This week on Earth Beat, an inventor paints Peru’s peaks in a bid to bring back a former glacier. Proof that there are plenty more fish in the sea. And why water piracy is big business in Bolivia.
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Painting Peru’s peaks
For the past few months Eduardo Gold and a small team of locals have been hard at work, whitewashing one of Peru’s mountains in a bid to bring back one of the country’s disappearing glaciers. The white paint is supposed to lower the surface temperature so new ice forms. Listen to the report
Will the whitewash work?
Glaciologist Professor John Bamber says this isn't the first time someone's attempted to preserve a peak with such a novel approach – in Switzerland and Greenland they cover boulders in thermal blankets. Professor Bamber says although Eduardo's plan may not cool down the planet, it’s a local solution based on good solid science. Listen to the conversation
Fish shopping with a conscience
As the scale of over-fishing continues to grow, the Marine Stewardship Council are trying to combat the problem. They’ve introduced a labelling system to show which species come from sustainable stocks. Marnie visits a fish shop in Utrecht to find out more about how to buy fish with a clean conscience.
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Plenty of fish in the sea?
The Census of Marine Life is a ten-year effort to understand what is in our oceans. The project’s chief scientist Ron O’dor explains the challenges of compiling such a comprehensive list of fish.
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Read a report on the census results
Four fish
There may be plenty of fish in the sea, but one man thinks we need to radically change the way we farm these creatures. Paul Greenberg is the author of Four Fish: A journey from the ocean to your plate and says our fixation with just four types of fish – salmon, cod, bass and tuna – could help us encourage the industry to evolve. Listen to the report
Envirominute
Fiona Campbell explains some unfishy alternatives to our seafood favourites. Listen
Why fish are starting not to smell
Fish are starting to lose their sense of smell, making it hard from them to distinguish between things to swim towards or avoid. The problem is down to the acidification of the ocean, which is a side effect of global warming. Professor Philip Munday from James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, explains why even underwater creatures must follow their noses. Listen to the report
Robotfish
Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed robotic fish that can detect water pollution - watch footage on YouTube. Pablo Valdivia y Alvarado talks to Marnie about how he got a robot to impersonate a fish. Listen to the conversation
Water pirates in Bolivia
Earth Beat correspondent Jean Friedman-Rudovsky goes to the Bolivian highlands to speak to a man who dug his own waterline when paying for a legal one became too expensive. Listen to the report
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