Allan Little looks at the growing tourism industry above the Arctic circle which is raising complex social, economic and environmental consequences for remote communities. On the one hand, there are sustainable, indigenous-operated businesses that benefit from increasing numbers of visitors in search of authentic reindeer experiences and the Northern Lights, but other regions are experiencing the problem of mass tourism. On the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, we see how the Covid-19 pandemic ...
Feb 17, 2021•27 min
Global warming is happening twice as fast in the Arctic. As the ice melts, it poses an existential threat to local communities and indigneous culture, whilst opening up possibilities of economic opportunities. What is the future of mining, of green energy, of tourism in a world that climate change is making accessible for the first time in millennia? And where does power lie? Who will control the rapidly changing icy far north as it thaws? The US Geological Survey estimated the Arctic may be hom...
Feb 10, 2021•27 min
Allan Little investigates how the climate crisis is impacting different communities above the Arctic circle, from infrastructure damage to loss of life, eroding land and endangering thousand-year-old cultures and traditional knowledge. They are our eyes and ears on the speed with which our planet is changing. We look at Nenets reindeer herding on the Siberian tundra, infrastructure damage in Longyearbyen (the world’s most northern town on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard), and a pioneering ...
Feb 02, 2021•28 min
Barcelona has always put strong communities as a key aim of its urban planning. What has it got right, and should other cities follow suit? In the 19th century, Barcelona instigated the City Market system. Every neighbourhood had its own food market, where locals met and mingled, but some fell into disrepair, and new areas didn’t have them. A renewed interest in the past 20 years has seen new ones built and old ones invested in. In another major push, pilot schemes to reclaim public space by per...
Jan 27, 2021•27 min
The cosmopolitan port city of Kochi is the commercial capital of the southern state of Kerala, which has a special track record when it comes to gender equality. Female literacy and life expectancy rates are among the highest in India, and greater access to economic opportunities has made Kochi a hub for women-led businesses, which not only boosts the economy but has lasting development benefits for society as a whole. The newly elected Mayor of Kochi, M Anil Kumar, is keen to make female entrep...
Jan 20, 2021•28 min
Rotterdam is lauded for its policies on integrating immigrant populations into the city. What exactly has it got right? The second biggest city in The Netherlands is like many port cities. Over the decades it has been a magnet for immigrant workers, whose descendants now number more than 50 percent of the population and tend to live in certain neighbourhoods. Racial tensions brought the problem of integration to the top of the political agenda. Today, holistic approaches tackle education and emp...
Jan 13, 2021•27 min
In Vienna housing is considered a basic human right. Is it a model other cities should follow? In the Austrian capital, 60% of citizens live in subsidised social housing. Rent is affordable and developments are built to a high design and environmental specification. Many include swimming pools, schools, medical and sports facilities, while people from all walks of life live side by side, encouraging social cohesion. Fi Glover and panellists Greg Clark, urbanist and global city adviser, and urban...
Jan 06, 2021•27 min
People who live in cities are more likely to experience mental health problems than their rural counterparts. Has Singapore found a solution to improving its citizens’ wellbeing that other cities should follow? Greening urban areas, creating therapeutic gardens and high amenity public spaces, encouraging physical exercise as well as housing security and social services aim to reduce rates of common disorders such as OCD, anxiety and depression. Fi Glover and panellists Dr Ellie Cosgrave, directo...
Dec 30, 2020•28 min
Fi Glover returns with panellists Dr Ellie Cosgrave, director of the UCL Urban Laboratory, and global city adviser Greg Clark to test the credentials of the most pioneering city initiatives around the world. Who is leading the way when it comes to solving humanity’s most pressing problems? With unemployment rising around the world in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the team assesses Toronto’s long-term strategy to boost employment. Following the decline of the manufacturing sector in Canada, ...
Dec 23, 2020•28 min
What chance do communities have of getting looted artefacts back, and what lessons do the world's museums need to learn? Stijn Schoonderwoerd and Wayne Modest describe how the Netherlands are trying to decolonise their museums. Maori elders Sir Hirini Moko Mead and judge Layne Harvey led a successful campaign for the return of a sacred tribal meeting house, stolen over a hundred years before - what can others learn from their experience?
Dec 16, 2020•27 min
Calls for the return of objects, looted from around the world are growing ever louder. Actor and musician Kema Sikazwe travels to London to see the Broken Hill Skull at the Natural History Museum. At the launch of the Return of the Icons campaign, V&A director Tristram Hunt explains how he is responding to Ethiopia’s formal restitution claim. Children’s author, Kandace Chimbiri describes how her writing fills gaping historical hole and French art historian Didier Rykner is convinced that Pre...
Dec 09, 2020•28 min
Actor and musician Kema Sikazwe is no historical expert. A young Zambian who now lives in northern England, he hasn’t even set foot inside a museum since he was ten years old. All that changes when Kema learns about the movement to return stolen objects back to where they came from. Should these priceless parts of history be returned? And if so, what’s at stake? Kema measures the scale of the problem on a visit to Newcastle’s Great North Museum. Curator JC Niala shares her experience of seeing a...
Dec 02, 2020•27 min
Because of its war history, Germany remains frightened of being assertive on its own. Yet it holds the key to enabling Europe to become the third global pole to China and America. This programme looks at Germany’s current place in the world: the facts, the psychology and the consequences. John Kampfner visits Duisburg in the gritty Ruhr area with its ambition to become “China City”. He goes to the former East, where businesses are desperate for closer ties with their former ally, Russia. He disc...
Nov 25, 2020•27 min
As governments around the world rethink their economies and societies after Covid, addressing the environment, towns and cities and the way we live, is it possible that Germany is closer to finding the answers? In this programme, John Kampfner looks at where they’re getting it right, and where they are going wrong. The contradictions are many. Why is a country with one of the most powerful and longest-established green parties struggling to meet its climate emissions targets? Given their strengt...
Nov 18, 2020•28 min
A year ago, many Germans were dismissing Angela Merkel as beyond her sell-by date. Her motto, "langsam aber sicher" (slow but sure), was seen as outdated. Covid has transformed that. It is not that she has particularly changed, it is just that the world has come to respect traits that had previously been derided. Germany has now dealt with three crises with extraordinary agility – from unification 30 years ago, to the influx of a million refugees in 2015 and now the pandemic. John Kampfner looks...
Nov 11, 2020•28 min
Will Robson investigates the impact climate change is having on human security in Central and Northern America. He examines how global warming is leading to mass migration across the region, and how a spike in freak weather events is undermining basic social infrastructures. He also hears why the avocado has become a “conflict commodity” in Mexico, and how climate change threatens the resilience of the USA’s power grid and its nuclear weapons arsenal.
Nov 04, 2020•28 min
The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report identified the Sahel as a ‘climate change hot spot’, a region where human security is particularly threatened by the effects of global warming. Will Robson explores the area’s war-torn history and investigates how climate change is acting as the catalyst to migration, violent disputes over water and the growth of brutal armed extremists. He hears from those caught in the middle of conflicts in Mali and the Lake Chad region and discovers...
Oct 28, 2020•29 min
Temperatures in the Arctic are rising at more than twice the global average, and as the ice pack melts, battle lines are being drawn between global superpowers eager to lay claim to newly uncovered mineral resources and trade routes. Will Robson examines the ratcheting up of tensions between Russia and the United States, as a growing number of military bases, missile tests and military exercises threaten the area’s stability. He also reveals how China has entered the fray – labelling itself as a...
Oct 21, 2020•28 min
India and Pakistan are on the front line of climate change and are two of the most water-stressed countries in the world. Drought has already caused violent clashes, deadly protests and a spate of farmer suicides. Now tensions between the two nations have been ratcheted up by an acrimonious dispute over a proposed dam on the River Indus. Will Robson looks at how these conflicts over mankind’s most precious resource threaten the stability of the whole region. He starts at the local and interprovi...
Oct 14, 2020•29 min
In a five-part series for the Compass, former Army Major Will Robson investigates how climate change is fuelling conflict across the globe, from guerrilla raids on farmer-herders in Africa to a chilling new Cold War in the Arctic. He’ll be speaking to both climate and conflict experts to unravel the complicated threads that connect climatic changes, violence, war and global insecurity. In the first episode, he focuses on what has often described as the first climate change war – the conflict in ...
Oct 07, 2020•28 min
Neurologist Dr Guy Leschziner explores the extraordinary sensory experiences of individuals with synaesthesia - a mash-up of senses where one sense automatically triggers another. Some synaesthetes hear colours, others feel sound. We meet James who perceives the world differently from most people, due to his brain’s unusual wiring. Whenever he hears a word he immediately gets a taste and texture in his mouth. As a child, he’d go by train to school with his mum, reading out loud the stations they...
Aug 26, 2020•27 min
Imagine spraying yourself with a flowery fragrance but all you can smell is rotting flesh? Our senses can be surprisingly strange, especially when they malfunction due to injury, disease or genetic abnormalities. In this episode, neurologist Dr Guy Leschziner, explores two senses, smell and taste - separate yet inextricably linked. We meet Joanne, whose sense of smell is so distorted after a heavy cold, even freshly-cut grass smells repulsive. We also hear from Walter who loves to cook and eat G...
Aug 19, 2020•28 min
From a whisper to the roar of thunder, every sound creates vibrations in our ears which the brain decodes, to tell us what we’re hearing. But as neurologist, Dr Guy Leschziner explains, when disruptions occur along the way, extraordinary things can happen, changing how we perceive the world. We meet Mark, who can’t hear his friends in a noisy pub but can hear the sound of every bodily function amplified in his head. Kelly gets spinning attacks that send her falling to the floor. The sensation la...
Aug 12, 2020•28 min
Vision is a complex process involving light rays, special nerve cells and electrical signals sent to the brain, which processes the information and tells us what we’re seeing. But even tiny disruptions to any part of this system can result in remarkable visual problems. Neurologist, Dr Guy Leschziner, meets 25-year-old filmmaker Oli, who’s only recently discovered something alarming: he’s missing half his vision in one eye - probably caused by a stroke he never knew he had. We hear from Dawn, wh...
Aug 05, 2020•28 min
Our skin contains millions of nerve endings and touch sensors that collect information about different sensations like temperature, pressure, vibration, pain and send it to the brain for processing and reaction. But it’s when our sensory system goes wrong that we learn most about how our senses help us understand the world around us. Neurologist Dr Guy Leschziner talks to Alison, whose delicious seafood dinner sends her nervous system haywire. Poisoned by fish contaminated with ciguatera toxin, ...
Jul 29, 2020•28 min
What will the world look like post-Covid? In an age of increasingly inward focus can a spirit of multilateralism prevail to meet the challenges posed by the reconstruction of national economies as well as the needs of poorer countries and the international organisations? And does the post-Coronavirus moment provide an opportunity to think differently about other global challenges, the foremost being climate change? Will we be able to “build back better”? Ian Goldin, Oxford University’s professor...
Jul 22, 2020•28 min
How should governments respond to the pandemic? The Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc both to health systems and economies. Above all it has served to expose inequalities both within nations and between them. Hardest hit are countries in the developing world, where government finances do not permit the level of support to citizens or the private sector that has been provided by richer governments. Ian Goldin, professor of globalisation and development at Oxford University, sees the crisis as m...
Jul 16, 2020•27 min
Why did coronavirus strike so fast and so hard? There was plenty of warning that a pandemic was inevitable, but when a new virus emerged in a wet market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the world proved powerless to prevent it spreading. The finger has been pointed in various directions: a failure by the Chinese authorities to communicate, a sluggish response from the World Health Organisation, an ignorance of history, and what Ian Goldin, professor of globalisation and development at Oxford Univer...
Jul 08, 2020•28 min
The Hubble space telescope has transformed our view of the universe and put our lives on Earth into a truly cosmic perspective. As we celebrate thirty years of Hubble’s achievements, we look to the future of the space telescope and the potential of its ambitious successor. Hubble has produced a multitude of scientific discoveries, but it has also influenced our culture, art and music. It’s easy to forget that following its April 1990 launch, the space telescope was derided as NASA’s greatest fai...
Apr 22, 2020•29 min
Tech companies now find themselves in the firing line of free speech debate. To what extent can they duck the issue given their global coverage? Is it up to them to police what people say from the dangerous privacy of their own keyboards? And with truth and fake news being trumpeted by the highest powers in many lands can they be held responsible for drawing the lines in debates about what should or shouldn’t be said, posted or tweeted? And at the heart of the series is a desire to test the abso...
Apr 15, 2020•27 min
