Environmental journalist Tom Heap and physicist Helen Czerski tackle major stories about our environment and wildlife, celebrate the wonder of nature and meet the people determined to keep it wonderful.
Environmental journalist Tom Heap and physicist Helen Czerski tackle major stories about our environment and wildlife, celebrate the wonder of nature and meet the people determined to keep it wonderful.
A celebration of the wildlife that works while we sleep. Tom Heap and Helen Czerski explore the world of animals that provoke fear and wonder in equal measure.
Producer: Emma Campbell
Rare Earth is produced in collaboration with the Open University
Can the insurance industry save the planet? With the nod from insurance companies a must for everything from coal mines to new homes, is the industry ready and willing to wield its power?
When huge swathes of Los Angeles were destroyed by wildfire in 2025 the spotlight shone on the insurance industry. Would insurers pay out billions of dollars to rebuild in exactly the same way, in exactly the same place, in a region in which the risk of wildfire is only going to increase?
Tom Heap and Helen Czerski take a deep dive into the role of the insurance industry in the climate crisis. Why can new homes in floodplains be insured? Are the rest of us subsidising risky behaviour with our own premiums? And are those in the industry trying to take revolutionary steps to prevent further climate damage?
Contributors include: - Dr Lisa Dale, Senior Lecturer at Columbia University’s Climate School - Dr Franziska Arnold-Dwyer, Associate Professor of Law at UCL and author of 'Insurance, Climate Change and the Law’ - Lee Harris, insurance correspondent at the Financial Times - Lindsay Keenan, environmental campaigner
Producer: Beth Sagar-Fenton
Rare Earth is produced in collaboration with the Open University
80 years since the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Tom Heap and Helen Czerski ask how our relationship with nuclear power has evolved.
At 8.15 on the morning of the 6th of August 1945 a new era began for this planet. For the first time humankind had the power not just to exploit or damage nature, but to destroy it utterly.
Tom and Helen are joined by Mark Lynas, author of Six Minutes to Winter: Nuclear War and How to Avoid It and by Professor Timothy Mousseau of the University of South Carolina, a biologist who has studied the environmental impact of the nuclear disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima. Also in the studio is Dr Fiona Rayment, President of the Nuclear Institute.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
Assistant Producer: Toby Field
Special thanks to Archie McWatt of the University of the West of England
Rare Earth is produced in association with the Open University
A ban on commercial hunting for whales came into force 40 years ago. Tom Heap and Helen Czerski look back on the whaling industry with one of the last of Shetland's whalers and ask if our largest mammals have bounced back from the extinction that so many species were close to reaching.
They're joined by Jayne Pierce of the South Georgia Heritage Trust, the marine biologist and author of Eat, Poop, Die, Joe Roman and by linguist Inbal Arnon. Joe talks about his latest study for Whale and Dolphin Conservation which reveals the importance of whales in moving nutrients around the ocean while Inbal talks about her work comparing how whales and human babies learn to communicate. Jayne discusses this weekend's festival in Dundee which commemorates Scotland's role in the whaling industry and marks the launch of the Whaler's Memory Bank, a project to capture the voices of the last of the men who spent the British winter in the Antarctic capturing and processing the whales that found their way into our margarines and military hardware until the 1960s.
Special thanks to Gibbie Fraser, Helen Balfour and baby Idris.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
Rare Earth is produced in association with the Open University
The transition to an economy based on renewable energy and electric cars needs huge quantities of materials like copper and rare earth metals. Sourcing them can be a problem. Mining damages the surrounding landscape and many of the materials come from unstable regions with poor records on child labour and environmental regulation. Are there alternative materials or do we simply need to consume less? Tom Heap and Helen Czerski investigate.
Producer: Emma Campbell
Rare Earth is produced in collaboration with the Open University
Datacentres are big business, and vast numbers of them are being built around the world. In the UK, Amazon has announced plans to invest £8bn over the next five years building new datacentres, £3bn has been spent in the UK by Amazon’s cloud computing business since 2020 and Google is spending millions on a new centre in Hertfordshire.
All this data handling is necessary because we're storing more of it and making more complex AI internet searches. The energy cost of this shift is so huge that the big tech companies are commissioning their own nuclear power stations. Each data centre requires energy to run and vast quantities of water to cool it. Both have significant environmental costs, particularly in the hottest and driest regions. Google's greenhouse gas emissions have increased by nearly 50% in the past five years, largely due to the energy demands of Artificial Intelligence.
Tom Heap and Helen Czerski ask if we really need to handle all this data. Are there more efficient ways for us to store and search or should we be coming up with more efficient data centres which exploit renewable energy resources and cool themselves naturally with seawater or Arctic ice?
To answer these big questions for our internet future they're joined by Tom Jackson, Professor of Information and Knowledge Management at Loughborough University Business School, Aurora Gomez Delgado from the campaign group Tu Nube Seca Mi Río (Your Cloud is Drying My River) and Mark Bjornsgaard from the data centre company, Deep Green.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
Rare Earth is produced in association with the Open University
In 2008 the UK made an all-party legally-binding commitment to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Since then the consensus has broken down and analysts doubt that current government policy has any chance of reaching that goal. Tom Heap, Helen Czerski and an expert panel stress-test net zero. Is it still achievable? Is it even politically possible in a world of trade wars, Trump's anti-environment agenda and the rise of Reform?
Producer: Emma Campbell
Rare Earth is produced in association with the Open University
Insects are the quiet engineers of the environment - pollinating our plants, balancing our ecosystems and clearing up our waste. Some insects can digest plastic, and they play a vital role in crop production. At the same time their populations are under threat from pesticides, habitat loss and climate change. In this programme, Helen Czerski and Tom Heap explore the largely ignored world of insects. Could they be the answer to some of the environmental problems we have created? Would eating them help lower our carbon footprint, and will the western world ever overcome its squeamishness to the idea? Helen and Tom explore the weird and wonderful world of insects with a panel of experts.
Producer: Emma Campbell
Assistant Producer: Toby Field
Rare Earth is produced in association with the Open University
From ancient Rome onwards our civilisation has been built on concrete. It's incredibly useful but emits huge quantities of carbon dioxide in its production. What are the alternatives? Tom Heap and Helen Czerski explore the issues with a panel of experts: Professor Colin Hills from Greenwich University, Smith Mordak Chief Executive of UK Green Building Council, and structural engineer Roma Agrawal, who worked on the construction of London's tallest building, the Shard.
Producer: Emma Campbell
Assistant Producer: Toby Field
Researcher: Harrison Jones
Rare Earth is produced in association with the Open University
The islands of the Pacific Ocean are on the frontline of climate change. Sea level rise will eventually erase some from the map and make many more uninhabitable. Tom Heap and Helen Czerski hear from the people of the region and explore its stunning wildlife both above and below the waves.
With them in the studio are Professor Tammy Horton from the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton and BBC One Show naturalist, Mike Dilger. Tammy studies- and names- some of the thousands of creatures recently discovered living at depths of 4-6km in the Pacific's Clarion Clipperton Zone, while Mike has just returned from the bird-watching trip of a lifetime, spotting the extraordinary Birds of Paradise of Papua New Guinea.
Samoan climate journalist Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson joins in the conversation to consider how Pacific islanders respond to the prevailing narratives around climate change. She says that the islanders have no wish to be presented as victims and are well placed to stand up for their rights in international climate negotiations and to actively lead efforts to maintain their rich cultures, despite the rising tides.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
Assistant Producer: Toby Field
Researcher: Harrison Jones
Rare Earth is produced in association with the Open University
The shipping industry is an enormous source of pollution. Ships burn dirty fuel oil that helps contribute to the industry's global carbon emissions and even in port they continue to belch out noxious fumes that pollute the air of many of our major port cities. Tom Heap and Helen Czerski search for the solutions, from a return to sailing ships to new fuels - and even the possibility of ships being more like penguins - with a panel including:
Paddy Rodgers, Director (Chief Executive) of Royal Museums Greenwich and former CEO of Euronav
Tristan Smith, Professor of Energy and Transport, Bartlett School of Environment, Energy & Resources (UCL)
Aoife O’Leary, CEO of Opportunity Green
Producer: Beth Sagar-Fenton
Assistant Producers: Toby Field and Harrison Jones
Rare Earth is produced in association with the Open University
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 delving into the black market in refrigerants and meeting the South American 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
