Carlyle Calhoun

It's summertime. Most of us hope to spend time on the beach, or by a river, or a pool, and we thought we'd try to understand why? Why do we want to be by water, and why does it make us feel so good? And it’s not just us. Understanding how the power of water makes us healthier and happier is actually a growing field of research.

Today, we talk with Jeff Goodell, Katharine Wilkinson, and Nathaniel Rich—three authors who write books that people want to read…maybe can’t put down…about the biggest existential threat of our time: climate change. We cover the importance of storytelling, what they've learned through the work and how the heck they even figure out what stories to write.

A recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine looks at BSEE’s progress over the last decade, as well as critical gaps that still exist in holding industry accountable. Sea Change managing producer, Carlyle Calhoun, spoke with the director of BSEE, Kevin Sligh, about the improvements in making offshore drilling safer, and whether enough has been done to ensure the safety of workers and our environment.

On April 20th, 2010, out in the Gulf of Mexico, the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig exploded. The oil spill that followed is still considered the largest environmental disaster in the history of the United States. Today, we are looking at the impacts of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster 13 years later. We hear about the ongoing health effects on people who helped clean up the oil spill and ask, has the broken system that led to this avoidable disaster been fixed?

Everyone has a role in tackling the climate crisis, so what about artists? In our latest episode of Sea Change, we talk to three artists using everything from swamp muck to rock puppet shows to talk about our environment.

Food connects us to our past, to our memories, to each other, and to the world around us. It’s powerful. But food systems–from how we grow or catch things to how we transport them –are also incredibly complex. As climate change increasingly impacts the world, we are seeing some of the first effects of that through our food.

We talk with people working at the intersection of music and the environment and ask how one can influence the other. Grammy-award-winning Cajun punk musician Louis Michot of the Lost Bayou Ramblers and Rev. Lennox Yearwood, who leads the national environmental advocacy group, the Hip Hop Caucus, tell us about how they use music to inspire action on the climate crisis and environmental injustice.Hosted by Halle Parker and Carlyle Calhoun.

We love shrimp in the United States. As a country, we eat over 2 billion pounds a year, making it the most consumed seafood in the country. So times should be really good for shrimpers, right? But shrimpers say things have never been worse and that their whole industry here in the United States is on the brink of extinction.

Living on the coast means living on the front lines of a rapidly changing planet. And as climate change transforms our coasts, that will transform our world.Every two weeks, we bring you stories that illuminate, inspire, and sometimes enrage, as we dive deep into the environmental issues facing coastal communities on the Gulf Coast and beyond. We have a lot to save, and we have a lot of solutions. It’s time to talk about a Sea Change.Based in New Orleans, Sea Change is a production of WWNO New Orleans Public Radio, WRKF Baton Rouge Public Radio, and PRX. Hosted by Carlyle Calhoun, Halle Parker, and Kezia Setyawan. Our theme song is by Jon Batiste.Available March 28, wherever you get your podcasts.