Possibly co-founder Stephen Porder has been on a home energy efficiency journey. We check in to see how his latest addition, new windows, are impacting the energy efficiency and comfort of the home.

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

Today we’re getting an update on the home energy efficiency journey of Possibly’s co-founder Stephen Porder.

We had reporter Sedi-Anne Blachford take a field trip to Stephen’s house to check it out.

Sedi-Anne Blachford: Hi Megan!

Megan Hall: Hi Sedi-Anne! So, Stephen has spent years trying to make his home more energy efficient.

Sedi-Anne Blachford: That’s right!

Stephen Porder: We’ve actually been before on Possibly to talk about heat pumps, to talk about electric cars, talk about lots of things, but today we’re here to talk about windows.

Megan Hall: Can you tell me a little bit about what makes Stephen’s windows so interesting?

Sedi-Anne Blachford: Sure Megan. Well first of all, they don’t look or sound like most of the windows you see around New England. Instead of two sections that slide past each other.

Stephen Porder: This is a window that looks more like a door.

Sedi-Anne Blachford: And rather than opening with a

[Sliding window sound]

Sedi-Anne Blachford: It’s more of a

[Opening window sound]

Stephen Porder: So that’s opening like a door. If you turn the handle all the way up, it actually turns toward you. And that’s really nice for venting.

Megan Hall: Ok, why does that matter? Does the way a window open really affect how good it is at keeping out the cold?

Sedi-Anne Blachford: It does actually! Because the tilt-turn windows in Stephen’s house don’t have a break in the middle, they’re much more air- and water-tight than traditional sliding windows. But it’s not just the shape of the window that’s different, it’s also the window itself.

Stephen Porder: It’s actually three panes of glass, but it looks like one.

Sedi-Anne Blachford: Those three panes of glass have special coatings and are separated by thin gaps filled with argon or krypton gas.

Megan Hall: Argon and Krypton? What do those do?

Sedi- Anne: They basically act as an extra layer of insulation. Kind of like one of those double walled glass mugs you might have seen, except Argon and Krypton do an even better job of stopping heat transfer than air.

Megan Hall: So, Stephen got new windows to keep heat from getting out of his house?

Sedi-Anne Blachford: Well, not exactly. When Stephen retrofitted his house to be more energy efficient he purposely didn’t get new windows installed.

Stephen Porder: Everyone always told me that windows don’t really pay for themselves in energy savings. They’re not that big a deal. Like it’s the last thing you should do. So I followed that advice, and it’s not bad advice.

Megan Hall: Is that true?

Sedi-Anne Blachford: In Stephen’s case, it definitely could be. It might take a long time for the money saved from these extra-efficient windows to be more than the cost of installing them. 

Megan Hall: Alright, so then why the swap?

Sedi-Anne Blachford: Well as Stephen puts it,

Stephen Porder: I have a colleague at Brown who’s a real expert on building efficiency, and I was telling him about the windows, and he said, Yeah, new windows aren’t strictly necessary from an energy perspective in most cases, but they sure are nice to have. I kind of feel like that’s how I feel.

Sedi-Anne Blachford: He makes a good point. There are all sorts of testing and certification standards for how well windows perform from an energy standpoint. But, at the end of the day, Stephen and his wife were just getting sick of their old windows.

Stephen Porder: Finally when the fifth window broke and the ice was forming on the inside of the window, we were like, You know what? We just we’re going to do it for comfort. We’re not going to do it for energy savings. Probably it’s not going to pay for itself. But, like, you live in your house a lot, and it’s important and nice to have a comfortable house.

Megan Hall: So it really sounds like for Stephen, this decision was as much about basic comfort as anything else.

Sedi-Anne Blachford: Definitely. And the thing is, just because comfort is a harder thing to measure than cost or efficiency doesn’t mean it’s not important!

Megan Hall: I can totally agree with that! So what should I do first if I want to make my home more comfortable?

Sedi-Anne Blachford: A good first step is figuring out what changes might make the biggest difference.  You can start by getting an energy evaluation of your home. You can hire a professional energy assessor, or go to the department of energy’s website to find instructions for a DIY home energy assessment.

Megan Hall: That sounds like a good plan. Thanks, Sedi-Anne!

That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Bluesky at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Ocean State Media and WBRU.

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In Los Angeles, a new crop of curbside libraries are helping communities recover after last year’s wildfires. But instead of books, these libraries are full of seeds.

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

Today, we’re headed to sunny Los Angeles, where a new crop of curbside libraries has sprouted over the last few years. But instead of books, these libraries are full of seeds — and they’re helping communities reconnect with nature after last year’s wildfires.

Possibly reporter Janek Schaller, who’s based in Southern California, drove out to see one of them in person.

Janek Schaller: There’s a wooden box perched on a pole in front of Nina Raj’s home in Pasadena, California. Without taking a closer look, you might assume that it’s just another one of those little free libraries that have cropped up on many suburban curbsides. But anyone hoping to find a good read inside is in for a surprise.

Nina Raj: We’ve got bush sunflower, we’ve got showy milkweed. (Nina Library,

Janek Schaller: Colorful square packets of seeds line the shelves.

Nina Raj: We’ve got Yarrow, California Poppy, some buckwheat. This is cool. This is from the Ohlone farm. 

Janek Schaller:Nina is a trained naturalist and educator, and has lived in a handful of different neighborhoods across LA. Over the years, she’s built up a sizable collection of seeds, many gathered from her work with gardens and environmental organizations around the city. When she settled down in Pasadena in 2020, Nina decided that it was time to spread the wealth.

Nina Raj: My neighbor has a little free book library, and it inspired me to just build my own little library that I put out in front of my house and share seeds. 

Janek Schaller: Before long, Nina began partnering with other environmental organizations, community members, and even public schools to establish new libraries in neighborhoods throughout LA. Each so-called “outpost” is stocked with seeds that community members had donated.

Nina Raj: These are from people’s gardens. They might be edible seeds. They might be, you know, native plants that they planted in their yards or at community gardens. 

Janek Schaller: There are now 17 libraries throughout LA, and there are more outposts in places as far away as Sonoma County in Northern California and even New York City. Nina says people often don’t realize how spread out the library system really is.

Nina Raj: There are just so many different outposts and each one is totally unique. 

Janek Schaller: Unlike a seed bank, whose purpose is to preserve a carefully-constructed inventory of an ecosystem, Nina says that seed libraries are much more fluid. They represent the identity and needs of a specific community, which can vary from place to place, and can change over time, too. For instance,

Nina Raj: Up here in Altadena, we’re really focused on more phytoremediator seeds. 

Janek Schaller: That scrabble word was phytoremediator — it refers to plants that have the power to clean up the soil that they’re rooted in. Much of the ground in Altadena is still contaminated with toxic chemicals from homes that burned during the wildfires that engulfed the city in January of 2025.

Janek Schaller: Nina has been planting these seeds to absorb some of that pollution in her own neighborhood. But, she says, her neighbors come to the library to find all sorts of plants.

Nina Raj: As I see what comes in and out of the library in front of my house, it helps me understand kind of what people are excited about, what they want. 

Janek Schaller: And Nina is already building on this excitement. She’s actually just finished a new design for the outposts — she’s replacing the glass doors with wooden ones so the seeds can stay cool and out of the light.

Janek Schaller: You’re trusting folks to know that this enclosed box contains what they want it to contain. 

Nina Raj: It’ll say “Altadena Seed Library” on the front, and it’ll say, “Take what you need, leave what you can.” So hopefully that’ll be inviting enough. We’ll find out.

Megan Hall: That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the ways your choices affect our planet, at ask possibly dot org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on social media at  “ask possibly.”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, Ocean State Media and WBRU.

Correction: Nina Raj’s home is in Pasadena, and she did not grow up in LA. A previous version of this episode stated that her home was in Altadena, and that she grew up in LA. 

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This week on Possibly, we’re taking a closer look at how plastics have given the fossil fuel industry a new business platform — with hardly anyone noticing they’re even in the market.

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

Today, we’ve got another episode in our running series on plastics. You probably already know that plastic causes issues when we’re done with it, littering beaches, roadsides, and even our own bodies. But its origin story is just as problematic — and the fossil fuel industry plays a big part in it.

We had Janek Schaller and Leo Nachamie from the Possibly team look into this.

Janek Schaller: Hi, Megan!

Leo Nachamie: Hello!

Megan Hall: So how are oil and gas connected to plastics?

Janek Schaller: We spoke with Professor Sherri Mason to find out. She teaches at Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Sherri Mason: I moved here in summer of 2018, and as I was moving here, everybody was talking to me about, “What about the Shell plant?”

Janek Schaller: Sherri is talking about the Beaver County Shell Petrochemical Facility. It’s just north of Pittsburgh. She saw it for the first time when she was driving south from Erie.

Sherri Mason: I came over this horizon and this, like, whole city kind of rose out in front of me …

Leo Nachamie: The 14 billion-dollar Beaver County facility opened in 2022. And the state of Pennsylvania was thrilled. They’d offered Shell more than a billion dollars in tax breaks to bring the project to their state.

Megan Hall: Whoa! What does this factory do?

Janek Schaller: It makes tiny little plastic pellets, known as nurdles.

Sherri Mason: These little three millimeter balls of plastic…they like clear white lentils.

Janek Schaller: Those lentils are the building blocks that make up every single plastic product you can think of — everything from plastic bottles to packaging.

Megan Hall: So, why did Shell and the state put so much money into a factory that makes plastic pellets?

Leo Nachamie: Sherri says fossil fuel companies are still marketing oil and gas as fuel sources, but as the country shifts toward renewable energy, the industry is relying on plastics as a backup plan. And Pennsylvania is the perfect place for this project.

Megan Hall: Why?

Janek Schaller: This is where we get back to the connection between oil and gas and plastics. Pennsylvania produces a lot more energy than it needs, mostly because it harvests natural gas from fracking…

Megan Hall: That’s where companies shoot water deep into the ground to release methane from rock formations… right?

Janek Schaller: Exactly. Here’s the thing: about half of all of the fracking going on in Pennsylvania is targeting younger rock formations.

Leo Nachamie: When you frack younger rock, the fuel that you get has more ethane and propane in it than the fuel from older reserves.

Megan Hall: And why’s that a big deal?

Leo Nachamie: Sherri says ethane and propane aren’t the best ingredients for making fuels like gasoline — they actually serve a different purpose.

Sherri Mason: Because of the mixture of what’s coming out in this gas, this is considered better to be used as a starting material for making plastics.

Megan Hall: Oh! I’m beginning to see the connection here. And they’re using that starting material at the plant in Pennsylvania?

Janek Schaller: Yep, remember, that’s what the Beaver County plant does.

Sherri Mason: It’s called a cracker plant, and not crackers like you eat, but to crack a molecule.

Leo Nachamie: The plant starts with ethane and cracks it into polyethylene, which is what those nurdles we talked about earlier are made out of.

 Sherri Mason: Ethane to ethene to polyethylene, is the process that that whole facility is aimed to do. That’s all it does.

Janek Schaller: And the use of oil for plastics is only expected to grow. The International Energy Agency predicts that plastics will account for nearly half of the increase in demand for oil over the next two decades.

Leo Nachamie: That’s a larger share than the predicted demand from trucks, aviation, and shipping.

Janek Schaller: But still, Sherri says most people have no idea about the link between oil and plastics.

Sherri Mason: If you saw that plastic bottle is being connected to an oil rig, you’d be like, ‘Ew, I don’t want to put my mouth on that!’”

Leo Nachamie: Even if the jury is still out on just how harmful plastics are when they get into our bodies, researchers like Sherri say we still need to pay attention to where these products come from.

Megan Hall: Got it! Thanks, Janek and Leo.

That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Bluesky at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, Ocean State Media and WBRU.

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Plastic products cost us, even after we’re done with them — That’s because municipal recycling is paid with taxpayer money. But could the companies that made these products be responsible for paying for them?

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

Here in the US, after we buy something, it’s up to us to make sure the packaging ends up in the right recycling bin or trash can.

On top of that— we pay for that recycling and trash pick-up— through our taxes. Is there another way to share the responsibility for our waste?

Will Malloy and Isha Thakkar from our Possibly team are here to tell us about another option.

Will Malloy: Hi Megan!

Isha Thakkar: Hi!

Megan Hall: So, how are we going to share this responsibility for our trash and recycling?

Will Malloy: Well, there’s an idea out there that the companies that make a product should be responsible for that product for its entire life.

Isha Thakkar: Including after we’re done with it — like making sure products and their packages are properly disposed of and recycled when possible.

Will Malloy: The technical term for this is “extended producer responsibility.”

Megan Hall: Why should my trash be a company’s responsibility?

Will Malloy: We talked to plastic pollution researcher and policy expert Dr. Sherri Mason, to understand this idea. She told us to imagine you’ve bought a bottle of shampoo–

Sherri Mason: You wanted the shampoo, not the bottle that it came in, but you got that bottle, usually plastic, as a consequence of wanting the product.

Will Malloy: Buying the shampoo means you have to buy the bottle, too — so you’re also paying for the cost of producing that bottle and shipping it to the store where you bought it.

Isha Thakkar: And once you’re done with the shampoo…

Sherri Mason: Now you also have to pay to get rid of the bottle? The recycling infrastructure of the United States uses taxpayer money. It is taxpayer funded. So we are funding the waste that is associated with the plastics industry.

Will Malloy: She says, one of the problems with this system is that it doesn’t give companies any incentive to cut back on wasteful packaging or make sure products are recycled properly.

Isha Thakkar: They’re not paying for it, so it’s not really their problem.

Megan Hall: I get the idea, but how does that actually work in practice?

Isha Thakkar: Extended producer responsibility is really a policy strategy — and it’s gaining popularity across Europe and in Canada.

Will Malloy: When it comes to packaging, it’s not super widespread here in the United States as of now, But seven states have laws on the books and a number of others are considering legislation in 2026.

Isha Thakkar: These types of laws can work in two different ways.

Will Malloy: One approach is to charge companies fees or fines when they make plastic products.

 Isha Thakkar: That money can be used to pay for and expand municipal recycling programs.

Megan Hall: What’s the other way?

Will Malloy: Other laws influence the materials companies can use to make their products.

Isha Thakkar: Maybe they have to use recycled materials, or make sure their materials are recyclable.

Will Malloy: A bill being considered in New York would require producers to gradually reduce the amount of single-use plastic packaging they use by 30%.

Megan Hall: Do these laws affect all products?

Isha Thakkar: No. As of now, they focus on things like packaging, paper products, or beverage containers — the kinds of things that can be reasonably made out of 100% recyclable material.

Will Malloy: Sherri says, it makes sense to push companies to make the switch.

Sherri Mason: You shouldn’t have to pay for the disposal of this plastic item that you never really wanted to begin with, and you already paid. And so that should really be on the onus of the corporations that are manufacturing and putting this plastic into your life.

Isha Thakkar: Extended producer responsibility shifts the pressure onto those companies to either cut back on unnecessary waste or pay the price for dealing with that waste once you’re done with it.

Will Malloy: These kinds of laws are definitely complex, but they do work in other countries. And it’s a new way of thinking about how to slow down the flow of plastic in our lives.

Megan Hall: Got it. Thanks for looking into this!

That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Bluesky at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Ocean State Media, and WBRU.

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Extreme heat can have serious health consequences, but until recently, public health researchers only had imprecise tools to study it. Brown University Professor Allan Just is working to change that.

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

For years public health researchers have studied the link between extreme temperatures, and people’s health, in order to understand how a warming planet will impact people. Traditionally they’ve done this by taking temperature data, and comparing it to records about people’s health.

But there’s a bit of a problem. Those temperature readings come from only a handful of specialized weather stations, many of them at airports.  Researchers can take that data, and use it for research.

Allan Just: And they might look at the relationship between temperature and health in Rhode Island, but under the assumption that all of us live at TF Green Airport and very few people live at TF Green Airport.

Megan Hall: This is Allan Just, he’s an environmental epidemiologist, meaning he studies how the environment, mostly temperature and air pollution affect people’s health.

He works at Brown University, where he’s been developing a more accurate way for researchers to measure a place’s temperature, not just a whole city, but down to the buildings

Allan Just: Individual neighborhoods can be warmer or cooler, and that varies. It depends on how many trees there are and how much pavement there is, and whether you’re near a body of water, whether there’s a major roadway that goes through.

Megan Hall:  Using satellite data and some complicated math, Alan and his team have developed a model that can create much more accurate estimates of a place’s temperature, that lets their research get really specific.

Allan Just:  We’re doing lots of studies in which we’re using the location of an individual’s specific address or the school that their children. Attend, or we’re considering the location of every nursing home in the Northeast.

Megan Hall:  By pinpointing the temperature not just for a region, but for individual neighborhoods or buildings, they’re able to find new connections between extreme heat and health impacts.

Allan Just: We think that when we get more specific, we’ve been underestimating the burden.

Megan Hall:  From what researchers already know about extreme heat, the health impacts can be pretty serious.

Allan Just: And it’s sometimes easy to forget that, particularly for people who are very vulnerable to it, that warm weather can come with really severe health consequences,

Megan Hall:  There are the extreme cases that you hear about in the news, like people dying from heat stress. But then there are also much harder to pinpoint things, like an increased likelihood of heart attacks and strokes after heat waves.

And then there’s the way that extreme heat can interact with your medications. Different medications can sometimes impact your body’s ability to handle hotter temperatures.

Allan Just: But there are quite a few medications that, through different mechanisms, they can alter our ability to feel thirst. They can change the ways in which we retain body fluids. They can impair our ability to sweat. I mean, there are just several really important mechanisms at play when we think about the ways in which people end up vulnerable to extreme heat.

Megan Hall:  This work is especially relevant for studying the ways that the impact of climate change isn’t being felt evenly across our cities.

Allan Just: Underserved communities, they are systematically hotter, and that’s driven by land use decisions and structural racism that’s led to differences in where we’ve kept, uh, vegetation and where we’ve put pavement and roadways and those subtle differences are lost when we assume that everyone is living at the airport.

Megan Hall:That’s it for today. This episode was a collaboration with  Humans in Public Health,  a monthly podcast from the Brown University School of Public Health in celebration of Brown’s Climate Week.

You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at ask possibly dot org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Bluesky at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, Ocean State Media and WBRU.

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Our planet is getting hotter, but at the same time, snow storms seem to be getting bigger. In the wake of Rhode Island’s record setting blizzard, we’re looking back at a 2022 episode of Possibly that explains what’s going on.

This episode is a rerun. It originally aired on January 24th, 2022.

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

Today we’re answering a question about the weather. How has climate change affected our winters? And what kind of weather can we expect in the future? Kolya Shields and Ashley Junger from our Possibly team looked into this question. Welcome, Kolya and Ashley!

Kolya Shields: Hey, Megan!

Ashley Junger: Hi, Megan!

Megan Hall: So, Kolya, let’s start with some background— here in the Northeast, what were our winters like 50 years ago?

Kolya Shields: To find out, we spoke with Harvey Leonard, a chief meteorologist on Boston Channel 5. He’s actually been forecasting the weather for more than 50 years.

Harvey Leonard: There would be times where some snow or ice, you know, maybe on the side streets by the curbs in the woods, could be on the ground to some extent from early December into March.

Megan Hall: How does that compare to the weather he sees today?

Ashley Junger: Well, Harvey says winters are getting a lot shorter.

Harvey Leonard: The frequency of a long, hard continuous winter is already less and probably will continue to be less going forward.

Megan Hall: Are our winters shorter because of climate change?

Kolya Shields: Yes. A 2021 study reported that the number of days that feel like summer is increasing because of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere released by human activity.

Ashley Junger: Scientists predict that by 2050, every US state, except for Alaska, will see fewer days with temperatures below freezing each year.

Megan Hall: But if that’s true, how do you explain some of those big snowstorms we’ve gotten over the past few years?

Kolya Shields: Yeah, I was curious about that too. I mean, the majority of New York City’s biggest snowstorms have happened in the past two decades.

Ashley Junger: To understand why, we spoke to another experienced meteorologist, TJ Del Santo, who has worked for Rhode Island channel 12 for 24 years.

TJ Del Santo: Since 1904, winters have gotten about three degrees warmer, 3.1 degrees warmer.

Kolya Shields: And this warmer weather can actually cause more snow because if air is warmer it can hold more moisture.

TJ Del Santo: 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit of warming can hold 7% more water. So the warmer it gets, the more water is available in the atmosphere for a storm.

Megan Hall: So, we can expect even more snow?

Kolya Shields: In the short term yes, but as the weather gets warmer, more and more precipitation will fall as rain, not snow.

TJ Del Santo: We’re still warming, eventually, it’s probably going to get too warm for it to snow with regularity here in southern New England.

Megan Hall: So, no more sledding in New England?

Kolya Shields: More than that- less snow will impact seasonal businesses, shift growing seasons for farmers, and change which plants and animals can thrive here . Harvey says climate change will be particularly bad for the ski industry.

Harvey Leonard: I’ve seen these tropical incursions of air, it’s gonna wipe out a snow cover, it’s just going to eat it up, number one, and  then if you abruptly get cold, you have ice. And that’s the worst thing for ski areas.

Megan Hall: That sounds bad. Is there anything we can do to prevent this from happening?

Ashley Junger: To avoid the really extreme weather, and prevent our snow from disappearing for good, we’ve got to address the things that contribute to climate change.

Kolya Shields: So, doing the stuff we talk about on this podcast all the time- invest in renewable energy, transition to electric cars, and heat our buildings with electricity not natural gas or oil.

Megan Hall: Got it. Thanks, Kolya and Ashley!

That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Bluesky at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and Ocean State Media.

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It seems like microplastics are everywhere these days — but their impacts on human health remain unclear. Today we take a closer look at why that is and how scientists are trying to get a clearer picture.

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

It feels like there’s a new story every day about microplastics — in our blood, in our organs, even in our brains. But what does this all mean? Are microplastics bad for us? How bad? And how do we know?

Here to tell us more are reporters Will Malloy and Nat Hardy from our Possibly team

Will Malloy: Hey Megan!

Nat Hardy: Hello!

Megan Hall: To start, can you remind me what microplastics are?

Will Malloy: There are a couple of different definitions. Here’s a simple one: any plastic particles smaller than five millimeters. 

Megan Hall: And how big is that?

Nat Hardy: Yeah. 5 millimeters is pretty big, about the size of a grain of rice. But these microplastics can also be tiny. So small that you can’t see them.

Megan Hall: Where do they come from?

Will Malloy:  All sorts of places —  a lot of cosmetic products contain microplastics, synthetic fabrics like fleece shed microplastics when you wash and wear them, car tires shed microplastics on the road. The list goes on.

Nat Hardy: And as you said, Megan, they’re everywhere.

Susanne Brander: Over the past about five to eight years or so, there have been a lot of studies in humans and we found them wherever we’ve looked.

Will Malloy: That’s Dr. Susanne Brander — she’s a professor at Oregon State University who studies how microplastics affect aquatic ecosystems.

Nat Hardy: Susanne says, even though we know microplastics are in us, we don’t necessarily know what that means for our health… yet.

Susanne Brander: A lot of what we know about humans is that they exist in our bodies. We just don’t have a full picture of what they might be doing.

Megan Hall: Why not?

Will Malloy: At the end of the day, scientists haven’t been looking at what microplastics do inside the body for very long at all.

Nat Hardy: Research on small plastics started in the 70s and 80s, but at first, scientists were just focused on studying them in the ocean and in marine animals, like fish. 

Will Malloy: Scientists didn’t start looking for evidence that microplastics are in people’s bodies until about a decade ago.

Nat Hardy: In these early stages, research has been really focused on establishing that microplastics are there at all — we are only starting to study what they do to us.

Megan Hall: So does that mean we have no idea what they’re doing to us?

Nat Hardy: Not necessarily —

Susanne Brander: We have a lot of data from other animals, rodents, fish, other vertebrates, invertebrates.

Will Malloy: We call these “model species” — if we can understand how microplastics affect them, we might get some insight into how they affect us. 

Nat Hardy: Scientists use model species all the time.

Susanne Brander: To understand the impacts of any kind of chemical on the human system, we often use model species to sort of mimic or better understand how that chemical is going to behave if we’re exposed to it.

Megan Hall: So, what are these studies in model species telling us?

Will Malloy: A review of studies done in rodents found a lot of health impacts associated with microplastics.

Nat Hardy: Things, like changes to their reproductive, digestive, and neurological systems.

Will Malloy: So those could be important things to pay attention to in humans.

Megan Hall: I get that we don’t know a lot yet, but when are we going to know if this is something to worry about?

Nat Hardy: That’s a really great question because it has a lot to do with how science works fundamentally.

Susanne Brander: It’s not as if one paper right is going to change the field, it’s that different scientists who are doing similar work, that that work begins to produce similar results, and that those results are in agreement with one another.

Will Malloy: As more and more people look into this, we will hopefully start to see patterns and consensus will arise as many scientists work really hard to find answers.

Nat Hardy: There’s still so much we don’t know, but Susanne says…

Susanne Brander: I do think, and others have said similarly, that we know enough to act.

Will Malloy: Reducing our exposure to microplastics probably won’t hurt us in any way, even though we don’t yet know if or how much it will help.

Megan Hall: So, how do I reduce my exposure to microplastics??

Nat Hardy: That’s a bigger topic for another episode, but the short answer is: cutting back on plastics in any way you can will help.

Will Malloy: Things that come in contact with your food are a good place to start.

Megan Hall: Got it. Thanks, Will and Nat!

That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Bluesky at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and Ocean State Media.

The post How do we know if microplastics affect our health? appeared first on TPR: The Public’s Radio.

The post How do we know if microplastics affect our health? appeared first on Possibly.

More than 9 million students had school disrupted by climate change last year. Researchers at Brown University have launched the SustainableED initiative to study what rising temperatures will mean for our education system.

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

Last year, the Annenberg Institute at Brown University launched a research initiative looking at how the US’s education system is intertwined with climate change. The initiative is called SustainableED

Nat Hardy and Will Malloy from our Possibly Team are here to tell us more.

Nat Hardy: Hi, Megan!

Will Malloy: Hello!

Megan Hall: So you spoke with the director of this new initiative?

Nat Hardy: Yeah, that’s right, Matt Kraft – he’s an education policy researcher. But he told me that a few years ago he changed his focus completely.

Matt Kraft: I can tell you the exact moment. I was putting my then-second-grade son to bed one night. And that night, as he was falling asleep in the kind of twilight moment, he turned and said, “Dad. Global warming is bad. Well, what are we gonna do?” And it rocked me.

Nat Hardy: After that question, Matt felt a real sense of responsibility to do something. So he looked for the intersection between the work he was already doing, and climate change.

Will Malloy: After a couple years, his quest led to the launch of SustainableED, a research initiative at Brown looking at how climate change and education are linked.

Megan Hall: What are they doing?

Nat Hardy: Basically, they’re looking into two main topics–how climate change is affecting our schools, and the opposite, how our schools might affect climate change.

Will Malloy: Let’s start with the way climate change affects schools.

Matt Kraft: The reality is that schools are a cornerstone social institution in our society,

Nat Hardy: Even if you don’t have kids, schools are an important part of how American communities function!

Will Malloy: Like Megan, where do you go to vote?

Megan Hall: I go to a school.

Nat Hardy: And if there was an emergency and you had to evacuate your home, you might end up at a school gymnasium.

Will Malloy: Schools are a key part of our infrastructure. And so it’s especially important that they are prepared for climate change.

Matt Kraft: So one out of every four US public schools is located in a census tract, a small area, that has been designated at very high risk for at least one environmental hazard.

Will Malloy: Matt and his team recently published a tool that lets people look up their local school, and see the risk levels for different environmental hazards.

Nat Hardy: Schools are already being affected by these risks. Insurance on school buildings is getting more expensive. School districts that didn’t used to need air conditioning, are starting to need it. And during heatwaves some playgrounds are too hot for students to play on.

Will Malloy: And climate risks are keeping kids out of school too.

Matt Kraft:In the most recent academic year, over 9 million students had school disrupted or closed due to climate pressures.

Nat Hardy: So Matt and his team say that education policy needs to respond. Education doesn’t work if the schools aren’t open.

Will Malloy: Then there’s the other side of this equation – the fact that the education system could be a key way to respond to climate change.

Megan Hall: Like schools cutting down on their carbon pollution?

Nat Hardy: Yeah, reducing the greenhouse gases from schools is definitely part of it. But it also means thinking about how schools teach students about climate change.

Matt Kraft: How do we help them have a core foundation in climate science to understand the experiences that they’re having in their lives?

Will Malloy: The kind of education students get will shape how they respond to climate change as an adult– maybe they won’t fall for climate misinformation, or they’ll find a job addressing the climate crisis.

Nat Hardy: They’re also hoping to research how extreme weather affects students’ success at school. There’s a lot of things to look into.

Megan Hall: What do they hope to accomplish?

Will Malloy: Well, SustainableED is just getting off the ground, so it’s too early to know what kind of an impact their work will have. But I think this all comes back to that question Matt’s son asked him about climate change.

Matt Kraft: I think part of my response to him has been not what I say, but what I do. I have a ton more to learn. But I’m still motivated by trying to find the answer to that original question.

Nat Hardy: I think a lot of people feel a responsibility to do something about climate change, but they’re not quite sure what to do.

Will Malloy: This project is a good example of the fact that you probably already have the skills you need to make a difference; you just have to find your way to apply them.

Megan Hall: Got it. Thanks, Nat and Will!

The post How should schools respond to climate change? appeared first on TPR: The Public’s Radio.

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Every winter, thousands of New England boats are sealed in single-use shrink wrap. Almost all of that plastic will end up in a landfill by the end of the year. Could reusable boat covers be a more sustainable solution?

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

Every fall, as boating season ends, thousands of marinas in New England get busy wrapping up their boats for winter. Literally wrapping them- in shiny sheets of plastic. We wondered, what’s the most environmentally friendly way to protect a boat when the season’s over?

We had Tameem Zaidat and Nat Hardy from our Possibly Team look into this.

Nat Hardy: Hi, Megan!

Tameem Zaidat: Hello!

Megan Hall: So I often see boats covered in white plastic during the off season. What is it, actually?

Nat Hardy: It’s just shrink wrap. To find out how you cover a boat in plastic, we talked to John Myers. He races a 23-foot sailboat.

John Myers: I used to shrink wrap my boat when I first got it. They would put a wooden frame on top of the boat made of wood  and it would create kind of a tent over which they could put these sheets of plastic. But  then they would apply heat guns to shrink the plastic and it would hug the frame and the boat.

Tameem Zaidat: Shrink wrap works well to protect boats in the winter, but each cover can only be used once. When spring comes, the plastic gets peeled off and tossed out. Some yards, like John’s, require sailors to recycle it, but he says that it’s not always easy.

John Myers: You’re responsible for removing it yourself unless you pay them more to remove the shrink wrap.

Nat Hardy: Recycling this plastic is expensive and difficult, so many boatyards and sailors don’t bother with that process. That means a lot of that shrink wrap ends up in landfills.

Tameem Zaidat: And it’s hard to find data on what happens to used boat shrink wrap specifically, but it’s made of a type of plastic that’s hard to recycle. Even if it gets collected by a recycling program, it’s still likely to end up in a landfill.

Nat Hardy: That’s because there isn’t much of a market to buy the used plastic.

Megan Hall: How much plastic do people use when they wrap a boat?

Nat Hardy: It varies, but it can take about 15 pounds of plastic to wrap an average-sized boat.

Tameem Zaidat: Just here in Rhode Island, there are around 32 thousand licensed boats. That adds up to nearly half a million pounds of plastic waste every year- more than the weight of the Statue of Liberty.

Megan Hall: And we’re the smallest state in the country!

Nat Hardy: To be fair, we have a lot of boats, but still– When that boat wrap ends up in landfills, it not only takes up a lot of space, it also breaks into microplastics and can release harmful chemicals into the environment.

Megan Hall: This doesn’t sound good. Do boat owners have any other options?

Tameem Zaidat: Yes, for the past few years, John hasn’t been using shrink wrap. Instead, he has a custom polyester cover he can reuse year after year.

John Myers: It’s an investment upfront, but I think if you have the money to do it, it’s kind of a no brainer. It would pay for itself after a few seasons.

Megan Hall: How much more expensive are these custom covers?

Nat Hardy: Well, John bought his cover from a Rhode Island company called Kinder Industries for about $1,800.

Tameem Zaidat: To put that price into perspective, he says he used to pay around $500 a year for shrink wrap. So it’s saved him money.

John Myers: It fits my boat like a glove and so it’s worked very well and I’’m about to use it for I think the fifth season. It’s still going strong.

Tameem Zaidat: Kinder Industries says that their covers can survive 10 years or more. 

Nat Hardy: And a reusable cover only weighs a few pounds more than shrink wrap for the same boat. So after only a few years, you’re reducing your plastic usage as well.

Tameem Zaidat: But not everyone can make that switch. John says reusable covers are harder to fit to larger boats, so many people still need to rely on shrink wrap each winter.

Nat Hardy: Still, he thinks small boat owners should make the switch.

John Myers: If somebody were to ask me whether to go with the shrink wrap or to invest in a cover, I’d say just start saving for the cover. As soon as you can do it, do it.

Megan Hall: So, what’s the takeaway here?

Nat Hardy: Reusable covers can really help boat owners, especially owners of small boats,  cut down on seasonal plastic waste.

Tameem Zaidat: And it’s one more example of a bigger problem: we often rely on single-use plastics because they’re cheaper and more convenient.

Nat Hardy: But a little investment upfront can save money and reduce waste in the long run.

Megan Hall: Great! Thanks, Tameem and Nat!

That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the ways your choices affect our planet, at ask possibly dot org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on social media at  “ask possibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and Ocean State Media.

The post Is there a more sustainable way to cover boats? appeared first on TPR: The Public’s Radio.

The post Is there a more sustainable way to cover boats? appeared first on Possibly.

This week on Possibly we’re talking to reporter Juliana Merullo about what it’s like living in Uruguay, a country with an electric grid run almost completely on renewable energy.

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

In a past episode, we talked about how a small South American country has managed to transition their electricity grid to be powered by renewable energy.

Former Possibly senior reporter Juliana Merullo has been living in Uruguay for the last year, and today we’re going to be talking to her about what it’s like living in a country that runs on renewable energy. Hi, Juliana.

Juliana Merullo: Hi, Megan.

Megan Hall: So, remind us how Uruguay managed to do this?

Juliana Merullo: Right. So, in the early 2000s, they were having a lot of blackouts and economic crises, and they managed to attract a lot of international investment to transition their grid fully to renewable energy.

They use a mix of hydropower, a lot of wind energy, and also biomass and solar.

Megan Hall: Did you know about this when you decided to move there?

Juliana Merullo: Yeah, it was actually one of the big reasons that I wanted to come here. And I think a big part of me was curious what it would be like, because so many opponents of renewable energy in the U.S. say that it’s unreasonable the things that we’d have to do to reduce our carbon emissions. And I guess for context, I should say that the average U.S. person emits about eight or nine times as much greenhouse gas pollution as the average Uruguayan. So it’s a big difference.

Megan Hall: So what did you expect before you moved there?

Juliana Merullo: I think I thought it would be like a green paradise, that everyone would be driving around in their electric cars, that all of the houses would have solar panels on them. That there would be those tree wind turbines on the street.

Megan Hall: So is it a green paradise? Is it really like that?

Juliana Merullo: No, I wouldn’t say it’s like that at all. I do love living here, but it’s definitely not a green paradise. And sometimes the buses I ride are electric, but other times the buses seem like they’re 50 years older than I am, and you can practically see the pollution coming out of the tailpipe. So it really just depends.

Megan Hall: So do you notice that this grid is renewable in your day to day life? Is it obvious?

Juliana Merullo: No, definitely not. You know, you still turn on the light switch, the light still comes on, But it’s not like I’m thinking that that light is actually being powered by a wind turbine out in the countryside here. I think it’s easy to confuse having a fully renewable grid with all of the things that we attribute to global warming or to climate change.

There were other things that I was expecting to see in a country with so few carbon emissions. Like I thought recycling would be everywhere. And you can definitely find it, but I wouldn’t say that it’s a focus. People eat a lot of beef here. The houses don’t have solar panels on top. And I think it made me realize that a lot of the things I think about in the U.S. as ways to reduce my carbon impact, they don’t necessarily make as big of an impact on a country’s overall emissions. There’s bigger factors at play.

Megan Hall: So what are those bigger factors?

Juliana Merullo: I think one thing is that the average Uruguayan just uses a lot less energy. An average Uruguayan uses about a quarter of the energy that an average person in the U.S. uses. A lot of people here don’t have cars. They rely on public transportation to get around. A lot of people also don’t have clothes dryers. And it’s also a small country that’s very centralized, so people aren’t traveling as much.

Megan Hall: So what does that teach us here in the U. S.? What lessons can we learn from this?

Juliana Merullo: I think a big thing that I’ve learned, at least, is that a lot of it matters what your country and what your government is doing on a much bigger scale than your individual actions. Is the grid being powered by renewable energy? Those things do make a big difference in emissions. But I also think there are some smaller sacrifices that people could make to reduce their overall emissions.

Things like my clothes take a little bit longer to dry, or I have to wait to take the bus in the morning instead of driving my car like I would in the U.S. But I also still have a really good life here, right? And my quality of life, I would say, is even higher here than it is in the U.S. And it’s also a nice feeling when I realize that when I turn on the lights, that’s actually not being powered by fossil fuels, that’s being powered by wind turbines.

Megan Hall: Great. Well, thanks for the update, Juliana.

Juliana Merullo: Thanks so much, Megan. Miss you guys.

Megan Hall: Bye. That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Bluesky at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and Ocean State Media.

The post What is it like to live in a country with a fully renewable electric grid? appeared first on TPR: The Public’s Radio.

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