This week, Environmental Health News Editor Peter Dykstra and Host Paloma Beltran discuss environmental fallout from the geopolitical standoff in the South China Sea. They also talk about how floods are washing away Black history in a Maryland cemetery, and in the history calendar, it’s 60 years since President Kennedy designated Cape Cod National Seashore.

Every year, over a million birds migrate to several National Wildlife Refuges along the Oregon-California border. But this year unprecedented drought and low water levels pose a serious threat to the survival of several migratory bird species. Erik Neumann from Jefferson Public Radio has the story.

For most insects, getting eaten by a frog is the end of the road. But a unique water beetle species can survive the perils of stomach acids and a lack of oxygen and pop out of the frog’s rear end unscathed. Living on Earth's Don Lyman reports on how an ecologist at Kobe University in Japan studied this beetle’s ability to defy death by digestion.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to its knees and slowed the pace of life for many of us. For writer David Gessner, this era of retreating to our homes brought to mind one famous expert in social distancing, Henry David Thoreau. In his book, “Quiet Desperation, Savage Delight: Sheltering with Thoreau in the Age of Crisis,” David looks to Henry David as a guide to living through a pandemic, a time of racial reckoning, and a climate crisis, and he joins Host Jenni Doering to discuss.

The $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill includes some green measures to address and invest in crumbling American infrastructure. But climate and environmental justice advocates say much more is needed now from a much larger budget reconciliation package that’s in the works. Rachel Cleetus of the Union of Concerned Scientists joins Host Paloma Beltran to discuss where the bipartisan bill falls short on green investments and what’s needed in the budget reconciliation bill.

Scientists are once again sounding the alarm about the climate emergency, with part one of the 6th Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC. Hundreds of experts collaborated to bring together the best science on past, present, and future climate change. Zeke Hausfather is a climate scientist and contributor to the most recent IPCC report, and he joins Host Jenni Doering to unpack the UN climate report.