News Story

Rare Earth – Series 6

Friday 22 Aug 2025

On Friday 22nd August 2025 the OU/BBC radio series, Rare Earth, returns with a sixth series. Academics from the OU STEM Faculty, including the School of Engineering and Innovation, have once again contributed to the production.

Rare Earth is a weekly podcast and radio show which digs deeper into the biggest issues for our planet returns. Each week, environmental journalist Tom Heap and physicist Helen Czerski tackle a major story about our environment and wildlife, work out how we got here, and meet the brave and clever people with fresh ideas to help us – and nature – thrive.

The first episode kicks off the series looking at how the insurance industry might be able to help climate change. If you want to build homes in flood prone areas or on coastlines with increasing hurricanes or forests prone to wildfires then insurance costs should become prohibitive. But is this really happening? How does the insurance industry calculate climate risk and what are they doing about it?

In upcoming episodes, the series will explore geo-engineering, steel, trains, and creatures who come out at night!

Listen live on BBC Radio 4 or any time on BBC Sounds.