In March, delegates at the UN Environment Program committed to creating a legally binding agreement to tackle the plastic crisis all the way from production to disposal – its full “life cycle”. And the first of five negotiating meetings, which will eventually produce a treaty document, recently wrapped up in Uruguay. Margaret Spring, the Chief Conservation and Science officer at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, attended the negotiations and joins Host Bobby Bascomb to discuss progress made and the presence of the plastics industry at the talks.

The seas are rising because of climate change, but this isn’t the first global sea level rise humans have lived through. In fact, some Indigenous peoples have stories of sea level rise that they’ve passed down over thousands of years. Patrick Nunn, a geographer and geologist at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia, joins Host Bobby Bascomb to tell us about how oral traditions reflect the environmental changes our ancestors lived through.

In this week’s trip beyond the headlines, Environmental Health News editor Peter Dykstra and Host Steve Curwood discuss the results of the Georgia runoff election and its implications for environmental policy. Next, they touch on fertilizer and pesticide reductions in China and controversial state-sanctioned wolf hunting in Montana. Finally, they go back in time to remember the 55-mph federal speed limit.

The Biden Administration is moving forward with plans for auctioning offshore wind energy areas, most recently in the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile in Congress, there is a bipartisan effort called the Breeze Act that would update offshore revenue sharing rules that date back to the early days of oil and gas production. Democratic Congressman Troy Carter joins Host Steve Curwood to discuss his collaboration on the legislation with fellow Louisiana Congressman Steve Scalise, the number two House Republican leader, and what the new offshore wind energy areas in the Gulf mean for Louisiana and Texas.

Democrats outperformed expectations during the midterm elections that concluded December 5th with Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock’s reelection in a runoff. Nathaniel Stinnett, founder and executive director of the Environmental Voter Project, joins Host Steve Curwood to take a look at the impact of environmentally focused voters at the ballot box during the midterm election season.

At a recent UN meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, delegates from over 170 countries committed to come up with an ambitious cradle-to-grave, legally binding agreement to tackle the international plastic pollution crisis. Maria Ivanova served as part of the Rwanda delegation to Nairobi that successfully advocated for this ambitious approach and joins Host Bobby Bascomb to discuss.