillant, author of the award-wining exploration of Canada's Fort McMurray disaster, 'Fire Weather' and by Dr Stacey New from the Met Office.

Tom and Helen take a look at the ways in which indigenous knowledge is being applied to fire prevention in California and visit the Blodgett Research Forest where experts study the best ways to make America's threatened forests more resilient.

They're also joined by Grant Moir of the Cairngorms National Park to discuss new by-laws banning campfires in the area. Do we need to restrict our freedom in the wilderness to protect it for the future?

Producer: Alasdair Cross

Can meat ever be environmentally friendly, or do we need better substitutes? Helen Czerski and Tom Heap discuss the cutting edge technology being developed to reduce the carbon cost of our diet.

Producer: Emma Campbell

Assistant Producer: Toby Field

Rare Earth is a BBC Audio Wales and West production in conjunction with the Open University