The state of the world’s environment is one of the most important stories of the new century. Debates over the impact of climate change reverberate throughout the globe. So do disputes about what actions might be necessary, both to preserve the environment and to develop sources of energy for a growing global community.
The World’s environment coverage, led by environment editor Peter Thomson, examines the health of the planet and explores the impacts of human activity on everything from the earth’s ecosystems to the food we put on our plates.
Environment
Bushmen of the Kalahari
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The Geo Quiz takes us to southern Africa this time. Bushmen there are celebrating a court victory. They’ve been fighting a long legal battle with the government of Botswana over access to water. Can you name the region in Botswana where the Bushmen live? Download MP3Plastic cups spoil India’s tea time
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The BBC’s Judy Swallow reports from Kolkata, India, where tea is served by street vendors in disposable clay cups. It turns out those cups are more environmentally friendly than the plastic ones you get from vendors elsewhere in India. Download MP3
Music of the Achuar people
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The Achuar live in a piece of the Amazon rainforest in South America. Their ancestral territory of roughly 2 million acres is just south of the equator. It straddles the two countries we’d like you to name. Reporter Andy Isaacson recently traveled to a remote Achuar village to find out more about their way of life. He shares his reflections and sound recordings of the Achuar. Download MP3Science Forum: Seth Mnookin’s ‘The Panic Virus’
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Anchor Marco Werman speaks with writer Seth Mnookin about his new book, ‘The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science and Fear.’ Mnookin explores why an anti-vaccination campaign has been so powerful, even though it was based on fraudulent science. Download MP3Mnookin will also take audience questions in our latest online Science Forum discussion.
Join the discussion here
Spying on polar bears
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Marco Werman talks with John Downer, director of the new documentary ‘Polar Bear: Spy on the Ice’. Downer used high-tech spy cameras to capture polar bears as never seen before. (Photo: John Downer Productions) Download MP3Video: Polar bears try to figure out the cameras
Atlas of Oceans
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The world’s newest ocean figures in today’s Geo Quiz: There are no fewer than 5 major oceans and many more than seven seas but we won’t ask you to name them all. The ocean we’re looking for covers the planet. That is, below 60 degrees southern latitude. So can you name this icy ocean that’s on average 13-16 thousand feet deep? Download MP3Wild boar population soars in Europe
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Boar populations are skyrocketing nearly everywhere in Europe. The problem is especially bad in France, where the government estimates there are now more than a million of the beasts, and some are roaming towns and cities. The World’s Gerry Hadden reports from the Alsace region of Eastern France.Download MP3
Video: Hunting for wild boar
Trash hotel
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
For the Geo Quiz we’re looking for a very cool hotel that stands out from the crowd. This European hotel is located near a city square called the Plaza de Callao. It’s got a view of the main thoroughfare called the Gran Via. So we want you to name the city that’s home to the Save the Beach Hotel. Download MP3US-China energy talks
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
A little more than a year ago, the US and China agreed to work on an array of joint research projects for clean energy. Today, that good will and mutual cooperation seems to have fizzled. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Derek Scissors, China specialist at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, about US-China energy cooperation.Download MP3
Slideshow: China’s solar solution
BBC slideshow: Chinese state visits to US
Antarctic lake
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
For today’s Geo Quiz, we’re looking for a very big and very cold lake.
This lake is roughly the size of New Jersey and it lies 2 miles below the ice sheet that covers east Antarctica. And scientists are trying to reach it by drilling down through ice. Download MP3Rains devastate parts of Brazil
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Heavy rains have brought misery and destruction to parts of Brazil. More than 500 people drowned or were buried by mudslides in a mountainous region just north of Rio de Janeiro. Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with the BBC’s Paulo Cabral, in Teresopolis, one of the hardest hit towns. Download MP3
Cane rats as delicacy
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
In parts of Africa, giant rats — called cane rats — are considered a delicacy. The animals are usually hunted in the forest, but in Cameroon the government is promoting cane rat husbandry to provide income to small farmers and to reduce hunting pressure on wildlife. Correspondent Jori Lewis has the story from Yaounde. Download MP3
Interested in trying Cane Rat? Recipes here.
Flooding in Brisbane
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Large parts of the Australian city of Brisbane are now completely deserted with thousands of people fleeing the rising waters. In low-lying suburbs only rooftops remain visible. Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with reporter Peter Collins of National Nine News in Brisbane. Download MP3
Global food prices at ‘record high’
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Global food prices rose to a new high in December, according to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation. Its food price index went above the previous record of 2008 that saw prices spark riots in several countries. We hear from three countries what that means for people on the ground. Download MP3
Impact of rising food costs
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Lisa Mullins talks to Paul Roberts, author of “The End of Food,” to find out what impact rising prices of wheat, sugar and corn may have. Download MP3
Additional funding for PRI's The World is provided by:
