Living Planet | Deutsche Welle

We follow Australians battered by climate catastrophes, a walrus devoid of its ice floes and Indians from the eastern state of Odisha as they grapple with migration amid the climate crisis.

How should we talk to kids about climate change? From Belgian teens interacting with climate change on a philosophical level to an eco-bank in Peru where kids can open their first bank account to a new primary school climate program in Ghana, this week on Living Planet, we find out how schools and organizations are engaging young people on one of the most important issues of our time.

At a time when many people are struggling to pay their energy bills, we hear how oil and gas giants are raking in the profits, while quietly scaling back their emission reduction targets. And we head to Micronesia, via the Caribbean, to find out how small island nations are faring amid the climate crisis.

Today on Living Planet — more farmers around the world are turning their backs on industrial agriculture in an effort to shore up food supplies. In Georgia, ancient wheat varieties and breadmaking traditions are making a comeback, while farmers in Kenya have been forced to pollinate their crops themselves. And Lebanese farmers are ditching expensive chemical fertilizers for more natural options.

We head to the Canary Islands, where scientists are devising novel ways to squeeze every last drop of moisture out of the air to revive forests destroyed by wildfires. From Morocco, we hear about the potential for building batteries with 'green cobalt'. And, in India, we learn how to turn a flood of flower waste into something useful.

Is burning wood to generate energy sustainable? It is according to the EU's renewable energy strategy — a policy that was meant to help the block reduce fossil fuel usage and lower greenhouse gas emissions. But in order to profit from EU subsidies, more and more coal-fired power plants have switched to burning firewood instead, which is having devastating consequences for Europe's forests.

This week on Living Planet, we hear from climate scientists whose work has been disrupted by the war in Ukraine. We visit an ambitious project in the Netherlands, which shows us that living things really are all around us. And we look into the exploitative practice of biopiracy.

Today on Living Planet — a controversial oil pipeline in Uganda stirs up strong reactions. We ask what fossil fuels have to do with our beauty routine. And if you've wondered about the environmental and economic trade-offs of getting an electric vehicle, we've got answers.

Today on Living Planet, we're traveling to some cold (and not-so-cold) places. We're asking how Europe’s snow-starved winters are affecting winter sport enthusiasts. We visit a French supermarket that's keeping things especially chilly. And we head to the lab to find out how climate scientists study the world's oldest ice.

In recent months, climate activists have thrown food at famous paintings and glued themselves to roads. In the German town of Lützerath, protestors are resisting eviction to stop a coal mine. Today on Living Planet, we ask: Are activists going too far, harming their own cause? Or are they not going far enough, in light of climate realities? And are their efforts leading to any meaningful change?

This week on Living Planet — as Brazil welcomes its next president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, we reflect on the destruction the Amazon has experienced over the past few years, as a criminal system has moved in. What does this mean for the Indigenous people who've inhabited this famous rainforest for millennia, and are often its greatest defenders?

This week on Living Planet, we look back at a few of our favorite stories and interviews from the year. From conversations about conservation colonialism and fossil fuel despots to investigative stories into illegal activities and hopeful tales of returning wildlife, we covered a lot in 2022.

This week on Living Planet, we're getting a little festive – venturing to chestnut groves in Italy and to the Swiss Alps for an old-school weather forecast. We also visit the Canary Island of La Palma to hear how locals are living with the long aftermath of an unwelcome volcanic eruption.

This week on Living Planet, 21-year-old Ta'Kaiya Blaney from the Tla'amin Nation shares her perspective on the current biodiversity summit in Montreal and the shortcomings of such UN conferences. And in Namibia, fall-out from a scandal known as 'Fishrot' — where fishing rights were illegally given to an Icelandic company — is still rocking the country, its government and its fishermen.

Do you really know what happens to the stuff you throw away? In this episode, we follow the dirty trail of British waste, from the moment households toss their trash into the wheelie bin and diligently sort their recyclable goods, to where it actually ends up — revealing shocking illegal dumping and the farce of recycling.

As energy prices go sky-high this winter, any source of affordable energy may seem like a welcome reprieve. But does it make sense to be growing crops for fuel that could otherwise be food? This is the conundrum of biofuels. Today on Living Planet, we travel to the US, Kenya and Germany to explore biofuels – how they came about, their promises and drawbacks, and why it is we're still using them.

As the dust settles on COP27 climate talks in Egypt, we reflect on what was and what wasn't achieved to help the world avert catastrophic warming. But as we hear from people living in South Africa's coal belt — we’re not just headed for a world made worse by burning fossil fuels, we're living in one. And we meet the seed savers taking matters into their own hands — one tasty bean at a time.

In this special episode, five experts talk about how the world might pay for the harm that's been inflicted on poorer nations by burning fossil fuels. Director of the Loss & Damage Youth Coalition Ineza Umuhozo Grace, climate economist Gernot Wagner, the Dominican Republic's Vice Minister of Climate Change Milagros De Camps, and two International Red Cross representatives share their insights.

What responsibility do rich, high-emitting countries have towards poorer, low-emitting countries? And will western citizens commit to coughing up for the climate crisis? As the world gathers in Egypt to hash out a plan to limit warming, we ask some important questions in today's show. Plus, how Cameroon is faring amid the energy crisis and what it means to ignore climate change when city-building.

This week on Living Planet, we're tackling fire and ice. As wildfires get worse in a warming world, we venture to the Western United States to hear what it's like to live with this smoky season every year. And ahead of the annual UN climate conference, we speak to Arctic ecologist, Sue Natali, about thawing permafrost and just how much it has in store for climate change.