Lately for Thursday 19 August 2021

10:20 Overseas data shows children are vulnerable to 'Long Covid'

Today cabinet agreed to make the Pfizer vaccine available for 12-15 year-olds. The decision is being celebrated by Dr Andrew Miller who is the former president of the Australian Medical Association in Western Australia. He is a strong advocate for vaccinating children as he says overseas data showed children were vulnerable to the lasting symptoms of Long Covid. Dr Andrew Miller joins the show.

10:30 Why government's won't act on climate change

On August 6th, in the first part of a series of reports, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gave humanity a code red alert, and told us that the Earth could be just 10 years from heating by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. If we exceed this threshold we’re in for even more serious and frequent fires, droughts, floods and cyclones.

Mark Blyth is a political economist at Brown University in the US and says that all we can expect from this news "is for governments to redouble their usage of a time-tested rhetoric of distraction called "getting back to normal".

Karyn talks to Mark about how we take action when, as humans, he believes we're hard-wired to expect equilibrium.

10:45 The Rest is History: Pilot Officer James Stellin

In 1944, 22 year-old James Stellin was one of several thousand New Zealanders who flew with the Royal Air Force over Europe in support of the D-Day landings. Unfortunately on the 19th of August his plane was hit by flak and began to rapidly lose height in the direction of a small village in France. He made a decision to redirect his plane to save the residents but at the cost of his own life. Research Curator at the Airforce Museum of New Zealand, Simon Moody joins the show to discuss his story and legacy.