Gene Feldman uses satellites to take pictures of the earth. The NASA scientist is especially interested in the composition of oceans and he uses the images to measure how green the water is. Producer Ari Daniel Shapiro has this profile of Feldman and his love of the green ocean.

Some birds fly south for the winter in search of warmer climes. But Bohemian waxwings are nomads who don’t seem to mind the cold. As Mary McCann reports, the birds seek fruit from frozen orchards to sustain them.

Hydraulic fracturing produces large quantities of salty water called brine. In Pennsylvania, a lot of this brine ended up in rivers and stream and posed a danger to drinking water. The state thought it solved this problem by keeping brine out of water treatment plants. But, as Reid Frazier of The Allegheny Front reports, the brine levels in the water are still spiking.

A warm December brings a thunder shower over the Long Island Sound.

An advisory panel to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends a new standard for blood lead levels in children. Kim Dietrich was on the advisory committee. He tells host Bruce Gellerman that the acceptable lead levels should be about half what current standards allow.

This election season, Republican candidates’ environmental views range from “drill, baby, drill” to dismantling the EPA. No one in the primaries seems to embrace the values of green Republicans. But a movement among anti-abortion Christians who see a link between environmental toxins and birth defects, may force candidates to soften their positions. Living on Earth’s Steve Curwood speaks with the president of Republicans for Environmental Protection, Rob Sisson, and Rev. Richard Cizik, president of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good.

What do hip hop and Darwin have in common? According to rapper, Baba Brinkman, a lot. He’s the man behind The Rap Guide To Evolution, a musical project that finds natural selection in everything from the iPod shuffle, flashy jewelry to the act of rapping itself. Brinkman explains to host Bruce Gellerman why he, as a white Canadian, can proudly chant, “I’m A African.”

The Gulf of Mexico is a migration corridor for birds throughout eastern North America. It’s also home to about 5,000 oil-drilling platforms. The powerful lights on the rigs confuse the birds, draining their energy reserves and thinning the flock. Ben Raines, an environmental reporter for the Mobile Alabama Press-Register, speaks with host Bruce Gellerman about the problem.