Home Planet - 29/12/2009

Richard Daniel and the team discuss listeners' questions about the environment and the natural world. The focus is on energy and climate change. Starting with a question about carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - is there a point when it will reach saturation and emitting any more of the gas will not have any effect? Nuclear power is being offered as a solution to reducing carbon dioxide emissions but how efficient is it? And if it produces waste heat, doesn't that add to the problems of a warming planet? Then there's the recently revived idea of whether vegetarians produce less greenhouse gas than meat-eaters. Are sea level rises really such a problem when we have centuries of experience building sea defences? And what caused the ebb and flow of ice ages in historical times? On the panel are development expert Prof Sue Buckingham of Brunel University; geologist and energy specialist Dr Nick Riley of the British Geological Survey; and Prof Andrew Watkinson, director of Living with Environmental Change.