''Costing the Earth'' is a factual programme on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

about the environment. The show has been broadcast since 2007 and is also available to download as a podcast. The programme is produced by the Radio 4 team based in

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

Presenters

The show is currently presented by

Tom Heap Thomas John Gillespie Heap (born 3 January 1966) is the Rural Affairs Correspondent of BBC News, and an English television and radio reporter and presenter best known for his contributions to the BBC One programme ''Countryfile'', the same chan ...

, with some episodes narrated and hosted by other presenters depending on topic and location. The founding presenter of the programme was future BBC Environment Analyst

Roger Harrabin Roger Harrabin (born 28 March 1955) is the BBC's energy and environment analyst, and one of their senior journalists on the environment and energy. He has broadcast on environmental issues since the 1980s and has won many awards in print, TV and ...

. Other presenters include former BBC Environment Correspondent Alex Kirby, Professor Alice Roberts and

Miranda Krestovnikoff Miranda Krestovnikoff (born 29 January 1973)'' Who's Who'' is a British radio and television presenter specialising in natural history and archaeological programmes. She is an accomplished musician, and also a qualified scuba diver which has l ...

Episodes

The programme takes a look at the impact of humans effect on the environment and how the environment reacts, questioning accepted truths, challenging those in charge and reporting on progress towards improving the world. A variety of topics gets discussed on the programme, some of which may be on little discussed issues - for example, the programme broadcast on 5 February 2013 discussed the use of

robots "\n\n\n\n\nThe robots exclusion standard, also known as the robots exclusion protocol or simply robots.txt, is a standard used by websites to indicate to visiting web crawlers and other web robots which portions of the site they are allowed to visi ...

farming Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

. More widely discussed topics, such as the

Common Fisheries Policy The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is the fisheries policy of the European Union (EU). It sets quotas for which member states are allowed to catch each type of fish, as well as encouraging the fishing industry by various market interventions. I ...

are also tackled. The majority of episodes are presented in the format of introducing the topic, then interviewing experts and interested parties in locations around the United Kingdom and rest of the world, relating to the premise of the episode. However, some topics are also presented as a panel discussion in which multiple experts put their views across with the host posing questions of each guest. Notably the series worked with BBC2's

Newsnight ''Newsnight'' (or ''BBC Newsnight'') is BBC Two's news and current affairs programme, providing in-depth investigation and analysis of the stories behind the day's headlines. The programme is broadcast on weekdays at 22:30. and is also availa ...

programme and the BBC World Channel's Our World to produce a special report on Africa's Energy Revolution.

Broadcasts

Episodes are broadcast on BBC Radio 4 each Tuesday at 15:30 and Wednesday at 21:00. They are usually broadcast in series blocks twice a year during spring and autumn. Special episodes are also occasionally produced and broadcast.

References

External links

* BBC Radio 4 programmes Environmental issues in the United Kingdom Environmental radio programs Environmental podcasts {{UK-radio-show-stub