Springtime means migratory birds have returned to the North and are preparing to nest and raise their chicks. Mark Seth Lender is Living on Earth's Explorer-In-Residence, and he shares his observations of Canada's mountain bluebirds in the spring.

On this week's trip beyond the headlines Environmental Health News Weekend Editor Peter Dykstra and Host Steve Curwood discuss the Biden Administration’s cancellation of three oil and gas lease sales off the Gulf of Mexico and the coast of Alaska. Then they go over a bill passed by the New York State legislation that would limit the construction of industrial facilities near communities already burdened with pollution. For history they look back to 1969 when folk singer Pete Seeger christened the Hudson River sloop Clearwater.

The 6-3 conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court is apparently poised to constrain climate action by the Environmental Protection Agency in a decision expected before the end of the SCOTUS term in June. The case, West Virginia v. EPA, involves the Obama Clean Power Plan regulations even though those rules no longer exist, and EPA is replacing them. Harvard Law Professor Richard Lazarus joins Host Steve Curwood to explain how a loss for EPA in this case could limit climate policies across multiple agencies.

The white suspect of the recent mass murder of Blacks in Buffalo is a self-proclaimed eco-fascist whose 180-page manifesto echoed the same kinds of racist ideas that have been espoused by eugenicists, Hitler, and the Nazis. Host Steve Curwood talks to Professor Betsy Hartmann of Hampshire College about how eco-fascism relates to white supremacy and her call for the environmental movement to delegitimize the eco-fascist movement’s use of violence and racist ideology.

The US Environmental Protection Agency has a legal duty to regulate greenhouse gases as harmful air pollutants. But a more conservative US Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in a case that could significantly limit the tools EPA can use to curb these emissions from power plants, even though such rules don’t yet exist. Vermont Law School Professor Pat Parenteau joins Host Steve Curwood to discuss the risks the case West Virginia v. EPA pose to environmental regulation writ large.

On Earth Day April 22 this year Wynn Bruce, a Buddhist, and environmentalist, set himself on fire on the steps of the Supreme Court to protest inaction on climate change. Living on Earth’s Jenni Doering speaks with Brother Phap Dung, a Buddhist Dharma Teacher, about the urgent message behind this extreme action and how to find hope and purpose in the face of the climate emergency.

Against long odds, in 2007 the United States Supreme Court decided the case Massachusetts v. EPA in favor of the states and environmental groups that had sought regulation of climate disrupting emissions. The case had enormous implications for environmental law, and it laid the legal groundwork for the Obama administration’s climate change policies as well as the global Paris Climate Accord. Harvard Law Professor Richard Lazarus, the author of the new book “The Rule of Five: Making Climate History at the Supreme Court,” discusses with Host Steve Curwood the gripping behind-the-scenes story of how Massachusetts v. EPA made it all the way to the Supreme Court.