2024-07-29
22 分钟This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.
You are actually radioactive and everything alive is unexpected.
Elements from the BBC World Service.
Search for unexpected elements wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
Welcome to the Inquiry.
I'm Charmaine kozier.
Each week, one question, four expert witnesses and an answer.
Its summer 2024.
On one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world, hundreds of monumental human shaped statues are motionless and exposed to the elements on Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island.
That name dates back to 1722 when a Dutch explorer first saw it on Easter Sunday.
The statues or moai, were there hundreds of years before that and are sacred to the Rapanui people.
They've also become a world famous tourist attraction and can be found in multiple outdoor locations across the small island.
They are heavy and huge.
Sizes range from 1 to 20 meters tall.
Some are upright on platforms, others are toppled over and broken.
Over the years global weather has become more extreme.
So this week we're asking can the statues of Easter island survive climate change?
Part 1 A Distant Warning Rapa Nui.
Is very far away from everybody and in Rapanui Rapa is mean a land or earth and Nui is mean big.
But it's still a small island.