North American oil and gas producers are rushing to build new pipelines as part of bid to gain more power in the international oil and gas markets, but they are running into fierce opposition at home. Reporter Sandy Tolan spoke with key players in the controversy, including residents of Louisiana'a Bayou country, where the hotly debated Bayou Bridge pipeline is still in the planning phase.

Wood Ducks avoid putting all their eggs in one basket – literally, by laying some of them in other ducks’ nests as an insurance policy in case disaster strikes their own nests. BirdNote’s Mary McCann explains that the duck that ends up with extra ducklings may not always be able to tell when she’s caring for alien brood.

Host Steve Curwood notes that three Republican Senators voted with Democrats to oppose the use of the Congressional Review Act to overturn Obama’s rule to control venting and flaring of the powerful greenhouse gas methane from public lands.

A rash of arrests at the Standing Rock demonstrations points to rising tensions between North Dakota state officials and the thousands that have allied themselves with the Standing Rock Sioux Nation to protest the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline through ancestral lands and sources of water. Reporter Sandy Tolan visited the encampment that serves as a home base for the protestors, and explains to Living on Earth Host Steve Curwood that claims of protester “riots” are unfounded, based on what he observed.

When a group of photographers approached University of Calgary physics professor Eric Donovan with images of a purple streak in the sky, he had no idea what it was. So the unknown phenomenon was dubbed ‘Steve’ in the absence of an official name. Living on Earth’s Helen Palmer spoke with Eric Donovan about meeting ‘Steve’ and the quest to unravel the mystery of the strange streak in the night sky.

Living on Earth gives voice to Orion magazine’s longtime feature where readers write about their favorite places. In this week’s edition, Abigail McFee takes us back to her childhood in a small town in Nebraska and describes how the place echoes with history in every corner.

In a departure from standard practice, the Environmental Protection Agency has not renewed the terms of half of the members of a scientific review board. Ken Kimmell, President of the Union of Concerned Scientists, discusses with host Steve Curwood why this latest move is just one of several actions the Trump administration has taken to diminish the role of scientific research at EPA and elsewhere in the federal government. They also discuss why world leaders are anxiously awaiting the Trump administration’s decision about the U.S involvement in the Paris Agreement.