logo
episode-header-image
Jul 2023
43m 49s

I'd Like My Life Back

WWNO & WRKF
About this episode
On April 20th, 2010, out in the Gulf of Mexico, the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig exploded. The oil spill that followed is still considered the largest environmental disaster in the history of the United States. Today, we are looking at the impacts of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster 13 years later. We hear about the ongoing health effects on people wh ... Show More
Up next
Jun 18
It's All Elementary: Part 2 – Phosphorus
This is part 2 of our 3-part series about elements. Last time we met nitrogen, today, it’s partner in crime and in life – phosphorus. WLRN Environment Editor Jenny Staletovich has gotten to know the main character of this story pretty well after reporting on the environment in So ... Show More
36m 22s
Jun 5
It's All Elementary: Part 1 – Nitrogen
In this three-part series, we’re giving some of the most misunderstood characters on the periodic table a fuller story. We dive into the fascinating double lives of these elements that are both the makers and unmakers of our world. In part one, reporter Olga Loginova travels to C ... Show More
25m 55s
May 22
Climate Wayfinding: A Compass for the Climate Crisis
Want to feel better? Get unstuck? Be inspired? Remake the world? Then this episode is for you. We talk with Katherine Wilkinson, author of the book Climate Wayfinding, and Colette Pichon Battle, lawyer and co-founder of Taproot Earth, about finding our way through the climate cri ... Show More
35m 48s
Recommended Episodes
Jul 2024
How do you clean up an oil spill?
The Philippines is racing to contain the oil from a tanker that sank on Thursday in the midst of heavy rains from Typhoon Gaemi. It was carrying 1.5 million litres of oil, and the spread of it could cause an environmental catastrophe. We hear the latest on the coast guard operati ... Show More
13m 54s
Dec 2024
There Will Be Flood
Windell Curole spent decades working to protect his community in southern Louisiana from the destructive flooding caused by hurricanes. His local office in South Lafourche partnered with the federal government's Army Corps of Engineers to build a massive ring of earthen mounds – ... Show More
31m 17s
Apr 2024
‘Til the landslide brings it down
When officials commissioned a set of updated hazard maps for Juneau, Alaska, they thought the information would help save lives and spur new development. Instead, the new maps drew public outcry from people who woke up to discover their homes were at risk of being wiped out by la ... Show More
33m 24s
Jun 2023
Living Underwater For 100 Days, Refineries’ Excess Emissions, Owl Facts. June 9, 2023, Part 2
<p>Exposing Texas’ Excess Emissions Problems</p> <p>In the early hours of August 22, 2020, Hurricane Laura was still just a tropical storm off the coast of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean. But effects from the monstrous storm, which would <a href="https://www.sciencefriday.c ... Show More
47m 25s
Aug 2025
Katrina Was Predicted: Revisiting Warning Signs 20 Years Later
Twenty years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Scientific American revisits the storm’s tragic legacy and the scientific warnings that went unheeded. Senior editor Mark Fischetti shares his experience reporting on the city’s vulnerability years before the levees bro ... Show More
23m 24s
Sep 2023
The natural disaster economist
There seems to be headlines about floods, wildfires, or hurricanes every week. Scientists say this might be the new normal — that climate change is making natural disasters more and more common.Tatyana Deryugina is a leading expert on the economics of natural disasters — how we r ... Show More
23m 41s
Sep 2025
Does warm weather mean more rats in UK towns and cities?
Summer heatwaves and missed bin collections have created panic in the press that rat numbers in the UK are increasing. We ask Steve Belmain, Professor of Ecology at the Natural Resources Institute at the University of Greenwich for the science. This summer Wales became the first ... Show More
32m 27s
Jan 2025
Why it pays to scratch that itch, and science at the start of the second Trump administration
First up this week, we catch up with the editor of ScienceInsider, Jocelyn Kaiser. She talks about changes at the major science agencies that came about with the transition to President Donald Trump’s second administration, such as hiring freezes at the National Institutes of Hea ... Show More
26m 59s
Mar 2025
After Disasters: Making Homes Safe Again
Earlier this year we collectively watched in horror as Los Angeles burned. In all, at least 29 people were killed, 200,000 were forced to evacuate, and more than 18,000 homes and structures were destroyed. Many, like our own Peter Tilden were forced from their homes. While thankf ... Show More
37m 22s
Jun 2025
Will the Hole in the Ozone Layer Close?
40 years ago scientists in Antarctica discovered a hole in the Ozone layer. The world acted quickly, phasing out harmful CFCs or chlorofluorocarbons. Evidence suggests the hole has been getting smaller. But in 2025, there are new pollutants threatening to slow progress. Eloise Ma ... Show More
28m 17s