The 2024 Goldman Environmental Prize recipient from North America, Andrea Vidaurre led a campaign that convinced the California Air Resources Board to make rules designed to decrease air pollution and lead to zero-emission trucking by 2036. These rules are aimed at reducing diesel pollution related to the online shopping industry. Andrea joined Living on Earth’s Paloma Beltran to discuss how these new rules are aimed at reducing toxic air pollution in the Inland Empire of Southern California.

Living on Earth contributor Peter Dykstra joins Host Aynsley O’Neill for a trip back in time to a massive dust storm that covered the United States’ eastern seaboard in the 1930s, as well as the start of the Galapagos National Park in Ecuador.

To replace the Clean Power plan the Obama Administration failed to get past the courts the EPA published new rules for existing coal plants and new gas power plants that tighten standards for mercury emissions, wastewater, and coal ash and also curb coal plant CO2 emissions over time. Living on Earth’s Paloma Beltran discusses with the rule with David Doniger, a former White House and EPA clean air official and attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Fund.

The fourth meeting of UN talks aimed to address plastic pollution took place this April in Ottawa, Canada. The goal is to have a legally binding international agreement on plastics pollution by the end of 2024. Professor Maria Ivanova, Director of the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University joined Living on Earth’s Paloma Beltran to give an update on what happened at these most recent talks.

The 2024 Goldman environmental prize winner from Asia mobilized his community to protect the Hasdeo Aranya forests in the state of Chhattisgarh from coal mining. These forests are known as the “lungs of Chhattisgarh”, and a report from the Wildlife Institute of India estimated that around two-thirds of local annual income is tied to forest resources. Living on Earth’s Aysnley O’Neill spoke to Alok Shukla through a translator about his successful anti-mining campaign.

Living on Earth’s Explorer in Residence Mark Seth Lender aids a paper wasp trying to get outdoors.