Under President Obama the Environmental Protection Agency tried to fight climate change by curbing overall emissions from the electric power sector, but those rules were blocked in court and then repealed by President Trump. Now the agency is trying again and it’s now backed up by provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act. Its new power plant emissions rules are crafted on a plant-by-plant basis designed to survive legal challenges, according to environmental law expert Pat Parenteau, who joins Host Steve Curwood to explain.

This week, Living on Earth commentator Peter Dykstra joins Host Steve Curwood to share news of a lawsuit seeking to curb the use of aerial fire retardants to combat wildfires over water pollution concerns. They also shed light on the murder of Ecuadorian Indigenous activist Eduardo Mendúa, who opposed oil drilling in the Amazon. And they look back 70 years to the day Hooker Chemical Company sold off its Love Canal toxic chemical dumpsite for just one dollar, setting the scene for a public health crisis that came to light years later.

The red-billed Quelea is a small finch-like African bird that migrates long distances in massive flocks. BirdNote®’s Michael Stein reports.

In nature, some animals live far longer than humans, and some don’t appear to age at all. One species of jellyfish can continually revert back to a juvenile stage, making it essentially immortal. Author Nicklas Brendborg explores this and more in his new book, “Jellyfish Age Backwards: Nature’s Secrets to Longevity,” and he joins Host Paloma Beltran to share how humans can live longer.

In a major 6 to 3 decision with sobering implications for climate policy, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency overstepped its authority when it created guidelines for how utilities generate electricity. Vermont Law School Professor Pat Parenteau joins Host Steve Curwood to discuss how the decision goes against precedent and hampers efforts to tackle climate change.

The 2023 Africa recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize brought a UK based mining company to justice for polluting a river in Zambia with waste from an open pit copper mine that sickened locals and killed fish. Prize winner Chilekwa Mumba joins Host Paloma Beltran to share how he organized the community and persuaded a UK based law firm to take on the case.