Michigan Radio: Environment-logo

Michigan Radio: Environment

Michigan PR

Stories from Michigan Radio.

Location:

United States

Networks:

Michigan PR

Description:

Stories from Michigan Radio.

Language:

English


Episodes
Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Stateside: Anger in America; John U. Bacon’s new book; Oscoda residents demand PFAS action

8/31/2021
Today on Stateside , from outbursts at school board meetings to confrontations at the store, the pandemic seems to have given rise to a new culture of anger in the U.S. We’ll talk about what can we do to turn down the heat. Then, writer John U. Bacon talks about what he learned from his gig as a coach for a notoriously bad high school hockey team. And, residents of Oscoda have been dealing with PFAS contamination for years. A new report lays out what action they want to see now.

Duration:00:49:31

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Stateside: Mask mandates in schools; tiny snail computers; Malice at the Palace documentary

8/24/2021
Today on Stateside , the Genesee County Health Department mandates masks in schools amid protests from parents. Then, innovative technology helps figure out what’s killing tiny snails. And, the infamous brawl at a 2004 Pacers-Pistons game gets the Netflix documentary treatment.

Duration:00:49:16

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Climate change now driving factor in monarch butterfly decline, says MSU study

8/19/2021
Whether they're soaring over a field of flowers or dodging toddlers with nets, butterflies are a quintessential part of the Midwest summer experience. And here in Michigan we are blessed with a particularly gorgeous species: the monarch. But they haven't been around as much these days.

Duration:00:11:45

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Experts consider grid strength, climate change resilience, in the wake of power outages in Michigan

8/17/2021
Experts around the state are considering climate change and the increasing frequency of severe weather events, and what that means for Michigan's aging infrastructure—including its power grid. Severe storms swept through Michigan's Lower Peninsula last week, leaving hundreds of thousands of residents without power. Utility companies like DTE and Consumers Energy were at times slow to restore power, with some Michiganders left for days without power.

Duration:00:18:10

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

A look at the “unequivocal” impact of climate change on Michigan

8/11/2021
The global scientists behind the 4,000-page long Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report did not mince their words. “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land,” the landmark report reads. “I think the significance of the report is not in surprising new findings, but in the level of consensus,” says climate change expert Jennifer Haverkamp, who directs the Graham Sustainability Institute at the University of Michigan.

Duration:00:17:59

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Great Lakes in Peril: Invasives, pollution, climate change

8/6/2021
When you visit one of the Great Lakes, whether it’s a sandy beach or a rocky coastline, it’s hard to imagine how something so big could be affected so profoundly by alien invasive species, or pollution, or climate change. This Environment Report special looks at each of these threats.

Duration:00:49:41

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Bird enthusiasts flock to Saline to see a tropical tourist

7/23/2021
Observers have been flocking to Saline since last Wednesday to get a glimpse of a roseate spoonbill, a bird more typically found along the Gulf Coast region and in South America. It is the first recorded sighting of the species in Michigan, according to The Associated Press. The light-pink bird caused such a commotion that local law enforcement was required to direct the overflow of traffic.

Duration:00:04:21

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

The chemical soup that can get into your drinking water

7/6/2021
All the things that go down the drain and end up at the waste water treatment plant are not removed there. Some of the industrial byproducts that end up in sewers, the agricultural chemicals that runoff farmland, and pharmaceuticals that pass through our bodies, all can end up in our streams and lakes. It’s a soup of chemicals. They’re difficult to keep out of drinking water.

Duration:00:04:29

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Stateside: Flooding in Detroit; low vaccination rates in MI; fluidity in art and gender

6/28/2021
Today on Stateside , we talk with an environmental law expert about the massive flooding in Detroit and surrounding communities. Plus, we meet a Detroit artist who thinks about the fluidity of form, and of thought. And, we check in with two health officials in very different Michigan communities that are tackling the same problem -- low COVID-19 vaccination rates.

Duration:00:49:36

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

U of M researchers find changes in birds' physical forms and migration not connected

6/21/2021
Researchers at the University of Michigan are trying to connect the dots between birds becoming smaller with longer wings and their earlier migration. Studies have shown birds are migrating here earlier in the spring. Other studies show they have been physically changing over the decades. Both are due to climate change, according to studies. “On one hand, these birds are dramatically changing in their size and shape, and on the other, they were also changing the timing of their migrations,”...

Duration:00:18:00

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Stateside: PFAS found in rain; kids and COVID risk; saving the home of a Detroit civil rights icon

6/17/2021
Today on Stateside , we talk to a researcher who found that the forever chemicals known as PFAS are showing up in rainfall around the Great Lakes. Then, what families should know about kids and COVID-19 as summer vacation begins. And, an effort to save the historical home of Sarah Elizabeth Ray, the Detroit civil rights activist whose U.S. Supreme Court case led to the integration of the Boblo Island ferry.

Duration:00:49:49

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

The comeback story of Michigan’s native trumpeter swans

5/18/2021
Tens of thousands of trumpeter swans once flourished in the Great Lakes region. But widespread hunting brought the birds to the brink of extinction, and the species was wiped out in Michigan over 100 years ago. A decades-long effort spearheaded by the W.K. Kellogg Bird Sanctuary at Michigan State University has helped bring trumpeter swans back to the Great Lakes — and now, if you’re lucky, you might just catch a glimpse of these protected birds in the wild.

Duration:00:13:01

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Isle Royale National Park opens back up to visitors with some restrictions

5/14/2021
Isle Royale is the least visited of our national parks, but it's also one of the most revisited. The pandemic threw a curveball at the Lake Superior island. Ferry service was suspended due to the pandemic, making it nearly impossible for visitors to travel to the island. Restrictions on ferry service have now lifted, but the island has changed in unique ways due to human inactivity.

Duration:00:18:02

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

"Water is life" is the theme of Day 1 of protests to shut down Enbridge Line 5

5/13/2021
On Thursday, environmental groups and Native Americans plan to present Enbridge Energy with symbolic eviction notices. They want Enbridge to abide by Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s order to shut down Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac. In November 2020, Governor Whitmer revoked the easement for Enbridge Energy’s Line 5 twin pipelines through the Straits of Mackinac, and gave the company 180 days to shut down that section of the pipelines, which carry light crude oil and natural gas liquids. That...

Duration:00:04:37

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Stateside: 3M challenges PFAS mandates; Line 5 strains US-Canadian relations; Beaver Island radio

5/12/2021
Today on Stateside , why one maker of PFAS chemicals is challenging Michigan’s protections for drinking water. Plus, an international standoff is brewing over Enbridge Energy's Line 5 oil pipeline. And, two Beaver Island residents send out a radio program from the middle of Lake Michigan.

Duration:00:49:46

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

On eve of Line 5 shutdown deadline, Enbridge vows to defy Michigan order

5/11/2021
Enbridge Energy technically has one more day to shut down the Line 5 pipeline in the Straits of Mackinac, but even the pipeline’s most vocal opponents acknowledge slim odds that the oil actually stops flowing right away.

Duration:00:04:38

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

142-year-old experiment on seed germination lives on at MSU

5/7/2021
Forty-two years after the state of Michigan became the state of Michigan, a botanist named William Beal buried 20 open bottles of seeds to see how long they could remain viable. A few weeks ago Frank Telewski , a professor of plant biology at Michigan State University, along with a few colleagues, continued the decades-long experiment by digging up one of those bottles on the MSU campus.

Duration:00:18:01

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Plastic debris is getting into the Great Lakes, our drinking water, and our food

5/6/2021
There’s been a lot of news about the amount of plastic debris in the oceans. But plastic pollution is also affecting the Great Lakes. A study out of the Rochester Institute of Technology estimates 22 million pounds of plastic debris enters the Great Lakes from the U.S. and Canada each year.

Duration:00:04:51

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Psychedelics as therapy? West Michigan author advocates for further research and acceptance

5/5/2021
Humans have used psychedelics like magic mushrooms, acid, or ecstasy in a variety of ways for a long time. Though the drugs remain illegal on the federal level in the U.S., interest in psychedelics is continuing to grow, as is the movement to normalize their use — particularly for therapeutic purposes.

Duration:00:18:32

Ask host to enable sharing for playback control

Stateside: Rethinking herd immunity; COVID-19 in the Arab American community; psychedelics therapy

5/4/2021
Today on Stateside , what’s ahead for Michigan now that it’s getting harder to find arms for vaccine doses. The head of a Dearborn based Arab community organization talks about mobilizing for that very purpose. We also dig into Michigan foraging. Plus, an advocate for psilocybin makes the case for legal microdosing in Michigan.

Duration:00:49:48