In this week’s trip beyond the headlines, Peter Dykstra tells host Steve Curwood about a multi-billion dollar settlement with a major US energy company, concerns about a class of molecules in household cleaning products called quits, and some prescient words 107 years ago from Teddy Roosevelt.

If the internet were a country, it would be the sixth largest consumer of electricity in the world. Greenpeace analyst Gary Cook has written a new report detailing which tech companies are using renewable energy to power their servers. He tells host Steve Curwood who’s helping to green the web.

For the past 65 years, China has built nearly two dams per day, and wants to expand its hydroelectric capacity. Jennifer Turner, director of the China Environment Forum at the Washington DC's Wilson Center, tells host Steve Curwood that China plans to ramp up dam installation in Yunnan Province, which raises the risks for this biodiversity hotspot in Southwest China.

Under the Antarctic ice lurk newly discovered sea anemones. Frank Rack, Executive Director of the U.S. Antarctic Geological Drilling team, tells host by Steve Curwood about how the team discovered this new species that hangs upside down from the Ross Ice Shelf.

New research shows prenatal exposure to pesticides can cause reduced intelligence and developmental delays similar to exposure to lead. Journalist Susan Freinkel investigated studies that charted these effects and talked with host Steve Curwood about her investigation published in The Nation.

A mysterious malady is infecting many species of starfish up and down the US west coast. It causes lesions and the sea stars rip themselves apart. Katie Campbell reports on the biologists down at the shore trying to unravel what's going on.

It's cold, and barren on Greenland’s west coast. But as writer Mark Seth Lender discovered, there is life there is you search it out carefully and listen closely.

We dip into the Living on Earth mailbag to hear from you our listeners, and ask you to send us your environmental haiku poems in honor of Earth Day this month.

Over the short term, methane is 80 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The White House has launched plans to control methane emissions from most US sources, but as Living on Earth's Helen Palmer reports, evidence from prehistory suggests methane was a major factor in Earth's largest extinction, and warming projections warn of ballooning emissions in the future.

The reports of the UN's Panel on Climate Change are critically important but notoriously dense. IPCC scientist Gregory Johnson tells host Steve Curwood about his personal project to write haiku poems to make the reports more understandable.