Today we sit down with Boyce Upholt, the author of the new book The Great River which covers both the long history and future outlook of the Mississippi River. Recounting the ways the river has shaped America and we've tried to shape it, Upholt walks us through how this critical body of water has shaped both to our environmental and cultural worlds – and what the river's future tells us about our own.

The Gulf of Mexico dead zone, an area where algae blooms deprive parts of the gulf of oxygen killing off plant and animal life, has become a frightening summer phenomenon in recent years. We sit down with three experts working to address this issue and discuss what can be done to resolve it in the future. 

We're bringing you three stories tied to infrastructure this week. First, we sit down with Jamie Padgett, Professor in Engineering at Rice University, who studies infrastructural weaknesses and solutions. Then we talk to Leticia Gutierrez, the Government Relations and Community Outreach Director of Air Alliance Houston, about concerns regarding flaring incidents along the ship channel over the last days. Finally, our researcher Jessica has a piece on flood resilience and infrastructural adaptations out of the Netherlands.  

Today Dr. Scot McFarlane, a Texas historian expert in the history of early oil production in the state, joins us to talk about how the origins of the oil industry helped shape the modern industry. This will be the first in a series of stories focused on the history of the oil industry and the unexpected ways that it has shaped the Gulf Coast. 

In a "back to basics" episode, we dive into climate change. What is it, what is causing it, and what can be done about it? Dr. Sylvia Dee, Assistant Professor and Climate Scientist at Rice University, along with two members of her lab, Charlie Marshall and Kelsey Murphy, join us to talk through all things climate change. Later in the hour our researcher Jessica Xu shares a piece on flood resilience. 

We sit down with the team behind Close Parish Coal, a grassroots movement to transition the WA Parish Generating Station to cleaner energy production. Parish is among the deadliest plants in the country and sit just outside Houston in Ft. Bend County. Donna Thomas and Vero Pina of the Fort Bend Environmental Organization, Haley Schultz of Public Citizen, and Alondra Torres of Air Alliance Houston join us to talk through Parish and what can be done. To learn more visit: https://airalliancehouston.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/AAH-Parish-Report-EN-8.10.pdf.

What happens when a refining plant is grandfathered in to standards that precede the Clean Air Act? An incentivized structure for pollution. We talk with two Grist reporters who share their story of digging into the Oxbow Calcining Plant in Port Arthur Texas to discover a history of evading regulators and polluting carcinogenic chemicals at otherwise impermissible levels. 

For many worried about the changing climate, fear of displacement – being forced to leave home – tops the list of concerns. Yet humans have adapted to climate circumstances for millennia, and, with preparation, can maintain much of what they love moving from place to place. On today's show, we sit down with three of the authors of a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to talk about community driven relocation.  

Today we're chatting with Chris Wood and Ashley Fitzpatrick of Moonshot Compost, along with Kristianna Bowles of Rice University, to talk all about compost: what it is, how it works, and how you can do it at home or encourage your neighbors and colleagues to compost collectively. 

In this show we feature two stories concerning research initiatives around the Gulf Coast. First is the forming of two new environmental institutes at Rice University in Houston (the WaTER Institute and the Rice Sustainability Institute), and second is a dive into work on coral reefs in the Gulf. Together these show some of the important work being done to protect local environments throughout the region.