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
Artificial intelligence or AI’s huge appetite for power is reviving demand for older and dirtier fossil fuel energy. We talk about the massive data centers that power AI, community pushback, and how AI seems to be putting vital climate targets out of reach.
Also, the Make America Healthy Again or MAHA movement has pinpointed some health concerns backed up by credible research, including concerns about pesticides such as the proba...
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December 2, 2025 • 41 mins
This Giving Tuesday, we've put together some favorite stories into a special bonus episode! Please enjoy, and don't forget to head to loe.org and click on Donate at the top of the page. Thank you so much for helping Living on Earth keep going strong.
In this bonus episode you'll hear:
Author and naturalist Sy Montgomery has trekked across the world to write about pink dolphins in the Amazon and tigers in Asia. But for her book...
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November 28, 2025 • 51 mins
Wildfire smoke is fouling air quality across the US with increasing regularity, and it carries a heavy toll. A September 2025 study published in the journal Nature found that every year around 40,000 Americans are dying from wildfire smoke, with more on the way as the planet warms. Air filters, face masks and low-intensity prescribed burning can help protect the public from this growing threat.
Also, around a third of the firefigh...
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November 21, 2025 • 51 mins
As the host of this year’s UN climate treaty negotiations and home to most of the Amazon tropical rainforest, Brazil led a major advance for forests and their indigenous inhabitants. The new $125 billion fund, with guarantees for investors, will send its profits to countries with documented forest preservation, including some cash going directly to indigenous and local populations.
Also, we now know about the severe health impact...
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November 14, 2025 • 51 mins
November’s elections brought victories across the country for state and local Democratic candidates who pledged to address rising energy costs. The challenges of meeting those promises the incoming Governors of Virginia and New Jersey, and Mayor of New York, will likely face.
Also, a recent report warns that the European Alps, Rockies of the Western U.S. and Canada, Iceland, and Scandinavia would lose nearly all ice at 2°Celsius o...
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The biggest climate negotiations of the year, COP30, are kicking off in Belem in the Brazilian Amazon. Longtime COP observer Jennifer Morgan joins us to preview COP30 and discuss the focus on closing the gap between current greenhouse gas reduction policies and what’s needed to limit warming to a safer level.
Also, King Charles III, who leads the Anglican Church, and Pope Leo XIV, who leads the Roman Catholic Church, recently join...
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Hurricane Melissa, the strongest storm to hit the Caribbean in modern times, left a wake of destruction in Jamaica, Cuba and Haiti that will take years to recover from. A Jamaican climate physics professor describes the toll of this climate catastrophe, and a meteorologist joins us to explain how the storm grew so ferocious in the blink of a hurricane’s eye.
Also, Gwich’in Alaska Natives, which consider the land of the Arctic Na...
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October 24, 2025 • 51 mins
A recent Human Rights Watch report found that illegal cattle ranching and clearing of the Amazon rainforest has led to the forced eviction of small farmers and indigenous people in the state of Pará, Brazil. We discuss the stakes for the planet and people, as well as possible solutions.
Also, meat is the biggest single source of carbon emissions from the food system, which is itself responsible for a third of global greenhouse ga...
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Facing lost jobs and higher energy prices after the Trump EPA canceled $7 billion in low-income solar grants, a coalition of labor, green and anti-poverty groups is teaming up to fight in court for clean energy jobs and save “Solar for All.”
Also, one of the most frightening aspects of Halloween is the monstrous amounts of waste it can generate. We share ideas for making Halloween a little more sustainable, from recycling candy w...
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October 10, 2025 • 51 mins
China has for the first time committed to an absolute target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, by 7 to 10 percent by 2035. We discuss China’s growing dominance in the global clean energy transition while the current US administration doubles down on fossil fuels.
Also, compared to traditional rooftop solar, “balcony solar” offers renters, apartment dwellers and folks on a tighter budget a much less expensive solar energy starter...
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October 3, 2025 • 51 mins
In the federal youth climate case Lighthiser v. Trump, plaintiffs are seeking immediate relief from three executive orders and subsequent actions of the Trump administration that boost fossil fuels. But the federal government maintains that the Lighthiser plaintiffs, like those in the prior case Juliana v. United States, lack standing.
Also, the champion of Fat Bear Week 2025 is officially number 32 - “Chunk”, a big male who over...
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September 26, 2025 • 51 mins
Speaking to the UN, President Trump railed against climate science and clean energy, drawing sharp rebukes from other nations, rival politicians and business leaders. Meanwhile, China for the first time ever announced a specific target for reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.
Also, the four-lane Great Highway used to run along the Pacific Ocean on the west side of San Francisco, where it was at risk of erosion from sea level ri...
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New research finds that since 2010 killer heat waves have become 200 times more likely, thanks to greenhouse gas emissions, and the scientists say about half of the increase in heatwaves can be attributed to big coal, big oil, big gas and cement.
Also, while the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season has been relatively quiet, last year damages from three major hurricanes ran to over 200 billion dollars and claims have stressed homeowner...
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September 12, 2025 • 51 mins
The Trump Administration is putting offshore wind energy on hold by canceling grants, cutting tax credits and revoking permits for projects that are nearly complete. We discuss the economic impacts to port communities and the view that the US is ceding the opportunity to be a global leader in renewable energy.
Also, with the Arctic warming four times as fast as the rest of the globe, and fires now routinely burning large swaths of...
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September 5, 2025 • 51 mins
New Jersey officials are calling its $2 billion settlement with major manufacturers of PFAS “forever chemicals” the largest environmental settlement ever won by a state. We discuss the legacy of industrial contamination in the state and how the settlement is expected to pay for cleanup as well as restoration of degraded ecosystems.
Also, scientists in the UK were able to use genetically modified bacteria to turn plastic bottles i...
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August 29, 2025 • 51 mins
Oysters on the half shell are big business on Nantucket Island, and a local program recycles oyster shells from restaurant waste into habitat for young oysters. These recycled oyster shell reefs are helping to protect the coastline from worsening storms and rising seas.
Also, seventy percent of our planet is covered by the oceans, and in this vast wilderness lawlessness is rampant, with crimes ranging from illegal fishing to slav...
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Around a thousand of the firefighters who battled blazes around southern California in January 2025 were incarcerated. They do essentially the same work as other firefighters but are paid as little as around $5 a day. A formerly incarcerated firefighter shares what it was like and how the experience helped him forge a new life after prison as a professional firefighter.
Also, as the water supply in Athens, Greece dwindles and dema...
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August 15, 2025 • 51 mins
Sounds like the overlapping songs of birds can speak volumes about the biodiversity in an ecosystem, and now scientists are looking to use the tiny sounds made by earthworms, ants, and voles to study the health of soils.
Also, "depaving parties" of volunteers with sledgehammers are turning paved yards into pollinator havens and green space. That can help reduce climate impacts from extreme heat and flooding.
Plus -- a scientist...
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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 study.
Also, astronomer Phil Plait wondered what it would be like to walk on Mars, fall into a black hole, or fly through a nebula, so he wrote a book, Under Alien Skies: A Sightseer’s Guide to th...
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Eels play an important ecological role in many rivers and streams, but they’re so eel-usive that even eel scientists have been challenged to observe them mating in the wild. Ellen Ruppel Shell is author of the 2024 book Slippery Beast: A True Crime Natural History, with Eels, and she sheds light on the eel’s murky ecology and path through the seafood industry.
And the relentless heating of the Earth is prompting people to move ...
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