In this episode, Jay talks with an old friend about hope: hope for cleaner and safer water in America. Felicia Marcus is an attorney/consultant who has served in government, the non-profit world, and the private sector. She's been a board member on numerous national and international bodies, including one that oversees Canada-U.S. water issues. She is currently the Landreth Visiting Fellow at Stanford University's Woods Institute Water in the West Program.

Dr. Chelsea Rochman, an associate professor at the University of Toronto, says plastic, everyone's favourite cheap and easy resource, comes with a high price. Microscopic pieces of plastic flake off every time we wield a disposable bag, or wash a polyester sweater, or any number of things. They permeate our water, air, soil, bodies, even unborn foetuses. It's a problem that will plague humans for untold generations unless, she says, we take aggressive action to control our plastic addiction.

This week climatologist Micah Hewer and economist Pat Lloyd-Smith tell Jay about the good, the bad, and the ugly effects of global warming on Canada's outdoor recreation sector. On the bad side of the ledger: shorter downhill skiing and skating seasons and slime-covered lakes in the summer. On the good side: longer, better seasons for outdoor pursuits like hunting, bird watching and cross-country skiing. And one of the best of all: better, more widespread winemaking, especially of fine red wine.

Dr. Kelsey Leonard, an associate professor at the University of Waterloo and member of the Shinnecock Nation, discusses how Indigenous views on the personhood of water can save that water. More and more bodies of water around the world are being granted legal personhood status, which gives them the right to be defended from industrial pollution. Dr. Leonard is fighting to make water justice a priority across government and bridge the gap between Indigenous belief and Western law.

Dr. Peter Gleick, co-founder and president emeritus of the Pacific Institute, believes Joe Biden could be the man to save American water policy, which has been foundering under Donald Trump. In his co-authored policy brief, Water Recommendations to the Next President, Gleick and his colleagues lay out the biggest issues with US water safety and access, and what President Elect Biden needs to do to guarantee continued clean water for all Americans and limit the global repercussions of climate change.

Debra Perrone, Assistant Professor UC Santa Barbara, discusses the dwindling groundwater supply affecting 12 million US wells caused by global warming and over-consumption. The world relies on groundwater, which is getting harder and harder to find.  With groundwater close to the surface vanishing, well-drillers are forced to turn to deep drilling for corporate, agricultural, and domestic water needs. But going deep this way is far more expensive and increasingly yields contaminated water.

Abrahm Lustgarten, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated environmental reporter, talks to us about climate migration, one of climate change's biggest looming threats. Rising temperatures, rising sea levels, and ever-increasing natural disasters are forcing people to abandon their homes and their ways of life to seek safer ground. As the planet heats up, the number of climate refugees will just keep swelling, up to 3 billion people -- a third of the global population -- by 2070.

Dr. Ingrid Waldron is a sociology professor at Dalhousie University who argues that African Nova Scotian and Indigenous communities are victims of environmental racism, forced to drink tainted water, breathe polluted air and live next to waste dumps. Now these concerns are reaching national and even global audiences thanks to a best-selling book and widely streamed documentary, both titled "There's Something in the Water," made in collaboration with actor Elliot Page.

Ingrid Waldron is a sociology professor at Dalhousie University who argues that African Nova Scotian and Indigenous communities are victims of environmental racism, forced to drink tainted water, breathe polluted air and live next to waste dumps. Now these concerns are reaching national and even global audiences thanks to a best-selling book and a widely streamed documentary, both titled "There's Something in the Water". It's made Waldron one of Canada's most influential environmental activists.