Air pollution causes serious damage to our bodies, sometimes resulting in premature death, and it’s also messing with our minds. Kristina Marusic is an investigative reporter with Environmental Health News, which published a 5-part series about how air, water, and climate pollution shape our mental health, and she joins Host Bobby Bascomb for the first part of our coverage of this series.

The Sepik River in Papua New Guinea is interwoven with the physical and spiritual lives of indigenous forest communities. But a plan to build a copper and gold mine along a tributary threatens the river and the 400,000 people living along it. Emmanuel “Manu” Peni, the coordinator of Project Sepik, tells Host Bobby Bascomb about his community’s fight against the mining plan and efforts to keep Papua New Guinea’s longest river clean.

Environmental Health News weekend editor Peter Dykstra joins Host Steve Curwood to talk about how environmental voters appear to be turning out for the runoff election in Georgia. Then the two discuss concerns around a twenty-six story pig farming building in the Hubei province of China. And for history they recount the 1873 and 1952 killer fogs in London that killed thousands of people.

Climate change in the form of things like wildfires, floods, and droughts can have devastating effects on mental health. Now there is a growing consensus among therapists that these mounting challenges should be addressed. Julie Grant of The Allegheny Front explores how people in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and beyond are finding creative ways to tackle climate anxiety, often through community action and healing.

Extreme heat, severe storms, and wildfires are just a few of the impacts of climate change that can harm people, from cardiovascular disease to mental illness. So, healthcare advocates like Dr. Kimberly Humphrey, an emergency physician from Australia and a fellow at Harvard’s Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment, are calling for a drastic reduction in fossil fuel use to avoid the worst of the climate crisis. She joins Host Bobby Bascomb to discuss how healthcare can prepare for a climate-changed future and why recent commitments promised at the COP27 climate talks fall short of what’s needed to keep people safe.

The World Cup soccer games are in full swing in Qatar and around the world fans are tuning in to cheer on their country’s team. At the Cloud Forest School in Monteverde, Costa Rica school stopped mid-morning so students could watch Costa Rica play Spain.

Entanglement in fishing gear for crab and lobster traps is one of the biggest threats to the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale. So, the Marine Stewardship Council recently suspended its sustainability certificate for the lobster fishery in the Gulf of Maine, which led Whole Foods to halt its sale of Maine lobsters. Nicole Ogrysko, Bangor News Correspondent for Maine Public Radio, joins Host Bobby Bascomb to discuss the impacts to Maine lobstermen who are already struggling with high fuel prices, volatile lobster prices and the trade war with China.

Shallow water linked to years of drought has severely limited navigation on the Mississippi River, making it harder for farmers to get their corn, soybeans and wheat to market. Chad Hart is a professor of Agricultural Economics at Iowa State University in Ames and joins Host Steve Curwood to talk about the climate connections with the midwestern drought similar to the Dust Bowl Era and how it’s affecting food commodities.

Extreme heat events such as India and Pakistan recently endured are among the deadliest impacts of climate change, and pregnant women and fetuses are among the most vulnerable to heat stress. Cecilia Sorensen, director of the Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education at Columbia University, joins Host Bobby Bascomb to discuss the research on how extreme heat is linked to complications of pregnancy including eclampsia, preterm birth and stillbirth.

Children and adolescents are facing increasing health risks from extreme heat, and a new study looked at heat and pediatric emergency department visits and found that black and brown children are especially impacted. Pediatrician Aaron Bernstein, who is the interim director of the Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment at Harvard and lead author in this study, joins Host Steve Curwood to discuss the implications of the research.