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Trump Ices Climate Diplomacy
The Trump Administration recently announced plans to withdraw the United States from dozens of United Nations treaties and organizations including the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the key international treaty for addressing the climate crisis. We cover what this decision could mean for global climate progress.
Western Water Crisis Boiling Over
The Colorado River provides water to seven western states, and there is not enough to go around. Recently the federal government ordered the states to agree on a plan on how to share what's left amid a worsening drought. We discuss the challenges of allocating water resources when demand continues to outstrip supply.
Choosing Nonviolence: MLK and Nature
The nonviolent resistance preached by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was far from passive. It required peaceful confrontation and fierce courage to protect Black Americans from the constant threat of racist violence. Living on Earth’s Explorer-in-Residence, Mark Seth Lender sent us this essay about an encounter in Yellowstone National Park years back that reminded him of a story he heard from one of Dr. King’s defenders.
Fungi and Climate Resilience
Mycorrhizal fungi form intricate and vital partnerships with plants through enormous underground networks that could help ecosystems and agriculture withstand climate impacts. But these fungi are threatened by habitat loss, nitrogen pollution and more, so researchers like 2025 MacArthur Fellow Toby Kiers are working to protect them.
Environment and Rule of Law Under Trump
In its first year, the second Trump Administration slashed environmental regulations and programs, overstepping its executive authority in the eyes of some environmental advocates. But the judicial and legislative branches appear unable or unwilling to provide a check on what legal expert Pat Parenteau sees is abusive executive power that is threatening the health of people and planet.
Sea of Grass and the Disappearing Prairie
The American prairie is one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world, but today just one percent of eastern tallgrass prairie remains, and western shortgrass prairie is disappearing at a rate of more than a million acres a year. The author of Sea of Grass: The Conquest, Ruin, and Redemption of Nature on the American Prairie joins us to discuss.
Out-of-this-World Discoveries from 2025
2025 brought some exciting extraterrestrial scientific discoveries, including new evidence about the Martian environment and the possibility of past life on Mars, the discovery of important building blocks of life in samples from the asteroid Bennu, and observations of the third interstellar object that’s been documented in our solar system.
Join the Living on Earth Book Club on October 13th!
Bestselling science journalist Ed Yong joins us to talk about his new book. Click here to learn more and register!
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Celebrating 30 years of Living on Earth!
Host Steve Curwood in the Living on Earth studio
Trump Ices Climate Diplomacy
The Trump Administration recently announced plans to withdraw the United States from dozens of United Nations treaties and organizations including the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the key international treaty for addressing the climate crisis. We cover what this decision could mean for global climate progress.
Western Water Crisis Boiling Over
The Colorado River provides water to seven western states, and there is not enough to go around. Recently the federal government ordered the states to agree on a plan on how to share what's left amid a worsening drought. We discuss the challenges of allocating water resources when demand continues to outstrip supply.
Fungi and Climate Resilience
Mycorrhizal fungi form intricate and vital partnerships with plants through enormous underground networks that could help ecosystems and agriculture withstand climate impacts. But these fungi are threatened by habitat loss, nitrogen pollution and more, so researchers like 2025 MacArthur Fellow Toby Kiers are working to protect them.
This Week’s Show
January 16, 2026
listen / download
Trump Ices Climate Diplomacy
listen / download
The Trump Administration recently announced plans to withdraw the United States from dozens of United Nations treaties and organizations including the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the key international treaty for addressing the climate crisis. We cover what this decision could mean for global climate progress.
Western Water Crisis Boiling Over
listen / download
The Colorado River provides water to seven western states, and there is not enough to go around. Recently the federal government ordered the states to agree on a plan on how to share what's left amid a worsening drought. We discuss the challenges of allocating water resources when demand continues to outstrip supply.
Choosing Nonviolence: MLK and Nature
listen / download
The nonviolent resistance preached by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was far from passive. It required peaceful confrontation and fierce courage to protect Black Americans from the constant threat of racist violence. Living on Earth’s Explorer-in-Residence, Mark Seth Lender sent us this essay about an encounter in Yellowstone National Park years back that reminded him of a story he heard from one of Dr. King’s defenders.
Fungi and Climate Resilience
listen / download
Mycorrhizal fungi form intricate and vital partnerships with plants through enormous underground networks that could help ecosystems and agriculture withstand climate impacts. But these fungi are threatened by habitat loss, nitrogen pollution and more, so researchers like 2025 MacArthur Fellow Toby Kiers are working to protect them.
Special Features
Field Note: "After the Storm"
Living on Earth's Explorer-in-Residence, Mark Seth Lender, ruminates on the storm as it meets the shore.
Blog Series: Mark Seth Lender Field Notes
Field Note: "Countermeasures"
Living on Earth's Explorer-in-Residence, Mark Seth Lender, shares observations about shorebirds in flight.
Blog Series: Mark Seth Lender Field Notes
...Ultimately, if we are going prevent large parts of this Earth from becoming not only inhospitable but uninhabitable in our lifetimes, we are going to have to keep some fossil fuels in the ground rather than burn them...
-- President Barack Obama, November 6, 2015 on why he declined to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline.
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