This week on Beyond the Headlines, Environmental Health News Editor Peter Dykstra and Host Aynsley O’Neill talk about the numerous major hurricanes in the Atlantic this year. Then it’s on to Russia, which claims it will use carbon capture to offset emissions from its full-steam-ahead approach on gas and oil production. And in the history calendar, they look back to the wreck of an iron ore freighter in Lake Superior that inspired a hit song.

Some Republicans see opportunity for bipartisanship with a Democratic president, especially on the climate. Bob Inglis is a Republican and former US representative for South Carolina’s 4th Congressional District and he leads republicEn, a conservative organization focused on solving the climate crisis. He joins Host Steve Curwood to talk about climate solutions that can find support on both sides of the aisle if Congress remains divided amid a Biden presidency.

Despite so much uncertainty during the 2020 presidential election, there have been some concrete answers on key environmental ballot questions across the country. Dharna Noor, staff writer for Earther, tells Host Aynsley O'Neill about the outcomes of the green ballot measures in the 2020 election.

With the onset of winter in the Northern Hemisphere come new concerns about what effect the reduction of sunlight and increased time spent indoors might have on coronavirus spread. Several outbreaks have occurred in connection with recreational and youth hockey, and researchers are rushing to pin down the role of air temperature and humidity in creating optimal conditions for contagion. For some advice about getting through winter safely, Host Steve Curwood caught up with pediatrician Aaron Bernstein, the interim director of Harvard’s Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment.

Now more than ever, public parks are providing some relief for those self-isolating in cities. But some have been closed for fear of overcrowding and even without a pandemic, some public spaces may not be truly open to all. A new book of poetry called The Park uses the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris as a lens to peer into the paradox of how public green space can provide access to beauty and refuge for some, while managing to exclude others. Author John Freeman speaks with Living on Earth’s Jenni Doering and shares poems from the collection.

While the climate crisis poses grave risks for all it also increases the gap between the privileged and the marginalized. A new anthology called Tales of Two Planets: Stories of Climate Change and Inequality in a Divided World is a collection of poems, short stories, essays, and reportage about the relationship between social inequality and the climate emergency. Host Aynsley O’Neill spoke with editor John Freeman about how fiction, nonfiction, and poetry are building a compelling literature on how climate change affects us all.