On today’s program we’ll continue watching “Countdown to Year Zero,” by joining a student climate change strike in New York City. “If we don’t do this to make huge, huge, huge changes in the next five to ten years, our kids are all going to be climate refugees.” “For way too long, the politicians and the people in power have got away with not doing anything to fight the climate crisis.” “I would t

“Through COVID-19 the planet has delivered its strongest warning yet that we must change our ways. Human activity has altered virtually every part of the land. As we displace the natural world, we’re destroying vital ecosystems and the biodiversity that thrives on them. We are causing climate change, harming our ability to feed ourselves, opening the door to new illnesses such as COVID-19. It’s ti

Welcome to Part 1 of our seven-part series on the Climate Crisis, featuring the illuminating documentary, “Countdown to Year Zero.” “We have been living in this system of normalized violence and we've been killing animals at such a fast pace. I mean, we kill more animals in four to 12 hours than all the humans that ever died in wars throughout human history put together.” “If you look at the World

On today’s program we’ll travel to Africa to learn about the recent massive invasion of locusts that the continent has experienced. The plague began in June 2019 and has continued through 2020. Billions of desert locusts, resembling dark storm clouds, have descended on the Horn of Africa, destroying vast areas of cropland and vegetation. Dr. Rick Overson of Arizona State University's Global Locust

On today’s program, we’ll travel to Pakistan and India to learn how the insects have affected these countries. But first, let’s find out more about locusts, and why they’ve been so plentiful during the past year. Many scientists believe that climate change is largely responsible for the current locust plague. The unusually warm, wet weather in the normally arid areas around the Arabian Peninsula h

On today’s program, we continue our exploration, as we travel to Africa to visit the magnificent River Nile. This 6,650-kilometer-long waterway runs through 11 countries on the African continent, and an estimated 250 million people rely on it for drinking water, household use, and irrigation. In June 2020, the British free-to-air television news channel Sky News aired a remarkable documentary call

Today we’ll further explore the causes, interconnections, and solutions for our planet’s public health and economic crises. In June 2020, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) released a report entitled, “COVID-19: Urgent Call to Protect People and Nature,” urging governments, corporations, organizations, and the public to take action to restore our broken relationship with nature and thus avoid fu

On today’s program, we’ll examine the global issue of plastic pollution and learn how the problem began. The production of plastic is relatively new; the first manufacture only began during the 1940’s. Over the ensuing decades, we have become increasingly reliant on plastic in many aspects of our lives. If we look around us, we’ll see that we’re surrounded by plastic. Since the development of plas

When Edith and Mike first changed from operating a beef operation to running an animal sanctuary, they knew they would face many challenges. But they also knew deep in their hearts that it was the right thing to do. "I think for him (Mike), once he made the decision that he didn’t want to slaughter the animals anymore, it was just, 'That’s it.' He couldn’t do it anymore. We knew we were going to f

On today’s program, we’ll travel to Asia and Europe to learn how these continents have been affected by severe weather events lately. In China, torrential rains during the summer of 2020 caused dangerous flooding in several major river basins, especially around the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers. The number of floods in China this year was 60% higher than in previous years, and 77 of the nation’s river

IPCC is the body established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988 to provide policymakers with regular scientific assessments concerning climate change. It was the recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for its work on climate change. The newly released second Special Report on Climate Change and Land brings revitalized hope wi

On today’s program, we’ll look at some of the solutions emerging all around the globe. According to a 2019 study published in the journal Science Progress, as many as 90% of all plastic items are used only once and then discarded. Plastic bags are among the biggest sources of pollution, with as many as five trillion being consumed globally each year. When disposed of improperly, the bags clog wate

Our special guest on today’s program, Sebastian Guttman, is an environmentalist and vegan athlete from Germany who has chosen to use a zero-emissions form of travel with his selfmade bamboo bicycle. A champion of sustainable travel, Mr. Guttman has traveled to approximately 30 countries over the past two-and-a-half years, and plans to pause his bicycle tour during the COVID-19 pandemic. "I would h

In late May 2020, a 23-square-kilometer horde of locusts entered Argentina after passing through Paraguay. The insects landed first in the provinces of Santa Fé and Formosa, both of which are essential for agriculture. Millions invaded cities and farms, devouring all the crops in the area in a matter of hours. The locusts were enormous; technicians from the Argentine government measured specimens

In 2019, a record number of people traveled internationally, 1.5 billion, to be exact. However, conventional mass travel has been shown to be unsustainable and actually has many hidden, deeply intertwined costs for both tourist destinations and our planet. The good news is that over the past decade trends in travel have been changing considerably. As the world becomes more aware of the threats tha

This year in Africa, more than 1.21 million people in 12 different countries were affected by heavy rainfall and flooding. The following is a summary of the floods’ consequences in Africa between June and October 2020. Floods in Democratic Republic of Congo had resulted in at least 15 fatalities and thousands of people were affected. Floods in Tunisia, Ghana, Uganda and Burkina Faso had c

In late December 2019, news of a strange new virus emerging in Southern China began to surface. The virus, it was reported, was highly contagious. The World Health Organization named it “coronavirus disease,” or “COVID-19.” COVID-19 proved to be extremely contagious and spread like wildfire through China’s massive population. On March 11,2020, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director General o

The threat of future zoonoses or animal-transmitted diseases is even more concerning. Currently, over 72 billion land animals are slaughtered for human consumption every year. And what’s even more troubling is that many of these animals were raised on factory farms. For years, world health experts have warned about the dangers of factory farms as uncontrolled sources of new viruses. World organiza

In this episode we'll learn that one of the most powerful tools for encouraging people to change is social media. On today’s program, we'll meet two social media animal-rights advocates, Mr. Ryuji Chua, a dedicated activist from Los Angeles, California, USA, and Ms. Renee king-Sonnen, founder of Rowdy Girl Sanctuary in Waelder, Texas, USA. “By me putting out content on the internet and being like,

As the world warms, Earth’s climate has been undergoing intense heat waves caused by the increased chance of extremely hot days and nights. Warming air also boosts the evaporation of surface water, thus worsening the effects of droughts. More droughts create dry fields and forests that are prone to catching fire, so increased global temperatures mean longer wildfire seasons around the world. Droug