Tom Heap introduces Rare Earth, a programme exploring major stories about our environment.By BBC Radio 4

Art. 33: “…la Repubblica riconosce il valore educativo, sociale e di promozione del benessere psicofisico dell’attività sportiva in tutte le sue forme” Lo sport entra in Costituzione. Una riflessione del giudice della Corte costituzionale Luca Antonini "Già Platone nella Repubblica diceva: «Dopo la musica i giovani vanno formati con la ginnastica».…

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 f…

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 i…

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 pa…

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…

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 …

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 co…

Costing the Earth - The Power of Nature WritingBy BBC Radio 4

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…

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. O…

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 greene…

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 fin…

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 CrossBy BBC Radio 4

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 S…

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 MP…

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…

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 t…

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 f…

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 fr…

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 th…

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 …

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 …

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…

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…

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 …

Alla vigilia della scadenza del suo mandato di giudice costituzionale, il presidente della Corte Giuliano Amato firma il podcast Udienze come in Europa: la dialettica entra in Aula, per la serie La Corte costituzionale e la sua storia. Il podcast è disponibile da oggi sul sito della Consulta, nella pagina della Libreria dei podcast della Corte cost…

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…

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 f…

L’intervento del presidente della Corte costituzionale Giuliano Amato in apertura del Concerto Il sangue e la parola, svoltosi in Piazza del Quirinale il 22 luglio 2022 alla presenza del Presidente della Repubblica, delle più alte cariche dello Stato e di esponenti della società civile, eseguito dal Maestro Nicola Piovani con l’Orchestra e il Coro …

Continua Sentenze che ci hanno cambiato la vita: un racconto con le voci dei giudici costituzionali su alcune decisioni della Corte che, dal 1956 al 2022, hanno inciso profondamente nella vita delle persone e delle istituzioni, tappe di un cammino di crescita del nostro Paese grazie all’attuazione della Costituzione e ai suoi valori. Quattro nuovi …

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…

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 …

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 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 CrossBy BBC Radio 4

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. …

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 expert…

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-…

Riprende la programmazione di Sentenze che ci hanno cambiato la vita: un racconto con le voci dei giudici costituzionali su alcune decisioni della Consulta che, dal 1956 ad oggi, hanno inciso profondamente nella vita delle persone e delle istituzioni, tappe di un cammino di crescita del nostro Paese grazie all’attuazione della Costituzione e dei su…

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 …

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 …

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 th…

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 SwadlingBy BBC Radio 4

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…

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 …

Continua Sentenze che ci hanno cambiato la vita: un racconto con le voci dei giudici costituzionali su alcune decisioni della Corte che, dal 1956 al 2021, hanno inciso profondamente nella vita delle persone e delle istituzioni, tappe di un cammino di crescita del nostro Paese grazie all’attuazione della Costituzione e ai suoi valori. Quattro nuovi …

Sentenze che ci hanno cambiato la vita: le voci dei giudici costituzionali per raccontare alcune decisioni della Corte che, dal 1956 al 2021, hanno inciso nella vita delle persone, delle istituzioni, della comunità in cui viviamo. Ancora una volta la Libreria dei podcast della Corte costituzionale è strumento di conoscenza e chiave di lettura di sn…

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 t…

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 …

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,…