Sea Change

TV Weather Gets Heated. In a world where weather is getting more extreme, the role of meteorologists is becoming more important—and controversial—than ever. Meteorologists have been fired over reporting on climate change, and others have left stations because of death threats.  But that hasn’t stopped Jeff Berardelli, Chief Meteorologist for Tampa Bay’s WFLA News. He’s leaning in. In this episode,...

Our oceans are heating up—what does that mean for all the life that lives in the sea...and us? Today we’re going on a trip to Florida…we’re hanging out in the Keys, and we're going fishing, and scuba diving all to find out what’s going on beneath the surface. Just how bad is hotter water for sea life in South Florida, and for the people that depend on it? And how are scientists leading the charge...

The home insurance market is collapsing all across the country. Big, brand-name insurance companies are walking away from the riskiest states. And, the companies that are sticking around are often doubling and tripling rates over just a few years. Nothing like this has ever happened before. And nowhere is this crisis worse... than Florida. In fact, Florida is the origin story of this crisis: the h...

Even though New Orleans has water in every direction, it’s hard to access. And for a city with increasingly sweltering summers, this irony is painful. In this episode, we’re going to talk about the uncomfortable history of Lincoln Beach, how it led to New Orleans not having any public beaches today, and how a community has rallied together to get their beach back. We start in the era of segregatio...

It's summertime! Otherwise known as prime reading season. And in this episode, you're going to meet the people behind a couple of the summer's hottest books.  We talk with Boyce Upholt about his new bestseller, The Great River: The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi. The book tells the epic story of the Mississippi River, and he writes about how centuries of human meddling have transformed bot...

Most of the world's biggest cities are on the coast. As sea levels rise and storms worsen, how can we reimagine our coastal cities so that they can survive and thrive in the face of climate change? Today we talk with leaders across 3 continents about how they are fighting for the future of their cities.  Thank you to our panelists: Dr. Fola Dania - the Chief Resilience Officer of Lagos, Nigeria Fe...

In Vietnamese culture, water and home are so linked that they share a word. The Vietnamese word for water is nước. But nước also means homeland. Today–how the Vietnamese community has to reimagine its relationship with water as Louisiana’s coastline changes. In this episode, we’ll travel to a shrimp dock, a tropical garden, and a neighborhood surrounded by canals to examine one question: What does...

It started in states like Florida and Louisiana. And, now it's spreading. The home insurance market is crumbling as climate-fueled disasters increase. Premiums are skyrocketing, and already, insurance is playing a role in determining where we can live, and who can afford to live there. So we decided to host our very first Sea Change Live event dedicated to understanding what is going wrong, and ho...

We have a special episode for you today. We're sharing an episode of the new podcast from APM Studios and Western Sound called “Ripple.”  The largest oil spill in American history captivated the public's attention for the entire summer of 2010. Authorities told a story of a herculean response effort that made shorelines safe and avoided a worst case scenario. Was that really the whole picture?  “R...

Today, we hear the story of one fish and its journey to fame: the red drum, or more commonly known as the classic redfish. And whether the decline of this fish is a warning of a bigger collapse. This episode was produced in collaboration with the Food & Environment Reporting Network , an independent, nonprofit news organization. This episode was reported and hosted by Boyce Upholt. Halle Parke...

The ocean is rising across the South faster than almost anywhere else in the world. Today, Eva Tesfaye, a reporter for Sea Change, talks to the two journalists behind the Washington Post’s new series “The Drowning South.” Chris Mooney and Brady Dennis discuss their data-driven reporting, which takes them from Texas to North Carolina. It’s a fascinating conversation about how journalists are findin...

Sea Change’s series, “All Gassed Up,” exposes the enormous scale of the global expansion of liquified natural gas. Our reporting revealed that this gas expansion not only has big impacts on local communities like Cameron Parish but also on the planetary scale for our future climate. The expansion threatens the effort to slow climate change. And, there's a lot of money at stake. Some countries and...

Japan was the world’s largest importer of LNG for half a century. In the final episode of “All Gassed Up,” we travel to Asia to learn how the global gas industry is expanding — how the need for LNG continues to be sold. Right now, LNG is in its golden age – times are good, profits are high. And Japan’s big bet is that these good times will keep rolling. That more and more of the world will get hoo...

Until the Ukraine War, Russia was Europe’s biggest supplier of natural gas. After the invasion, political leaders wanted off Russian gas, and fast. So, they turned to the U.S. In part two, we follow American gas all the way to Germany — Europe’s biggest energy consumer, where the energy crisis hit hardest. US LNG provided a lifeline for Germany. But what happens when a country gets hooked? “All Ga...

Right now in the US, there is a GAS BOOM. A liquified natural gas boom — or LNG. The US produces the most LNG in the world. And the epicenter of this massive expansion? It’s here on the Gulf Coast. For the last year, we’ve traversed Louisiana trying to uncover what this growing LNG industry means for the state. But, after talking with everyone – from shrimpers to energy insiders – we realized that...

Sea Change is back with a brand new season. And this time, the stakes are even higher. We launch new investigations, travel around the world, and look at how a  sea change  is underway to solve some of our biggest problems. Come with us to investigate and celebrate life on our changing coasts. Every two weeks, we bring you stories that illuminate, inspire, and sometimes enrage, as we dive deep int...

Sea Change is taking a short break before Season 2 launches in March, and we plan to start the season off with a bang. Last fall, we traveled all over the world to report a series about a massive expansion of fossil fuels on the Gulf Coast and what it could mean for the planet. We are very excited to share it with you soon, but in the meantime, we wanted to bring you some great podcasts that we lo...

Sometimes, it can be hard to find the bright spots amid feelings of uncertainty about the future of our planet. But they're there. Today on Sea Change , we're focusing entirely on solutions. Stories about the good. We hear about a landscape architect in China who's pushing his city to become spongier as part of the global push for cities to rip up their concrete. And whether recognizing a river or...

There are only around 51 Rice’s whales left in the world. And they’re the only whale that stays in one country’s territory: they live exclusively in the Gulf of Mexico…in US waters. A uniquely American whale. This also means the responsibility to protect these whales lies with the United States, but are we protecting them? That’s a question NPR Investigations reporter, Chiara Eisner had. With so f...

Today, we are exploring a growing threat to our freshwater supplies in coastal regions all over the country. With climate change, we are experiencing sea-level rise and more frequent droughts, both of which make it easier for saltwater to creep into places we don’t want it. First, we go to Plaquemines Parish, an area that’s been dealing with the effects of saltwater intrusion on their drinking wat...

As we experience worsening impacts from climate change, we’re wondering: How can we rethink engineering? Instead of trying to control nature, can we design with nature? There are more than a thousand miles of levees and floodgates lining each side of the Mississippi River and its tributaries. Thousands of dams also hold back water and sediment throughout the Mississippi basin. But the thing is, yo...

Today on Sea Change, we are bringing you an episode from our friends at KQED. The story you’re about to hear is from the third season of their podcast called Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America. Climate change is intensifying wet periods across California, untaming waterways humans corralled with dirt and concrete. In this episode, “Searching for Home on Higher Ground,” reporter Ezra David Rom...

As natural disasters worsen and extreme weather grows more frequent, it’s led to more people being displaced across the planet. Sometimes, we call those people climate migrants. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that in the last year alone, around 3 million Americans were displaced by natural disasters. But for some climate migrants, displacement isn’t always so immediate or apparent, but it is oft...

Kemp's Ridleys are the most endangered sea turtle on the planet...can they lose their nickname of the "heartbreak turtle"? Today, we go on a journey to the remote Chandeleur islands to try to find the mysterious Kemp’s Ridley turtles, who, after 75 years, have been discovered on the shores of Louisiana. It’s a story of loss and restoration, of hope and heartbreak. Hosted by Sea Change managing pro...

Earlier this year, we told the story of how a change in the White House had the potential to turn the tide for Black communities fighting against environmental pollution in Louisiana's industrial corridor nicknamed Cancer Alley — one of the country's largest hotspots for toxic air. The Environmental Protection Agency's new leader pledged to use all the tools in his toolbox to deliver "environmenta...