Peter Dykstra returns to Living on Earth this week to discuss what’s beyond the headlines with host Steve Curwood. They consider EPA chief Scott Pruitt’s decision on a pesticide and the latest legal efforts to try to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. In the history segment, Peter shares an environmental message from a Republican president in 1907.

Scientists and most Americans are concerned about climate change and its effects on our environment, economy, and society. But a growing number of US physicians see a wide gap in the public’s grasp of how global warming does, and increasingly will, affect human health. Dr. Mona Sarfaty, Director of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, joins host Steve Curwood to discuss her organization’s push to spread awareness of the changing climate’s health impacts.

The five mighty Great Lakes, separated from the ocean for millennia, hold twenty percent of the world’s surface freshwater. Dreams of trade spurred construction of the St Lawrence Seaway, opening the lakes to intercontinental shipping but transforming their ecosystems, thanks to unintended biological hitch-hikers such as Quagga and Zebra mussels. Environmental journalist Dan Egan’s new book, “The Death and Life of the Great Lakes”, details the changes, and he discussed the impact on the Great Lakes with host Steve Curwood.

Even before Scott Pruitt was sworn in as EPA Administrator conservation groups had a litany of complaints, but now some conservative voices are also expressing displeasure with his performance to date. Mother Jones Reporter Rebecca Leber discusses with host Steve Curwood why the former Oklahoma attorney general, who sued the EPA 14 times, is not satisfying some wish lists of conservatives.

At a new Cat Café in Atlanta, you can order "espurrsso," an "Ameowicano" or a "catpuccino" -- and hang out with adoptable cats, like the vocal feline “Olivia.” Cat-lover Sean Powers of Georgia Public Broadcasting created this audio postcard.

California recently added glyphosate — a chemical found in the herbicide Roundup® - to its list of chemicals to be labeled as being suspected of causing cancer. Monsanto, makers of Roundup®, maintains that glyphosate has a long history of safe use but faces dozens of lawsuits from gardeners and farm-workers who claim the weed killer caused their non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and documents unsealed as part of a California suit may cast doubt on some of chemical giant’s research. Environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., part of the plaintiffs’ litigation team, discusses the issues with host Steve Curwood.

Lyme Disease-carrying ticks in the northern United States have potentially more contact with humans, while southern heat creates fewer opportunities to infect people or animals. Living on Earth’s Don Lyman explains the connection between geography and tick behavior in this week’s note on emerging science.