The Hay 30 – Helen CZERSKI

Nature-writing is going through a renaissance. What started largely with TV tie-ins has evolved into a genre encompassing books about climate change, the countryside, walking, and off-grid living.
For Radio 4’s new landmark environment and nature series Rare Earth, presenters Tom Heap and Helen Czerski are joined on-stage by Mark Cocker, Philippa Forrester, and Chris Thorogood to discuss the purpose of nature-writing and why it's important, and how nature-writing can help shape our understanding of the natural world.

Dive deep with physicist Helen Czerski and marine biologist Helen Scales as they speak to the Festival’s Sustainability Director Andy Fryers about our vast oceans. Czerski’s The Blue Machine illuminates the murky depths of the ocean engine, examining the messengers, passengers and voyagers that live in it, travel over it, and survive because of it. Scales’ What the Wild Sea Can Be is an optimistic view of the future of the ocean, looking at how fish populations and giant kelp and seagrass forests are being regenerated and expanded.

What is it that helps both scorpions and cyclists to survive? What do raw eggs and gyroscopes have in common? And why does it matter? The physicist explores the patterns and connections that illustrate the grandest theories in the smallest everyday objects and experience, linking what makes popcorn pop to Antarctic winds, coffee stains to blood tests or ketchup bottles to aliens in space. Every thread you pull in the fabric of daily life shows you something new about the intricate patterns of our world.