White Island volcano eruption
Unexpected Elements
BBC
4.4 • 570 Ratings
🗓️ 15 December 2019
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, Roland Pease talks with Diana Roman of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC about the tragic White Island volcanic eruption in which at least eight tourists died.
Aurora Elmore of National Geographic and Arbindra Khadka of Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu Nepal discuss the state of Himalayan glaciers and climate change.
Robert Hazen of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC tells Roland about the research area called geobiochemistry and Hilairy Hartnett of Arizona State University explains why it may not be easy to find life on extra solar planets.
Buzzing insects that sting and fall into your food can be annoying. But perhaps we should think twice before taking aim with the fly swatter because bug populations around the world are in rapid decline. This worries CrowdScience listener Daria; she wants to know what will happen to our food production without the help from our tiny friends – the pollinators? And what can she do, as a city-dweller, to help the bugs?
The dollar value of agricultural services that insects supply – for free – is estimated to be 350 billion dollars worldwide. For scientists, a major challenge is the lack of long-term studies of insects on a global scale – in fact – entomologists worry that species are dying out faster than we can document their existence. The culprits, they believe, are climate change, invasive species, land-use and pesticides.
CrowdScience speaks to the scientists who want to save the bugs; one project capitalises on the chemical signals that attract certain species of pollinators while others are building ‘bee hotels’ to encourage native bees back into our cities.
(Image: Smoke from the volcanic eruption of Whakaari, also known as White Island. Credit: Reuters)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In 2019, we began investigating the disappearance of Dr. Ruzha Ignatva. |
| 0:08.0 | I believe we are a very special network. |
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| 0:18.0 | And now, we have some unmissable updates. She has money and when you have |
| 0:23.0 | money you have power. Join me, Jamie Bartlett, as the hunt for the missing crypto queen continues. |
| 0:29.5 | Listen first on BBC Sounds. Welcome to a special edition of the science how it with me, Roland P's, |
| 0:36.9 | because the BBC has sent us to one of the most extraordinary science meetings you can imagine, the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. |
| 0:45.9 | There are sessions here on everything from climate change to Krakatoa, from tectonics to Triassic fossils, from the core of of the earth up to the chemistry of exoplanets, |
| 0:56.3 | from the origin of life to its potential destruction. And it's huge. 27,000 people are attending here. |
| 1:04.4 | There are over 8,000 presentations. I'm in a hall where over the week 16,000 more posters with additional scientific discoveries will be on display. |
| 1:14.7 | It's quite bewildering, but I'm going to do my best to give you a small taste of what's on offer here. |
| 1:20.5 | And after that, crowd science will be all a buzz with global science, our global dependence on insects. |
| 1:27.7 | So many of our crops are pollinated, and so many plants are pollinated. |
| 1:31.8 | We take all of that for granted. |
| 1:33.8 | But can you imagine we don't have the insects to get rid of our feces? |
| 1:38.3 | That would be rather unpleasant. |
| 1:40.5 | But first, science and action. |
| 1:43.8 | Just as the AG meeting was about to begin, there was an eruption on an island called White Island just off the coast of New Zealand, |
| 1:53.0 | in which a large number of people were caught. Several were killed, some are missing, and others were badly injured. |
| 1:59.4 | I'm joined by Diana Roman of the Carnegie Institution for Science. |
| 2:03.0 | Diana, first of all, you look quite upset by this. |
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