The academic discipline known as “queer ecology” looks at environmental politics through a queer lens, rejecting heterosexual and cisgender identities as the only norms. Host Aynsley O’Neill speaks with Cate Sandilands, who coined the term ‘queer ecology’ in the 1990s, about diverse displays of gender and sexuality in nature, as well as how queer resistance can make an impact in the fight against the climate crisis.

This week, Living on Earth Contributor Peter Dykstra joins host Aynsley O’Neill to discuss how a batch of hastily crafted hand sanitizer inadvertently released toxic chemicals like the carcinogen benzene. Also, how outdoor activities during the summer are moving indoors due to increasing temperatures from climate change. They follow with REI and Dick’s Sporting Goods banning PFAS forever chemicals in their products. And for history, after a 1907 decision by President Theodore Roosevelt the Owens Valley water was diverted to serve Los Angeles, eventually leaving the valley dry.

Raising a chick is no small feat for Albatrosses and both parents play a vital role. BirdNote®’s Wenfei Tong describes the strong and unique bonds that help albatrosses raise their young.

Poet Laureate of Mississippi Catherine Pierce describes these days of extreme heat and humidity that are changing summer vacation as the planet warms in her book Danger Days.

The Athabasca oil sands in Alberta; Canada ranks as one of the world’s most destructive crude oil operations. People laboring in the Athabasca oil sands often live in austere work camps, with long 12-hour shifts and female workers imperiled by sexual harassment and violence. Kate Beaton captured that painful reality in her 2022 graphic memoir Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands and joined Living on Earth’s Jenni Doering to talk about her experience.

The European Union has enacted legislation aimed at reducing global deforestation with a ban on the sale of products made from cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, soya, and wood, produced on land deforested after 2020. Anke Schulmeister, the Senior Forest Policy Officer for the World Wildlife Fund joined Living on Earth’s Jenni Doering to explain.