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
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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The US Environmental Protection Agency is shutting down its Office of Research and Development, which represents 50 years of independent scientific research. We explain the impact of this federal decision on both EPA employees and science.
Also, National Parks are undergoing increased layoffs and funding cuts under the second Trump administration stretching staff short. A former NPS employee speaks out.
And Wildfire season is sc...
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July 18, 2025 • 51 mins
Weather forecasting, climate research and climate resilience are being hit with major budget and staffing cuts by the Trump administration, impacting emergency preparedness for floods such as the one that devastated the Texas hill country.
Also,research has long shown that the top two coffee species, Arabica and Robusta, are vulnerable to climate impacts like increased drought and heat. And by 2050 as much as half of coffee produc...
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As the climate crisis brings ever more devastating floods, storms, heat waves and fires, the Republican-led Congress and President Trump have slashed around half a trillion dollars in clean energy tax credits that would have reduced climate pollution and helped America to better adapt to climate change.
Also, catastrophic floods like the one that claimed at least 100 lives in Texas this July are becoming more likely because of cl...
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19-year-old Eva Lighthiser has experienced climate anxiety for most of her life, as her home state of Montana faces worsening floods, wildfires, and extreme heat. Now she and 20 other young people are suing the Trump administration over its efforts to boost fossil fuels while suppressing climate science and renewable energy.
Also, ten years since nations adopted the historic Paris Agreement, greenhouse gas emissions continue to r...
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This June the US Environmental Protection Agency proposed eliminating regulations that limit climate changing gases from power plants, about a quarter of US emissions. Harvard Law Professor Richard Lazarus speaks about the perils of the broader Trump administration effort to weaken federal environmental protections.
Also, the ugly truth of plastic is that the world produces over 400 million metric tons each year and recycles less ...
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June 20, 2025 • 52 mins
Just as the enslavement of people was driven by commercial interests, today the enslavement of nature for profit violates a morality that sees value in all living things, according to the Rev. Mariama White-Hammond, pastor of New Roots AME Church in Dorchester, Massachusetts and former Chief of Environment, Energy and Open Spaces for the City of Boston. She joins us to reflect on how overcoming slavery, which is celebrated on Junet...
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One of the development initiatives affected by the Trump Administration’s shutdown of USAID is the Soybean Innovation Lab, which works to improve soybean yields and production in Africa to help boost farmers’ income. Our guest discusses her work with the Soybean Innovation Lab and why helping improve farmers’ yields is so fulfilling.
Also, a recent study finds the Colorado River Basin has lost a tremendous amount of water in the...
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The 2025 hurricane season is underway, and the U.S. is likely to see higher than average activity. The past couple of years, extremely warm water in the Gulf of Mexico helped storms rapidly intensify to major hurricanes. But cuts to federal weather monitoring and hurricane modeling could leave the U.S. underprepared for strengthening storms.
Also, record-breaking heat in the oceans has led to the most widespread coral bleaching ev...
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California’s car culture, trucking industry, and weather contribute to chronically bad air that it’s been gradually improving with its own laws and regulations and the blessing of the EPA. But now under President Trump, the EPA and Republican Congress are taking away California’s ability to clean up its air.
Also, the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" that passed through the House of Representatives on party lines guts multiple provis...
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Last-minute changes in the House budget reconciliation bill included scrapping one of the more controversial amendments that would have sold off public lands in the southwest to private developers. But the overall bill isn’t a complete win for the environment, with even deeper cuts to clean energy tax credits added at the last minute.
Also, a new White House memo instructs federal agencies to disregard the economic impacts of cli...
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May 16, 2025 • 52 mins
The new Pope, Leo XIV, has worked with interfaith environmental networks and there’s hope around the world that he may follow in the footsteps of his predecessor Pope Francis and bring issues of the environment and climate change to the forefront of his agenda.
Also, autism spectrum disorder is now diagnosed in about 1 in 31 children in the United States, a rise of 70 percent in just four years according to the CDC. In addition t...
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At the direction of President Trump the U.S. Department of Justice has sued four states -- Vermont, New York, Hawaii, and Michigan -- that are trying to recover some climate costs from major fossil fuel companies through climate superfund laws and litigation. The DOJ cases are seen by some as frivolous extensions of the other actions the Trump administration has taken to aid the fossil fuel industry.
Also, a project called Climat...
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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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