NPR is dominating our radio section with their numerous brilliantly produced shows from Science Friday to The Brian Lehrer Show and Morning Edition with Steve Inskeep. One of the most interesting special series they produced in 2019, and continues to be timely, is Getting to Zero Carbon with numerous shows using many of their best hosts — from Ari Shapiro and Ailsa Chang to Mary Louise Kelly — to create programming around companies taking on the challenge of climate change, Google’s aspirations to power all of its operations with carbon-free energy, bringing solar to communities of color, banning gas, capturing carbon, new battery technology, and more.
Yale’s Climate Connections has their own radio program, producing 90-second segments available to radio stations for free. Over 750 stations broadcast their segments five days a week, from public stations to college radio to international stations.
UNESCO dedicated their World Radio Day for 2025 to “Radio and Climate Change,” championing radio’s ability to broadcast reliable information on climate change to a wide range of listeners. Due to freeform radio’s independence from political, ideological, economic or commercial constraints, the medium can deliver climate change reporting with the potential to enact real change, influencing public opinion. Local radio stations especially can platform community-based knowledge, especially rural and indigenous communities, and communities affected by disasters and environment racism. Radio remains reliable in environmental disasters, and is often the only source of information in emergency situations and disaster relief. Read this story from Radio World highlighting inspiring local programs that are amplifying climate change awareness.
Even music radio programs are getting in on the climate change message. The popular online radio station NTS, known for its vibrant international music programming, aired a show called “This is Not a Drill,” a collaboration between environmental group Extinction Rebellion and ambient music pioneer Brian Eno. The hour-long show is a moving audio montage featuring Greta Thunberg speeches, Extinction Rebellion activists, and expert interviews paired with Brian Eno’s compositions. It can be found in the NTS archive here. NTS has also broadcast a series called Earth Music ahead of the Climate Science Fair in NYC in 2024.
On Long Island’s East End, Francesca Rheannon, host of The Writer’s Voice, has a focus on global warming where she interviews any number of authors who are concerned with the climate crisis, including Jeff Goddell (currently #1,2,3,4 on Amazon’s Climatology Best Seller list), David Lipsky, Saul Griffith, and John Englander whose Moving to Higher Ground really is the last word on the implications of sea level rise. Listen to her spectacular interview with Michael Mann, author of The New Climate War and keep checking in as she interviews Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction and the more recently published Under a White Sky (both of which have gold stars on our own BOOKS list).
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Climate change is making people sick and leading to premature death, according to a pair of influential reports on the connections between global warming and health.
This past week, President Biden signed executive orders that represent his administration's first actions in the fight against climate change. Some changes will take longer than others — and many more will not be possible without help from Congress.
U.S. climate envoy John Kerry is preparing for the next major climate summit, in Dubai. He's calling for an end to permitting new, unabated coal-fired power anywhere in the world. We ask him about whether the U.S. has lived up to its climate commitments.
Breathing wildfire smoke can make you wheeze and cough. And it can trigger health emergencies — especially in people who have preexisting heart or lung conditions. So it’s critical to avoid smoky air.
Climate change is here. And this week, NPR is doing something new. We're dedicating an entire week to focus on the search for climate solutions, with stories across our network.
Inside a lab at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, a team of scientists bustles around a tall stack of metal plates known as an electrolyzer.
Stopping climate change won't just mean a halt to burning coal and gasoline. It will mean an end to cutting forests and mining the soil to grow more food. Fortunately, it is possible.
Jeff Masters, has worked as a hurricane scientist with the NOAA Hurricane Hunters from 1986-1990. He co-founded Weather Underground in 1995 and writes, he is also an author for Yale Climate Connections
Greta Thunberg led a protest at the White House on Friday. But she wasn't looking to go inside — "I don't want to meet with people who don't accept the science," she says.
In a flurry of first-week executive orders, President Biden sent a definitive message that his administration would move faster on climate change than any before. Now, the question is whether it will be fast enough.
Judith Enck, founder of Beyond Plastics and former EPA Region 2 administrator, helps us sort through all the types of plastics in our lives, and understand exactly how they are making an impact on climate change.
When Hurricane Barry came ashore over the weekend, it did not do as much damage as feared, But it tested a number of systems and hurricane protection entities put in place after previous storms.
Dr. Sam Smith was on call at a Santa Barbara hospital in January 2018 when mudslides killed 23 people. Over the next few years, Smith, an anesthesiologist, helped treat patients suffering injuries or illnesses tied to heat waves and fires in California.
As the climate warms, increasingly severe storms threaten homes and military bases. And with more extreme weather comes the risk of power outages.
Well over a century after the Age of Sail gave way to coal- and oil-burning ships, climate change concerns are prompting a new look at an old technology that could once again harness wind to propel commercial cargo ships — this time with the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
When it rains in Newton, Massachusetts, water rushes off roads, down asphalt gullies, and into Cheesecake Brook – a small stream that was converted many years ago into a narrow channel lined with masonry walls.
Researchers are exploring whether farmers could hold water on their land temporarily, reducing floods downstream. The post North Carolina has suffered disastrous floods. Could farmers help? appeared first on Yale Climate Connections. ...
It’s an urgent issue as extreme weather grows more common. The post Older adults can be particularly vulnerable during weather disasters appeared first on Yale Climate Connections. ...
Doctors at Seattle Children’s Hospital say they’ve managed to tame one of the hospital’s biggest environmental impacts. The gases used to sedate patients are extremely powerful at trapping heat and disrupting the global climate.
Climate change can often feel like an overwhelming and insurmountable challenge, but many communities across the nation are already working to adapt and become more resilient: Some are getting creative with water conservation, finding new sources of energy to power their communities, and even recycling poop.
Col. Thomas Bedell had been commanding Marine Corps Air Station, Miramar in San Diego for just one day, in July 2021, when he got a message from the base energy management director. The city power system was straining under a heatwave, and it was time to start up the microgrid.
Many amphibians lay their eggs in shallow, seasonal wetlands known as vernal pools. The post The warming climate is altering a key amphibian habitat appeared first on Yale Climate Connections. ...
More than a third of food grown in the U.S. goes uneaten, and that percentage has increased in the past five years. Much of that food ends up in landfills, where it decomposes, creating a potent gas that contributes to global warming.
More frequent and severe wildfires and hurricanes have caused billions of dollars of damage in the U.S. Climate experts warn the costs to the economy and to individual families are only rising.
Writer's Voice is national in scope, although it is locally hosted and produced by Francesca Rheannon. The show airs on 40+ stations nationwide, locally on Long Island’s East End WPKN 89.5FM and internationally as a podcast at www.writersvoice.net. Their climate series can be found here.
New York State Senator Todd Kaminsky (D 9, Nassau County) and New York Assembly Member Steve Englebright, (D 4, Setauket), chair of the environmental conservation committee, sponsors of the Climate and Community Protection Act, talk about the proposed legislation and its chances of passage before the June 19 end of session.
Is it really possible to bring carbon emissions down to zero — widely recognized as a necessary move to slow the rise of global temperatures?
Drive about a half hour east of Reykjavik, and the ground seethes with steam — a bizarre, thick fog pouring out of the pebbly earth. This is because Iceland sits on top of a geological hot spot that’s pushing up from the Atlantic floor. Just about everywhere you go in Iceland, there’s hot water and steam right beneath your feet. Some of it breaks right through the surface.
Presidential candidate Jay Inslee has staked his bid for the White House on fighting climate change. But is that issue enough to get people to the polls?
When NPR interviewed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in February about her Green New Deal, she said that her goal was bigger than just passing some new laws. "What I hope we're able to do is rediscover the power of public imagination," she said.
Living on Earth with Steve Curwood is the weekly environmental news and information program distributed by Public Radio International. Every week approximately 250 Public Radio stations broadcast Living on Earth's news, features, interviews and commentary on a broad range of ecological issues.
More than 80% of parents in the U.S. support the teaching of climate change. And that support crosses political divides, according to the results of an exclusive new NPR/Ipsos poll: Whether they have children or not, two-thirds of Republicans and 9 in 10 Democrats agree that the subject needs to be taught in school.
The largest habitat for life on Earth is the deep ocean. It's home to everything from jellyfish to giant bluefin tuna. But the deep ocean is being invaded by tiny pieces of plastic — plastic that people thought was mostly floating at the surface, and in amounts they never imagined.
Jack Gilmore, 23, had never left the US before he worked on a research vessel as a cook during a two-month expedition to Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica this past winter.
Plastic waste gets a lot of attention when photos of dead whales with stomachs full of plastic bags hit the news. Pieces of plastic also litter cities, and tiny plastic particles are even floating in the air.
Covering the outer reaches of space to the tiniest microbes in our bodies, Science Friday is the source for entertaining and educational stories about science, technology, and other cool stuff.