Saturday Morning for Saturday 22 July 2023

8.10 Gaia Vince: mass climate migration is inevitable

As parts of southern Europe and the US swelter in record summer temperatures, Gaia Vince anticipates mass migration to cooler countries, forced by global warming.

Her book, Nomad Century: How to survive a climate upheaval describes the displacement of billions of people from the world's hottest latitudes.  From The Sudan to the western US, and in cities from the UK to China, drought, heat, wildfires and flooding will make home uninhabitable.

It's not all doom and gloom. Vince remains optimistic migration also brings benefits, both to migrants and their new countries, including solving labour shortages.

9.05 Prof Danny Altmann: the burden of long COVID

World leading immunologist Professor Danny Altmann has declared the future burden of long COVID to be "so large as to be unfathomable".   

He has published a scientific review of long COVID in Nature, asserting if 10% of acute infections lead to persistent symptoms, up to 400 million people could be in need of support for long COVID worldwide.  

While the Australian government has allocated $50m for long COVID research, in New Zealand there has been zero investment for bio-medical long COVID research to understand and treat the condition.

Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, Department of Immunology and Inflammation at Imperial College London, Professor Altmann has been studying T cells for four decades, and is interested in why people suffer debilitating consequences so long after COVID infection.  

9.40 Volcanologist Graham Leonard: the magma under Auckland

Auckland's iconic landmarks Mount Eden, One Tree Hill, and Rangitoto are all evidence of the 360 km2 volcanic field that lies beneath our largest city.

The field has erupted at least 53 times in the past 193,000 years, each time in a new location, resulting in many small hills and pits across the Auckland landscape.

Volcanologists have been studying the magma source deep beneath the city to get clues to where the next eruption might occur. The chance of an eruption is very small but the consequences for residents would be large.

GNS volcanologist Graham Leonard is co leader of the DEVORA programme which has been assessing the risk.

10.05 Filmmaker Nicolas Philibert on the art of patient observation

French filmmaker Nicolas Philibert is known for his intimate and patiently observed documentaries capturing the beauty of everyday humanity.

He's most well known for 2002's Etre et Avoir which followed a year in the life of a tiny rural school with just one teacher.

His latest film On the Adamant/Sur L'Adamant won the top prize at this year's Berlin International Film Festival. It follows the goings-on aboard  L'Adamant, a floating day-centre for people with mental maladies, moored on the banks of the Seine in Paris.

On the Adamant is screening at Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.

 

10.40 Aesha Scott: the reality of life below deck on super yachts

Super yacht reality TV series Below Deck has been described as 'Downton Abbey on the water".

Featuring demanding, often badly behaved guests and overworked and oversexed crew, the show captures the natural drama of life on board luxury charters.

Since the original series aired in 2013 it's spawned several spin offs including Great Barrier Reef based Below Deck Down Under, the second series of which currently airs Tuesdays on Bravo.

The Chief Stewardess is Tauranga-born Aesha Scott, who has become a fan favourite for her work ethic, cheekiness and indomitable positivity.

11.05 Jamie Callister: 100 years of Vegemite

It's 100 years since Australian chemist Cyril Callister invented Vegemite as an alternative to Marmite, which had become scarce due to German U-boats sinking the ships bringing the English spread.

From humble beginnings to annual sales of more than 22 million jars, the yeast-based spread has become a fixture of culture down under.

It's now so iconic the City of Melbourne Council has included the smell of the factory at 1 Vegemite Way in a statement of heritage significance.

Jamie Callister explores his grandfather Cyril's life and legacy in Vegemite: The True Story of the Man Who Invented an Australian Icon.

11.30 Thomasin Sleigh on The Words For Her

People love sharing photos and videos. There are unknowably huge numbers of images on-line. But what if you disappeared from your own photo-album? The rest of the scene still there, but your face is faded out, gone. Your friends and family too. What happens when the bonds created by photos fade away?

Wellington based author Thomas Sleigh ponders this in her new novel The Words For Her, where this exact thing happens: people start disappearing from images.

Thomasin Sleigh is a writer and editor with a background in art history. Her essays and art criticism have been published by galleries, newspapers, and magazines. 

She has published two previous novels Ad Lib (2014), and Women in the Field, One and Two (2018), both of which look at the way images reflect and contest challenge wider hierarchies and power structures, particularly how women are depicted and understood through art and film. 

 

Books featured on this show:

The Long Covid Handbook
By Gez Medinger and Professor Danny Altmann
Published by Penguin
ISBN: 9781529900125

Nomad Century - How to Survive the Climate Upheaval
By Gaia Vince 
Published by Allen Lane
ISBN: 9780241522318

Vegemite The true story of the man who invented an Australian icon
by Jamie Callister
Published by Murdoch Books
ISBN: 9781922616630    

The Words For Her
by Thomasin Sleigh
Published by Lawrence & Gibson
ISBN: 9781738590315
 

Music played in this show

Song: The Way You Look Tonight
Artist: Tony Bennett
Time played: 9:45

Artist: The Mountain Goats
Song: Clean Slate
Time played: 11:30

Artist: Jane Birkin
Song: Jane B
Time Played: 11:57