The Environmental Protection Agency is writing new rules limiting greenhouse gas emissions from cars and industrial plants, but some members of Congress want to stop the agency from addressing climate change. Living on Earth's Mitra Taj reports on an upcoming Senate vote to revoke the EPA's authority to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

If oil and water don’t mix, what happens when you add a hurricane? Living on Earth’s Bruce Gellerman whips up an experiment in his kitchen to see if the upcoming tropical storm season and Gulf oil gusher is a recipe for disaster. . .or dessert.

Oyster habitat has disappeared almost completely on the East Coast and by half on the Gulf Coast. Conservationists along the coasts have been working to rebuild the hard shell reefs where baby oysters settle and grow. As Living on Earth’s Ingrid Lobet reports from Mobile Bay, Alabama, shell restoration structures in the region are at risk of being coated with oil. Host Jeff Young also visits some of the richest oyster beds in the U.S. Oyster fishing supports a unique way of life on the bayous and oyster reefs could help restore the eroding wetlands. Now, the oil threatens it all.

We see birds everyday: flying overhead, eating food scraps in cities, and singing perched in tree branches. But most of us have little relationship with these omnipresent animals. Host Jeff Young talks with naturalist Sy Montgomery about her new book that attempts to change the way that we think about birds. Her book is called, “Birdology: Adventures with a Pack of Hens, a Peck of Pigeons, Cantankerous Crows, Fierce Falcons, Hip Hop Parrots, Baby Hummingbirds, and One Murderously Big Living Dinosaur.”

Living on Earth has been featuring stories every week from its sister program, Planet Harmony. The new offering follows environmental issues facing communities of color. Reporter Mwende Hahsey explains why she doesn’t consider herself to be an environmentalist but is still compelled to tell stories about the state of her environment.

Costa Rican Christiana Figueres has been appointed to replace Yvo de Boer as the new Executive Secretary for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. She talks with Living on Earth’s Steve Curwood about her hopes and plans for future international climate negotiations.

Twenty years ago, writer Mark Seth Lender was in awe when he saw the elusive, uncommon river otter. He was caught off-guard recently when he saw another river otter at a beaver pond in Groton, Connecticut.