In this week’s trip beyond the headlines, Daily Climate publisher Peter Dykstra and Living on Earth host Steve Curwood discuss Chevron’s insensitive response to a fracking accident and the Flat Earth Society President’s thoughts on climate change.

New research finds exposure to fluoride in drinking water and several other common chemicals in early life diminishes brain function in children. Study lead author, Philippe Grandjean, tells host Steve Curwood fluoride, flame retardants, pesticides and and fuel additives may be affecting children's intelligence.

Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a fiery speech on climate change on February 16 in Jakarta, Indonesia, calling global warming a weapon of mass destruction. Jennifer Morgan, Director of the World Resources Institute’s Climate Change program tells host Steve Curwood that the speech shows that the United States is taking international climate negotiations more seriously headed into the 2015 UNFCCC climate treaty conference in Paris.

District judge Stephanie Stacy in Lincoln, Nebraska has struck down the law that gave the state's governor, Dave Heineman, power to approve the route of the Keystone XL pipeline. Her February 19 ruling has been appealed to the Nebraska Court of Appeals, but a final decision on the tar sands pipeline will likely be delayed, perhaps after the US mid-term elections in November .

Microbeads are tiny plastic spheres found in facial scrubs and other cosmetics, but sewage treatment doesn't remove them from the water, so they end up in lakes and streams. As Kara Holsopple of the Allegheny Front reports, they are a hazard to fish and to anyone who might eat lake-caught fish.

At a summit meeting in Mexico February 19, the heads of government of the US, Canada, and Mexico signed an agreement to help Monarch butterfly recovery. Writer Gary Paul Nabhan tells host Steve Curwood that habitat loss in all three nations and and herbicides in the US and Canadian farm belt are blamed for the crash in the monarch's population, and a citizen day of action on April 14 is planned to plant milkweed, which Monarchs need for breeding.

Elizabeth Kolbert’s new book, The Sixth Extinction, explores the many ways humans are helping cause the largest extinction event since an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs. Elizabeth Kolbert discusses what's happening with host Steve Curwood.