This week, Living on Earth contributor Peter Dykstra joins Host Jenni Doering to share how small island nations are making a case for planet-warming greenhouse gases to be considered ocean pollutants. Also, the EPA delays setting new standards for ozone, a major air pollutant. And in history, they look back to 1992 when the first African American woman went to space.

In remembrance of Roz Zander we present a story to highlight her work on possibility.In 1914, British explorer Ernest Shackleton and his crew of 27 men set sail for Antarctica. Disaster struck when their ship the “Endurance” became trapped in pack ice and later broke up, yet the entire crew persevered. Rosamund Zander, the author of Pathways to Possibility: Transforming Our Relationship to Ourselves, Each Other, and the World, recently passed away and joined Host Steve Curwood in 2020 to talk about how we can harness the power of optimism to carry us through difficult times.

In 2022 the US EPA opened a civil rights investigation into whether the State of Louisiana overburdens Black communities along “Cancer Alley” with toxic industries. But EPA and the Department of Justice abruptly closed the inquiry when the Louisiana attorney general filed a suit charging reverse discrimination. Monique Harden of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice joins Host Steve Curwood to discuss the role of industry in the suit and the progress towards environmental justice that could have been made.

Overfishing, warming oceans, invasive species, and unsustainable tourism threaten the rich marine life in the Mediterranean. So Turkish civil engineer and diver Zafer Kizilkaya got together with local fishermen to pilot a community-run Marine Protected Area that led to expanded marine conservation in Turkey. Mr. Kizilkaya was awarded the 2023 Goldman Environmental Prize for Asia for his work, and he joined Living on Earth’s Bobby Bascomb.

Africa has emitted a tiny fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions from the more developed parts of the world but is experiencing catastrophic impacts with little ability to adapt. Alden Meyer of E3G joins Host Jenni Doering to explain how climate finance was a focus of the recent Africa Climate Summit, which took place in advance of the Climate Ambition Summit that UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is convening in New York on September 20th.