This week, Living on Earth Contributor Peter Dykstra joins Host Jenni Doering with news of a study that found hermit crabs are using plastic trash as their homes instead of seashells. Also, New Jersey approves two major offshore wind projects that could power 1.8 million homes. And in history, they remember when Jacques Cousteau published The Silent World and revealed the mysteries of the oceans.

The Biden Administration has paused new export permits of liquefied natural gas over concerns that these enormous facilities would emit millions of tons of greenhouse gases every year. Reporter Halle Parker of WWNO in New Orleans joins Host Jenni Doering to discuss why LNG exports have been rising in recent years and the impact they are having on the Gulf Coast and the global climate.

Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica holds enough ice that its melting could raise sea levels worldwide by 2 feet, but it’s so remote that until recently no one had ever approached where it meets the sea. Elizabeth Rush was a writer-in-residence on board the first research icebreaker to visit Thwaites and she chronicles the journey in her new book The Quickening: Creation and Community at the Ends of the Earth. She joined Living on Earth Host Steve Curwood to share the experience of witnessing the glacier’s unraveling and the crucial data the scientists on board unearthed.

China surged ahead of other countries in 2023 to add 66% more wind power than it had before and bring online as much solar energy as the entire world had developed in 2022. Isabel Hilton, founder of China Dialogue, joins Host Aynsley O’Neill to examine the geopolitical and economic implications of China’s dominance in the renewable energy sector.

As ocean levels rise, coastal communities contend with higher floods, stronger hurricanes, and saltwater intrusion. Some are even being forced to retreat to higher ground. From Louisiana to Staten Island to Pensacola, writer Elizabeth Rush set out to document the stories of people caught in these rising tides. Rush speaks with Host Steve Curwood about her new book, Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore.