In this week’s Beyond the Headlines segment, Environmental Health News Editor Peter Dykstra and Host Jenni Doering talk about the naming of the first African American Cardinal in the U.S., a prelate who has become a climate champion within the Catholic Church. Next, they discuss Superfund sites in Georgia that are threatened by rising seas, intensified rain and other climate impacts, and in the history calendar, it’s 40 years since the Superfund program was signed into law.

The soft, modest hoots of the Hoopoe signal a bird so distinctive and fabled that it figures in mythologies of Arabic, Greek, Persian, Egyptian and other cultures. Birdnote’s Michael Stein has more about the bird as a cultural icon.

For Ghanaian environmental activist Chibeze Ezekiel, the climate and pollution risks of a proposed coal-fired power plant in a coastal fishing community of his country were too high. So he organized a grassroots youth campaign and convinced the government to drop coal and invest instead in renewable energy. He’s a recipient of the 2020 Goldman Environmental Prize and joins Host Jenni Doering to talk about the campaign and powering Ghana sustainably.

In the 2020 novel Migrations set in the future, polar bears are extinct. So are chimpanzees and wolves and big cats. For the novel’s protagonist, this mass extinction is personal. So, she does the first thing that comes to mind: she makes her way onto a fishing boat to follow what might be the very last migration of the Arctic Tern from pole to pole. Host Steve Curwood speaks with author Charlotte McConaghy about her masterful debut work of environmental fiction.

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed the perilous economic state of many households in America, with one in four U.S. households experiencing food insecurity in 2020 despite an abundance of food overall. Frances Moore Lappé, the author of Diet for a Small Planet and founder of the Small Planet Institute joins Host Steve Curwood to talk about food insecurity in the U.S. and why combating it should be a priority for the incoming Biden-Harris administration.

Living on Earth's Explorer in Residence Mark Seth Lender tells of his and his wife's encounter with a black panther while driving along Australia's Stuart Highway.

When the world started locking down in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, scientific researchers were not exempt from having to adapt their jobs to social distancing and remote working. Jes Burns of Oregon Public Broadcasting brings us the story.