Our focus today is on the environment. North Carolinians have come to expect damaging hurricanes on the coast, but the devastation brought by Helene in the mountains has upended what many of us thought we knew about “safe” places to live. How could damaging storms, extreme heat, and sea level rise impact migration in our region? Abrahm Lustgarten has been reporting on “climate migration” for many years and turns his lens toward the South.

Then, environmental historian Daniel Lewis shares stories of the longleaf pine and the bald cypress, two trees entwined in the history of North Carolina.