Home Planet - 20/04/2010

The Earth has experienced a number of major earthquakes in the last few months - some of the worst natural disasters to strike for centuries. One Home Planet listener wants to know whether climate change might be having an unexpected effect and increasing the rate at which these deadly quakes strike. Carbon capture and storage is touted as the way to burn fossil fuels for energy without releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But is it safe? The programme wraps up with two totally different perspectives on sunlight. Could it be used to dispose of pernicious plastics and why is it so much hotter at the equator than at the poles? On the panel are Dr Ros Taylor of Kingston University; Dr Nick Riley of the British Geological Survey and Professor Philip Stott, an environmental scientist from the University of London. The presenter is Richard Daniel. Producer: Toby Murcott A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.