This week, Host Steve Curwood talks with Peter Dykstra, an editor at Environmental Health News, about the far-reaching consequences of climate disasters for many Americans. They also discuss the slow progress in replacing lead-contaminated pipes that provide drinking water to many homes in the Chicago area. Looking back in history, 30 years ago in September 1991 a developer dropped plans to develop Walden Woods as an office park, thanks to pressure from Don Henley of The Eagles and others.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, the communities of the Louisiana region known as ‘Cancer Alley’ were left to deal with destroyed homes, no electricity, and polluted water. That’s on top of the toxic air they breathe every day because of industrial pollution, and Black residents have been fighting for environmental justice there for decades. Sharon Lavigne is the founder of RISE St. James and a 2021 Goldman Prize recipient for her work in organizing against a massive Formosa plastics plant, and she joins Host Steve Curwood to discuss the hurricane’s impacts and the health effects of industrial pollution in her community.

Hurricane Ida left Louisiana's ‘Cancer Alley’ with crumbling homes and infrastructure, in a region that already suffers from toxic pollution as well as some of the highest cancer and Covid-19 death rates in the United States. Sharon Lavigne, founder of the environmental justice nonprofit RISE St. James, continues her conversation with Host Steve Curwood about the efforts to stop a multi-billion-dollar plastics facility and how Hurricane Ida resulted in further pollution from the petrochemical industry.

For most of us hiccups may be just an occasional annoyance, but they can greatly reduce quality of life for people suffering stroke and brain injury, and some chemotherapies can cause frequent hiccups. Now at last there may be a solid treatment. Living on Earth’s Tivara Tanudjaja reports on how researchers have developed a tool to help halt hiccup spasms.

Hummingbirds are truly superlative creatures - relative to their size, they are both the world's fastest avians and have some of the longest migratory journeys of any creature. Sy Montgomery focuses on these incredible birds in her latest book, The Hummingbirds' Gift, where she looks back on her harrowing but rewarding time raising two orphaned baby hummingbirds alongside Brenda Sherburn LaBelle, an artist and hummingbird rehabilitator. Living on Earth's Bobby Bascomb visited Sy Montgomery at her home in New Hampshire to learn more.