Living on Earth

A federal judge recently issued an enforcement order mandating the release of funds from FEMA's Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities or BRIC program, which the Trump administration had stalled. Why money spent to protect critical infrastructure from disasters like storms, floods and wildfires pays for itself many times over.   Also, over billions of years of its history, the planet has frozen over almost completely and then lost all its ice as crocodiles basked in a balmy Arctic. Carbon-based life arose and adapted to all this change. And at the center of it all is the notorious greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, the focus of the book The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything: How Carbon Dioxide Made Our World.   And a recent discovery is giving us insights into the last days of the woolly rhinoceros in Siberia before it went extinct some 14,000 years ago. Researchers studied the DNA of a well-preserved piece of woolly rhino meat that was the last meal of a wolf pup. --- Interested in in gaining hands-on experience with producing a radio show and podcast? Apply to be a Living on Earth intern this summer! We’re now accepting applications and to learn more, go to loe.org/about. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The investment giant Vanguard is retreating from its climate initiatives as part of a $30 million settlement deal for an anti-trust lawsuit brought by Republican state attorneys general. The lawsuit alleged that Vanguard and fellow asset managers BlackRock and State Street, which are still fighting the suit, conspired to kill the coal industry. Vanguard did not admit to wrongdoing but is now barred from participating in climate investment watchdog groups such as Ceres.   Also, facing pain at the pump, US drivers looking to buy an electric vehicle now have more and cheaper choices than ever. But with the $7500 federal tax credit for new electric vehicles now gone, you may be wondering whether EVs are the smart buy in 2026. We share some insights about EV options, cost and the charging network.   And since the US capture of President Nicolás Maduro in early January, there has been a lot of discussion about Venezuela’s massive oil reserves. But it also turns out that Venezuela is ideally positioned to harness abundant clean, renewable energy, particularly from wind. We map out this blue-sky vision for a green Venezuela. --- Join LOE and Inside Climate News for the next Living on Earth Book Club event on Thursday, March 26th! We’ll talk with data scientist Hannah Ritchie about her new book Clearing the Air: A Hopeful Guide to Solving Climate Change in 50 Questions and Answers. Learn more and sign up for this free, live online event at loe.org/events Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A decades-old US Forest Service rule that’s been used to supposedly reduce wildfire risk through large-scale logging while bypassing environmental review has been deemed unlawful by a federal court in Oregon. Clearcutting can instead increase wildfire risk, and our guest says USFS needs to rethink its entire approach to managing forests and wildfire risk.   Also, the Artemis II mission is getting ready to use the most powerful rocket ever built by NASA to return to the moon for the first time since the original Apollo missions more than 50 years ago. How declining public support shut down the Apollo program, and why NASA again faces headwinds in maintaining the public’s interest in space exploration.   And women have historically been underrepresented in science and engineering, but that didn’t stop Marie Curie, Jane Goodall, and Rachel Carson, and there are many more women in these fields who are not as famous. Artist and author Rachel Ignotofsky shares the contributions of some of the remarkable female scientists she profiles in her book, Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World.   ---   Join LOE and Inside Climate News for the next Living on Earth Book Club event on Thursday, March 26th! We’ll talk with data scientist Hannah Ritchie about her new book Clearing the Air: A Hopeful Guide to Solving Climate Change in 50 Questions and Answers. Learn more and sign up for this free, live online event at loe.org/events. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Descendants of enslaved people fighting pollution in Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ have been greenlit for a trial. Their lawsuit alleges the St. James Parish government discriminated against Black residents by repeatedly permitting industrial plants in predominantly Black districts while shielding mostly white districts from industry.   Also, President Trump has deemed glyphosate as essential for national security even though some 200,000 people have complained they have gotten cancer or other adverse health effects, while using it as directed. Meanwhile a Missouri state court has given preliminary approval to a class action settlement plan for people sickened by Roundup, which contains the herbicide glyphosate. Why some in the Make America Healthy Again movement feel betrayed by the Trump Administration’s support for glyphosate.   And though the floating seaweed known as Sargassum provides critical habitat for many species in the Sargasso Sea in the North Atlantic, it is now finding a fertile home in southern waters, where it’s wreaking havoc on coastal communities and ecosystems, with impacts to respiratory health, tourism and sea turtles. --- Join LOE and Inside Climate News for the next Living on Earth Book Club event on Thursday, March 26th! We’ll talk with data scientist Hannah Ritchie about her new book Clearing the Air: A Hopeful Guide to Solving Climate Change in 50 Questions and Answers. Learn more and sign up for this free, live online event at loe.org/events. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Dutch special municipality of Bonaire in the Caribbean is already experiencing dangerous heat and could see a fifth of its land disappear under rising seas by 2100. But the Netherlands is discriminating against these overseas citizens by failing to adequately reduce global warming emissions and develop adaptation plans to help them cope, according to a January 2026 Dutch court decision.   Also, poet and author Jason Allen-Paisant left his native Jamaica to gain a graduate school education and prize-winning poetry career in England and France. He now looks back with wonder at the green of Jamaica where generations of his ancestors fed and healed his family. He shares this history in his book The Possibility of Tenderness: A Jamaican Memoir of Plants and Dreams.   And urine is packed with nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen, which can be pollutants when they enter the environment unchecked. But these can also be turned into vital fertilizer to nourish our crops, and 2025 MacArthur Fellow William Tarpeh, an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University, is developing methods for “refining” wastewater. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After a landmark Supreme Court case that directed EPA to determine whether carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health, the agency found in 2009 that indeed they do. Now, the Trump EPA is attempting to revoke that endangerment finding to unravel all subsequent regulations on tailpipes, smokestacks and more, setting up what looks to be a long legal fight.   The Trump administration has also declared scientists at places like the National Center for Atmospheric Research are promoting ‘climate hysteria’ by overstating the risks to public health and safety, so it’s moving to cut off funds for NCAR. We discuss the important climate and weather modeling NCAR does and how the loss of funding could impact this research.   And monarch butterflies can travel thousands of miles each year between Mexico and North America in an epic relay race of multiple generations. Thanks to new technology, our phones and other Bluetooth devices can now tell us what paths these brave little insects take on this journey. ---   Join us for the next Living on Earth Book Club event! On Thursday, Feb. 26th at 6:30 p.m. Eastern, Terry Tempest Williams will join us live on Zoom to discuss her new book The Glorians: Visitations from the Holy Ordinary. Go to loe.org/events to learn more and register for this free conversation about finding glimmers of hope in the natural world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The ongoing efforts of the Trump Administration to walk back climate policy and clean energy development may be handing over the health of the US economy to our chief economic rival. China is outpacing US economic growth by supplying the world with the clean technologies vital today and in the future, including electric vehicles and critical minerals, while the Trump Administration tries to revive a dying coal industry. Also, onshore wind in the US is hitting a cliff, even in the most wind-powered state, Iowa, which generates about 2/3 of its electricity from wind. A combination of local opposition, anti-wind rhetoric and tax credit phaseouts has led to a steep decline in new wind projects. And the young hero of children’s book Daisy Rewilds not only likes nature, but she also wants to become nature. Daisy refuses to take baths and reverts the manicured lawn of her family home back into the wild, all with a bit of hilarity. Weeds and worms show her family and neighbors the true beauty in nature, chaotic as it can be. --- Save the date for the next Living on Earth Book Club event! On Thursday, Feb. 26th at 6:30 p.m. Eastern, Terry Tempest Williams will join us live on Zoom to discuss her new book The Glorians: Visitations from the Holy Ordinary. Go to loe.org/events to learn more and register for this free conversation about finding glimmers of hope in the natural world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In honor of Black History Month Special we highlight some of the voices that stood up against environmental injustice including Civil rights activist the Rev. Dr. Ben Chavis, Dr. Robert Bullard who’s been deemed the “Father of Environmental Justice”, and Louisiana attorney and human rights advocate Monique Harden. Also, Lenora Gobert, a genealogist for the Louisiana Bucket Brigade shares how looking at ancestry can help Cancer Alley’s quest for environmental justice. And, Melissa Williams a storyteller for the Center for Climate and Environmental Justice Media or CEJM shares her community’s efforts and concerns as they seek justice from the State of Alabama after highway construction flooded their homes in Shiloh Alabama. ----- Save the date for the next Living on Earth Book Club event! On Thursday, Feb. 26th at 6:30 p.m. Eastern, Terry Tempest Williams will join us live on Zoom to discuss her new book The Glorians: Visitations from the Holy Ordinary. Go to loe.org/events to learn more and register for this free conversation about finding glimmers of hope in the natural world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As geothermal heating and cooling slowly spreads in the U.S., some communities and utilities are looking to grow small pilot projects into much larger networks of pipes and heat pumps that extract and store heat in the earth to warm and cool homes and businesses as needed. We hear about a large geothermal HVAC system that demonstrates the possibilities and benefits of scaling up. Also, classic science fiction tends to assume that if aliens visit Earth, they will have done so thanks to using math and science that’s like our own. But physicist Daniel Whiteson and cartoonist Andy Warner aren’t so sure. They’re the authors of the book Do Aliens Speak Physics? And Other Questions About Science and the Nature of Reality. And the current Trump administration has in its first year cut off the World Health Organization, dismantled the United States Agency for International Development or USAID, and overhauled vaccination recommendations, just to name a few decisions impacting health and claiming lives across the globe.  ---  Save the date for the next Living on Earth Book Club event! On Thursday, Feb. 26th at 6:30 p.m. Eastern, Terry Tempest Williams will join us live on Zoom to discuss her new book The Glorians: Visitations from the Holy Ordinary. Go to loe.org/events to learn more and register for this free conversation about finding glimmers of hope in the natural world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Trump Administration is withdrawing the US from the scientific Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or IPCC, which reports agreement about the basic scientific facts of global warming and the impact of core technologies to address it. A lead author of the IPCC fourth assessment report in 2007 explains how the fossil fuel industry has long pushed for such an action.  Also, the burning of fossil fuels is linked to some 300,000 deaths in America every year, not to mention the related carbon emissions that promote global warming. We discuss the major health and economic costs linked to pollution.  And for people with developmental or physical disabilities, growing plants in a garden may offer personal growth opportunities that unlock new possibilities outside of the garden too. An avid gardener and occupational therapist speaks about her book Nurturing Nature: A Guide to Gardening for Special Needs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices