Time is still ticking for the Amazon

BBC Inside Science

BBC

Technology, Science

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 7 September 2023

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

After decades of exploitation, time is running out for the Amazon rainforest. Eight South American nations came together this week for the first time in 14 years in an attempt to draw up a plan for a more sustainable future. The BBC’s South America correspondent Katy Watson sends us an update on the summit from Belém, Brazil. We also hear from Brazilian scientist Joice Ferreira who tells us why the Amazon is so important for the entire planet. Next up Victoria Gill finds out more about how British Sign Language is adding key scientific concepts to its dictionary in order to open up science communication to a broader community of people. There are still many words and phrases that have not yet been ‘signed’. Now did you know that the inhalers used by asthmatics emit a tiny amount of greenhouse gas with every puff? Victoria speaks to Dr Veena Aggarwal, a GP registrar and former member of Greener NHS, about whether the government’s new plan for environmentally friendly inhalers will help. Finally Victoria catches up with palaeoanthropologist Lee Berger. He’s written a book that tells a harrowing tale about his trip into a labyrinth of underground tunnels to find out more about an ancient human-like creature called Homo naledi. Presenter: Victoria Gill Producers: Hannah Robins and Harrison Lewis Content producer: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell Research: Patrick Hughes Editor: Richard Collings

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts
0:05.4	Hello you lovely curious minded people. This is the podcast edition of BBC Insights Science,
0:11.0	first broadcast on the 10th August 2023. I'm Victoria Gill.
0:15.4	This week we hear from deaf children who are using brand new visual vocabulary for
0:19.8	British Sign Language in their science lessons.
0:22.2	I've learned C, O, T, I've learned science, I've learned lots where I've probably forgot.
0:32.2	We're finding out if a plan to make inhalers more eco-friendly is as green as it claims,
0:37.4	and we take a trip into the cave of bones to find out what its dark secrets reveal about human evolution.
0:43.9	It was the most wonderful and horrible thing I've ever done in my life, and I almost died.
0:50.0	But first, a key meeting for the future of the planet took place this week in Brazil.
0:54.8	The Amazon Summit held in the city of Belém.
0:58.1	But despite high ambitions, countries fell short of reaching an agreement to end deforestation.
1:07.6	It's not Brazil that needs money. It's not Colombia over in Esuela that needs money.
1:12.7	It's nature. For 200 years, industrial development has polluted,
1:18.0	and we need to pay their part for us to be able to rebuild what was destroyed.
1:26.1	That was President Luis Ignacio Lula de Silva of Brazil, who hosted the summit,
1:30.8	where leaders of eight nations that share the Amazon base and gathered to discuss the rainforest's future.
1:36.4	The aim was to secure a commitment from all nations to end deforestation in the Amazon by 2030.
1:42.2	That's a pledge Lula himself made during last year's presidential race.
1:46.3	And he does seem to have made a start.
1:48.2	Satellite data has revealed that the rate of deforestation in Brazil's Amazon has dropped to its lowest in six years.
1:54.6	But fears remain that the ongoing destruction of the rainforest could be reaching a tipping point,
	...

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