This week, President Obama announced his Clean Power Plan, a multifaceted program to cut carbon emissions by 32 percent of their 2005 levels, by the year 2030. As the president himself said in a speech announcing the plan, “There is such a thing as being too late when it comes to climate change.” But is this plan itself too little, too late? David Biello of Scientific American helps us answer that question.
Then, we check in on the global hotspot for climate change: the Arctic. Brendan Kelly of the Monterey Bay Aquarium talks about the weird hybrid species, such as “pizzly bears” (polar/grizzly hybrids), that are appearing on land and in the Arctic Ocean. Reporter Ari Daniel and physical oceanographer Fiamma Straneo check in from a boat in Sermilik Fjord, in Greenland, to talk about glacier calving there. And ornithologist George Divoky calls in from Cooper Island, a sand and gravel bar on the north coast of Alaska, where he has studied black guillemot birds for 41 years.
Segment Guests
David Biello
David Biello is environment and energy editor at Scientific American in New York, New York.
Brendan P. Kelly
Brendan P. Kelly is a chief scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, California.
Fiamma Straneo
Fiamma Straneo is a physical oceanographer and senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
Ari Daniel
Ari Daniel is an independent science reporter who contributes regularly to National Public Radio, among other outlets. Over the years, he has reported across six continents on science topics ranging from astronomy to zooxanthellae.
George Divoky
George Divoky is director of Friends of Cooper Island in Seattle, Washington.
Meet the Producer
About Christopher Intagliata
@cintagliataChristopher Intagliata was Science Friday’s senior producer. He once served as a prop in an optical illusion and speaks passable Ira Flatowese.