The generation that followed the “founding fathers” had big shoes to fill. So they founded civic institutions like museums, universities, and its first botanical garden to earn the fledgling republic world respect. Historian Victoria Johnson, author of "American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic," spoke with Host Jenni Doering about the foresighted physician who founded the Elgin Botanic Garden in what’s now Rockefeller Center to advance the study of medicinal plants.

On Falkner Island off the coast of Connecticut, new common and roseate tern parents can raise their offspring in peace, thanks to the protection of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. But as Living on Earth’s Resident Explorer Mark Seth Lender describes, one adventurous baby tern gives his anxious parents a fright as he sets out to dip his little feet into the ocean.

Peter Dykstra and Host Jenni Doering discuss a $25 million award for the neighbors of some foul-smelling North Carolina hog farms, and the high risk of a disastrously low Lake Mead. In the history lesson, they look back to the gruesome incident a century ago that led to the famous 1976 movie, “Jaws,” and the craze of shark-phobia that followed.

Recent US efforts to address global warming at the federal level have been hobbled by partisan gridlock, with many conservatives denying climate disruption is a human-induced problem. Now a bipartisan coalition of moderate and conservative Republicans and Democrats is planning a post-election push for a market-based approach to curb emissions. Their ‘Carbon-Dividend’ plan has buy-in from several environmental groups and major fossil fuel companies. Former Senate Republican Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi and former Senate Democratic Deputy Leader John Breaux of Louisiana co-chair the advisory committee of Americans for Carbon Dividends, and Sen. Breaux joins Host Steve Curwood to discuss their efforts.

As the light fades on July 4th, Living on Earth’s explorer-in-residence Mark Seth Lender watches two boys angle for a fish dinner on the beach, as a flock of hungry terns comes to feed on their supper of insects. But an unfortunate tangle interrupts the peaceful evening, leaving neither bird nor man unscathed.

More than 30 years ago, the nations of the world agreed to the Montreal Protocol, which cracked down on chemicals that deplete the upper level ozone layer that protects Earth from dangerous ultraviolet rays that can cause skin cancers. But now emissions of these chlorofluorocarbons are on the rise again. Washington Post Reporter Chris Mooney spoke with Host Steve Curwood about the evidence that suggests industry in East Asia is the culprit.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) charted record high tide flooding along US coastlines in 2017, and they forecast more frequent tidal flooding in the years ahead. NOAA Scientist Gregory Dusek spoke with Host Steve Curwood.