According to recent reports, South Carolina is home to seven of the top twenty most hurricane-vulnerable counties. In order of vulnerability, they include Charleston, Horry, Beaufort, Berkeley and Dorchester counties, with Charleston and Horry counties ranking third and fourth nationally, respectively.

There are many factors that go into hurricane frequency and strength. They include ocean temperature, atmospheric temperature, air moisture, and wind speed and direction. Other factors are the El Nino Southern Oscillation, known as ENSO, and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, known as AMO.

Today on Earthly, Jonathan interviews Prakash Khedun. Khedun is a Clemson University climate resilience specialist.

He is going to prime us for hurricane season by helping us better understand some of the weather elements that influence the frequency and power of these storms.

Show Notes

ENSO Resources
AMO Explaination
SC Water Resources Center

For show notes and additonal resources, visit https://blogs.clemson.edu/earthly/.

Earthly is hosted and produced by Clemson University.

There's an old campfire song where a bear goes over the mountain to see what he could see. Well, lately, there are a lot of media reports about a lot of bears going over a lot of mountains, and what they're seeing is tract houses, hot tubs and minivans. Today on Earthly, I talk with Clemson associate professor Shari Rodriguez about why these bears are moving into the suburbs. Here's a hint: It's not to join the homeowners association.

Rodriguez researches the human dimensions of wildlife conservation and management, and that includes human wildlife interactions and conflicts. She's also going to help us think through the human attitudes towards our encounters with animals that can kill us. And we're going to spend some time trying to understand the trend of humans risking life and limb to get close to dangerous animals in national parks. What seems like pure lunacy might be something more.

 Show Notes

South Carolina State Wildlife Action Plan
All About E.O. Wilson
SCDNR Bear website
Bear sightings rise in Greenville

For show notes and additonal resources, visit https://blogs.clemson.edu/earthly/.

Earthly is hosted and produced by Clemson University.

The Environmental Protection Agency recently announced new drinking water limits on a category of chemicals called polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.

These chemicals are found in thousands of products that we use every day, such as plastics, Teflon, water proofing, fire retardant and others.

But they are also known as “forever chemicals” because they accumulate rather than breakdown in the environment and human body, and can cause health problems such as cancer, liver damage, low birth weight and birth defects.

A recent report by USA Today showed that 608 water systems across the country have detected PFAS, including some in South Carolina. Another report in the Charleston Post & Courier said freshwater fishermen are being warned to reduce their fish consumption because of PFAS.

In this episode of Earthly, Jonathan talks with Clemson environmental engineering associate professor Ezra Cates about PFAS and their impacts. Cates will also tell us about some innovative techniques and technologies his lab is developing to treat drinking water tainted with PFAS.

Show Notes

The Cates Lab
Hundreds of water systems exceed PFAS limits
New advances at Clemson University could help degrade chemicals in water
Clemson researchers: forever chemicals could be making you fat

For show notes and additonal resources, visit https://blogs.clemson.edu/earthly/.

Earthly is hosted and produced by Clemson University.

Since the days of George Washington, the United States has been surveying farmers about their farm operations to monitor the health of the nation’s agricultural industry and the security of the food supply.

The effort started in 1791, when Washington wrote to farmers requesting information on land values, crop acreages, crop yields, livestock values and taxes. Washington’s survey extended 250 miles north and south, and 100 miles east and west of his home in Mount Vernon, which today would encompass Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

In 1839, the census became official when congress appropriated $1,000 for, "carrying out agricultural investigations and procuring agricultural statistics."

Now the USDA’s Census of Agriculture spans the entire nation and is released every five years.

Today on Earthly, Jonathan talks to agricultural economist Nathan Smith about the 2022 census, which was released in February.

Smith is going to help us understand what the census says about the health of the nation’s agricultural industry and how South Carolina is faring.

Census of Agriculture
Clemson Extension Agribusiness Team
New and Beginning Farmers Program

For show notes and additonal resources, visit https://blogs.clemson.edu/earthly/.

Earthly is hosted and produced by Clemson University.

The world's population has quadrupled in the last century and is expected to surpass 8 billion by 2050. This means that in the next 25 years or so, the world will need to produce about 60% more food to feed its estimated population.

Furthermore, we’ll need to produce that food sustainably in unseasonable temperatures, drought and flood conditions, all while fighting disease and pests, and on less land.

Jonathan talks to Clemson plant geneticist Rick Boyles on this episode of Earthly.

Boyles is one of many researchers worldwide tackling the challenge of feeding a growing global population through plant breeding.

Boyles is going to give some background in plant breeding, talk about advances modern technology have brought to the plant breeding process, and hopefully leave us with room for optimism.

Show Notes

Clemson receives FFAR grant to promote sorghum health benefits
Clemson reseacher developing new line of wheat to withstand Southeast growing conditions
Clemson rejoins forces with collaborative group to kick-start small grains program
Clemson researcher studying sorghum's resistance to fall armyworm

For show notes and additonal resources, visit https://blogs.clemson.edu/earthly/.

Earthly is hosted and produced by Clemson University.

Humans have forever turned to nature for artistic inspiration. The earliest cave paintings are at least 64,000 years old and depict images of wild animals, landscapes, and even the heavens. More recently, photographer Ansel Adams, poet Wendell Berry, sculptor Andy Goldsworthy, and movie director Werner Herzog have all produced great art by musing on the material world.

Jonathan's guest on Earthly, continues in that tradition. Todd Anderson collaborates with scientists and travels to some of the world’s most remote environments to see what they see only with the eye of an artist. Then Anderson creates prints using woodcuts to capture moments in time as landscapes are altered by rising temperatures.

Anderson is going to tell us about his process, inspiration, and what he hopes his art says about the natural world.

SHOW NOTES

Journey to the Ice
Thin Ice
Todd Anderson's Work

For show notes and additonal resources, visit https://blogs.clemson.edu/earthly/.

Earthly is hosted and produced by Clemson University.

Every 13 years in the Southeast and parts of the Midwest, countless cicadas rise out of the ground and breed. The spring and summer of 2024 marks the thirteenth year since the cicada brood known as brood XIX’s last emergence, which means in a few months they’ll be everywhere.

Jonathan talks with Clemson University entomologist Eric Benson about the fascinating lifecycle of what are called “periodical cicadas.”

Benson is going to tell us what we learned about brood XIX when it emerged in 2011, what we can expect when they come out again in 2024, and what citizens can do to help scientists understand this wonder of nature.

SHOW NOTES

Brood XIX
UConn Brood XIX website
Magicicada tredecim 3D models and mating calls

For show notes and additonal resources, visit https://blogs.clemson.edu/earthly/.

Earthly is hosted and produced by Clemson University.

Retirees and warm-weather seekers aren’t the only ones clamoring to move to the state of South Carolina. The Palmetto State is also under extreme pressure from invasive insects and plants that could devastate its agriculture industry and forests. In fact, a recent global report estimates that invasive species cause countries $423 billion a year in damage to crops, water, forests, wildlife, and more.

In this episode of Earthly, Jonathan talks to Steven Long about South Carolina’s fight against invasives.

Long is assistant director of a state program that works with Clemson Cooperative Extension Agents, researchers and other state and federal agencies to battle insects, plants and plant diseases that are already here or are trying their best to get here.

He gives an update on some notorious invaders we’re currently battling, and others that we’re trying to keep out.

SHOW NOTES

Giant African Land Snail

Spotted Lanternfly

Box Tree Moth

Clemson Department of Plant Industry

South Carolina Invasives Reporting Tools

For show notes and additonal resources, visit https://blogs.clemson.edu/earthly/.

Earthly is hosted and produced by Clemson University.

When Bob Wells and Mel Tormé penned “The Christmas Song” in 1945 and the Nat King Cole Trio recorded it in 1946, “Chestnuts Roasting on an open fire/Jack Frost nipping at your nose,” became a Christmas tradition.

Now as our attention turns to the holidays, it's worth remembering that the American Chestnut tree that once dominated Southern Appalachian forests is gone. One recent article said that it numbered in the billions throughout its range. The tree was both ecologically and economically important. But a fungal pathogen that was introduced to North America caused a chestnut blight and destroyed the once-magnificent trees.

Today on Earthly Jonathan talks to forest ecologist Don Hagan.

Hagan is going to tell us about the history of the American Chestnut, its once-important role in our ecology and economy, how it died, and the heroic efforts being taken to bring it back from extinction.

SHOW NOTES

American Chestnut Foundation

What it takes to bring back the American Chestnut Trees

HGIC: Chestnuts roasting on an open fire

Native American Ethnobotany Database

For show notes and additonal resources, visit https://blogs.clemson.edu/earthly/.

Earthly is hosted and produced by Clemson University.

The Eastern Hellbender is a mysterious creature. It has a scary name, slimy texture, lives a solitary life under rocks in remote Appalachian

Mountain streams, and is mostly nocturnal. Yet it’s also increasingly threatened and important to maintaining stream health.

On this episode of Earthly, Jonathan talks to Clemson associate professor Cathy Jachowski.

Jachowski studies stream ecology, and she’s going to tell us everything we ever wanted to know about the eastern hellbender — including the origin of its horror-movie name — which is just another one of its many mysteries.

SHOW NOTES

Jachowski Lab

Amphibians are the world's most most vulnerable animals

Help the hellbender

For show notes and additonal resources, visit https://blogs.clemson.edu/earthly/.

Earthly is hosted and produced by Clemson University.