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Where has all the good soil gone? Jan 15, 2020

Show notes

Soil degradation is reducing crop yields and adding to climate change. It's a big headache not just for farmers, but for all of us.

But fear not, as Ed Butler heads to a wheat field in eastern England where farmer Simon Cowell thinks he has a simple, counter-intuitive solution to the problem: Cut back on fertilisers and pesticides, and plough less. He claims it restored his land in two years.

But if it's this simple, why isn't everyone doing it? And what happens if we don't do anything? How quickly will we run out of usable soil, and how much carbon will our soils emit into the atmosphere?

The programme also features interviews with Ronald Vargas of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization; professor of soil conservation Jane Rickson of Cranfield University; and geologist David Montgomery of the University of Washington.

Producer: Josh Thorpe

(Picture: Close-up young plant growing in the soil; Credit: Mintr/Getty Images)

The power-hungry internet Jan 14, 2020

Show notes

Why our growing use of technology is a threat to the planet. Ed Butler speaks to Ian Bitterlin, a visiting professor at the University of Leeds in the UK and an expert in the data centres that underpin the internet and use vast amounts of energy. Ruiqi Ye, a climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace in Beijing, explains why data centres are adding to the climate change problem. Halvor Bjerke from Norway's DigiPlex, the Nordic region’s leading data centre supplier, tells us why putting more data centres in colder parts of the world could be part of the solution.

Producer: Josh Thorpe

(Photo: Servers in a data centre in the UK, Credit: Getty Images)

The next big thing Jan 13, 2020

Show notes

How easy is it to predict where tech will take us in the next decade, and have we hit a plateau in the pace of innovation?

Manuela Saragosa speaks to author and artist Douglas Coupland, who retells how a mind-bending run-in with a Google research team left him convinced that the next huge development hurtling towards us like a meteor is what he calls "talking with yourself".

Science fiction predictions of the future are notoriously wayward - where are the hoverboards and ubiquitous fax machines promised by the Back to the Future films? Nonetheless, forecasting tech developments can be 85% accurate over a 10-year time horizon, according to professional futurologist Dr I D Pearson.

But while tech may continue to take us to new and strange places in the long term, has Silicon Valley run out of earth-shattering new products, at least in the short term? The BBC's Zoe Kleinman reports from a rather subdued CES 2020 tech conference in Las Vegas.

Producer: Laurence Knight

(Picture: Cracked egg containing computer circuitry; Credit: sqback/Getty Images)

Brand Meghan and Harry Jan 10, 2020

Show notes

Royal brands and the value of the monarchy. Manuela Saragosa speaks to the BBC's royal correspondent Jonny Dymond about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's decision to move away from the royal family. David Haigh from the consultancy Brand Finance outlines the value of the British monarchy to the economy and discusses what Harry and Meghan might do next. Mauro Guillen, professor of international management at the Wharton School in the US, discusses the economic impacts of monarchies around the world.

(Photo: The British royal familyon the balcony of Buckingham Palace, Credit: Getty Images)

OK Boomer... Jan 09, 2020

Show notes

Are millennials being given a financial raw deal by their parents' generation? And who do the Baby Boomers expect to pay for their retirement?

Manuela Saragosa looks at the intergenerational contract - the promise that the younger generation will see an improvement in their living standards, in return for which they will care for the older generation in their old age. But is the contract broken?

Many of those born in the developed world in the 1980s and 1990s face inflated housing costs and student fees, stagnant wages and insecure jobs, and little prospect of saving for their retirement. Manuela speaks to one such Millennial - BBC colleague Faarea Masud, whose own podcast series About The Money! charts the precarious financial state of her generation.

Plus Laura Gardiner of think tank The Resolution Foundation explains how the different generations need to work together to manage the demographic challenge of an ageing population, rather than get mired in the "OK Boomer" culture war that has broken out on social media.

Producers: Laurence Knight, Sarah Treanor

(Picture: Close-up of irritated Millennial man with Boomer father looking on; Credit: SDI Productions/Getty Images)

North Korea: Suffering under sanctions? Jan 08, 2020

Show notes

How does North Korea raise foreign currency, and are the toughest economic sanctions in the world actually having any effect?

Ed Butler looks at one of the country's major sources of income - migrant workers. According to Artyom Lukin, professor of international relations at Russia's Far Eastern Federal University, the workers who used to frequent his hometown of Vladivostok have been shooed away by the Russian authorities.

But analyst Lee Sang Hyun of South Korea's Sejong Institute is sceptical that the Chinese are clamping down heavily on Pyongyang, while Ian Bremmer of US think tank the Eurasia Group says the American government has little to show for the pressure it has been applying.

(Picture: North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un; Credit: Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images)

Uber and Lyft vs California Jan 07, 2020

Show notes

A battle is looming over the future of the gig economy. A law classifying Uber and Lyft drivers as employees came into force in California on 1 January, but the ridesharing giants say their drivers are independent contractors, and proposed their own laws. Ed Butler speaks to Edan Alva, a Lyft driver in San Francisco and a member of the advocacy group Gig Workers Rising, and to Stacey Wells, spokesperson for the Coalition to Protect App-Based Drivers & Services – the group sponsored by Uber and Lyft to push alternative legislation in California. And Ken Jacobs, chair of the UC Berkeley Labor Center, tells us what this means for the broader gig economy.

(Photo: Lyft and Uber pickup point in Los Angeles, California. Credit: Getty Images)

The US and China in 2020 Jan 06, 2020

Show notes

How the battle of the superpowers might unfold this year. Ed Butler speaks to Ian Bremmer, president and founder of the Eurasia Group, Linda Yueh, economist and author of The Great Economists, and Ngaire Woods, professor of global economic governance at the University of Oxford, and founding chair of the Blavatnik School of Government.

(Photo: Chess pieces representing the US and China. Credit: Getty Images)

LA's housing crisis Jan 03, 2020

Show notes

Regan Morris looks at the housing crisis in LA where around 60,000 rough sleepers bed down each night. In a city of sky high rents and scarce availability, are dormitories the answer for young professionals struggling to rent or buy a place of their own? We take a tour of the city's 'pod' accommodation which houses multiple men and women in one room for $50 a night. We also look at zoning - a controversial policy which designates specific areas on the sidewalk for rough sleepers and would cut down the space available to bed down. And will tough restrictions on Airbnb help ease the pressure on housing?

Picture description: A man closes his tent after a night on the streets of Los Angeles, California Picture by Frederic.J.Brown for AFP via Getty Images

The workplace re-imagined Jan 02, 2020

Show notes

As a new decade dawns, Elizabeth Hotson asks if workplace design needs to be rethought to make work a more positive experience. We visit London-based customer finding company, MVF, which allows employees to bring their dogs into the office. The canine theme is continued at Sanity Marketing, where a Chihuahua called Lola calls the shots in the morning meeting. We try out the giant slide in the office of cloud computing company, Rackspace and visit The Wing which provides a work space for a mostly female membership base. We crowd into the sauna at global money transfer company Transferwise and Joshua Zerkel from technology firm, Asana in California extols the virtues of one meeting-free day a week. Meanwhile, Tom Carroll from property consultancy JLL, tells us what employees really want from workplaces. Producer: Elizabeth Hotson

Photo Description: Some offices have a dog-friendly office policy Photo by Elizabeth Hotson

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