This Green Earth

Sea level rise is a reality being modeled by scientists and faced head on in many cities and communities now struggling to defend themselves against these changes - and adapt to them. New research published last week in the journal Nature Communications shows that rising seas could affect three times as many people by 2050 than previously thought, threatening to erase some of the world's great coastal cities. Benjamin Strauss, the Chief Executive for the research group Climate Central, joined

Keeping with the dark sky theme, Utah Master Naturalist Program Director Mark Larese-Casanova joined Chris and Nell to announce the launch of the new Master Astronomer Program, Dark Sky Observations, which covers everything from dark sky ecology to constellation identification. It's designed for novices, and includes a short online course as well as a three day field course coming soon!

Over recent decades, light pollution has exploded, impacting wildlife, people, and our view of the night sky. Over the past few years, however, Utah has become an international leader in dark sky protection, led by the Utah State Parks. From International Dark Sky Park designations to new programs, there's lots happening and opportunity to get involved. Justina Parsons-Bernstein, Education Specialist with State Parks, joined Chris and Nell to fill them in.

Carl Moore of PANDOS , a Utah-based native and environmental rights organization, joined Chris and Nell to talk about their work and the film Common Ground: The Story of Bears Ears . The film aims to humanize this very polarizing issue through interviews with people of all perspectives, and will be showing locally at the Santy Auditorium October 22nd at 6pm.

In 2019, global sea ice reached the second lowest extent of the 41 years on record. Walt Meier with the National Snow and Ice Data Center joined Chris and Nell to talk about this as well as the other work of the NSIDC and the outlook for a north pole without ice within this generation!

Chris and Nell spoke with Ryan Anderson from Summit Community Power Works who stopped in for a quick update on the County's Bulk Solar Installation Program for Summit and Wasatch County residents. This year's first bulk solar install took place October 15th,2019, helping the organization close in on their 1000th over 6 years. And then Chris and Nell wrap up with some fun facts and enviormental issues facing us this week.

Chris and Nell spoke with Robert Bilott, the lawyer who spent twenty years building a case against DuPont for its use of the hazardous unregulated chemical PFOA, uncovering a history of environmental contamination that affects virtually every person on the planet, and the cover-up that kept it a secret for decades. Bilott recently released the book Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer's Twenty Year Battle Against DuPont , and this will be followed by the major motion picture

For the past 28 years, residents of Park City and the surrounding communities have delivered to Recycle Utah nearly 100 million glass bottles, aluminum cans, and pieces of plastic, paper, cardboard and electronics. In addition, over one million pounds of hazardous waste and pharmaceuticals have been collected and diverted from potential disposal at the county landfill or wastewater treatment systems. This diversion of domestic and hazardous waste benefits our environment in two ways by saving

Using dams and a 90 mile long pipeline, the state of Utah is proposing to divert 20-25% of the Bear River in northern Utah from it's normal course as the primary source of water feeding the Great Salt Lake and it's critical wetland ecosystem. In addition, the state and federal government is pursuing an even larger water diversion project down in the southern part of the state. This one is the Lake Powell Pipeline which would divert approximately 75 million gallons of water per day from the

Then, during the second half of the show, Nell and Katy spoke with Jordan Rutter of the American Bird Conservancy about their study, just published in the journal Science. The data shows that since 1970, the US and Canada have lost nearly 3 billion birds - one in every four birds - including everything from backyard songbirds to long-distance migrants, indicating an ecological crisis. Jordan fills them in on the primary drivers of this decline, and the very simple actions that can make a real