On this week's Beyond the Headlines, Environmental Health News Editor Peter Dykstra tells Host Bobby Bascomb about a plan to drill along the Atlantic that has fallen apart due to un-renewed seismic blasting permits. Then, the pair talk about how more K-12 schools are powering classrooms with solar energy. Finally, from the history books, the anniversary of a coal slurry spill that weakened the coal lobby's stranglehold on Appalachia.

I-70 is a transportation lifeline linking East to West and an engineering marvel as it barrels through the Rocky Mountains. Earlier this summer I-70 was closed for two weeks following the Grizzly Creek Fire in Glenwood Canyon. As Colorado Public Radio’s Dan Boyce reports, it’s just one example of the transportation challenges linked to climate disruption.

In 1914, British explorer Ernest Shackleton and his crew of 27 men set sail for Antarctica. Disaster struck when their ship the “Endurance” became trapped in pack ice and later broke up, yet optimism and sheer perseverance carried all 28 men through what seemed impossible odds. Rosamund Zander, the author of Pathways to Possibility: Transforming Our Relationship to Ourselves, Each Other, and the World, joins Host Steve Curwood to talk about how Shackleton used emotional intelligence to keep his crew going through and how we can all harness an optimistic mindset to carry us through difficult times.

Joe Biden is offering a $2 trillion climate plan as part of his presidential campaign’s “Build Back Better” economic recovery agenda. Former Secretary of State John Kerry, cochair of the Biden Climate Task Force, joins Host Steve Curwood to talk about how the Biden campaign is connecting its climate ambitions with public health crises and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. They also discuss Joe Biden’s stances on nuclear energy and fracking, President Trump’s lack of climate leadership, and the urgency of voting with climate in mind this November.

Supreme Court nominee and Federal Appeals Court Judge Amy Coney Barrett is a conservative who tends to interpret the law narrowly, meaning that if she is confirmed, she would generally rule against innovative environmental advocacy legislation. Patrick Parenteau, a professor of environmental law at Vermont Law School, joins Host Steve Curwood to talk about Judge Barrett's record and how she might approach environmental litigation on the high court.

Former Vice President Joe Biden’s choice of Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate made history and highlighted the campaign’s focus on environmental justice. Tiernan Sittenfeld of the League of Conservation Voters joined Living on Earth's Jenni Doering to talk about Senator Harris’s environmental record and the ambition of the Biden--Harris campaign on climate change.

Climate and the environment are controversial subjects in several closely-watched Senate races in the Southern U.S. this fall. The South faces significant climate impacts, and a majority of citizens are concerned, but candidates are taking a low-key approach to the topic. InsideClimate News Reporter James Bruggers joins Living on Earth’s Bobby Bascomb to look at climate politics in four races in Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, and Kentucky.

One of the key races in the 2020 elections is for the US senate in Maine, where the environment is consistently rated as a priority issue for voters. Incumbent Senator Susan Collins is known for having a strong environmental record among her Republican colleagues, but many environmental groups focused on the campaign for a more environmentally-friendly Democratic majority in the Senate have switched their support to Democratic challenger Sara Gideon. Host Steve Curwood is joined by Bangor Daily News Politics Editor Michael Shepherd to discuss this contest.

Three of this year's closest Senate races are in the western states of Colorado, Montana, and Arizona, places with a lot of public lands and where environmental issues are top of mind for voters. Yet all three Senate seats on the ballot in these states are currently held by Republican incumbents, with varying commitments to climate and environmental protection. Judy Fahys, a reporter for InsideClimate News, speaks with Host Bobby Bascomb about where the candidates stand on climate and the environment.

Against long odds, in 2007 the United States Supreme Court decided the case Massachusetts v. EPA in favor of the states and environmental groups that had sought regulation of climate disrupting emissions. The case had enormous implications for environmental law, and it laid the legal groundwork for the Obama administration’s climate change policies as well as the global Paris Climate Accord. Harvard Law Professor Richard Lazarus, the author of the new book “The Rule of Five: Making Climate History at the Supreme Court,” discusses with Host Steve Curwood the gripping behind-the-scenes story of how Massachusetts v. EPA made it all the way to the Supreme Court.

At the one and only Vice Presidential debate of the 2020 election, Republican Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) clashed over fracking, the Green New Deal, and whether climate change poses an existential threat to humanity. Hosts Steve Curwood and Bobby Bascomb put the statements of the vice presidential candidates on climate into context.