Living on Earth
As the planet we call home faces a climate emergency, Living on Earth is your go-to source for the latest coverage of climate change, ecology, and human health. Hosted by Steve Curwood and brought to you by PRX.
Episodes
May 2, 2025 • 52 mins
The latest “State of the Air” report by the American Lung Association finds that nearly half of people living in the U.S. breathe unhealthy levels of air pollution. Soot and smog are on the rise in part because climate change is bringing more wildfires and ozone-forming conditions.
Also, a key climate modeling program within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA is slated for near-elimination, according to a...
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April 25, 2025 • 52 mins
As the world remembers the legacy of Pope Francis we return to his groundbreaking writings on climate and environment that called for a fundamental shift in our economic system, and a rethinking of our relationship with God's creation: the natural world.
Also, a 2025 Goldman Environmental Prize recipient was repeatedly told there was nothing to worry about when it came to PFAS “forever chemicals” linked to illnesses in her commun...
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Living on Earth is celebrating 55 years of Earth Day with a solution-based broadcast. Grammy nominated singer and Earth Day ambassador Antonique Smith uses the art of storytelling and music to promote environmental justice and climate action in communities of faith and color.
Nalleli Cobo is a young activist who was awarded the 2022 Goldman Prize for North America after fighting an oil company whose wells were making her community ...
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President Trump has issued an executive order that directs the U.S. attorney general to identify and block state laws that deal with climate change, environmental justice, and carbon emissions.
A study from Johns Hopkins researchers found that residents near or on the fence line of polluting enterprises are at higher risk for multiple health problems because of the toxic mix of air they breathe. The lead researcher explains the stu...
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April 4, 2025 • 52 mins
Experts are still trying to piece together how tornado patterns have changed in the last century and are likely to keep changing as the world gets hotter. A meteorologist explains the eastward shift of tornadoes in the US and how newly vulnerable populations can stay safe.
Also, the Trump administration is slashing personnel and research grants at two dozen federal agencies, including those conducting critical science. Science has ...
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March 28, 2025 • 52 mins
A North Dakota jury found in favor of pipeline company Energy Transfer and ordered Greenpeace to pay more than $600 million in damages over its role in helping protest the Dakota Access Pipeline. Some legal experts call the case a classic SLAPP or Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation suit and a threat to free speech.
Also, a program funded by the 2021 bipartisan Infrastructure Law sought to install many more electri...
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March 21, 2025 • 52 mins
As President Trump and the Republican-led Congress aim to shrink the federal government and renew major tax cuts, hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy tax credits could be on the chopping board. Twenty-one House Republicans whose districts are benefiting from the tax credits are petitioning GOP leadership to keep them intact.
Also, under President Biden the Department of Justice and EPA sued petrochemical manufacturer De...
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March 14, 2025 • 52 mins
The Trump administration announced plans to roll back multiple environmental regulations, cut EPA spending and push back environmental justice programs. We cover how recent federal actions impact environmental policy as well as the role our guest Christine Todd Whitman played as the former Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency during the Bush administration.
Also, plastics can contain thousands of chemicals like phth...
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March 7, 2025 • 52 mins
To help cover the rising costs of climate impacts like extreme floods and sea level rise, New York State has enacted a climate superfund law that asks major fossil fuel companies to pay up, based on their historic sales of coal, gas and oil. We discuss how the revenues would fund climate adaptation and resilience.
Also, the Trump Administration barred government scientists from attending a key UN climate science meeting in Februar...
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February 28, 2025 • 52 mins
The thousands of homes that burned in Los Angeles this January included the home of Marketplace Morning Report Host David Brancaccio. He shares what he’s learning about the challenges of rebuilding with a limited supply and huge demand for contractors. David says there’s an opportunity to rebuild a more wildfire-resistant Altadena, and to heal the community itself.
Also, sea otters were hunted out from Oregon and Northern Californ...
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February 21, 2025 • 52 mins
The Trump EPA is trying to cancel $20 billion dollars of funding in what’s known as the “Green Bank”, which provides loans for local clean energy, energy efficiency upgrades and more. Without providing evidence, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin accused the program of being rife with fraud and waste.
Also, as costly climate disasters multiply around the planet, some financial experts are raising alarms that proceeding with business as u...
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The Trump administration’s attempt to freeze all foreign assistance and bid to lay off nearly all USAID staffers are bringing disastrous consequences for millions of acutely hungry people, including those in war-torn Sudan. A Sudanese climate activist describes the desperate situation and sends a warning to the US about the perils of isolationism.
Also, global warming is increasing the frequency and severity of “climate whiplash” e...
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February 7, 2025 • 52 mins
Black, Brown and low-income communities pushing back against industrial pollution have always had an uphill battle. But now those environmental justice fights may get even harder, as the Trump administration shutters federal EJ programs.
Also, one of the many Biden Administration rules the Trump EPA has nixed is one that would have limited the amount of toxic PFAS that petrochemical and other plants can release into waterways. We e...
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January 31, 2025 • 52 mins
So far avian flu hasn’t been seen spreading from human to human, but recent mutations indicate some variants are becoming better adapted to infecting humans.
Also, around a thousand of the firefighters who battled blazes around southern California in January 2025 were incarcerated. A formerly incarcerated firefighter shares what it was like and how the experience helped him forge a new life after prison as a professional firefighte...
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Back in power, President Trump immediately took aim at climate and environmental protection with a flurry of executive orders such as blocking the Paris Climate Accord and boosting fossil fuel sales. The President may have over-reached but could still do lasting damage to the climate and environment.
Also, one of President Trump’s Day One executive orders commands a reversal of the Biden Administration’s goal for half of vehicles s...
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Facing huge costs for climate adaptation and disaster recovery, some states and localities are suing fossil fuel companies for damages. The U.S. Supreme Court recently declined an attempt to block these lawsuits, and we explain the significance of some of them proceeding to trial.
Also, nearly all the tall coast redwoods in California’s Big Basin Redwoods State Park burned in a 2020 wildfire. But within a few months the charred tru...
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January 10, 2025 • 52 mins
Wildfires like those hitting southern California take an enormous social and psychological toll on victims and observers alike. We hear how people and communities can heal from the “climate trauma” brought by wildfires and other disasters linked to the climate crisis.
Also, President-elect Trump’s stated plans to again remove the U.S. from the Paris Accord would be just the latest whiplash in a decades-long trend of U.S. inconsiste...
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Freshman U.S. Representative Yassamin Ansari, a Democrat representing Arizona’s 3rd district, puts climate at the top of her priority list. She joins us to reflect on her work with the UN on the Paris Climate Accord, discuss how extreme heat is affecting her constituents, and preview her climate aims in Congress.
Also, in a landmark 6 to 1 decision, the Montana State Supreme Court upheld a ruling that found young people, and by ex...
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Underwater life has been a mystery to humans since the beginning of time. The Extreme Life of the Sea by Stephen and Anthony Palumbi is a book that sheds an entertaining and informative light on life for the ocean’s oddest creatures, making you think of fish as characters, not seafood.
Also, animals like the American Bison, bald eagle, and giant panda are just a few of the charismatic species that have come dangerously close to ext...
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December 20, 2024 • 52 mins
Irish harpist Aine Minogue shares stories of mid-winter traditions like visiting friends, decorating with evergreens, and summoning longer days. She also plays traditional tunes of the season and sings about a creature from the Land Beneath the Sea.
Slaves in the American South sang and shared stories to keep their sense of hope alive. Husband and wife duo Sparky and Rhonda Rucker share stories of what slaves could expect at the ho...
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