February 3, 2016 8:52 pm

This Friday, Neil deGrasse Tyson Explores What the EPA Is Doing to Protect Our World

How did a self-proclaimed “child of the Sixties” end up leading U.S. efforts to protect the environment and save the planet?

The short answer is that she used to love going out and playing in the mud with all the creepy critters she uncovered in her local ecosystems.

For the long answer, you’ll need to tune in to this Friday’s podcast, featuring Neil deGrasse Tyson’s interview with Gina McCarthy, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Gina and Neil review a variety of EPA programs and she explains the clever ways in which the government motivates citizens and companies to save the planet while saving money, increasing efficiency, and reducing the dangers from toxic chemicals. They also talk about light pollution, the air quality in China, and a river that used to turn green, yellow or blue depending on what local industries had dumped into it that day.

We’ve also got The New York Times “Dot Earth” environmental blogger Andrew Revkin on the show, to help provide some non-governmental perspective on their activities, and also some historical context.

Neil, Andrew and co-host Maeve Higgins talk about how important the Earthrise photo, taken by the crew of Apollo 8 in 1968, was to inspiring, and catalyzing, the nascent environmental movement.

Naturally, climate change is one of the subjects for discussion. Bill Nye tells us why we need to look at the Earth not just as our home, but our house. And Harvard professor Naomi Oreskes, author of Merchants of Doubt, calls in to the show to explain the reasons that some scientists continued to deny climate change in the face of overwhelming data.

But for me, the most surprising idea to come out of this episode was Neil’s answer to a Cosmic Query about the possibility of Earth ending up with a runaway greenhouse effect like Venus…but, as always, I’m not one to spill the beans and spoil your fun.

Join us Friday, February 5 at 7pm ET on our website, iTunes Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn and SoundCloud.

That’s it for now. Keep Looking Up!
–Jeffrey Simons