5.7.25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome. This is Marsha for Radio I, and today I
will be reading National Geographic magazine dated April twenty twenty five,
which is donated by the publisher as a reminder. RADIOI
is a reading service intended for people who are blind
or have other disabilities that make it difficult to read
printed material. Please join me now for the continuation of
the article I began last time, entitled The National Geographic

(00:27):
Founders of Bold Thinkers, Scientists, explorers and Scholars. Adam mackay,
the filmmaker using biting satire to illuminate the dire realities
of climate change. A few years back, when filmmaker Adam
McKay released his movie Don't Look Up, an apocalyptic climate
change satire, he was searching for a new way to

(00:49):
talk about disaster. As horrific as all this is, mackay
says about the climate crisis, it's important that we create
a culture around dealing with this with humor. Now McKay
has the machine to make it happen. The director of
Anchorman and The Big Short has started Yellow Dot Studios,
maker of such viral hits as a fake Chevron ad

(01:11):
juxtaposing idyllic shots of nature with a voiceover about our
gasoline fueled impending doom. The approach, McKay says, allows for anger, outrage, frustration,
raw sincerity, expressions that are hard to ignore. By Amy
Adam Rogers, Mohammed Monsur Muhui Deen the doctor discovering an

(01:36):
unlikely new breed of heart donors. Sometimes tragedies can be breakthroughs.
That's what happened a few years ago when a University
of Maryland Medical Center surgical team led by Mohammed Monsur
Muhui Dean and Bartley Griffith performed a revolutionary new procedure
on a fifty seven year old who had terminal heart failure.

(01:57):
David Bennett, Senior had been denied a traditional heart transplant
due to a variety of health factors. Thousands of pupil
each year face a similar reality, in part because the
United States has an organ shortage crisis. Muhuey Dean recommended
an alternative, the heart of a pig, genetically modified to
minimize the chance of rejection. The experiment, conducted in twenty

(02:20):
twenty two, was a success, at least initially. Bennett died
about two months later after his heart failed from immune complications.
Muhuiy Dean's second patient, a man named Lawrence Fausett, survived
for nearly six weeks. He died in twenty twenty three
after his immune system rejected the graft. For muhuiy Dean,

(02:41):
a leader in the field of zeno transplantation, the process
of transplanting organs from one species to another. Each operation
offers valuable intelligence about the promising field. In an ideal future,
we'd have more than enough hearts for everyone, and while
the pigs used in muhuiy Dean's procedures have approximately thirty

(03:01):
thousand genes, only ten genes were altered to make the
heart suitable for humans. Some people may find the idea
of killing pigs for their organs distasteful, but Muhuiden believes
the practice can serve a greater good whenever it comes
to saving a life, he says that takes precedence over
any other issues. By Chris Gayamali next Maya Gaberia, the

(03:25):
big Wave surfer, attacking the scourge of plastic waste. For
much of the year, the ocean at Nazare, a fishing
village on Portugal's coast, is placid, but in the winter,
certain storms funnel swells through an underwater canyon, transforming the
waves into moving mountains of waters so colossal they have
been described as the everest of the ocean. Big wave

(03:45):
surfers have made pilgrimages to the town since twenty eleven,
when a video of Garrett macnamara barreling down a seventy
eight foot wave established it as having one of the
planet's biggest breaks. Over much of the past decade, one
of the select few women in the line up has
been Maya Gabiea, a Brazilian with a contagious laugh who

(04:07):
harbored what some regarded as an outlandist dream. She too
wanted to serve the biggest wave in the world. Growing
up in Rio de Janeiro, Gabriel Gabiere had a taste
for adrenaline, terrible asthma, and an intense fear of dying
out of breath, as she put it, leading to severe anxiety.
This would have pushed many people to avoid open water.

(04:28):
For Gabieia, it did the opposite. She spent probably half
her life in the ocean, says Stephanie Johns, director of
the twenty twenty two documentary Maya and the Wave. She's
lived through really hard things, but she has a unique
ability to transcend that and get to the other side.
Gabierre's early attempts at Nazare ended in disaster in twenty thirteen.

(04:50):
Flying down the face of one of the largest waves
she has ever tried, she catapulted into the water, and
once she was finally dragged onto the beach, had to
to be revived with CPR. The near death experience proved
both profound and painful. When you go to the other side,
it's dark and full of wisdom, she says. She was
left with a broken leg, a severely damaged spine, and

(05:12):
even more intense anxiety. Three spine surgeries and four years
of recovery later, something inside her began to shift. I
got up again, she says, and she felt stronger for it.
In January twenty eighteen, Gabierira dropped in on a sixty
eight foot monster at Nazare, the biggest any woman had
ever served. Two years later, she broke her own record,

(05:34):
surfing a seventy three point five foot wave there that
was the largest serf by any man or woman that season.
Of course, her time in the ocean has left her
acutely aware of the problems faced by marine ecosystems, including
the prevalence of garbage and plastic. More often than not,
it is a sea of trash, she says, that's just

(05:54):
the reality. As a child, she had learned about conservation
issues and the value of pushing for change from her father,
a founding member of Brazil's Green Party. As I drifted
into the ocean, it was a transition of knowing the
green parts through my dad, she says, then diving into
the blue. Now she's leveraging her reputation as one of
the most world's most prominus prominent big wave surfers to

(06:19):
abdicate for solutions. Gabiira has served as a board member
at the nonprofit Oceania since twenty twenty one, and during
the pandemic, she was a driving force in the group's
campaign to encourage Brazil's largest food delivery service Food to
use less prep plastic packaging. Her communication skills played an

(06:42):
instrumental role in the campaign's success. She has a practical
sense of how to reach the public, says Jim Simon,
Oceania's CEO, and she's sensitive to people's aspirations for a
spiritual connection with the Ocean. In twenty twenty two, she
became UNESCO's Champion for the Ocean and Youth, a role

(07:02):
in which she works to connect with young people about
conservation issues. As a surfer, you are always trying to
become intimate with the ocean, she says, and when you
love something, you care. I feel so fortunate to have
built this connection with the ocean and to be able
to save myself out there. It would be unfair not
to try and communicate the things I learned spending time

(07:22):
in the seas. Last year, Kabira decided to retire, though
she continues to live in Nazaree with her two dogs.
I can't pretend I did it because it was fun,
she says. Of big wave surfing. You're chasing something, and
to me particularly, I was so troubled in my mind
that I was chasing moments to be present or aware.
Whatever she had been seeking out there all those years,

(07:44):
she seems to have found it in the concentrated, formidable
power of the Ocean by Molly Longmuir. Next Hector Bellerin
The Soccer Player, Dreaming up a more eco friendly future
for sports, The transformation of ecdor Bellerin began nearly ten
years ago when he went vegan, he was a defender

(08:06):
playing for Arsenal in the English Premier League and he
wanted a better way to train and recover. That opened
so many doors, Bellerine's thirty says of his foray into environmentalism.
He started working with a nonprofit to plant trees in
the Amazon three thousand for every game Arsenal won. These days,
he's playing for Seville's Real Betis in his native Spain

(08:29):
while working with a club to dramatically reduce the team's
carbon footprint. The initiatives are highly creative, like installing seats
at the club's stadium made from fishing nets recovered from
the seafloor. For me, it's a pioneering system, says Bellerine.
Loads of clubs around the world now are wanting to
peek into what we're doing and promote the same stuff.

(08:50):
He also has a stake in a lower division English team,
the Forest Green Rovers, that's become carbon neutral with innovative
ideas like serving vegan only meals to players and fans
and traveling to away games by electric bus. The club
has had ups and downs football wise, Bellerine says, but
it also has made a lot of people in the

(09:10):
football world conscious that there's a team that is actually
willing to be very radical. The best defenders know how
to be vocal leaders on the pitch, and Bellerine has
never been afraid to say how the game should actually
be played. Next Sterlin Harjo, the storyteller spotlighting Indigenous voices.

(09:31):
After more than a decade of making films, Sterlin Harjo,
whose work often focuses on indigenous issues, was considering whether
to leave the business. My films were getting out at
festivals and getting distribution, but not a lot of people
saw them, he says. I was getting frustrated with the
fact that I'd been working so hard and there just
was not an easy way to make a living. Instead

(09:52):
of hanging it up, Harjo Muskogi Seminole changed joint forces
with Taika Waititi Mayo to launch a television series that
not only thrust him into the spotlight, but also brought
others along with him. The series, Reservation Dogs, produced for FX,
which shares a parent company with National Geographic, debuted in

(10:13):
twenty twenty one and revolved around teenagers on an Oklahoma reservation.
Harjo and Waichi used it to champion Native talent both
in front of and behind the camera. I took a
gamble thinking the industry would change, he says, and it did.
Many of the actors and creatives from the series have
since led other successful projects. These include Sidney Friedland's res Ball,

(10:37):
a film that Hajjo co wrote about a Navajo high
school basketball team attempting to make the new Mexico State championship,
and Erica Trembley's Fancy Dance, a movie centered on the
missing and murdered Indigenous women crisis as depicted on the
Seneca Cayuga Nation in Oklahoma. Wes Study, the famed Cherokee

(10:58):
actor and the only name of American actor ever to
receive an oscar, had a recurring role on Reservation Dogs
and continues to see a ripple effect. All of us
who have been in the trenches for the past forty
years have been working towards this study says. There's this
upsurge of interest in Native American stories, and there are
more opportunities because of Sterlin and this work. Archio meanwhile,

(11:22):
is in production on a new crime noir show. Whether
it's a horror, a heist, a comedy, a love story.
I just wanted to be part of proving that native
filmmakers can't do all of it, he says by Kate Nelson. Next,
Isabel Christina Kamez and Oscar Andres Gamez, the builders finding

(11:43):
a novel use for plastic waste around the world. The
idea was simple yet profound. What if you could use
the plastic waste littering your home country to help solve
its housing crisis. For architect Oscar Andres Mendez and his
business partner, electronics engineer Isabel Christina Gammez, deb inspiration led

(12:03):
to an invention that embodies their core values. Their Columbia
based company, conceptos Plasticos transforms plastic, including bags, snack food containers,
and shampoo bottles, into a modular building system of bricks
and columns. The lego like blocks are made of about
ninety five percent plastic, builders only need to supply a

(12:24):
roof and windows. Since launching their company in twenty ten
in Bogita, the team has refined their concept to be
increasingly efficient. A typical two bedroom house or a bathroom,
living room, dining room and kitchen now captures some six
tons of plastic and can be built in about five
days at a cost anywhere from four thousand to seven thousand,

(12:45):
far cheaper than traditional construction. The structures are also earthquake resistant,
fire repellent, well insulated, and not so easy to discard.
Each building, Nndez says should stand for more than two
hundred years. Initially, Conceptos Plasticos partnered with private companies and
an NGO to build houses in schools in Colombia, about

(13:07):
fifty so far. In twenty seventeen, Abubakar Compo, a doctor
then serving as the representative for UNICEF in Cote di Brois,
contracted Mendes and Gamez to explain how plastic waste clogging
sewer systems there contributed to water stagnation and the spread

(13:28):
of malaria. Cote de Voir faced a shortage of schools
and many rural communities existing ones made of mud bricks
needed frequently frequent rebuilding during the rainy season. We have
the solution, Mendez remembers, thinking they just needed to share it.
As part of a three million dollar deal with UNICEF,
Concepto's Plasticos built a new factory in Abidjan and recruited workers,

(13:53):
mainly women, to source the plastic needed so far. Over
four thousand tons of plastic have been transformed into more
than five hundred fifty classrooms, all for approximately sixty percent
of what traditional construction methods cost. The effort has created
a circular economy that removes waste from the environment, improves
the educational system by way of well designed buildings, and

(14:16):
creates jobs. Mendez and Gambz are now negotiating on a
similar school project in Ethiopia and investigating how to build
latrines in refugee camps in South Sudan to share their
technology in places where building new factories may present challenges,
The partners recently designed a scaled down version of their

(14:37):
system that can be transported in a forty foot container.
It may run on trash, but as Compo puts at,
the concept is not just beautiful but brilliant. By Eric Wills. Next,
Victor Glover, the astronaut launching a new era of space exploration.
We still call great human accomplishments moonshots, says astronaut Victor Glover,

(15:00):
But what might happen to that phrase when we go
beyond the moon? Glover is laying the groundwork to find
out by preparing to travel farther into space. Than any
human has ever gone. For the Artemists, two missions scheduled
for April twenty twenty six will venture five thousand miles
past the Moon, setting the stage for future lunar landings
and longer trips to Mars. Glover, one of only seventeen

(15:22):
black astronauts out of over three hundred fifty people Nasau
has sent to space, believes this kind of exploration is
about more than merely going someplace far away. Our eyes
are lifted, he says, Our hearts are lifted. That collective inspiration,
that collective support that unifies people by Mosy Secret. Next,

(15:44):
Michel Yeo, the Oscar winner, shining a spotlight on the
burdens of women in disaster zones. Ten years ago, Michel
Yet was visiting Catman Dieu, Nepal with her new husband,
Jean Tote, when the city was struck by a magnitude
seven point eight earthquake. The couple had been attending an
event at a low rise hotel, and they narrowly escaped

(16:05):
the devastation when the earth shook. I was immediately on
the floor. Yos recalls, we literally had to crawl out
because there was no way to stand in the aftermath
of the earthquake, Yo was stunned by the destruction. Close
to nine thousand people were dead and millions more displaced.
What impacted her most was how helpless she felt. If
you are not a first responder, don't try to help,

(16:26):
you just get in the way, she recalls. Yet weeks later,
Yo returned to Nepal in the midst of aftershocks and landslides,
working with Lived to Love International, a New York based
ANGIO that partners with a local nunnery to aid villages.
She came back again the following year to join the
United Nations Development Programs continuing relief efforts. She visited UNESCO

(16:49):
World Heritage sites in the Katmandu Valley and remote villages
on the outskirts of the capital. For Yo, it felt
vital to reach people in both the cities and remo
villages with messages of hope. We know you are there,
She reiterates, we have not forgotten about you. Raised in Malaysia,
Yeo sixty two, began her career in nineteen eighties Hong Kong.

(17:11):
On screen, she subverted the role of the bond girl
in Tomorrow Never Dies, helped put Asian films in the
mainstream with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and earned an Oscar
for everything, everywhere, all at once. A moment she used
to call out sexist agism during her acceptance speech. She
now brings that inclusive lens to disaster zones and recently

(17:34):
focused attention on Turkey and Syria, which were devastated by
a series of earthquakes in twenty twenty three, with the
strongest registering at seven point eight, the same severity as
the Nepal tragedy. She believes that it's especially important to
empower women within these heart hit areas because they are
often the first to come forward to help others in crisis,

(17:55):
but they tend to suffer disproportionate violence and abuse. Yo's
experience Nepal cemented her belief that women are the driving
forest behind the renewal of their communities. While visiting the region,
she saw how women often bore the brunt of the
hard work. However, they also focused on sustainable solutions. These
women rally together to resolve the situation. She says, I

(18:17):
could see the resilience and they are very forward thinking.
In a rural village in the Saint Hapu Choke district,
for example, she helped inaugurate a milk collection center. This
kind of humanitarian work as convinced her of the possibilities
of incremental change for me. As long as you have hope,
you will keep going forward, she says, that's the most

(18:39):
powerful thing. By Karina Chocano. Next Lewis Pugh, the endurance
swimmer on a diplomatic mission to protect the world's fragile places.
The water flowing through the East Antarctic by sheep was
nearly as cold as water can be without freezing, just
above thirty two degrees fahrenheit. Yet Lewis Pugh war only

(19:00):
espiedo goggles and a swim cap. He felt extremely fit,
but he'd also bulked up slightly to keep himself warm
on this unprecedented quest. Swimming down a half mile river
that tunneled through the shifting glacial ice, he moved methodically
in the water, careful not to stir the ice stalactites overhead.
It was so cold that at first he could barely breathe,

(19:21):
and after ten minutes his hands were swollen, their veins
bright blue. On a rocky shoreline, he was greeted by
his support team, among them the Vatslav Slava Vetisov, the
retired Russian hockey star. I pulled him out from the water,
Vetisov recalls of that day several years ago. I see
his skin was so fragile. I said, Oh my god,

(19:42):
he's unbelievable, this man. Some adventurers undertake a challenge as
the climber. George Mallory once said of Mount Everest, because
it's there. Hugh of, British born South African endurance swimmer,
whose completed expeditions in each of the world's oceans, undertakes
his polar plunges for the en reason these places might
not be around one day, at least not as we

(20:04):
know them now. Each of his swims is designed to
further missions of a diplomatic variety, persuading governments to designate
the waters he diverses as marine protected areas free from
offshore drilling, commercial fishing and other are harmful activities. Pugh
fifty five, has been a long distance swimmer for nearly
four decades. During that time, he says, our oceans have

(20:26):
changed enormously. We're now facing what he calls a perfect
storm of marine crises, with climate change, loss of diversity
and pollution. I started doing swims to carry a message
about the health of our planet. He says, this has
always been about justice. A maritime lawyer, Peugh has spent
more than a decade as the UN Patron of the Oceans.

(20:48):
His aim is for thirty percent of our oceans to
become marine protected areas by twenty thirty. It's a lofty target.
Currently it's estimated that less than three percent are protected,
but Pugh has helped the cause. In twenty eighteen, when
he became the first person to swim the three hundred
twenty eight mile length of the English Channel, the United
Kingdom's Environment Secretary met him at the journey's end on

(21:11):
a beach in Dover. Soon after, the UK began expanding
its marine protection and became one of the first countries
to support the twenty thirty goal, encouraging other nations to
follow suit. Hugh completed his first endurance swim from Robin Island,
South Africa to Cape Town in nineteen eighty seven when
he was seventeen, but it was until his mid thirties

(21:33):
when he was swimming the Bay of Deception Island, a
caldera off the trip of the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.
That he found his mission that day in two thousand five.
As he swam, he saw bones piled next to the
water's surface. They belonged to Wales, hunted decades before. It
left a big mark on me, he recalls, I like
to think that those boons are a reminder of man's

(21:55):
potential for folly. Since then, he's swum in a glacial
lake on Evra across the North Pole, and from Saudi
Arabia across the Red Sea to Egypt, a journey that
brought him alongside stunning coral reefs. Though most nations have
pledged to limit warming to one point five degrees celsius
above pre industrial levels, he's worried that change isn't happening

(22:17):
fast enough. Beyond that threshold, Pew points out, we would
lose between seventy and ninety percent of the world's coral reefs,
and then at two degrees, probably all the world's coral
This will be the first time in human history that
we lose an entire ecosystem, he says. Along the way,
he's made a valuable ally in Fetisov, captain of the

(22:37):
Soviet Union's gold medal winning hockey teams of the nineteen
eighties and now a member of the Russian Parliament. After
a swim across the Ross Sea, deep within the Antarctic
in twenty fifteen, Few took the first of several trips
to Moscow. There he met Fetisov, who arranged conversations with
top officials. The following year, president Russian President Vladimir Putin

(23:02):
agreed to amultae country effort to establish a six hundred
thousand square mile marine protected area in the Ross Sea,
one of the largest in the world. You remember Ping
Pong diplomacy in the nineteen seventies, pus this was Speedo diplomacy.
After his twenty twenty swim through the East Antarctic ice sheet,
Pew returned to Moscow, where he and Fetisov hoped to

(23:25):
gain Russian support for three more Antarctic marine protected areas.
Those negotiations have stalled, though, and it's unclear whether Russia
is abiding by its earlier commitment. Recently, Pew found himself
one hundred fifty miles north of the Arctic Circle, on
the western coast of Greenland. He'd come to Ibusiat to

(23:45):
swim in a tidal fiord fed by one of the
world's fastest moving glaciers calving at a rate of eleven
cubic miles a year. The glacier contributes to sea level
rise around the world. Its ground zero of the climate crisis.
Pew says, the water was so cold that he went
only for the briefest of dips. I put my head

(24:05):
in the water, he recalls, and you can hear little bubbles,
and these bubbles are the ice that was trapped thousands
of years ago. When he surfaced, he heard the roar
of calving icebergs, a reminder that he'd have to return
for another's swim. Next Shouyong the scientists finding solutions in
the structures of nature. The way Shuyong sees it, the

(24:26):
natural world has allowed to teach us. A chemical and
biomolecular engineer, she employs biomimicry, the study of organically occurring structures,
to inspire new and often more sustainable solutions that meet
human needs. Two recent projects are a three D printed
concrete that emulates properties seen in butterfly wings and an

(24:47):
adhesive inspired by snail secretions. What's next, I have tons
of ideas, Yan said by an appeal. Next. Lucy Bosch,
the app co founder who built an online market place
for food waste. When Lucy Bosch was twenty four. She
had zero coding experience. What the French entrepreneur did have, however,

(25:09):
was a simmering disdain for how much good food winds
up in the trash about thirty percent of global production,
which creates as much as ten percent of greenhouse gas
emissions as it rots. Bakeries, restaurants, and grocery stores typically
threw out perishable items at the end of the day.
If someone could connect that supply to thrifty eaters, the

(25:29):
food could be sold at a steep discount. She rallied
suppliers first, then built a tech team. Thanks to Bosh's
scrappy determination, Too Good to Go is the world's largest
market place for struplus food, operating in nineteen countries with
more than one hundred million users. I think that's actually
what enabled the success, she says, the fact that we

(25:51):
didn't wait and just went for it. Next, Carlos Magdalena,
the rescuer of plants that are on the brink of extinction.
These journeyed to the cliffs of Mauritius and the rainforest
of the Amazon in search of endangered plant species, but
for Carlos Magdalena, a botanical horticulturalist at the QWE Royal

(26:14):
Botanic Gardens in London. Another adventure revolves around cultivating and
preserving flora that's increasingly threatened in the wild. Successes include
propagating a cafe mariwned shrub from the Mauritian island of
Rodrigues and the pygmy lily that lives in the hot
springs of Rwanda. With forty five percent of flowering plant

(26:34):
species potentially threatened with extinction, such work has never been
more vital. I always say that obsession has a bad reputation,
Magdalena says, but I think obsession makes incredible things. Next,
Jeremy Jones, the snowboarder uniting athletes to save our winters.
A pioneer of big mountains snowboarding, Jeremy Jones watched as

(26:55):
helicopters made remote back country runs suddenly reachable, but he
had misgiving about the means of ascent. I knew when
I got in a helicopter I was taking up resources,
he says. He began hiking up mountains instead and found
the experience exhilarating. The snowboard is a tool to challenge
yourself to connect with nature. When you strip away the machines,

(27:15):
the tool is much more effective. Jones became a split boarder,
ascending slopes on skis that could be combined into a
snowboard for the ride back down, and eventually created his
own company to manufacture equipment for the pursuit. He resolved
to give one percent of sales to environmental organizations, but

(27:35):
he couldn't find any nonprofits in the snow sports world
focused on climate change solutions, so in two thousand seven
he launched his own Protect Our Winters, aptly known as POW,
a nod to fresh powder. The group's alliance of elite
athletes now includes Jesse Diggins, the gold medal winning cross
country skier, and Tommy Caldwell, one of the most accomplished

(27:59):
rock climbers in the world. This concludes readings from National
Geographic magazine for to Day. Your reader hasband Marsha. Thank
you for listening and keep on listening. Have a great day.