Dramatic winter flooding in California followed by unprecedented rains that buried Peru in feet of mud signal that El Niño may be returning. This just months after a powerful iteration of the weather pattern ended its 2015-2016 rampage through global weather systems, though El Niños are usually spaced years apart. National Center for Atmospheric Research Senior Scientist Kevin Trenberth and host Steve Curwood look at this latest weather surprise on an ever-warming planet.

In 2012 a salt mine collapsed in Southern Louisiana, causing a sinkhole to open up just outside the town of Bayou Corne. Today, the hole is nearly thirty acres in size, and this picturesque swamp community is basically a ghost town.

Swedish Scientists have discovered that the common swift can fly for 10 months at a time without landing. Science knows of no other bird that remains aloft for that long. In this week’s note on emerging science, Don Lyman reports that the swifts land for just two months a year to breed in central Europe, but are airborne the other 10 months as they migrate to spend the winter in Africa.

A California sociologist ventured out of her liberal bubble to try to grasp why some conservatives reject government regulations in Louisiana, even as industry pollution persists - largely unchecked - for years. Living on Earth Host Steve Curwood interviewed Arlie Russell Hochschild, author of the book Strangers in their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right.

Living on Earth gives a voice to Orion magazine’s longtime feature in which readers write about their favorite places. In this week’s edition, Jennifer Berry takes us through a portal into her suburban backyard, which fronts on the American River, and describes the radical changes she saw as the river flooded from California’s record rains this winter.

Leaders of 85% of the world’s economies called for elimination of fossil fuel subsidies in 2009 to help address climate change. But now ina move that could hurt US businesses, the Trump administration and Saudi Arabia have axed climate finance language from the March 2017 G20 session. Harvard economist Joe Aldy discusses with host Steve Curwood the implications and also argues the U.S. should remain in the Paris Climate Agreement.