At the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, the US and European nations agreed to provide $8.5 billion in financing to help South Africa phase out its use of coal power. South Africa, which is experiencing yet another wave of power outages, gets most of its electricity from burning coal and is the largest carbon emitter in Africa. What international aid means for ... Show More
Oct 30
Microplastics, Inflammation, and Your Health; 50,000 Dead from Europe’s 2026 Heat; Saving a Big Bug ‘Down Under’ and more.
Plastics have been widely adopted in all sorts of products from food packaging to toys to medical devices, in part because they don’t tend to chemically react. But new research challenges that notion when it comes to microplastics, finding that contact by tiny chips of plastic wi ... Show More
51m 50s
Oct 23
Fracking and Data Centers, A Fossil Fuel Treaty Beyond the UNFCCC, Hurricane Helene's Impact Brought to Life and more.
One of the states where data centers to power AI are growing is Pennsylvania, which also has a large supply of natural gas. In Upper Burrell, a town just east of Pittsburgh, a data center expansion could be fed by fracking rigs already pumping gas out of the ground. The Allegheny ... Show More
51m 48s
Oct 16
Powerful Pacific Storms Amid ‘Super’ El Niño, Pesticide Atrazine Contaminating 25% of Rivers, and ‘A Guardian and a Thief’
Boosted by climate change, this year’s El Niño has intensified into a “Super El Niño,” meaning sea surface temperatures in parts of the Pacific are over 2 degrees Celsius hotter than average. How this has brought one strong storm after another churning across the Pacific Ocean wh ... Show More
51m 47s
Apr 2020
Could carbon offsetting save the world’s forests?
Honey bees, cow dung and mulch - the company in Zimbabwe that is protecting the forests in order to offset carbon emissions. As Charlotte Ashton wrestles with ‘flight shame’, she wants to find out where her money goes if she chooses to offset her flight. She lives in Zimbabwe, bu ... Show More
28m 34s