New research confirms that the damaged Amazon rainforest is now a net contributor to climate change overall. Kristofer Covey, a biogeochemist and assistant professor at Skidmore College, published research in early 2021 that came to a similar alarming conclusion. He joins host Jenni Doering to talk about this research and how parts of the Amazon are already showing signs of nearing a “tipping point” when the region is no longer able to function as a rainforest and converts into a savanna.

After President Trump removed the roadless rule and other protections for the Tongass National Forest, America’s largest national forest, the Biden administration is set to bring them back, Peter Dykstra of Environmental Health News tells host Bobby Bascomb in this week’s Beyond the Headlines segment. They also talk about Maine becoming the first U.S. state to pass a law requiring packaging manufacturers rather than taxpayers to cover the costs of recycling. For the history segment they go back to the year 1931 when a swarm of grasshoppers overwhelmed farmers who were already struck by the Dust Bowl.

The first broad study of all greenhouse gases in the Amazon rainforest reveals that on balance the damaged ecosystem is now a net contributor to climate change. Part of the problem comes from local damaging activities like logging, dam-building, and cattle ranching. But planet-wide warming is also disrupting the water cycles in the Amazon, intensifying floods and drought that create more greenhouse gases and further decrease the ecosystem's ability to capture and store carbon emissions. Lead author and professor at Skidmore College, Kristofer Covey, joins Host Steve Curwood to explain the study.

Many of us think in short timescales such as project due Tuesday, a friend’s wedding next month. Rarely do we think about deep time, that is time on a geologic scale. Vincent Ialenti’s book “Deep Time Reckoning” features anthropological fieldwork among people who use deep time frameworks every day: safety experts in Finland working on how to prudently store nuclear power waste, which can be radioactive for millions of years. Ialenti joins host Jenni Doering to discuss the challenges of envisioning scenarios that might happen thousands of years in the future, as well as the benefits of thinking in deep time.

The Pacific Northwest is known for its lush green conifers, but deep in special pockets of the forest, deciduous and fruit-bearing trees and plants create a mosaic of rich biodiversity. These “forest gardens”, cultivated by First Nations people for millennia, provide a wide array of foods and unique ecosystem functions. Dr. Chelsey Geralda Armstrong, an Assistant Professor of Indigenous Studies at Simon Fraser University, joins host Bobby Bascomb to discuss her work studying the historical ecology of forest gardens with communities in the Ts’msyen and Coast Salish territories of Northwestern British Columbia.

Much of the Peruvian Amazon is under threat of deforestation with up to five percent of indigenous communities’ forest land lost to illegal logging and mining each year. Now an organization is equipping indigenous communities with satellite-based data and empowering them with training to take a stand against illegal logging. Jacob Kopas led research examining the effectiveness of this technique at stopping deforestation and joins host Bobby Bascomb to talk about how it works.