Environment

The Metro Transit fleet has added 18 new electric buses in hopes of creating a greener St. Louis. It’s one of the largest deployments of the zero-emission vehicles in the nation.

Nonprofit earthday365 is running a fundraising campaign through the weekend to highlight restaurants that have kept their commitments to sustainable practices during a tough year.

The barge industry claims it is green and could be more so. But environmentalists say even the cleanest towboats and barges will be bad for natural habitats.

In St. Louis, there are many stories about how environmental racism impacts everyday people and their health, housing, and daily lives. So in this season, we’ll use the Washington University Interdisciplinary Environmental Law Clinic’s 2019 report on Environmental Racism in St. Louis to guide us through conversations about the top environmental issues facing the most vulnerable communities in St. Louis. In this episode, we look back at how St. Louis’ history of systemic racism has impacted the living environments of low-income and Black residents, how the report featured stories of everyday people, and what type of environment the report’s recommendations could create for the next generation.

The We Live Here team delves into their latest Farm Dreams & Toxic Dust episode, and what the rest of the season on environmental racism has to offer.

In the last two seasons of the show, we have covered the COVID-19 pandemic and the current uprising for Black lives, both of which continue to shape society today. The pandemic and the uprising also raised two major questions, which we’ll be addressing in our new season on environmental racism: How do we achieve a healthy life? And what kind of world do we want to leave for the next generation? These are profound questions for a region that boasts some of the most prestigious hospitals in the nation and is home to residents with some of the worst health outcomes. So in this season, we’ll trace the connection between systemic racism, housing conditions, and health outcomes. But we’ll also highlight the organizers, tenants rights advocates, and urban farmers who are working to improve conditions in their communities. The first episode of the environmental racism season drops on Friday, February 12th, anywhere you get podcasts.

Missouri’s population of hellbenders is in trouble. These aquatic salamanders have seen a 70% population decline in the state over the past four decades. Scientists now fear local extinction. We discuss a local effort to bring the hellbender back from the brink.

Ameren Missouri will build electric vehicle charging stations along Interstates 70, 40 and 55. Midwestern utilities are working on the plan to assure owners of electric vehicles that they can travel long distances. The stations could help limit carbon emissions, a key part of addressing climate change.

The director of the St. Louis Zoo Institute for Conservation Medicine, Dr. Sharon Deem, wants people to understand just how much human health is dependent…

There are roughly 2.8 million people living in greater St. Louis, many of whom would be surprised to know that they share the space with a good variety of…