Air Date: August 14, 2026

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PFAS and Our Genes

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A 2025 study found that exposure to certain PFAS chemicals, which are pervasive and persistent in the environment and human bodies, can lead to changes in gene expression that are linked to cancers, autoimmune and other immune disorders, and neurological disorders. Lead researcher Dr. Melissa Furlong from the University of Arizona speaks with Host Steve Curwood about the findings. (11:16)

Artemis II Science and Awe

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The four astronauts of the Artemis II mission in April 2026 were able to test out Orion spacecraft systems during their journey, a crucial step towards NASA’s ultimate goal of establishing a continuous human presence on the moon and embarking on future missions to Mars and beyond. They also made new scientific observations that are helping to expand our knowledge of the Moon, as well as the Earth itself. Artemis II Lunar Science Lead Kelsey Young talks with Host Aynsley O’Neill about the scientific goals and accomplishments of the mission and the unforgettable moments the crew shared with people back on Earth. (16:57)

'Clearing the Air' and Climate Solutions Hope

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Climate solutions like renewable energy tech that requires intensive mining can run into skepticism from people across the political spectrum. But according to data scientist Hannah Ritchie, many of the concerns are based on partial and misinformation, and the outlook for addressing the climate emergency isn’t as grim as some people may think. Ritchie is the author of Clearing the Air: A Hopeful Guide to Solving Climate Change in 50 Questions and Answers and spoke with Host Steve Curwood. (19:02)

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Show Transcript

260814 Transcript

HOSTS: Steve Curwood, Aynsley O'Neill

GUESTS: Dr. Melissa Furlong, Dr. Kelsey Young, Dr. Hannah Ritchie

[THEME]

CURWOOD: From PRX – this is Living On Earth.

[THEME]

CURWOOD: I’m Steve Curwood.

O’NEILL: And I’m Aynsley O’Neill.

Data that challenges what we think we know about solutions to climate change.

RITCHIE: The majority of people on the left care about climate, but also more than half of people on the right also care about climate, right, so this notion that it's only people on the left that care about climate is just not true. But that breaks down even further when you actually just stop talking about climate, and you just talk about clean energy.

CURWOOD: And the Artemis II mission brought humans back to the moon for the first time in over 50 years.

YOUNG: They just kept saying, we choose Earth and we choose each other. And I think that message brought from basically the other side of the Moon is really impactful right now and offers a new perspective and brings the Moon closer to home but also brings us all here on Earth a little bit closer together.

CURWOOD: That and more, this week on Living on Earth. Stick around!

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[NEWSBREAK MUSIC: Boards Of Canada “Zoetrope” from “In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country” (Warp Records 2000)]

[THEME]

PFAS and Our Genes

O'NEILL: From PRX and the Jennifer and Ted Stanley Studios at the University of Massachusetts Boston, this is an encore edition of Living on Earth. I’m Aynsley O’Neill.

CURWOOD: And I’m Steve Curwood.

In October of 2025, the European Union began phasing out the widespread use of PFAS in firefighting foam, with the restriction approved by both the European Parliament and Council. PFAS are a class of toxic chemicals linked to things such as cancer, immune system suppression, liver and kidney damage and child development issues. They are found in many everyday products, from nonstick pans to water repellant clothing, and their resistance to heat, oil and water makes them a popular and widespread ingredient in firefighting foam. PFAS are very persistent in the environment, especially in ground water, and even small exposures can accumulate in our bodies. A 2025 study published in the Journal of Environmental Research that sampled firefighters found that exposure to certain PFAS can lead to changes in gene expression. To help us understand how these chemicals can harm us, we’re joined now by lead researcher Melissa Furlong from the University of Arizona.
Dr. Furlong, welcome to Living on Earth!

FURLONG: Thanks Steve, happy to be here.

CURWOOD: So tell me what got you into this research, what prompted you to do this kind of study?

FURLONG: So, right after I graduated from college, I worked at a legal aid office, and part of that job was to do outreach to farm workers to educate them about their legal rights, and we also worked closely with people who would educate farm workers about their pesticide exposures. I, at the time, thought that all chemicals were regulated by the federal government, and that chemicals that were used in the environment were regulated for safety. That year, I was disabused of that notion.

CURWOOD: Yeah, I was gonna say, surprise!

FURLONG: Surprise, yeah, but I learned that a lot of these chemicals, well, particularly pesticides, are designed for toxicity, and just because they are designed for toxicity in insects does not mean that they are safe for humans. And this is because a lot of the targets in insects are actually present in humans, and from there, it was just a slippery slope into learning about all the other chemicals that humans are exposed to that are not necessarily regulated adequately for safety. Recently, I have been interested in working with firefighters, because firefighters are exposed to lots of different environmental chemicals in their service, and the firefighters are particularly concerned about a class of chemicals called PFAS, which stands for per- and polyfluorinated, alkylated substances, and they have slightly higher exposures than the general public.

CURWOOD: So, the term forever chemicals is often used when describing these fluorinated compounds, PFOAs, and PFAS. How accurate is this term?

FURLONG: Yeah, so we call them forever chemicals because they last a lot longer in the environment than a lot of other modern-use chemicals. They stick around for a few years, up to decades, and that's the same in the body too. There were chemicals that were around a long time ago, that had half-lives of like hundreds of years, if you remember DDT or some of the other organochlorine pesticides, or PCBs, many of those were banned in the 70s, but the half-lives on those were hundreds of years, and we're still exposed to those. So those are the sort of true forever chemicals. PFAS are kind of like modern forever chemicals.

CURWOOD: Now what's the concern about exposure? It could be in a non-stick pan or in a waterproof jacket. What about water and food itself? What risk do we face from PFAS there?

FURLONG: The public is predominantly exposed to PFAS through our water and through contaminated food. It's not intentionally in our food or our water supply, it has just leached into those things because of industrial uses. And close to 100% of people have detectable levels of at least some different types of PFAS species.

CURWOOD: Your study is very exciting because you look at something called microRNA to look at something known as gene expression. Now, for the non-scientists among us, could you explain what microRNA is and how it differs from DNA and messenger RNA—mRNA, and, of course, the whole phenomenon of gene expression?

FURLONG: Sure. So hopefully, everybody is familiar with the concept of DNA, right? Everybody's born with your DNA. Those are your genes. We have a copy of our DNA in every single cell. And the way that the DNA gets turned into who we are, into humans, is the DNA has to get translated into a protein. Part of that process is called DNA expression. So the way that your DNA is expressed eventually makes you who you are. So the way that the body turns different parts of our DNA into proteins is through RNA. What messenger RNA does is it copies the relevant section of the DNA, and then that mRNA goes and it eventually turns into some proteins. The microRNA attaches to the messenger RNA. So, sort of on that path between DNA and protein, microRNA changes the way that the genes are expressed, essentially. So an analogy that we like to use sometimes is, let's imagine that the piano is your DNA. The keys don't change, right? But the music that you play, the sheet music that you play, changes the way the piano sounds. And so the sheet music is the expression of the piano, and the sheet music itself can also be changed by the human that is playing the piano. Right? Each person who plays a musical score might sound a little bit different from each other.

CURWOOD: And that individual difference is what the messenger RNA, and indeed, the microRNA can apply to this process.

FURLONG: Right.

CURWOOD: So, your study focuses on changes in gene expression due to exposure to PFAS. Can you clarify the difference between a change in gene expression and a genetic mutation?

FURLONG: Yeah, sure. So, a mutation is an actual change in the genome itself. So if we're thinking about a piano like maybe one of your keys is broken or that key doesn't exist, or is out of tune, it sounds wrong. But a change in the gene expression doesn't actually mean there's anything wrong with the underlying DNA. Your underlying DNA can be fully intact. It's just the way that it's translated or transcripted or expressed that is changed.

CURWOOD: So based on your findings, what specific biological pathways or processes does PFAS exposure appear to be disrupting?

FURLONG: Yeah. So, unfortunately, there appeared to be lots of pathways that were affected. We looked at nine different PFAS, and about four of them seemed to be really strongly associated with several different pathways. And basically it came out into three buckets, which were cancers, autoimmune and other immune disorders, and neurological disorders.

CURWOOD: To what extent does our chemical regulatory framework pay attention to how genes are expressed and affected by chemicals?

FURLONG: That's a really good question. So epigenetics is basically the way that our DNA is expressed, and is fairly new in terms of the study of how environmental chemicals affect health outcomes. So we can see these changes in gene expression that are linked to kidney cancer, but it's not proof that exposure to this particular PFAS is definitely going to end up in kidney cancer. So, I don't think that the regulatory framework has been able to incorporate some of these signals quite as readily as they can consider things like a direct association. The advantage of this kind of study is that, because it's untargeted, we can look at all of these diseases at once. So if we were to look at, you know, every autoimmune disorder, every cancer, every neurological disorder, in a separate study, that would be 10s of millions, possibly hundreds of millions of dollars, right? So we can look to see what's popping up in this untargeted study, and then we can do more targeted looks at some of these specific health outcomes, and hopefully that will eventually turn into stronger evidence that can be used for regulatory purposes.

CURWOOD: Your research focused on firefighters. To what extent do you expect to find similar patterns of disruption of, of genetic expression in the general public from the effects of PFAS?

FURLONG: So we know that firefighters have slightly higher levels of some of the PFAS, but we would assume the dose-response relationship would be the same, even at lower levels of PFAS, and most of the firefighters’ exposure is through the same routes as the general population. They just have some of these additional routes of exposure for some of the specific PFAS, but for the health effects, you know, the way that a PFAS changes gene expression in firefighters should mechanistically be the same as the way it changes gene expression in other people—in the general population.

CURWOOD: So, how concerned do you think the average person should be about their personal exposure to PFAS? I mean, beyond some broad regulatory changes, perhaps, what actionable step might an individual take to reduce the load of PFAS in their daily life?

FURLONG: Yeah, so some people developed pretty severe anxiety about our environmental chemicals, and I understand, because I went through this phase, you know, 10 years ago, when I was first starting this research. But you know, anxiety and stress itself can have some pretty negative health consequences, and the truth is that unless you are highly exposed or genetically sensitive, you are better off worrying about more general health positive behaviors like getting regular exercise and eating a diet that's high in fruits and vegetables and other fibers. However, there are still some relatively easy steps that you can take to reduce your PFAS exposure. So some of those would include using a water filter. A lot of the municipal water supplies, like from your local city, are now trying to treat for PFAS to keep it under certain levels, but you can still install a water filter in your home or use a Brita if a more sophisticated filtration system is out of reach. It's very important to maintain your filters regularly. There's some evidence that your exposures might be higher if you don't change your filters often. And then reducing your consumption of ultra processed foods will also reduce your PFAS exposure and generally be healthier for you. You can also try not to use your non-stick pans. I know it's really hard when you're making scrambled eggs, but if you get a well-seasoned cast iron pan it works just as well, and they're not that expensive. So those are the big ones.

CURWOOD: Melissa Furlong is an environmental epidemiologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. Thank you so much for taking the time with us today.

FURLONG: Thank you so much, Steve. It was fun talking.

Related links:
- Innovation News Network Europe Cracks Down on PFAS in firefighting foams with new restrictions
- Read the PFAS epigenetic study: “Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and microRNA: An epigenome-wide association study in firefighters”
- Learn more about environmental epidemiologist Melissa Furlong
- Having a hard time visualizing microRNAs and gene expression? Watch this stunning animation on gene regulation by microRNA
- Learn more about PFAS
- Learn more about epigenetics, the study of gene expression

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[MUSIC: Oscar Peterson Trio, “D & E” on We Get Requests, The Verve Music Group]

O'NEILL: Coming up, we sent humans back around the Moon – and got back amazing photos, scientific observations, and a big dose of “Moon joy.” Keep listening to Living on Earth!

ANNOUNCER: Support for Living on Earth comes from the Waverley Street Foundation, working to cultivate a healing planet with community-led programs for better food, healthy farmlands, and smarter building, energy and businesses.

[CUTAWAY MUSIC: Candelion, “Betula” Single, Epidemic Sound]

Artemis II Science and Awe

O'NEILL: It’s Living on Earth, I’m Aynsley O’Neill.

CURWOOD: And I’m Steve Curwood.

This spring, the Artemis II mission used the most powerful rocket ever built by NASA to return to the moon for the first time since the original Apollo missions more than 50 years ago. That program led to the first human footprints on the moon but before the men of Apollo 11 took those historic steps in July of 1969, the crew of the Apollo 8 mission became the first humans to ever orbit the moon and take that iconic picture of the Earth rising over the lunar surface. And now, the Artemis II mission has recaptured the public’s interest in space exploration in much the same way as in the 1960s.

AYNSLEY: NASA’s Artemis program is organizing a series of complex missions with the end goal to establish a continuous human presence on the moon and set up the infrastructure and technology for future missions to Mars and beyond. So on April 1st, the Artemis II astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen set out for a flyby around the moon, and there was a collective sigh of relief when a little over 9 days later they landed safe and sound back on Earth! And on the science side of things, in addition to testing out Orion spacecraft systems the crew was able to make some observations that are helping to expand our knowledge of our nearest neighbor, as well as the Earth itself.
For more, I’m joined now by Kelsey Young, the Artemis II Lunar Science Lead, who was in the thick of space flight operations as part of the crew at Mission Control. Kelsey, welcome to Living on Earth!

YOUNG: Thanks for having me and for your interest in what we're doing.

O'NEILL: What were some of those standout observations that were made by the astronauts in the Artemis II crew that we from here on Earth had previously never seen before?

YOUNG: Our highest prioritized lunar science objectives, we had 10 objectives, and two of them were kind of binned as priority one. One was color and albedo variations and specifically crude observations of those variations, and then the second highest priority one was impact flash investigations, investigating kind of the modern lunar environment. And if we have new impact craters forming on the surface today, and we actually did have a couple Apollo crew members see impact flashes from orbit during their missions. But you heard the crew during the flyby, and you'll hear when all of the audio files get released, because they all will be released to the public, lots of descriptions of color and of course, I think the person who has spent time looking at the moon, which hopefully is a lot of people say, what color? You know, we see black and we see white and we see gray. But it turns out there are really, really subtle color nuances that you can see, especially when you're as close and have the view that, you know, the Apollo and Artemis astronauts had that really inform us scientifically about the evolution of the moon and what processes were active and how recently in the geologic history of the moon. So you heard, you know one thing that got the science team really excited, and this was read out loud on the loops real time. So if you tuned into the flyby, you'll hear it, is a few of them noting shades of brown, and then specifically Jeremy Hansen noticing green around this really neat feature called Aristarchus that is actually on the near side. You can see it, if you go up and look at the moon at night, you can see Aristarchus. He noticed green color, which tells us something about volcanic activity and how recently it might have been active in that area. It's a really high priority destination for future landed science missions, not crude, but robotic. So those observations had a lot of people in the science back room really excited.

O'NEILL: Well, and tell us about those impact flashes as well, because I believe that I saw you getting particularly excited about those.

YOUNG: Impact flashes are neat. What they are is micro meteoroids striking the surface of the moon and literally creating a flash, and that flash is formed when something that's moving really, really fast collides with the surface of the moon, and it literally, you know, like, melts and explodes when it hits the surface. Something that's actually really, really small can create a flash on the lunar surface because they have no atmosphere. So on our planet, if something that small were to get near to us, it would burn up in the atmosphere. But the moon doesn't have that atmosphere, so it will strike the surface and make a pretty bright flash. Apollo crews did see impact flashes, notably, there was one audio clip we played, actually, to the Artemis II crew in classroom training beforehand of Apollo 17 astronaut Jack Schmidt, giving an observation of the moon for something else. And you just hear him, you know, be totally excited "oh, I think I just saw a flash on the lunar surface" and he goes on to describe where he saw it. And so we were really excited about the opportunity for the crew to look for these, especially since we have a wonderful series of groups here on earth that look for impact flashes on the near side of the moon, which is, of course, the side of the moon that always faces our planet. We have citizen scientists all around the world looking. We have earth-based observatories looking, we have a group at the Marshall Space Flight Center who is really dedicated to looking for these impact flashes, but they don't see the far side, of course, because that side of the Moon always faces away from our planet. And so getting crude observations in support of these impact flash investigations and trying to track how dynamic the lunar surface is, was high priority. And I will be honest, I did not think we would see any. [LAUGH]

O'NEILL: You were a little doubtful. You were a little skeptical?

YOUNG: Yeah. I mean, you have to be looking in the right place at the right time. They only had a few hours, and you heard my shock, because not only did they see one, but they saw more than one. So, you saw my pure shock, which was, like, completely a genuine reaction.

O'NEILL: Well, of course, how cool is this genuinely?

YOUNG: It was very cool. I mean, I'm so fortunate to work as a part of Lunar Science Team. We have roughly 60 people pulled from all across NASA centers. And it's not just scientists, it's, you know, visualization specialists, communication specialists. We have people who work on the training materials. It really takes all walks of life to make this happen, but one scientist in particular was kind of the science theme lead for that investigation, and I missed it because I was having my own reaction at the time, but she apparently audibly screamed in the science back room. I wish I had heard it.

O'NEILL: Well so there's this incredible team that is all working together on this, but there's also the community that gets to benefit from all of this as well. So when we learn these things from these missions, what kind of impact do you think that has throughout the scientific community and even the community of lay people?

YOUNG: I really love and value that question, because I think it's really important. I mean, what do these missions bring to people that are not, you know, career lunar scientists who think about, you know, sending people to the moon. And I have so many answers. I think my top priority answer is inspiring the next generation and what I mean by that is, you know, I certainly, I was not alive during Apollo, but hearing from colleagues of mine now and people in my, you know, community that were alive to experience that, it helped them, in many cases, end up where they are now. It inspired them to pursue their passion and what they wanted to dedicate their life to. And in some cases, that was, oh my gosh, I want to do that, I want to go work for NASA, but in other cases, it was completely other relevant scientific disciplines, or even just, you know, other disciplines in general. And I've heard stories time and time and time again about the influence that Apollo missions played on people that I know well and respect, and so I'm really optimistic that the Artemis mission, starting with Artemis II, do that for the next generation, and to just allow them to see what happens when you pursue your passion and pursue the things that bring you joy, in this case, Moon joy. You know, I certainly have two young kids, and what I hope for them is that they do something that makes them as happy and fulfilled as this mission made me. And I know from what I've seen in kind of the public response to this mission, it certainly seems to have gotten off on the right foot, that people seem excited and motivated and inspired to look up at the sky and figure out where you might want to go, what path you might want to walk down.

O'NEILL: Now, this mission really captured the attention and the love of so many of us around the world and I really do think that a lot of that is thanks to the human undercurrent that ran through even all of this science and technology and everything like that. You know, a couple of the really standout moments, there was the emotional weight of the naming of the Carroll crater after Commander Reid Wiseman's late wife, but there were also the lighter side of things like the morning wake up playlist and things like that. So what were some of the standout moments from the crew for you personally, Kelsey?

YOUNG: Certainly of course I mean, the number one moment has to be the Carroll crater moment. There was not a dry eye, that's for sure. That was just extremely impactful, just to have them share that with the world. I was fortunate to actually be in, you know, mission control at the time but I think even had I been watching it from home, it would have had the same impact and I think that's what makes it so powerful, right? So certainly, that, I think when they started getting closer to the moon, like, not on fly by day, but in earlier days, and they were able to get views of the moon out the window, the like, childlike excitement that we were hearing, like that's gonna stick with me a while. And you know, I'm fortunate to have spent a lot of time with these amazing people, and that was not a surprise [LAUGH] but hearing it for real, hearing how excited they were really will stay with me. My most anticipated moment prior to the mission, which bore out, it was really a wonderful moment, was the first time they started giving, like the real scientific descriptions of the moon on fly by day. We had trained them for so long and in so many ways, and they've come so far in giving those descriptions that to hear the real thing hit me, and I expected it to hit me, and it did, indeed. [LAUGH] But other than that, it was kind of just listening to them crush it like I knew they would, like the observations they were giving were impactful. They were, of course, inspiring from a human perspective, but scientifically impactful. And I swear, when they were, I think it was Victor and Christina that were having a conversation about how when they discussed with each other, they were able to elevate each other's observations, which is exactly what we wanted them to do. It was perfect. And like thinking about it later, it's just like, it just brought me so much joy that they experienced that because, of course, that's how the best science is done, is as a team. And the fact that in the middle of this moment, the middle of this several hour fly by where all eyes are on them, and they have the real thing out the window, and they've been training for three years, and they were still having like these scientific conversations with each other to elevate each other. They were asking questions about age relationships between lunar far side features to help inform what they were seeing. I mean, it was, come on, can't ask for anything more. It was incredible.

O'NEILL: So Kelsey, one of the images that I think resonated with a lot of us was the Hello World photo that Reid Wiseman took early on on the mission. It's this beautiful, full planet picture. It's got this great view of the Atlantic Ocean, some of Africa, some of South America and you can even see both the northern and, I think, the southern auroras as well. When we look at this, how can we compare this photograph from Artemis II to any of our other photographs of Earth, such as the blue marble from Apollo 17, or just any image that we've ever seen of our home before?

YOUNG: I adore that question and frankly, I mean, obviously, when we started getting the moon images down later, it was, like constantly, but that image that came down that you're referencing early in the mission, I mean, like, took our breath away. I mean, there's no other way to say it. I mean, it was just this spectacular symbol of what we had accomplished so far, which is getting people far enough away from our planet that they could take that picture in the first place. And then any time I looked closer at it, I saw something new that caught my eye that I hadn't seen before and I just started like, you know, squealing every time I saw something new. I mean, even just, of course, the Aurora popped out to me as well and then how, like, the thin line of the atmosphere, like came down at the southern end and the way that, like, the interaction that it had with the auroral features on the South Pole, took my breath away. You know, another thing I loved about that image is you could see zodiacal light in that image, and, you know, kind of down to, sort of, like the bottom right of the picture, and so zodiacal light is basically interplanetary dust. It's dust that's floating in the solar system that you can see in the darkness of space. And that was something we knew that they would be observing when they got to the moon. And so it was this really beautiful sort of like, here is our planet. Here's where we came from. We have this view in the first place because we accomplished something incredible. And here's this little ode to something we'll be seeing, you know, in a few days. So an extremely impactful image. And, you know, I think listening to the crew describe both in the mission and then in their event that they did when they got back to Houston, of seeing Earth suspended in like the blackness of space, it hit me in the moment when I heard them say it, but then they said it again and it just kind of took my breath away again, because, you know, three of those four people had spent months on the International Space Station taking beautiful pictures of Earth, and this was entirely new vantage point and an entirely new, like, literal view of our planet that was made possible because of reaching for something greater. And it just is emblematic of, I think, this new generation of exploration. It's emblematic of these four people and what they were able to accomplish and yes, you know, first of all, I'm a geologist. I study the Moon, but I also study Earth, so I think I'm excited for the moon pictures, but I was just blown away by that early image of our own planet and what it symbolized to me.

O'NEILL: Well, and I want to make this connection here. You're here as a Lunar Science lead, and also, obviously a geologist. I'm here as Living on Earth. What are we learning about Earth when we learn about the moon?

YOUNG: The answer that I love to give, because it inspires me every day when I go to work at NASA, is that the moon, we like to say, is a witness plate for the entire solar system and specifically for our own planet, here on Earth. And that is because we're essentially in each other's backyards. I mean, they're only a couple day flight away, right? So from a solar system perspective, we're next door neighbors and then some. And Earth has plate tectonics and oceans and vegetation that often obscures big parts of our history on Earth. We have very little really old crust from billions of years ago exposed on our planet because it has been recycled by plate tectonics, even if you go to you know the deepest parts of the ocean, you're not going to be able to access that early chunk of our own planet's history. But on the moon, if you know where to look and you know how to look, you can access that part of our own history by going to the moon to evaluate things like what the impact history looked like at that time, which had a lot of impact on how our own planet was developing at the time. And so the fact that you can go to the moon to learn about Earth in a way that you can't here on Earth is really inspiring for me. And I, you know, I think we have so many questions for lunar science in its own right, and those are obviously super critical but there is a lot of value as well in what lunar exploration can tell us about Earth. I think there's also the more human element of things, of stepping away from our planet to gain a new perspective, literally and figuratively, and you heard that just echoed over and over and over again by the crew. I mean, I think repeatedly, they just kept saying, we don't leave Earth, like we choose Earth and we choose each other, and I think that that message brought from basically the other side of the Moon is really impactful right now, and offers a new perspective, and brings the moon closer to home, but also brings us all here on Earth a little bit closer together.

O'NEILL: Kelsey Young is the Artemis II Lunar Science lead. Kelsey, thank you so much for joining us today.

YOUNG: Thank you so much for having me and while we put out amazing images, you know, during the mission, more data will be coming out, more images will be coming out, new images even came out a few days after the mission, and NASA will continue to release them as we get them processed. So the journey does not end here for Artemis II, please do continue to follow along, and please continue to look at the moon. Thanks for having me.

O'NEILL: And you can find those images and more on our website, loe.org.

Related links:
- NASA | “Artemis II News and Updates”
- NASA | “Artemis II Crew Arrives at Launch Site, Shares Moon Mascot”
- Learn more about Kelsey Young
- Wired | “Artemis II Astronauts Witnessed 6 Meteorites Colliding With the Moon”

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[MUSIC: Van Morrison, “Moondance – 2013” on Moondance (Deluxe Edition), Warner Records Inc.]

O'NEILL: Just ahead, if you do the math there is plenty of hope for the health of this beautiful blue marble we all share. Stay tuned to Living on Earth!

ANNOUNCER: Support for Living on Earth comes from Hansjörg Wyss in honor of Rosamund Stone Zander. Celebrated painter, environmentalist, and author of The Art of Possibility, who inspired others to see the profound interconnectedness of all living things, and to act with courage and creativity on behalf of our planet. Support also comes from Sailors for the Sea and Oceana. Helping boaters race clean, sail green and protect the seas they love. More information at SailorsForTheSea.org.

[CUTAWAY MUSIC: Cory Wong, Jon Batiste, “Home” on Motivational Music for the Syncopated Soul, Cory Wong]

'Clearing the Air' and Climate Solutions Hope

CURWOOD: It’s Living on Earth, I’m Steve Curwood.

O'NEILL: And I’m Aynsley O’Neill.

When it comes to taking better care of our only home, Planet Earth, climate disruption has a lot of people feeling worried and hopeless. And when solutions are offered, they can run into skepticism from people across the political spectrum. For example, many question carbon-free nuclear power, saying it is highly dangerous. And some doubt the advisability of mining a lot of the essential minerals needed for certain renewable energy technologies.

CURWOOD: But if you do the math carefully and deeply, you will find many of the concerns are based on partial and misinformation, and that the outlook for addressing the climate emergency isn’t as grim as some people may think. That’s according to data scientist Hannah Ritchie. She has a message of pragmatic hope about the future, using data as her guiding star. Hannah Ritchie is Deputy Editor at Our World in Data and author of Clearing the Air: A Hopeful Guide to Solving Climate Change in 50 Questions and Answers. And some of the answers are surprising! She joined us for a session of the Living on Earth Book Club with our media partner, Inside Climate News. Hannah, welcome to Living on Earth!

RITCHIE: Thanks so much. It's great to be here.

CURWOOD: Well, let's cut to the chase here. People are somewhat skeptical about dealing with the climate. I mean, we've been talking about it for so long, and it doesn't feel like a lot of progress is being made. So I want you to dive into the very first question of your book for a moment, which you know, sets things up. It's one of the quote, "big questions" you have in your volume, as you call it, and it is simply four words, "Is it too late?"

RITCHIE: Yeah. And I think it's a question I hear a lot where I think people do feel very despondent. They feel like we've been on this journey for a long time. We've kind of delayed, delayed, delayed, and oh no, now it's too late, and there's nothing we can do about it. And I think the reality is there is just stuff that we can do, and it's actually never too late. I think what I caveat that around is that there are particular temperature targets for which the reality is that it's too late, right? So I think lots of people pin this around keeping temperatures below one and a half degrees. I'm optimistic, but I'm not that optimistic that I think that we can do that. I think that the reality is that is too late for us now, that we just will not be able to achieve the one and a half degree target. But what's really, really crucial is that does not mean that it's too late for us to take action and limit temperatures even more, right? The way that these climate impacts work is, the higher the temperature, they increase the danger and the hazard, right? So even if, when we go past 1.5 degrees, you know, fighting for 1.6 or 1.7 or 1.8, those incremental changes in temperature do limit damages, and it's worth us investing in those solutions to prevent those damages as much as we can. So, no, it's never too late. There's no point at which there's just no point in us trying to take action and limit temperatures as much as we can.

CURWOOD: So how do we get to the feeling of, yes, we are really addressing the climate emergency? I mean, how do we get to that point if it's not too late?

RITCHIE: I mean, I think there are lots of signs of progress across the world. One of the most optimistic changes for me in the past decade has just been the plummeting cost of renewable energy technologies, right? So when we were looking at this 10 years ago, it was very, very hard for me to see how we would make progress, because the reality is that solar and wind and batteries and electric vehicles were all much, much more expensive than the fossil fuel alternatives. So to me, it just wasn't viable that people would take those extra costs, or could I even afford to take those extra costs for the low carbon option? Now that's flipped, and that's the opposite, right? So, many of these low carbon technologies are also economically viable or economically competitive, plus you have the climate benefit as well, and you're seeing that in terms of deployment rates, like you look across the world, most of the new electricity technologies being built today are not fossil fuels. They are renewables. You've seen increasing shares of sales of electric vehicles, right? So take the example of China, and China, now more than half of new cars in China sold are electric. Many other countries are up at 98% so Norway is up at 98% so you can look across the world, and there are lots of pockets where you can see that progress is happening, and importantly, progress is accelerating. This stuff is getting faster and faster every year.

CURWOOD: So how do you make sure your data is true?

RITCHIE: Yeah, that's a very good question. I mean, I think part of the challenge, and part of the reason I wrote the book is because people see so much conflicting data and information. They see a number in news article or a headline. We put so much emphasis on that, right. We put so much trust in that number. And it's extremely, extremely hard to put that number into context, which is what I try to do in the book. And it's really, really crucial, one to know is this a big deal? It's also really, really crucial to understand if a particular solution is greenwashing, for example, right? So you'll often hear reports of this fantastic solution that saves you know, a thousand tons of carbon dioxide. And of course, a thousand tons of carbon dioxide sounds huge, right? Wow. We've had this massive new solution. And the reality is that we emit 36 billion tons of CO2 every year. So it's being able to understand that context that's really crucial. So my general advice is always, when you see a number, ask, is that a big number? Is that small number? And compared to what?

CURWOOD: Compared to what, yes. So one of the intriguing pieces of data in your book is about the attitudes of folks here in the United States and the world. You say that, hey, a majority of us are concerned about climate disruption, and yet there's this sort of dark cloud of gloom over, oh the climate really can't be addressed. What do you think is going on, and how can people get out of that funk?

RITCHIE: Yeah, I think there are two attitudes there. The first is this kind of blanket no one cares, which the data very strongly suggests in every country in the world that's just not true, in every country in the world that's been surveyed, and that's a large number. The majority of people, you know, believe in climate change, care about climate change, are concerned and want to see governments and other policy makers make effort to take climate action. So the notion that, you know, just no one cares, it's just not true. The majority of people do care. And the second thing that people always bring up is this polarization issue, where often it's framed as people on the left care about climate, but people on the right do not care about climate, and we struggle to make progress because we can't bridge this gap. For most countries in the world, even that polarization gap is really, really small, right? The US is actually a bit of an outlier here. So the US is much more polarized than other countries, so the gap in other countries is very small, but even in the US, I think that gap is exaggerated, right? So the majority of people on the left care about climate, but also more than half of people on the right also care about climate, right? So this notion that it's only people on the left that care about climate is just not true, but that breaks down even further when you actually just stop talking about climate and you just talk about clean energy. Actually the share of people on the right that support clean energy goes up even more. And you can see that in attitudes, but you can also see that and what's actually happening on the ground, where, if you look at where renewable energy is being built most quickly, across the US is in incredibly red states, right? It's not blue states, it's red states, right?

CURWOOD: Yeah.

RITCHIE: So Texas is a very clear example. So Texas has been building huge amounts of solar, huge amounts of wind, has now taken over California in terms of how much of this it's building. It's really investing in battery storage. You know, these technologies that people might frame as being "lefty," right, some of the reddest states in the US are building them out very quickly. Now, part of the driver there might be climate, but part of the drivers is other stuff, like local air pollution or economic gains or employment. And I think it’s really, really important for us if we're to try to bring as many people along with us as possible, is like, yes, focus on the climate aspect of this. This is really important, but focus on the other stuff that people care about as well, these co-benefits of clean energy, which is not just about climate.

CURWOOD: Interestingly enough, Inside Climate’s reporter Dan Gearino was out in Iowa not so long ago, and Iowa, as you point out in your book, is a red state that has the largest proportion of renewable energy. I think it's like, 65 or 63%. And yet, when people move to try to install more wind power there, there's sort of a thread of disinformation that sometimes comes out into the discussion there with wind power. And so what about disinformation? Where does your data say that it comes from, and what, according to the data, can really counteract it, do you think?

RITCHIE: It's an interesting question, because I think there is what we might frame as disinformation, which is almost kind of deliberately trying to give someone facts or information that's false, basically telling lies, right? So that's one aspect of this, and I think there is, there's quite a bit of this, often, because there are incentives to not shift towards clean energy, right? If you are in the business of fossil fuels, you don't really want this transition to happen. So there's some incentive to deliberately seed doubt. But then what I actually think is more powerful and more persuasive is misinformation, which is not necessarily deliberately telling lies, but it's kind of white lies. You kind of plant a kind of half truth, and don't give people the complete picture by which they would be able to understand whether this is correct or incorrect, it kind of comes back to this context thing, right? Where actually a lot of the most dangerous misinformation is like planting a little seed of doubt or a little half truth, not giving all of the numbers, just like giving one number that sounds kind of big or kind of small, depending on the context. I actually think that's more damaging for people than the very, very deliberate disinformation. Often it's easier to spot the disinformation. I think a lot of people are clued into that. It's very, very hard to spot misinformation, especially if you're not an expert in that given area.

CURWOOD: Is there an example you'd like to give us on the misinformation, do you think has that effect?

RITCHIE: I mean, I think coming back to wind energy, right? So like Donald Trump's favorite line when he talks about wind energy, is that wind turbines kill millions of birds, right? And that's one reason why we shouldn't deploy wind power. Now, it's actually correct that wind turbines across the US kill a couple of million birds every year. What's missing there is the context of whether that's a little or a lot compared to other hazards to birds, right? So in the book, I have this chart that shows you know, basically hazards to birds in the US, actually the biggest one is cats, right? So cats in the US kill billions of birds every year. Buildings, fertilizers, roads, these are all much, much higher than wind turbines in terms of the risks and the threats to birds. So I think that's just like one very clear example where, like, it's actually the statement itself is true, but without the context, it's really hard to evaluate whether that should be a blocker on us going forward with wind power or not.

CURWOOD: Then you have a, "what we can do about it." It doesn't sound great to have a couple million birds dying every year, and you want to share how you suggest that we deal with it?

RITCHIE: Yeah, and I think this part is really crucial. I'm very positive about the solutions that we have to work with and continue to develop. But the on center is that they're not perfect, right? It's not that you know any of the solutions don't have any mining impacts or any land use impacts or any impact on wildlife whatsoever. So for each of these questions and these solutions, there are things that we can do and need to do in order to make things better. So to take the bird example, I don't think that the fact that wind turbines kill some birds, means that we should stop wind power entirely, right? I think we need to continue and go ahead with the transition, but along the way, there are things that we can do to reduce that toll significantly, right? And there are a range of projects and implementations that actually really make a difference. So for example, there's been experiments where if you paint the blades of the wind turbine black, or put kind of rings of black on the wind turbines. Birds and bats can see them much better and are able to avoid them. They've been experiments where, if you for particular birds, and particularly birds of prey, are very much at risk if you basically switch off the turbines at very, very low speeds, where you're not generating much power whatsoever, it dramatically reduces the death toll from birds. So I think the numbers are around more than half the number of birds that are killed, and the amount of energy you lose by turning the wind turbines off at very low speeds is like something like 0.1%. For bats, if you play often, ultrasound sounds, it allows them to detect them. So there are a range of things across these different solutions that means that we can make things better and actually reduce the impact even more. And I think it's important that we be able to do both of those things at the same time, like we know that we need to go ahead with the energy transition and get a move on. So that shouldn't stop us or halt us from doing that, but there are certainly things that we can do along the way in order to do that in the most responsible way that we can.

CURWOOD: There's another area that perhaps is related to misinformation or disinformation that you have in your book, and that's about nuclear power. And there's this public perception that nuclear power is really dangerous. Oh, and it's way too expensive. But your book suggests that you know nuclear power is on a par, literally, with wind and solar as a carbon free, safe and relatively reasonable way to get energy. Can you talk about that, please?

RITCHIE: Yeah, I think this is a very, very common misconception about nuclear power is that it's very dangerous. That's actually been the kind of strongest opposition. It's been strong in the US. It's very strong across Europe. Many countries have basically shut down their nuclear power plants because of public concerns about safety. And I think there are a couple of reasons for this. I think the main one is that when people think about the hazards to nuclear power, it comes back to a few very, very specific, headline worthy events, right? So there's Three Mile Island, there was Chernobyl, there was Fukushima, so there's really memorable single, dangerous events that happened, and that's what comes to mind for people. But when you look at how many people died across those events for 50 years or more, it's in the thousands, a couple of thousand at most. Now, again, it comes back to context, right? So if you compare that to how many die from burning fossil fuels, right, one of the alternatives, you know, we have millions of people dying prematurely from fossil fuels every single year. So you have millions every year compared to thousands over decades. So when you break it down by, you know how many deaths occur per unit of electricity produced, burning coal or gas or oil is order of magnitudes more dangerous than nuclear power. So the notion that you shouldn't move to nuclear power because it's more dangerous than fossil fuels is just incorrect, but I think it's very, very persuasive and plays a huge role in public perception.

CURWOOD: So you must have had some fun doing this, huh?

RITCHIE: [LAUGH] Yeah. I mean, part of what was enjoyable about it, and I think is just really, really important, is that for some of the questions, I was also just coming at them, no idea of what the answer would be, right? And just willing to accept what the answer was. So part of it was also just discovery of me, is like putting into context, how much mining does solar panels and batteries need, and how does that compare to the mining impact of fossil fuels, like, again, before coming to this, I didn't know exactly what the answer would be. So it was a bit of a kind of discovery process as well, which was, you know, extremely fun.

CURWOOD: And what's the answer?

RITCHIE: Oh, the answer is that, again, people are very concerned about the mining impacts of renewable energy technologies. And there are impacts. Again, coming back to this, know what we need to do next. There are ways and things that we need to do to do this in a more responsible way. But you know, if you look at the amount of mining that we'll basically need to build a clean energy system over decades, will be hundreds of millions of tons of materials, which, again, sounds huge, hundreds of millions of tons. There's no way that we could possibly do that. But then put it into context, and we're, you know, taking out 15 billion tons of fossil fuels every single year, right? So the amount of mining we need to do for renewables over decades is less than we need to do for fossil fuels in one single year.

CURWOOD: So it's fair to say that you are certainly not Pollyanna here in your representation of the facts and the data that are in your book, but you do remain a level of optimism. So what keeps that hope alive for you?

RITCHIE: One, the data. Every day I see another data point that suggests we're moving in the right direction, and again, from very, very different parts of the world, like some country in Africa has just basically banned the sale of new petrol motorbikes, and now they're going electric where there are actually now a number of countries in Sub Saharan Africa that have more progressive policies on electrification of transport than North America or some countries in Europe. I think there has been this narrative that the energy transition is only for rich countries, and they'll do a bit, but the other rest of the world are not going to do anything, or can't do anything on this. And I think there are a number of stories emerging which is bucking that trend, right? I think following the data and seeing that stuff is happening, even though it may not make you know the headlines in The New York Times, right? But it's still happening. If you dig a bit under the surface, you can see that progress is there. And then just another reason I'm optimistic is I just come across so many fantastic, intelligent, driven people working on these problems and trying to make a difference. And again, it kind of goes on beneath the surface, but it doesn't mean it's not there. Whether it's, you know, trying to improve technologies and batteries or solar power, whether it's trying to change government policies, whether it's trying to change within a boardroom, what a company is doing, there are lots and lots of fantastic people trying to make a difference, and that's what really keeps me going.

CURWOOD: Hannah Ritchie’s book is Clearing the Air: A Hopeful Guide to Solving Climate Change in 50 Questions and Answers. Hannah, thank you so much for joining us.

RITCHIE: Thank you very much for your time.

Related links:
- Learn more about Hannah Ritchie
- Purchase a copy of Clearing the Air on Bookshop, which supports indie bookstores and nonprofits like LOE
- Our World in Data

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