People Fixing the World

To prevent the worst effects of climate change, we need to massively cut how much carbon we pump into the atmosphere. But those carbon cuts might not happen in time, so another approach may be needed.Around the world, scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs are working on ways to give us more time to change our way of life. They’re developing technologies and techniques that effectively do climate change in reverse. Instead of pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, they suck it in and store it. These projects range from using rock dust for “enhanced weathering” to trap carbon in farmers’ fields, to the power station attempting to capture it on its way up the chimney.We go on a tour of these projects to see if they offer hope for the future.Producer and reporter: Tom CollsPhoto Caption: Carbon dioxide illustration / Photo Credit: Getty Images

People diagnosed with bipolar disorder are commonly treated with a variety of drugs. They aren’t always effective and can come with a range of side effects.For several decades, an Italian psychiatrist has been pioneering a different approach. By asking his patients to stay awake for 36 hours three times over the course of a week – and combining the counterintuitive idea with bright light therapy and lithium – he has found that some of them demonstrate a remarkable improvement in mood, which can last indefinitely.The therapy has caught the attention of researchers across the world, and new trials are being carried out, but the idea is not without its critics.Sam Judah spends a week with a cohort of patients as they undergo sleep deprivation treatment at the San Raffaele hospital in Milan, and tries to find out if it is effective.Producer: Sam Judah(Photo caption: Francesco Benedetti / Photo credit: BBC)

We hear what you, our listeners, are doing to tackle the problem of plastic waste. The idea came about when you started getting in touch after a previous episode asking why we don’t reuse and refill the plastic containers we’ve already got. (The Reuse and Refill Revolution: Tuesday 23 April.) Since then you’ve sent lots of alternative ideas and suggestions. Nick Holland and Kat Hawkins hear from shoppers cutting down on packaging by buying in bulk, people organising litter-picking trips to clean up plastic from the desert and an idea to create giant floating plastic pontoons as platforms for new housing. There are some surprising tips too, like from the woman who reuses empty pet food sachets to store her pre-cooked meals in the freezer and the man who melts down his own plastic waste and turns it into fence posts.Presenters Kat Hawkins / Nick Holland Producer Nick Holland (Photo credit: Getty Images)

It’s not a good time to be a meat eater. Pressure is growing to tackle climate change – and the livestock sector produces 15% of global greenhouse emissions, with cattle farming accounting for two thirds of that. Not only do cows produce damaging methane gas, but creating pasture for the animals has led to widespread deforestation. Nowhere is this more evident than in Colombia: 34 million hectares of land there is devoted to cattle ranching. The land that’s been cleared to graze cattle is often left without trees, meaning the soil quickly becomes arid and useless. Now an ambitious project aims to demonstrate that cattle ranching can be ecologically sound. An expert team is helping more than 4,000 farmers dramatically remodel their land. Instead of open fields, they are planting trees and shrubs, and allowing small plants to grow among the grass.This more intensive planting helps to store carbon and provides a healthier diet for cows, meaning they produce less methane and more milk and meat. But are other cattle farmers likely to follow suit and adopt this “silvopastoral” approach?Presenter: Kat Hawkins Reporter: William Kremer(Photo credit: BBC)

Matsuri Takahashi was 24 when she died. She took her own life after doing more than 100 hours overtime a month at a large advertising company in Japan.She was a victim of karoshi - dying as a result of overwork. It’s a phenomenon that’s well known in Japan where stories of employees working ridiculously long hours – sometimes until four or five in the morning - are common. The government has introduced a new law to limit overtime, although critics say it doesn’t go far enough and the whole working culture needs to change. Working long hours doesn’t necessarily mean more work gets done, so elsewhere, a company in New Zealand has reduced hours without cutting pay. Staff are given a day off each week if they can get five days’ work done in four. Should we all be doing this?Presenter: Nick Holland Reporters: Jamie Ryan and Mariko Oi(Photo Credit: Getty Images)

Period poverty affects girls and women across the world who can’t afford to buy sanitary pads or tampons each month. So what are the alternatives? We look at two very different solutions. In a refugee camp in Jordan, we follow one woman as she tries to get a sanitary pad micro-factory off the ground. While in Malawi, they’re handing out menstrual cups to teenagers - which last for 10 years and don’t produce any waste. Presenter: Vibeke Venema Producer: Tom Colls(Photo Caption: A menstrual cup / Photo Credit: Getty Images)

If you examine the atoms in a piece of wood, you can tell to the nearest 10km where it has come from. Environmental factors, such as the climate, affect trees as they grow and that signature remains in the wood after it is processed. An international group of scientists is hoping to use this information to tackle illegal logging, which contributes to a loss of biodiversity and costs governments billions of dollars in lost revenues each year. It’s thought that up to 30% of timber on the global market comes from illegally-sourced wood, and ends up as all sorts of items in shops around the world. Now, stable isotope analysis is being used to identify the unique profile of these products. And when scientists find items don’t come from the place specified on the label, the information can be used to hold shops accountable. We visit the wood archive at Kew Gardens and speak to experts using this technology to help stem the flow of illegally-smuggled timber and protect the planet’s endangered forests. Presenter: Tom Colls Reporter and Producer: Nicola Kelly(Photo Caption: Logging in the Amazon / Photo Credit: Getty Images)

Should we reuse and refill plastic packaging to limit the amount being thrown away? Nick Holland looks at different ways people are trying to make this happen. One idea is to take used containers back to the supermarkets where, in the future, giant vending machines could refill them. But the scale of the challenge is huge and getting consumers to change their shopping habits will be hard. Presenter: Tom Colls Producer and Reporter: Nick Holland(Photo Credit: BBC)

The average dog produces about 124kg of poo every year, but not all of that gets picked up and disposed of properly. So people living in many residential blocks in the US have had their dogs’ DNA registered on a database, in an attempt to tackle problem poo. If they don’t pick up after their dog, a sample of what’s left behind is sent off to a lab so the perpetrator can be identified. The company behind the tests says it works well in private, gated communities but what about public parks and pavements? Could other solutions, such as offering rewards for picking up poo, or posting dog mess backs to the owners, work in the long term? And we hear how Ontario in Canada is collecting dog poo to turn it into energy. Presenter: Kat Hawkins Reporters: Ros Tamblyn and Claire Bates(Photo Credit: Getty Images)

Every year, it’s estimated that nearly 400 million people around the world are infected with dengue fever, a potentially fatal illness that’s passed on by mosquitoes. No vaccine is effective at preventing people catching the disease, but what if the mosquitoes themselves were treated to stop them spreading it?In one city that is severely affected – Medellin in Colombia — an ambitious project is underway to swap wild mosquitoes for a variety that is identical in every way, but with one crucial difference. These mosquitoes have been bred from specimens injected with bacteria that make it impossible to transmit not just dengue, but also the Zika and chikungunya viruses, and Yellow Fever.Buoyed by successful projects in Australia, the World Mosquito Program is releasing millions of newly-minted mosquitoes across Medellin, in the hope that they will replace the wild population. And to reassure the public, schoolchildren are being taught to love mosquitoes, and even to breed them — a message that contradicts what they’ve been brought up to believe.Presenter: Tom Colls Reporter / Producer: William Kremer(Photo Caption: The Aedes Aegyptii Mosquito / Photo Credit: Getty Images)