The Compass

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The green city: San Francisco, USA Apr 03, 2019

Show notes

San Francisco’s mandatory recycling scheme and sustainable public transport come under the spotlight. The panel also consider the town of Kamikatsu in Japan, which aims to be 100% zero-waste by 2020. Are they models other cities should follow?

Presenter Fi Glover returns with two new panellists to analyse and critique the best policies from global cities: Dr Ellie Cosgrave, director of UCL City Leadership Laboratory; and urbanist professor Greg Clark. The team scour the world looking for the most inspirational cities, from those tackling environmental issues and urban violence, to encouraging political participation and transforming slums.

(Photo: David Wicks (R) and Glendon Johnson (L) with the San Francisco Water Power and Sewer's SFGreasecycle, a program that collects used cooking oil from San Francisco restaurants to be recycled into biofuels. Credit: Getty Images)

The History of Wastefulness: The Tipping Point Jan 23, 2019

Show notes

After exploring our wasteful past and the reality of today’s trash challenge, Australian journalist Alexandra Spring asks if we are on the tipping point of a rubbish free future.

Alexandra joins blogger Kathryn Kellogg to find out more about San Francisco’s growing zero waste ambitions. Encased in one single mason jar, Kathryn describes the tiny amount of waste she created over two years and how living without a trace has changed her life.

Then, Alexandra meets the inventor Veena Sahajwalla, who shares her belief that we should consider our rubbish to be a resource for the future. As Alex discovers, this attitude and Veena’s engineering skills have stopped millions of tyres from ending up in rubbish dumps, and could lead to cities around the world being built from recycled materials. Producer: Chelsea Dickenson and Ben Cartwright.

(Photo: A jar full of all the garbage blogger Kathryn Kellogg threw away in two years. Credit: Audio Always)

The History of Wastefulness: Rubbish Through the Ages Jan 16, 2019

Show notes

Alexandra Spring continues her exploration of how our relationship with rubbish has evolved through time at the foot of Monte Testaccio in Rome - a hill built of 53 million discarded olive oil amphorae, which were thrown away nearly 2000 years ago. She meets the architect Tom Rankin, who shares how this ‘dump’ is indicative of the Roman spirit to waste.

Moving through the decades, the historian Agnes Sandras takes Alexandra back to France in 1883, when Parisian Prefect Eugene Poubelle sparked public outcry by forcing citizens to buy a box in which they would place their waste. They discuss how this early form of a modern day ‘bin’, or ‘poubelle’ in French, shaped how people viewed litter.

Then, sharing her view on how our attitudes to waste have changed throughout the last century, professor of history Eiko Maruko Siniawer explains to Alexandra how a shift in ideology to embrace modern luxuries saw waste spiralling out of control at the end of the World War Two. Producers: Chelsea Dickenson and Ben Cartwright.

(Photo: A woman holds pieces of ancient amphorae at Monte di Coccio alias Monte Testaccio ( Mountain of Crock), in Rome. Credit: Getty Images)

Making a Difference Jan 09, 2019

Show notes

For three series, My Perfect Country has sought to build the perfect country. Inspired by positive thinking, it takes policies from around the world that actually work and have solved global problems. We ask why they work, and whether they could work anywhere. Out of this comes a forensic analysis of what good global policy should look like.

In this one-off special, the My Perfect Country team travel to the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where they join a group of bright, curious, switched-on students who use the past three series of My Perfect Country in their learning of global policy. Elizabeth Schmidt, professor of practice at the School of Public Policy, uses the My Perfect Country series to inspire and educate her students. The course explores strategies for designing and measuring successful policies, as well as strategies for convincing others that proven policies are worth pursuing.

Across three days, Fi Glover meets all 19 students and hears the direct impact that the My Perfect Country series has had. Fi picks three stand-out issues from the past three series that have particular resonance in the USA today: Japan’s eradication of gun control policies; Norway’s prisoner rehabilitation scheme; and Uganda’s incredible access to justice programme under Barefoot Law. Fi asks the students to question why these policies work, and whether they could also be successful in the USA. She also brings in delegates of each policy to answer the students' questions: crime writer of over 20 years Jake Adelstein, and Barefoot Law’s founding director Gerald Abila.

Producer: Anishka Sharma

The History of Wastefulness: Today’s Trash Challenge Jan 09, 2019

Show notes

Alexandra Spring explores how our relationship with rubbish has evolved over time, beginning on a boat, sailing across the Pacific, with Ocean Conservancy’s Chief Scientist George Leonard. Together, they discuss how trillions of micro plastic particles have created a sea-sized portion of plastic soup, and how poor waste management across the world has led to a garbage emergency.

The conversation continues with author Gay Hawkins, who believes an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ attitude is shaping our psychological relationship with trash.

Then, Alexandra speaks to the photojournalist Kadir van Lohuizen, who has witnessed our human wasteful ways at six major dumps around the world. He shares how litter is not only destroying, but saving some local communities.

Producers: Chelsea Dickenson and Ben Cartwright

The Sun, Our Star: Health and beauty Jan 02, 2019

Show notes

The Sun’s light defines what we mean by day and night, how we tell time and how we apportion our time, both consciously and unconsciously. The turning of the Earth that wheels us in and out of the Sun every 24 hours seeps into every aspect of our biology. In the final programme, Dava Sobel recalls the 25 days she spent as a human subject in a study of circadian rhythm. The lab was housed at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx, NY, but it could have been anywhere, sealed and self-contained as it was. We’ll hear what happens when you are light deprived.

To know the Sun is an age-old dream of humankind. For centuries, astronomers contented themselves with analysing small sips of sunlight collected through specialised instruments. They chased after eclipses that exposed otherwise hidden layers of the Sun’s substance, and they launched Earth and Sun-orbiting observatories to monitor our star from space. Today, several satellites ‘watch’ our star from outer space. In August 2018, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, set off on a mission to go so far as to ‘touch the sun’ for the first time. Our view of the sun from here is relatively murky, but it’s a trade-off we Earthlings have to accept: the protective bubble of the Earth’s magnetic sphere and atmosphere provides air to breathe and a shield against harmful radiation, but it distorts our view of the heavens. Nevertheless, astronomers have managed to piece together an understanding of the stars, and especially the Sun itself: how it’s constructed, how it behaves, how it came to be, forming from a vast cloud of cold hydrogen gas and the dust of older stars in a sparsely populated region of the Milky Way.

In five programmes, author Dava Sobel orbits the sun, getting as close as she dares, to understand the immense relationship we have with our nearest star.

Music composed by Chris O'Shaughnessy. Producer: Kate Bland A Cast Iron Radio production for the BBC World Service.

Audio for this programme was updated on 29 September 2020.

Image: Tacita Dean, Eclipse (still from Antigone, 2017)

The Sun, Our Star: Space weather Dec 26, 2018

Show notes

At any moment, the predictions of your local weather forecaster might be suddenly superseded by space weather, a special breed of storms fomented on the Sun and launched toward Earth with potentially devastating consequences.

Most of the time, the solar wind billowing out from the Sun blows right past our planet without causing any ill effects whatsoever, but today, with our navigation and communications technology dependent on satellite based systems, a downdraft of space weather could disrupt entire countries.

Dava Sobel turns to Aditya L1, a new satellite under construction in India, to learn how many countries are developing their own eyes to watch the sun from space.

In five programmes, author Dava Sobel orbits the sun, getting as close as she dares, to understand the immense relationship we have with our nearest star.

Music composed by Chris O'Shaughnessy. Producer: Jeremy Mortimer and Dakshiani Palicha

Audio for this programme was updated on 21 September 2020.

(Photo: An M9-class solar flare erupting on the Sun's northeastern hemisphere. Credit: Nasa/Solar Dynamics Observatory via AFP/Getty Images)

The Sun, Our Star: Ancient sun Dec 19, 2018

Show notes

Inspired by the Chariot of the Sun, a beautiful artefact of sun worship, Dava Sobel island hops in Denmark to explore the cult of the Sun, before science, during the Nordic Bronze Age. Ancient people would not have needed an eclipse to make them see the Sun as an all-powerful force. The Sun’s life-giving light and heat inspired rituals and relics dating back to the earliest humans.

Music composed by Chris O'Shaughnessy. Producer: Kate Bland and Kate Rea

Audio for this programme was updated on 9 September 2020.

(Photo: Chariot of the Sun. Credit: National Museum of Denmark)

The Sun, Our Star: Energy Dec 12, 2018

Show notes

The Sun, our star, produces its prodigious energy by a process of nuclear fusion at its core. We are unable to mimic that trick here on Earth: our nuclear reactors work by splitting atoms, not fusing them, and generate a lot of toxic waste. With a free standing solar mini grid in Kenya and the problems of the old grid system in California, Dava Sobel explores the progress being made in tapping the Sun for its inexhaustible supply of free, clean energy. Music composed by Chris O'Shaughnessy. Co-produced with Tom Roseingrave.

Audio for this programme was updated on 8th September 2020.

(Photo: Solar panels on the Kitonyoni grid are cleaned. Credit: BBC)

The Sun, Our Star Dec 05, 2018

Show notes

The Sun, our star, the source and sustainer of all life on Earth, is also a death star in the making. To know the Sun is an age-old dream of humankind. For centuries, astronomers contented themselves with analysing small sips of sunlight collected through specialised instruments. They chased after eclipses that exposed otherwise hidden layers of the Sun’s substance, and they launched Earth and Sun-orbiting observatories to monitor our star from space. Today, several satellites ‘watch’ our star from outer space. In August 2018, Nasa’s Parker Solar Probe set off on a mission to go so far as to ‘touch the sun’ for the first time. Our view of the sun from here is relatively murky. Nevertheless, astronomers have managed to piece together an understanding of the stars, and especially the Sun itself - how it’s constructed, how it behaves, how it came to be, forming from a vast cloud of cold hydrogen gas and the dust of older stars in a sparsely populated region of the Milky Way.

Dava Sobel orbits the Sun, getting as close as she dares, to understand the immense relationship we have with our nearest star. She begins by piecing together what we know of the Sun, visiting the world’s most powerful solar observatory, Big Bear in California.

Music composed by Chris O'Shaughnessy A Cast Iron Radio production for the BBC World Service

Audio for this programme was updated on 1st September 2020.

Image: Artist's impression of the Parker Solar Probe approaching the Sun (Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben via European Photopress Agency)

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