Looking beyond the headlines, Peter Dykstra and Host Steve Curwood discuss a number of recent lawsuits filed against Bayer- Monsanto. The company’s popular herbicide, Roundup, contains the chemical glyphosate, which litigants allege has led to their development of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and other health problems. They then discuss Montreal’s new marketing campaign to address pollution from cigarette butts, and conclude by looking back in history to May 25, 1958, when President Eisenhower ordered the switches flipped to start the nation’s first electric utility nuclear power plant in Shippingport, PA.

Female birds need to eat calcium to have enough of the mineral to lay their eggs. But it can be hard to find enough in nature. We can help our backyard birds by offering them some extra calcium in bird feeders and by recycling our used chicken egg shells. BirdNote®’s Michael Stein explains.

Dandelions are often dismissed as a lowly weed. But plant biologist Joan Edwards sees the flower as an amazing engineering marvel. Producer Laurie Sanders took to the lawns of Williams College with Edwards to find out more about the virtues of dandelions.

As if the crop failures, infrastructure damage, and biodiversity loss linked to climate change weren't already enough, new research finds that since 1961 global warming has reduced the GDP of poorer countries an average of 25 percent while some richer countries have actually benefited. Stanford University’s Marshall Burke tells Host Steve Curwood how climate disruption is worsening global economic inequality.

When the Tesoro-Savage oil terminal project threatened to bring polluted air and the risk of devastating oil spills to her hometown of Vancouver, Washington, community organizer Linda Garcia got right to work – and along with her neighbors, vanquished the project. Garcia’s efforts to protect her community and stand up to fossil fuel interests have been recognized with one of the prestigious 2019 Goldman Environmental Prizes. She joins Host Steve Curwood to discuss how her community fought and won against Tesoro-Savage, and why even threats and harassment couldn’t silence her.

Dandelions can be the bane of a lawn owner’s existence. But for 97-year-old Virginia Dobell, whom everyone calls Grammy, dandelions are a culinary delight. Reporter Ann Murray of The Allegheny Front went out picking dandelions with Grammy on a nice spring day and has our story.

99% of the tiny Cook Islands territory in the South Pacific is ocean, and home to coral reefs and many threatened marine species. Now, thanks to the Marae Moana, or “Sacred Ocean”, Act, the Cook Islands’ entire ocean territory is being managed for sustainability. Marine conservationist and Goldman Environmental Prize recipient Jacqueline Evans helped lead the campaign to protect her small island country’s waters, and joins Host Steve Curwood to talk about how she was able to get local communities on board.

When an oil palm development in the poor West African country of Liberia uprooted indigenous communities, destroying their religious shrines and burial grounds, and moved to cut down the last major swath of tropical rainforest in the region, lawyer Alfred Brownell jumped into action. He and his colleagues were able to persuade the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil to get the company to back off, but not without great personal risk. Attorney Brownell, who has been recognized with a 2019 Goldman Environmental Prize, tells Host Steve Curwood why the remaining Liberian tropical rainforest is so important to protect, as a vital natural resource and as the home of indigenous people.