Climate desk producer James West tells host Steve Curwood that much of the coal China burns comes from Australia. The new Prime Minister down under intends to repeal Australia's carbon tax, leaving many worried about the country’s contribution to climate change.

The American Dipper is a favorite bird of the west, but exactly why dippers dip is a bit of a mystery. Michael Stein reports.

A unique collaboration at Emory University involving Tibetan monks helps bridge the divide between faith and reason. Ari Daniel reports.

Snow Leopards range widely across Central Asia, and are among the world's most endangered big cats. Tom McCarthy of the conservation group Panthera tells host Steve Curwood that Buddhist monks are employing their reverence for all living things to help save the snow leopard.

It only takes a slight temperature uptick to make our oceans more hospitable to algae. Along with excess fertilizer run-off, that's leading to increasingly toxic algal blooms that can sicken people who eat the affected shellfish. Ashley Ahearn from the public radio collaborative EarthFix reports.

The Center for Food Safety petitioned the FDA to ban arsenic in feed additives for chicken and turkey four years ago. There was no response, until now. CFS lawyer Paige Tomaselli explains to host Steve Curwood that the FDA has ruled all but one arsenic-containing feed products must be removed from the market.

Prions are misshapen infectious proteins that cause a number of fatal diseases including mad cow disease, characterized by holes in the brain. The US deer and elk herd is infected with another prion illness, Chronic Wasting Disease. Ron Seely from the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism tells host Steve Curwood that prions persist in soil and new research shows that plants can absorb them as well.