Environment & Climate Change

Journalist Beth Gardiner says the fossil fuel industry is increasingly reliant upon plastic products. Her book is Plastic Inc.: The Secret History and Shocking Future of Big Oil's Biggest Be

President Trump calls global warming "a hoax." As the U.S. faces more severe storms and extreme weather events, the New York Times' David Gelles describes what this means for climate change policy.

journalist Jacob Soboroff about his new book, "Firestorm: The Great Los Angeles Fires And America's New Age Of Disaster." It's a firsthand account of the deadly wildfires one year ago this month in Los Angeles. Soboroff's book explores what those fires tell us about climate risk, policy failures and the growing era of extreme disasters in the U.S.

Goodall, who died Oct. 1, became one of the most famous scientists of the 20th century for her work observing chimpanzees in the wild in East Africa. Originally broadcast in 1993 and 1999.

Abrahm Lustgarten says the undermining of science, and cuts to FEMA and NOAA, at a time when erratic weather is making disasters more common, should be "extraordinarily concerning" to us.

Climate journalist Zoë Schlanger says a new wave of research suggests that plants are indeed "intelligent" in complex ways that challenge our understanding of agency and consciousness.

Atlantic journalist Stephanie McCrummen says foreign interests are acquiring territory in Northern Tanzania, effectively displacing indigenous cattle-herders from their traditional grazing lands.

ProPublica reporter Abrahm Lustgarten says millions of Americans are likely to move in the coming decades to escape wildfires, rising seas, oppressive heat and drought. His new book is On the Move.

Author Jeff Goodell warns a new climate regime is coming: "We don't really know what we're heading into and how chaotic this can get." His new book is The Heat Will Kill You First.

Journalist Chloe Sorvino says the meat industry pollutes the environment, contributes to climate change and leaves the meat supply chain vulnerable to major disruptions.

New York Times science writer David Wallace-Wells says the cost of solar and wind energy has fallen dramatically. Nevertheless, we're still facing painful, long-lasting changes to the planet.

Forty million people rely on the river. ProPublica's Abrahm Lustgarten says that water scarcity in the West hasn't been recognized as the national emergency that it is.

Washington Post reporter Brady Dennis warns our aging infrastructure systems weren't built to withstand the stresses of climate change: "There is a certain amount of suffering that we can't avoid."

While it may sound nice to live in a world with fewer roaches, environmental writer Oliver Milman says that human beings would be in big trouble without insects. That's because insects play critical roles in pollinating plants we eat, breaking down waste in forest soil and forming the base of a food chain that other, larger animals — including humans — rely upon.

NY Times reporter Ivan Penn unpacks the debate over infrastructure: Do we fund huge wind and solar farms with new transmission lines, or go local, with rooftop solar panels, batteries and micro-grids?

SUZANNE SIMARD says trees are "social creatures" that communicate with each other in cooperative ways that hold lessons for humans too. Simard grew up in Canadian forests as a descendant of loggers before becoming a forestry ecologist. She's now a professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia. She explains her research on cooperation and symbiosis in the forest, and shares her personal story in the new memoir Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest.

Scott Weidensaul has spent decades studying bird migration. "There is a tremendous solace in watching these natural rhythms play out again and again," he says. His new book is A World On the Wing.

New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert talks about the ways humans have harmed the natural world — and the unintended consequences of efforts to reverse the damage. Her new book is Under a White Sky.

Trump called climate change a hoax. Biden calls it an existential threat. Washington Post journalist Juliet Eilperin talks about how Biden might reverse some of his predecessor's policies.

Lopez, who died Dec. 25, won the 1986 National Book Award for Arctic Dreams, an account of his travels in the far north over a period of four years. Originally broadcast in 1989 and 2013.