Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Show notes for Sunday 22 July 2012

Cook’s artist Sydney Parkinson described New Zealand as “agreeable beyond description, and … might be rendered a kind of second Paradise". This year’s series of Royal Society lectures hosted by Kim Hill, and arising out of ideas from the Transit of Venus Forum, look for ways to realise Sydney Parkinson’s paradisal vision of New Zealand.

22 July 2012: The Role of Science in Bettering New Zealand

Sir Peter Gluckman and Kim Hill explore the issues we need to address to have improve our prosperity, environment and social cohesion; and how science can help. (recorded 14 June)

29 July 2012: A New Enlightenment

Dame Anne Salmond and Kim Hill explore the possibility of a new Enlightenment that recaptures the wide-ranging curiosity of New Zealand’s early exploring scientists while transcending western modernity by drawing upon other intellectual traditions, including the relational thinking characteristic of Maori and other Pacific life worlds.  (recorded 21 June)

5 August 2012: Kill a Stoat and Save New Zealand?

Kim Hill and a panel of experts consider Sir Paul Callaghan’s final challenge- to make New Zealand pest free.  How realistic is this vision? Will New Zealanders rise to the challenge? What will it cost?  And would it be worth the expense? (recorded 6 June)

12 August 2012: What do Scientists Know about Economics?

At a time when we work harder and earn less than most of the developed world, and it’s no wonder the planes are fuller leaving, Kim Hill and a panel of New Zealand’s top scientists consider whether scientists have any idea at all about the reality of business and economics? And do they have a role in determining our future? (recorded 7 June)

19 August 2012: Renaissance of the Land

Kim Hill and a panel of East Coast people discuss the vicissitudes of life on the land, the disasters that threaten the environment and their efforts to take their destiny in hand, and build a resilient community where people can make a living, enjoy living off the land and the land endures. (recorded 5 June)

26 August 2012: Transiting Where? 

Dr Gareth Morgan and Kim Hill will examine whether New Zealanders’ expectations of material wealth can be satiated or is despoiling of our land and environment an inevitable precondition for our priorities to change from consumerism to well-being?