With colorful windsocks and a gazebo, Providence artist Eli Nixon developed an art installation to bring attention to the air quality around the Port of Providence. This week on Possibly, we take a closer look.

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.

This episode, we are taking a trip to the Port of Providence, to learn about an art installation that is helping to raise awareness about air quality.

Isha Thakkar and Leo Nachamie from our Possibly Team are here to tell us more.

Isha Thakkar: Hi, Megan!

Leo Nachamie: Hello!

Megan Hall: So can art help us understand our air quality?

Isha Thakkar: Great question! To find out, we talked to Eli Nixon, an artist that specializes in collaborative public art projects.

Leo Nachamie: Last summer Eli and a team of artists set up a windsock art installation at the end of Public Street in South Providence.

Isha Thakkar: The installation involved flying different colored windsocks at a small water access point near the Port of Providence.

Leo Nachamie: Each color represented a different level on the air quality index, which measures how polluted the air is at any given moment.

Isha Thakkar: Yellow is for moderate air quality, orange shows that the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups, and red is for when the air is so polluted that anyone may experience health effects.

Megan Hall: What is this installation trying to accomplish?

Leo Nachamie: Eli wanted to bring outside attention to the quality of our air. They hope this project will bring a sense of urgency for the neighborhoods around the port:

Eli Nixon: What I was trying to do was amplify their concerns to be seen by a larger providence that has yet to invest in protecting this public right of way.

Isha Thakkar: Rhode Island has one of the highest asthma rates in the country. And the neighborhood around the Port of Providence is particularly vulnerable because of all of the nearby industries that pump pollution into the air.

Eli Nixon: And yet our politicians are not treating it with that kind of emergency level.

Leo Nachamie: Eli wants their work to serve a purpose in the community, to serve as a bridge between art and public health.

Eli Nixon: I’m trying to make a useful tool for local residents that actually speaks to their concerns about their own well being in their own neighborhood in real time.

Isha Thakkar: With that goal in mind, Eli also built a temporary gazebo at the community access point, so people could sit near the water.

Leo Nachamie: The installation turned a pretty un-kept area into a beautiful gathering place– it’s one of the few places where people in the area can access the river.

Eli Nixon: So my project was like, Ooh, how can I lift up what is beautiful about this place, and what many neighborhood residents have been yelling for and organizing around for decades is safe, pedestrian-centered public access to the bay.

Leo Nachamie: Eli says that protecting public spaces to gather and enjoy nature safely, can lead to domino effects:

Eli Nixon: If we don’t take care of the one spot that is for the public, where our needs are supposed to be prioritized, they’re supposed to be held at the center of what this tiny strip is, because they’re not being held at the center of any of these other spots. So it’s a strategic foothold to yell so hard about this tiny thing, because it’s our one place to have any impact on what’s happening all around it.

Isha Thakkar: So not only are these windsocks being used to bring attention to poor air quality by the port, they’re also being used as a call to action to protect free, safe, public spaces.

Megan Hall: Great! Thanks, Isha and Leo!

If you are interested in a windsocks project in your own community, you can get in touch with the People’s Port Authority and Eli Nixon.

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, Ocean State Media, and WBRU.

The post How is art bringing attention to air quality?  appeared first on TPR: The Public’s Radio.

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This week on Possibly we’re taking a look at the ships that carry our goods around the world. What would it look like to take fossil fuels out of the equation?

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.

If you live near a large port, you’ve probably seen cargo ships—they’re these massive boats that

carry everything from cars to bananas, all over the world.

Right now, these ships all run on fossil fuel. We wanted to know – is there a cleaner way to transport our stuff around the world?

We had Sedi-Anne Blachford and Samantha Zhang from our Possibly team look into this.

 Sedi-Anne Blachford: Hi, Megan!

Samantha Zhang: Hello!

Megan Hall: So, is there a cleaner way to run these massive ships?

Sedi-Anne Blachford: Well, to be fair,  moving things around by cargo ships is already way more efficient than using airplanes or trucks.

Samantha Zhang: But still, we ship so much stuff around the world that these cargo ships do create a lot of carbon pollution— somewhere around 3% of all of our emissions.

Megan Hall: So, what can we do to reduce that pollution?

 Sedi-Anne Blachford: The shipping industry has been looking into all sorts of solutions, from fueling the ships with hydrogen or ammonia to even using nuclear power.

Stephen Porder: I teach about this stuff, and even from my lectures in the fall, I’m having to replace all my slides for my lectures in early March, because the technology is changing. It’s a whirlwind.

Sedi-Anne Blachford: That’s Stephen Porder. Professor of Environment and Society at Brown University.

Stephen Porder: But I’m also the co-founder of Possibly.

Samantha Zhang: And Stephen says the latest innovation is using batteries!

Megan Hall: Batteries to run a cargo ship? How is that possible? You must need some pretty giant batteries.

 Sedi-Anne Blachford: Yeah, they are big! In fact, a lot of them are the size of shipping containers.

Samantha Zhang: But that’s actually pretty convenient. Batteries used for electricity storage for the grid already come in shipping containers, and of course:

Stephen Porder: Ports are made to lift those big, heavy shipping containers in and out really quickly.

Megan Hall: So instead of having to plug in and wait to charge the ship, like I do with my car, they could just put in a whole new battery?

 Sedi-Anne Blachford: Exactly. No long wait to recharge.

Stephen Porder: They just swap out the batteries and they’re ready to go again.

Megan Hall: So, you put a massive battery on a cargo ship, and that’s enough to get it across the ocean?

Samantha Zhang: Right now, the ships that are using these batteries can only travel about 620 miles, but the technology is improving all the time.

Sedi-Anne Blachford: China is testing its first all electric cargo ship, a 10,000 ton vessel, near Shanghai this spring.

Samantha Zhang: Plus, with fuel prices the way they are these days, switching to electricity might start to make the most economic sense for companies that ship goods across the ocean.

 Sedi-Anne Blachford: And there’s one more twist to this story…

Stephen Porder: Over 40% of what we’re shipping around the world is fossil fuels.

Samantha Zhang: Which means that if we switch to clean energy to power the rest of our economy, we’ll reduce the need for shipping altogether.

Megan Hall: And shipping less stuff means less carbon pollution?

 Sedi-Anne Blachford: You got it. It turns out reducing emissions in the shipping industry is pretty interconnected with reducing emissions everywhere else.

Samantha Zhang: And for Stephen, that’s an exciting connection.

Stephen Porder: It’s those kinds of synergies that I think really give people like me optimism for a better, more efficient and less polluting world without sacrifice. Like we don’t need to ship fossil fuels around if we’re not using them.

Sedi-Anne Blachford: That being said, completely electrifying cargo ships isn’t going to be easy. It will probably take 10 or even 20 years.

Stephen Porder: We’re very much on the learning curve. We’ve been running ships off oil for well over a century. We’ve been running anything off these kinds of batteries for like, a couple of years.

Samantha Zhang: But Stephen says, five years ago, nobody was talking about electric ships and now they’re here, and so who knows what five years will bring.

Megan Hall: Got it! Thanks Samantha and 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.

The post Can you run a cargo ship on batteries? appeared first on TPR: The Public’s Radio.

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A research team at Brown called Breathe Providence is asking people to track what they smell, in an effort to better understand air pollution in Rhode Island.

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.

Take a deep breath…. In through your nose. What do you smell? A group of local researchers think, it’s a question worth asking. And the answer might tell us a lot about the quality of our air.

Isha Thakkar and Leo Nachamie from our Possibly Team have more on this project.

Isha Thakkar: Hi, Megan!

Leo Nachamie: Hello!

Megan Hall: So can smelling our air help us improve our air quality?

Isha Thakkar: Great question! To answer this, we talked to Emma Blankstein.

Emma Blankstein: I am a student researcher with the Breathe Providence project.

Megan Hall: What is Breathe Providence?

Leo Nachamie: Breathe Providence is a research team at Brown University that tracks air quality in Providence neighborhoods.

Megan Hall: Why do they need to track this information?

Isha Thakkar: Rhode Island has one of the highest asthma rates in the country, so understanding where, and when people are exposed to polluted air, could play a role in improving their health.

Leo Nachamie: Breathe Providence uses a lot of tools to track air quality. They have a network of powerful sensors all over the city.

Isha Thakkar: But they’re also encouraging everyone to use the sensors we carry around already – our noses.

Leo Nachamie: Anyone can participate when they download the “Smell my City” app.

Isha Thakkar:  The app, which was originally created by researchers at Carnegie Mellon, is part of a national project to crowdsource pollution odors across the country.

Leo Nachamie: It’s an easy way for community members to report and describe different smells.

Megan Hall: How does it work?

Isha Thakkar: When people report a smell, they rank the intensity of the odor from 1 to 5. They can also list any health symptoms they are experiencing that may be a result of the smell, from trouble breathing to headaches or stomachaches. Then, the app records the location of the smell.

Leo Nachamie: As more and more people started using the smell my city app in Providence, researchers started noticing some common patterns. 

Megan Hall: Like what?

Isha Thakkar: Well,  people living near the port of Providence, often report smells of sulfur, asphalt, or tar.

Leo Nachamie: That makes sense because the neighborhood around the port has some of the worst air quality in the state.

Megan Hall: Where is this air pollution coming from?

Isha Thakkar: Well, there’s a lot of smelly industries near the port, including an asphalt plant, oil and gas companies, and a scrap metal distributor.

Megan Hall: Oh yeah– I always notice that giant pile of metal every time I drive near the water!

But, it seems pretty obvious that people would notice these smells if they live near these companies. What’s the point of collecting their experiences?

Isha Thakkar: Well, certain toxins have very distinct smells, and our noses are powerful tools.

Leo Nachamie: The smells we notice can give us clues about where those toxins come from, in a way a traditional air monitor couldn’t. 

Isha Thakkar: It’s a part of Breathe Providence’s efforts to paint a fuller picture of what’s happening to Providence’s air. And validate what neighborhood members already know.

Emma Blankstein: There are so many remarkable people who know what to do about these things, and they know what they’re smelling, they know what they’re experiencing and they know what the problem is and how to fix it. It is a matter of building the power and the scientific evidence in order to actually make sure that that knowledge can translate to change, whether it’s changes that the community are making for themselves, or whether it’s changes that are made in collaboration with city and state government.

Isha Thakkar: So next time you’re outside, notice what you’re smelling, it could tell you more about what’s in the air than you might think.

Megan Hall: Great! Thanks, Isha and Leo!

And if you’d like to report the things you’re smelling, you can find Smell My City on your phone’s app store.

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.

The post How can smell improve Rhode Island’s Air Quality?  appeared first on TPR: The Public’s Radio.

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With assisted migration, humans help move plant species into areas more suitable for their growth. But are there potential downsides to this human-led movement?

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.

Climate change is messing with temperatures all over the world. For humans, that means more of us need air conditioning. But what about plants? What happens when the place they call home gets too hot for them to handle?

Andrea Li and Sedi-Anne Blachford from our Possibly team have the story of one rare tree from Florida that might be happier in a new location.

Andrea Li: Hi, Megan!

Sedi-Anne Blachford: Hello!

Megan Hall: So, tell me about this tree.

Andrea Li: OK, I want you to imagine a short, shrubby evergreen with vibrant, spiky green leaves.

Sedi-Anne Blachford: If you crush those leaves, they give off a strong odor. That’s why some people call this tree a “stinking cedar.”

Andrea Li: But it’s most commonly known as the “Florida Torreya.”

Megan Hall: What makes this tree special, other than its stink?

Andrea Li: Experts believe it’s one of the oldest trees in the world. There’s even a legend that the Florida Torreya was used to build Noah’s ark.

Sedi-Anne Blachford: This tree is also extremely rare. There are only a few hundred left in the wild.

Megan Hall: Why is it so rare?

Andrea Li: Well, a lot of Florida Torreya have died because of a fungal disease. The heat in Florida is also making it hard for the tree to survive.

Sedi-Anne Blachford: But a group of people who call themselves the “Torreya Guardians” are working to change that. Here’s one of the members, Fred Bess.

Fred Bess: Our goal, our mission, is to preserve Torreya taxifolia, because of its status as critically endangered. There are less than about 500 trees left in the wild because of a disease that’s killing them.

Andrea Li: They think the tree would be more successful in cooler parts of the US. That’s because according to Fred…

Fred Bess: Move the trees north away from their natural habit, their current natural range, and the disease does not show itself.

Sedi-Anne Blachford: There’s pretty limited research into the tree’s decline, or what moving it will accomplish. But so far, their project is working. The tree has managed to grow in places like Cleveland, Ohio where Fred is, in Connecticut and even in nearby Massachusetts.

Andrea Li: If you look at the Wikipedia page for the Torreya Guardians you can even see a picture of Fred with the tree in his front yard. He looks ecstatic as he stands next to this bulbous green and spiky tree that reaches his shoulder.

Megan Hall: That’s great!  But are there any downsides to moving a tree like this into a completely new location?

Sedi-Anne Blachford: To find out, we spoke to Dov Sax, a professor of environment and society at Brown University. He says.

Dov Sax: There are a lot of really interesting ethical questions, everything from, are we obligated to try to save species from human induced climate change to if we do take those actions, are we risking causing more harm?

Andrea Li: He says, one of the biggest concerns is…

Dov Sax: If you move species north of their native range, that they might do too well and become invasive.

Sedi-Anne Blachford: And there are a lot of science questions too. Like what kind of species are likely to become invasive?  What habitats are most likely to be invaded? And how much damage do invasive species do?

Andrea Li: The thing is, while scientists have been working on these questions for decades, people like Fred aren’t waiting for the answers.

Fred Bess: If we hadn’t migrated tomatoes to Italy, what would you put on your pasta? What would the Irish do without potatoes, also native to South America?

Andrea Li: Today, if you go to the Guardians’ website, you can see the little saplings growing in the wild, outside of their usual habitat.

Sedi-Anne Blachford: Whether or not that helps save the species, and what the consequences are for other species, remains to be seen.

Megan Hall: Great! Thanks, Andrea and 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.

The post Activists are migrating a tree north from Florida. Is that a good idea? appeared first on TPR: The Public’s Radio.

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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.

The post How are the plastic and fossil fuel industries connected? appeared first on TPR: The Public’s Radio.

The post How are the plastic and fossil fuel industries connected? appeared first on Possibly.

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.

The post What is extended producer responsibility? appeared first on TPR: The Public’s Radio.

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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.

The post How do researchers know that heat waves affect our health? appeared first on TPR: The Public’s Radio.

The post How do researchers know that heat waves affect our health? appeared first on Possibly.

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.

The post How has climate change affected our snow storms? appeared first on TPR: The Public’s Radio.

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