This week on Under the Radar with Callie Crossley:

You’ve probably heard about the recent federal report estimating up to a foot of sea level rise by 2050, creating dangerous coastal flooding. Too much doom and gloom? Well, there’s a cohort of young activists using social media to inspire climate action. Plus, green transportation gets a boost in Massachusetts, with three free bus lanes in Boston and millions of dollars funding electric vehicle charging stations around the state.

Those stories and more on our environmental roundtable.

Guests:

Dr. Aaron Bernstein is interim director of The Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, a pediatrician at Boston Children’s Hospital, and an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.

Beth Daley is the editor and general manager at The Conversation U.S.

Sam Payne, is a strategic communications manager at the Better Future Project.

This week on our Local News Roundtable of Under the Radar:

Massachusetts is ending its school mask mandate after February vacation. Governor Baker's announcement comes after a growing number of Bay State cities have eased their restrictions and was met by anti-vax protestors. Plus, more protests over plans to close Tufts Children’s Hospital. And the City of Boston has expanded its protected bike lane network — but not everyone is happy.

That and more on our Local News Roundtable.

Guests:

Sue O’Connell, political commentator, and analyst for NECN, NBC10 Boston, and co-publisher of Bay Windows and South End News.

Gin Dumcius, managing editor at the Dorchester Reporter.

This is a special encore segment of Under the Radar. This originally published on August 6, 2021.

Feeling the love? This year, people are toasting their sweethearts not with champagne or beer, but with rosé. Rosé producers are meeting the increased consumer demand with new styles — exciting wine lovers and making enthusiasts out of wine drinkers who declared they’d never go pink.

Guest:

This week on Under the Radar with Callie Crossley:

Many more Latinos are running for office and winning. But they still make up less than 2% of all elected officials in the country. Plus, most food delivery workers in New York City are Latino. They’re organizing to demand better wages and working conditions. And fans of Disney’s animated musical "Encanto" are praising the film for its multiracial Latinx cast.

That and more on our Latinx Roundtable.

Guests:

Julio Ricardo Varela, interim co-executive director of Futuro Media Group, co-host of the “In The Thick” podcast, and founder of Latino Rebels.

Tibisay Zea, senior reporter at El Planeta in Boston.

CBD: three small letters behind a billion-dollar industry.

CBD, short for cannabidiol, is a compound from the cannabis plant that does not produce a high. People can consume it, vape it or apply it to their skin. Manufacturers are putting CBD in everything from lattes to lotions. Proponents say that CBD helps manage many health conditions, especially pain and anxiety. But many researchers insist that the substance may not work, let alone be touted as a cure-all.

Just what does the science say about CBD? And are CBD consumers right about its effectiveness?

Guests:

Dr. Kevin Hill, addiction psychiatrist, director of the division of addiction psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He is also the author of “Marijuana: The Unbiased Truth about the World’s Most Popular Weed.”

Malaika Jones, co-founder of BROWN GIRL Jane, a Black woman–owned company that offers broad-spectrum CBD products. She was named one of the most powerful women of 2020 by Entrepreneur Magazine.

This week on Under the Radar with Callie Crossley:

Four years ago, a movie called Crazy Rich Asians made waves in Hollywood. The award-winning film was a modern love story featuring an entirely Asian and Asian American cast — the first major Hollywood production with an all-Asian cast since The Joy Luck Club in 1993. The movie signaled a major step forward in the film industry. What originally seemed to be a small pop cultural phenomenon has since produced a movement in entertainment media, from blockbuster hits starring Asian superheroes to record-breaking TV series that embrace Asian customs and languages.

The representation is certainly not perfect, but the enthusiastic response from fans has inspired both Asian American and Hollywood communities to demand more diversity in the industry.

We’re spending the full hour talking about Asian representation in film and television, plus, what we’re looking forward to watching in 2022.

Guests:

Elena Creef, professor of women’s and gender studies at Wellesley College. She specializes in Asian American visual history in photography, film and popular culture.

Jenny Korn, fellow and the founding coordinator of the Race and Media Working Group at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.

Today on Under The Radar:

A special exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston showcases the work of three local artists. They are the 2021 winners of the James and Audrey Foster Prize. The biennial exhibition is key to the ICA’s efforts to support local artists. The Foster Prize, which has been around for more than two decades, helps highlight the winner's artistry with specially commissioned works. The art produced by the three latest winners illustrates different mediums and perspectives, though each of their pieces share similar themes.

The 2021 Foster Prize exhibition has been on display since Sept. 1, 2021 and runs through Jan. 30, 2022.

Guests:

Marlon Forrester, artist and educator, born in Guyana, and raised in Boston. He is a resident artist at the African American Master Artist Residence Program at Northeastern University.

Eben Haines, Boston-based artists and co-founder of the Shelter in Place Gallery. Haines uses drawings, paintings and sculptures, and installations to create his art.

Dell Marie Hamilton, an artist, writer and curator who works across a variety of mediums including performance, video, painting, photography and installation. She currently works at Harvard's Hutchins Center for African and African American Research.

This week on Under the Radar with Callie Crossley:

Voters will elect at least three new district attorneys in Massachusetts this year. Whoever wins will determine how nonviolent crimes are handled, and influence long-term criminal justice reform. Plus, the doomed voting rights bills have sunk on President Biden’s watch. Does this set the tone for his second year in office? And Massachusetts’ seven-termed secretary of state will face off against a formidable challenger: Boston NAACP President Tanisha Sullivan.

It’s our Mass Politics Profs roundtable!

Guests:

Erin O’Brien, associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Luis Jiménez, associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Jerold Duquette, associate professor of political science at Central Connecticut State University.

This week on Under the Radar:

As we approach Martin Luther King Jr. Day, there's new evidence that the civil rights icon’s life and the civil rights movement have been willfully misinterpreted. This is part of what’s become a public battle over teaching the documented history of race in America. What is the impact of this campaign of disinformation on civil rights and race history in America?

Guests:

Jeanne Theoharris, distinguished professor of political science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. She has authored or co-authored eleven books, including the award-winning, “The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks.” Her latest book is, “A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History.”

Diane McWhorter, 2002 Pulitzer Prizewinner for General Nonfiction for her book, “Carry Me Home, Birmingham Alabama, the Climatic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution.” A long-time contributor to the New York Times, she is also the author of the 2004 children’s book, “A Dream of Freedom: The Civil Rights Movement From 1954-1965,” a young adult history of the civil rights movement.

This week on Under the Radar:

On this 39th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a look at the legacy and the future of the ongoing struggle for Black civil rights by the young people who’ve put it all on the line to lead it.

Guests:

Curtis Bunn, co-author of “Say Their Names: How Black Lives Came to Matter in America." Bunn is an award-winning journalist at NBC NEWS BLK and the bestselling author of 10 novels centering on Black life in America.

Patrice Gaines, co-author of “Say Their Names: How Black Lives Came to Matter in America." Gaines is a former Washington Post reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist, and the author of a memoir.

V.P. Franklin, author of “The Young Crusaders: The Untold Story of the Children and Teenagers Who Galvanized the Civil Rights Movement.” He is distinguished professor emeritus of history and education at the University of California, Riverside.