Sea Change

In the Netherlands, water has always been both a threat and a triumph. A quarter of the country lies below sea level, and for centuries the Dutch have engineered their way to safety. It’s a place not unlike New Orleans: a delta shaped by risk, resilience, and the belief that with enough ingenuity, water can be controlled. But as sea levels rise, that centuries-old confidence is beginning to crack.

In this episode of Sea Change, reporter Jonathan Groubert takes us to the Netherlands to explore a relationship in turmoil. From floating farms to visions of entire ci...

This is part 3 of our three-part series about elements. And today is a biggie: carbon. When we hear about carbon, it's usually about its role in heating up the planet. And while that's an absolutely critical part of the story, the story of this most miraculous of substances is so much larger. 

We talk to Peter Brannen, author of The Story of CO2 is the Story of Everything, about how carbon has always been central to just about every major turning point in the history of life on Earth...including why life is here in the first p...

This is part 2 of our 3-part series about elements.  Last time we met nitrogen, today, it’s partner in crime and in life – phosphorus.  

WLRN Environment Editor Jenny Staletovich has gotten to know the main character of this story pretty well after reporting on the environment in South Florida for more than a dozen years. Bone Valley in Central Florida has quietly fed the world’s hunger for phosphorus, even as its waters, in particular the Everglades, suffer from the fallout. 

In this episode, you'll meet fishing captains turned environmental crusaders, hear about Guano Wars fought ov...

In this three-part series, we’re giving some of the most misunderstood characters on the periodic table a fuller story. We dive into the fascinating double lives of these elements that are both the makers and unmakers of our world. 

In part one, reporter Olga Loginova travels to Cape Cod to meet nitrogen. In this episode: we trudge through the marsh, avoid great white sharks, and find out how we harnessed the power of nitrogen, why that power turned against us, and what we can do about it. 

CREDITS

 This episode was hosted by Ca...

Want to feel better? Get unstuck? Be inspired? Remake the world? Then this episode is for you. We talk with Katherine Wilkinson,  author of the book Climate Wayfinding, and Colette Pichon Battle, lawyer and co-founder of Taproot Earth, about finding our way through the climate crisis.

To read more about Climate Wayfinding, or order a copy of the book, click here. 

This episode was hosted by Carlyle Calhoun and Eva Tesfaye.  Eva conducted the interview. Sound design by Kirk Kohnen, and our theme music is by Jon Batiste. 

Sea Change is a WWNO and...

Why are fishermen being arrested in Louisiana? An epic battle over "Sportsman's Paradise" is being waged on Louisiana's water. This is a story about public rights and private power colliding. As more and more of Louisiana’s coast disappears underwater, the state’s two most powerful and iconic forces – fishing and fossil fuels – are waging war over who owns the drowned land.

Check out a print version of this story in Southlands Magazine. Read and subscribe here.

Want to dive even deeper into the legal issues surrounding this story? Beginning with how private ownership of wetlands...

Carlos Rafael immigrated to the US from Portugal as a teenager, and over the years, built one of the country’s largest commercial fishing operations from scratch. Carlos owned the biggest fleet of boats in the most valuable fishing port in America. He became known as the Codfather. But it all came crashing down in a federal sting. 

Who is Carlos Rafael? Depending on who you ask, he's either a villain who robbed the ocean or a kind of folk hero who stood up for fishermen. 

Today, we’re bringing you the first episode of Catchi...

Two years ago, we investigated the Liquified Natural Gas export build out on the Gulf Coast. We followed those exports around the world from Louisiana to Germany to Japan to unravel the story of LNG. 

But that story isn’t over. Today, host Carlyle Calhoun returns to LNG with Gulf States Newsroom reporter Drew Hawkins. They talk about how people in Southwest Louisiana are still being impacted by this build out, how LNG exports are affecting your electricity bills and what the war in Iran means for this industry. 

“Carbon Coast” is part one of our thre...

We’re in the beginning of spring bird migration here on the Gulf Coast, which means warblers, vireos, orioles, and thrushes coming through as they make their way up North. Around 2 billion birds make landfall along our coast from March to May after crossing the Gulf of Mexico. But even after the high-stakes crossing of open water, their next leg of the journey is no less perilous.

In this episode, our friends from Up From Dust tell us a story about a phenomenon threatening birds on their long flights, and we learn how we can all do ou...

Sea Change travels to the Walter Anderson Museum of Art in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, for a lively live panel discussion about the future of seafood. 

For more than a century, the Gulf seafood industry has shaped towns, cultures, and identities along the coast. Yet, if you talk to almost anyone who works on the water, they’ll tell you the Gulf seafood story has changed more in the last 30 years than the hundred years before that. If you care about what’s on your plate, what happens to this coast, or what kind of future we’re leaving...

Artificial reefs have been credited with supporting fisheries, protecting rare species, and attracting tourists that boost the economy. But, of course, like any story about the environment, it gets complicated both here in the Gulf and on Cambodia’s coast. 

If you'd like to know more about Alabama's booming artificial reef program, check out this article from Irina Zhorov.  

EPISODE CREDITS

This episode was hosted by Executive Producer Carlyle Calhoun and reported by Eva Tesfaye and Leila Goldstein. The episode was edited by Johanna Zorn, with additional help from Rosemary Westwood, Michael McEwan, and...

For the fourth and final episode of our collaboration with Wetlands Radio, a series about coastal restoration: ways we can all help repair our coast. So...what does a bottle of Two Buck Chuck and slinging back oysters have to do with building land? Find out how one man's trash transforms into coastal treasures. And then, to close out the series on coastal restoration, we learn about the crown jewel of Louisiana science: a research project that exemplifies how everything is connected. 

EPISODE CREDITS

This episode was hosted by Executive Producer Carlyle Calhoun and Wetlands R...

Oil and gas canals. You’ve likely heard about the canals—tens of thousands of them, ever-widening, shredding the wetlands. The canals are what some scientists say is Louisiana’s major cause of land loss. In Part 3 of our collaboration with Wetlands Radio, we explore the impact of canals, why industry has gotten away with the damage, and what's being done about it now.

And then, what does it actually look like for Big Oil to clean up after itself? We bring you an interview about the current, controversial lawsuits aiming to hold the oil and gas indust...

The media is full of stories about the coastal land loss crisis in Louisiana, dire predictions of climate change and sea level rise, and polarizing accounts of controversial projects. 

What's less known is that Louisiana is really good at something. A world leader, in fact. When it comes to coastal restoration, some say Louisiana is number one. Because project by project, Louisiana is piecing this ragged shoreline back together.

Over the next four episodes of Sea Change, we're going to feature Wetlands Radio. The series is a deep dive into Louisiana's coast - both how i...

Louisiana is a world leader in coastal restoration. Many would even say number one. The media is full of stories about the coastal land loss crisis in Louisiana, the dire predictions of climate change and sea level rise, and polarizing accounts of controversial projects, but what is also true is that Louisiana is making tremendous strides piecing this ragged shoreline back together little by little. 

Over the next four episodes of Sea Change, we're going to feature Wetlands Radio. The series is a deep dive into Louisiana's coast - both how it came to be imperiled and a...

The amazing science behind understanding mysterious but critical ocean currents. And specifically, understanding the current in our backyard, the Gulf’s Loop Current.

We talk with scientists leading a huge multi-country research collaboration that is going to great lengths and depths to understand the especially unknown Loop Current. We talk about how currents connect us, how they are basically a thermostat for the globe, and why, more than ever before, we need to understand them. 

EPISODE CREDITS

This episode was hosted by executive producer Carlyle Calhoun. Our theme music is by Jon Batiste, and...

This is part 2 of a 2-part series exploring the future of farming seafood in the Gulf. We know this: demand for seafood is soaring. We won't be able to sustainably meet that demand from wild-caught fisheries. And there’s a growing global movement to farm more and more of our seafood. 

The Gulf is one of the LAST places in the world where there is still a major wild oyster harvest. Lately, though, that harvest…is in trouble. In this episode, we ask: What can the downfall and resurrection of the oyster tell us about a future of fa...

This is part 1 of a 2-part series exploring the future of farming seafood in the Gulf. Americans eat a lot of farmed seafood — but the vast majority of it comes from overseas. We just don’t farm fish on a big scale in U.S. waters. Now that might start to change. There are proposals to build massive fish farms in U.S. federal waters. And guess which coast is likely to be the first home for these new farms? You guessed it,  the Gulf.

So is this a miracle cure or a looming ecological disaster?

EPI...

The story we are bringing you today is about sea turtles. In fact, it’s about the smallest and most endangered of sea turtles, called the Kemp’s Ridley. It’s a surprising and optimistic tale about a turtle’s return to Louisiana. 

We reported this episode back in 2023, but we wanted to revisit it because who doesn’t need more sea turtles in their life right now? And also because there has been some big news for sea turtles recently.

This episode was hosted and produced by Carlyle Calhoun. Sea Change's theme music is by Jon Bati...

What does it take to stay rooted on the Gulf Coast, even as the land and weather change around us? We meet individuals, from a poet to a minister to a computer programmer, each finding their own creative ways to adapt and fight for the future of their communities. From amphibious homes to inland retreats to processing our changing environment through poetry, we hear how people's ingenuity is helping chart a new path forward.

To hear more from Rachel Nederveld's oral history series, No Matter the Water, click here or find it wherever you get your podcasts.<...

There was a time back in the 1980s when overfishing had decimated popular fish like red snapper and grouper in the Gulf. But then, there was a dramatic turning point, when both fish and fishermen in the Gulf were kind of saved. Today, we hear the remarkable success story of how unlikely partners joined forces to save an industry and an ecosystem.

In this episode, Environmental Defense Fund's Executive Director, Amanda Leland, water resilience author, James Workman, and fisherman, Buddy Guidon, talk about how catch shares created a quiet revolution. 

To learn more, check out A...

Today, we’re bringing you a wild story. It’s about a covert ocean adventure from back in the Cold War days that inadvertently set off a brand new industry. And it’s an industry that’s been in the news a lot lately: deep-sea mining. 

Earlier this year, President Trump signed an executive order to try to fast-track deep-sea mining, while many countries are calling for more research before any mining can proceed or an outright ban. The deep ocean is the least known place on Earth, and scientists say we are only beginning to understand the power...

Today, we bring you three stories exploring what it really takes to be ready for the next big storm. But at their core, these stories are about something deeper: the determination to keep living here on the Gulf Coast, and about the choices we’re making that will decide whether that’s possible.

Thanks for listening to Sea Change. This episode was hosted by Carlyle Calhoun, Eva Tesfaye, and Michael McEwen. Eva and Michael reported the stories. Carlyle Calhoun is Sea Change's executive producer. Emily Jankowski is our sound designer, and our theme music is by Jon Bati...

For the first time since Hurricane Katrina made landfall 20 years ago, you can take a train ride across the Gulf Coast, from Mobile to New Orleans. And all these years later, the cities along that route are still living with the storm's aftermath. In this episode, we hop aboard the train and make four Gulf Coast stops along the way to share that story. About what happened during Katrina. How some places built back better, and how others are still trying to figure out how to rebuild.

This episode was reported and hosted by Stephan Bisaha of...

Two decades after Hurricane Katrina and its devastating aftermath reshaped New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, we gathered to remember all that was lost, reflect on the lessons learned, and pay tribute to all the good that has been done in the two decades since. And, we look to the future: where do we go from here, and how can this region not just survive but thrive?

Renowned jazz musician Dr. Michael White performs original music written in response to Katrina and reflects on connections between recovering from the tragedy and the city's jazz culture. (Dr. White...

This August marks twenty years since Hurricane Katrina. Today, we are bringing you a story we first aired in 2023. It’s about a word heard everywhere after Hurricane Katrina. And people across the Gulf Coast have strong and complicated feelings about it. 

The word is resilient. 

A special thanks to Rob Verchick, author of The Octopus in the Parking Garage: A Call for Climate Resilience. And, to everyone who spent time with us for this story, from a construction site in rural Alabama to the streets of New Orleans’ Gentilly neighborhood. Also, a big, big thank...

El Bosque, Mexico, a tiny fishing village on Mexico’s Gulf Coast, is quickly vanishing into the sea.  In this episode, we journey to El Bosque to meet the town’s unlikely hero—one woman determined to fight for a future for her community as her neighbors flee the encroaching waves.

This episode was reported by Alvaro Céspedes. It was hosted by Carlyle Calhoun and Alvaro. Editing by Johanna Zorn, Carlyle Calhoun, with additional help from Ricardo Lopez Cordero. Translation by Elsa Gil (as Lupe Cobos) and Sofia Garfias (as Cristina Pacheco). Fact-checking by Garrett Hazelwood. Our them...

Climate change is bad news for almost everyone. Emphasis on almost, because believe it or not, one marine species is absolutely thriving as the Gulf warms: Bull sharks! 

Get ready for some shark science as we learn why bull sharks are increasing in numbers across the Gulf and getting hungrier. 

This episode was hosted by Carlyle Calhoun and Katelyn Harrop. Katelyn conducted the interview. Our theme music is by John Batiste, and our sound designer is Emily Jankowski. Carlyle Calhoun is the executive producer. Sea Change is a WWNO and WRKF production. We're part of th...

Climate change is altering the land we live on, and Indigenous communities are on the frontline. In this episode, we bring you to Alaska, where rapid permafrost thaw is threatening the Native village of Nunapitchuk. Then, we head to Louisiana, where the Pointe-Au-Chien Indian Tribe is watching their land disappear underwater due to sea level rise. These threats are forcing these tribes to make the difficult decision: to stay and adapt, or to leave their ancestral home. 

This episode was produced in collaboration with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. 

This episode was reported by Eva Te...

If you’ve ever dreamed of what it would be like to be a marine biologist or marine ecologist, days spent scuba diving and swimming alongside sea turtles, all to better understand and protect our ocean, well then, you’re about to meet one of your heroes. 

Today, we are bringing you an episode of the podcast Going Wild with Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant. It’s an award-winning show from our friends at Nature on PBS featuring some of the coolest champions of nature, including someone you are about to meet: marine ecologist Alannah Vellacott. 

Sea Change i...

The chemical industry is big business in Louisiana. Companies here manufacture plastics, fuels, pesticides, and cleaning products. But one part of the chemical industry that’s often overlooked is the fertilizer business. 

Today, you’re going to hear the story of modern fertilizer, and how this powerful concoction of chemicals has radically reshaped how we farm and what we eat. In this episode, we follow the journey of fertilizer from Louisiana to the Midwest, then back down along the Mississippi River to a place it creates in the Gulf. A place called: The Dead Zone.

This...

Last week, we hosted a Sea Change live event at the New Orleans Jazz Museum. We wanted to talk about the science behind the massive land loss crisis we are experiencing, what it means to live in a vanishing landscape, and importantly, what we can do about it. But this is New Orleans, so we also wanted to celebrate! Celebrate the culture and joy of living in this special place. 

And while we can’t share food through the airwaves, we can share music. Join us for an incredible concert and conversation with musicians and scientists about the...

We are all affected by ocean conditions, and we're talking about huge things like global food security and human health, to fisheries we depend on, to the transport of a whopping 90% of the world's goods. So it's vitally important to understand ocean conditions. 

What can the fascinating field of ocean forecasting tell us about the future for us on land and for life under the sea?

Want to learn even more? Click here to read the report "Forecasting the Ocean."

This episode was hosted by Carlyle Calhoun, and Eva Tefaye conducted the interview. O...

Like much of coastal Louisiana, Isle de Jean Charles is rapidly disappearing into the Gulf because of coastal erosion and sea level rise. Scientists predict the island will be completely underwater by 2050.

Almost a decade ago, the federal government awarded the state of Louisiana $48 million dollar to resettle members of the Jean Charles Choctaw Nation from Isle de Jean Charles. This was the first project of its kind and initially, it was held up as a model for how to move communities at risk out of harm’s way.

But journalist Olga Loginova's deep reporting un...

Last time, we learned about the nearly century-old bond between the oil and gas industry and one university — LSU. In the second and final episode of our series, "Fueling Knowledge," we look at how much money is flowing into universities and what the industry may hope to get in return. This relationship comes with big benefits: student mentors, scholarships, research funding, and new buildings, among others. But is all that money truly free? No strings? Or could it be part of a corporate playbook to help keep the industry alive?

Listen to part one of the series he...

Universities have grown increasingly close with the fossil fuel industry. Oil and gas money is flowing into universities around the world, shaping everything from students’ careers to climate research that can influence global energy policy.  

Some professors and students are sounding the alarm. They worry this influx of fossil fuel money could compromise the credibility of research institutions, tainting the information produced. That they are even being used as pawns in a fossil fuel propaganda campaign.

These ties go way back. To understand this relationship, and what's at stake, we zoom in on the oil-and-gas-branded cam...

There’s this conversation from one of our early Sea Change episodes, and it's about our relationship with the ocean--with water. How being in or near water changes us for the better. The marine biologist Wallace J Nichols has said: “It is true that oceans give us life, but our planet’s wild places also make life worth living and help heal us when we are broken.” He said it's not going to be fear and guilt that motivates us to protect the ocean; it happens when people are connected to the value of the ocean. Because when we value so...

In February 2021, power went out for 4.5 million households across Texas. The blackout killed hundreds. And people wondered: “How could this happen in the energy capital of the U.S.?” 

Today, we bring you part of that fascinating backstory, and it starts with an East Texas con artist who inadvertently kicked off the biggest oil boom in US history. Reporters Mose Buchele and Audrey McGlinchy of KUT's podcast The Disconnect: Power, Politics, and the Texas Blackout take us on a Wild West story to understand the power of the fossil fuel industry in Texas and how that power led t...

More and more Americans face the threat of flooding. And as a country, we are woefully unprepared. Cities like Charleston and Miami already see routine coastal flooding. Hurricane Helene recently hammered many inland communities with flooding. And the risk is only rising. 

FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) sells about 90% of the nation's flood insurance policies, but only a small percentage of Americans are covered. In an effort to account for climate change, expand coverage, and make the NFIP more "fair," FEMA recently overhauled its flood insurance program. It's called Risk Rating 2.0, and the sweeping changes are p...

Flooding is the most common natural disaster — by far. As more and more towns are devastated by floods, people are facing the tough question of how to rebuild — or even if they can. In this episode, we travel to two towns to discover how one obscure federal policy designed to stop the cycle of flood damage is leading to opposite destinies. 

Thanks for listening to Sea Change. This episode was reported and hosted by me, Carlyle Calhoun. This episode was edited by Jack Rodolico with editing help from Eve Abrams. Additional help from Halle Parker, Eva Tesfaye, Ryan...