Air Date: September 19, 2025

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Heat Waves Linked to Company Emissions


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New research finds that since 2010 killer heat waves have become 200 times more likely, thanks to greenhouse gas emissions, and the scientists say about half of the increase in heatwaves can be attributed to big coal, big oil, big gas and cement. Dartmouth College associate professor Justin Mankin joins Host Steve Curwood to discuss the severe economic and health consequences of extreme heat and efforts to make major carbon emitters pay for these skyrocketing costs. (10:37)

Insurance and Homeowners Underwater / Amy Green


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While the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season has been relatively quiet, last year damages from three major hurricanes ran to over 200 billion dollars and claims have stressed homeowners and insurance companies alike. Inside Climate News journalist Amy Green shares with Host Steve Curwood what she learned from Florida homeowners facing rising premiums and the cancellation of their insurance policies. (12:18)

Massachusetts Ends Gas Subsidy / Phil McKenna


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Many gas bills include a surcharge to help pay for gas connections to new homes. As Massachusetts seeks to phase out fossil fuels the state is now requiring developers to pay for new homes to be connected to natural gas, rather than having rate payers subsidize new hookups that would increase global warming emissions. Inside Climate News reporter Phil McKenna spoke with Living on Earth’s Paloma Beltran about why utilities are on board and more. (07:39)

The Light Between Apple Trees


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As the air turns crisp in the northern U.S., many of us are heading out for the autumn tradition of apple picking. Priyanka Kumar, author of The Light Between Apple Trees: Rediscovering the Wild Through a Beloved American Fruit, joins Host Jenni Doering to share the fascinating and complex science and history behind the iconic apple and why apple trees have so captivated her since childhood. (15:28)

Show Credits and Funders

Show Transcript

250919 Transcript

HOSTS: Steve Curwood, Jenni Doering

GUESTS: Amy Green, Priyanka Kumar, Justin Mankin

REPORTERS: Phil McKenna

[THEME]

CURWOOD: From PRX – this is Living on Earth.

[THEME]

CURWOOD: I’m Steve Curwood.

DOERING: And I’m Jenni Doering.

Some deadly heat waves can now be directly attributed to the largest fossil fuel and cement companies.

MANKIN: There was the 2021 Pacific Northwest heat wave that struck Oregon. And one could ask the question, how would that heat wave have looked differently if we had removed some of these carbon majors' emissions from the atmosphere?

CURWOOD: Also, Massachusetts aims to take away a big subsidy for planet-warming natural gas.

MCKENNA: Last year, existing rate payers, existing gas users, spent $160 million paying for new customers to come online. That comes to about $9,000 for each new gas hookup.

CURWOOD: We’ll have those stories and more, this week on Living on Earth. Stick around!

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[NEWSBREAK MUSIC: Boards Of Canada “Zoetrope” from “In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country” (Warp Records 2000)]

[THEME]

Heat Waves Linked to Company Emissions

DOERING: From PRX and the Jennifer and Ted Stanley Studios at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, this is Living on Earth. I’m Jenni Doering.

CURWOOD: And I’m Steve Curwood.

Most of the killer heat waves in recent years can be blamed on the actions and products of fewer than 200 fossil fuel and cement companies, science says. A research team in Switzerland reports in the journal Nature that climate change made 213 historic heatwaves between 2000 and 2023 more likely and more intense. And since 2010 heatwaves have become 200 times more likely, thanks to greenhouse gas emissions, and the scientists say about half of the increase in heatwaves can be attributed to big coal, big oil, big gas and cement. The team admits industry emissions are underreported, and they are missing some data from less developed countries, but say the trend is clear. Joining us now from Dartmouth College is Associate Professor Justin Mankin, who published a related study in Nature earlier this year. So, Professor Mankin, tell me about this study.

MANKIN: Yeah, so this latest paper, produced by colleagues out of the Swiss institution ETH Zurich, is really part of a much longer line of what we call climate attribution research, which is the effort by climate scientists to assess cause in a complicated earth system. So what caused this heat wave, and in particular, what is the contribution of anthropogenic or human-caused greenhouse gas emissions? So what Yann and Sonia and colleagues did in this work was provide an attribution of how much individual sets of emissions from fossil fuel companies contributed to the likelihood and magnitude of that extreme heat.

CURWOOD: By the way, what's a scientific definition of a heat wave?

MANKIN: Great question. It is an elusive one. A heat wave is a weather event that can last, typically about a week, and it is anomalously warm temperatures, meaning temperatures that for that place and that time of the year are higher than you would expect them to be. So scientists have myriad definitions that they apply to characterize the magnitude of heat events. The authors of this work that we're talking about today, used a disaster database. So what they did here, cleverly, is leverage heat events that we knew had societal impact because it was recorded as a disaster, that is, emergency declarations were made, people were harmed, and that was documented via other evidence, rather than simply saying anything above 90 degrees is a heat wave, because that's simply not the case.

CURWOOD: So there are heat waves, of course, all around the world. Just here in the United States this summer, it looks like cities in the West and Southwest were hit especially hard, temperatures hitting 115 degrees Fahrenheit in places. Let's talk for a moment about the human cost of heat waves. What are we looking at? I know they're enormous.

MANKIN: Yeah, we're only beginning to fully understand the human health consequences of extreme heat. And I think that in part, is because the mortality burden of heat waves has been poorly characterized. You know, if you think back to the World Cup in soccer that, when it was held in Qatar, for example. And the deaths of the migrant laborers building the stadiums in Qatar, many of those deaths were attributed to pulmonary or cardiovascular disease and not to the extreme heat that was the proximate cause. And so extreme heat deaths are often mischaracterized, and so we rely on these large-scale epidemiological studies post hoc, after the event, in order to be able to make an assessment, often years later, of what the true mortality burden associated with these events happen to be.

CURWOOD: Professor Mankin, what do you make of this paper saying that the 14 top carbon major emitters, and we're talking about the former Soviet Union, China, Saudi Arabia, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, National Iranian Oil Company, BP, Shell, India, and a few others, what do you make of their finding that these 14 top carbon major emitters represent 30% of the total cumulative anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere?

MANKIN: Yeah, I would say that's likely an undercounting. We know this work to be based on this database called the Carbon Majors Database, which is a database heroically put together by a researcher named Rick Heede. And Rick poured over investor earnings calls and did documentary analysis on these company documents. And what I would say is, because we're reliant on external documents, the all likelihood means that it's an undercounting of the true scope of emissions traceable back to any one of these companies and their activities. And that's because these are not voluntary reportings coming from the companies themselves, owing to some regulation that requires them to do so.

CURWOOD: So Professor, talk to me about your research that uses climate data to both predict future warmings and understand the past events. What are some of your findings?

MANKIN: Yeah, one of the things that I think is most salient from the work that we've been doing here in my research group is that the costs of climate change to date are just far higher than we previously understood or expected. For my research group here at Dartmouth, the Climate Modeling and Impacts Group, a former PhD student and myself, Chris Callahan, we published some work that did very much the same thing, in Nature as well, in April of this past year, where we showed the contribution of individual fossil fuel companies to the economic damages from extreme heat. So that required us to do what Yann and Sonia did, but then we took it a step further and showed what the economic consequences of that extreme heat happened to be, how did that actually impact income at the local scale.

CURWOOD: Okay, so how possible is it for you to say that a certain heat wave was probably due to the emissions of this certain company?

MANKIN: I think it's extremely possible. Say, for example, there was the 2021 Pacific Northwest heat wave that struck Oregon. And one could ask the question, how would that heat wave have looked differently if we had removed some of these carbon majors' emissions from the atmosphere? How much faster would Oregon's economy have grown if that extreme heat event hadn't occurred, or, even more particular, if Chevron hadn't contributed to say, intensifying that extreme heat event? We are now at a place scientifically where we can do it, the question of culpability and responsibility is really one for civil society and for judges and courts and juries and policy makers, and these are conversations that are happening right now.

CURWOOD: So what about this question of who pays? You know, one would hope that these nearly 200 companies take much of the responsibility here if they're responsible for a majority of these heat waves. But what about this question?

MANKIN: Yeah, this is something that a lot of folks are contending with. But yeah, these contributions to emissions are a function of the power and profit that these companies have enjoyed in yes, absolutely, providing human well-being through energy provision, but also with these deleterious ancillary consequences, right, these consequences that were not appropriately internalized into the costs of energy itself. And I think that's the crucial piece here, and that's why a lot of states and actors are pursuing liability claims against these major fossil fuel companies. These polluters pay laws, as they're called, are being considered and often passed at the state level at this moment, are efforts by states to ask these fossil fuel companies to help pay for the losses they've endured, and in particular, also pay for their adaptation costs. The most two recent ones are New York and Vermont, where these laws exist. They're taking different approaches in each state, but the logic is the same. If you've made a mess, you're responsible for cleaning it up.

CURWOOD: Before you go, Professor, looking at this study in Nature, it would seem that there's not very much heat wave data from certain parts of the world. I'm thinking of Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and they mentioned that. What do you make of that? What impact do you think that would have on the research results here if they did have that data?

MANKIN: Yeah, this is an excellent question. This is a reflection of what we call data poverty. The disaster database that these authors relied on to identify extreme heat events is absolutely biased towards the high-income industrialized world, where we have rich observations and quality assurance of data. By and large, data collection is a function of the priorities and values of the data collector. There is a systematic underreporting of extreme heat and its consequences for people in the low income world. And so these places are enduring a tragedy. They are least culpable for generating the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing extreme heat right now. Those extreme heat waves are manifesting in tropical places first, because year to year and inter-annual, kind of within annual variation in temperatures is quite low in the tropics, and so a signal emerges above the noise much earlier there. So the heat impacts are kind of manifesting first. Their societies tend to be least resilient. We have the least data with which to make the assessment of what the magnitude of extreme heat happens to be in those places, and therefore we have the least ability to devise strategies for heat risk mitigation. And so that is something that a graduate student and myself are working on in the group, how do we understand the impacts of climate change in places where we don't have data? How can we improve that and help inform risk mitigation and adaptation in those places?

CURWOOD: Justin Mankin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at Dartmouth College. Thank you so much for taking the time with us today.

MANKIN: Thanks for having me, Steve, I appreciate your interest in this kind of work.

Related links:
- Read this Swiss study in Nature
- Read Justin Mankin’s related study in Nature
- Learn more about Dartmouth Assoc. Professor Justin Mankin

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[MUSIC: Eric Clapton, “Peaches and Diesel” on Slowhand 35th Anniversity, Polydor Ltd. (UK)]

DOERING: Coming up, your gas bill might be subsidizing new fossil fuel hookups. One state moves to make developers pay instead. That’s just ahead on Living on Earth. Stay tuned!

ANNOUNCER: Support for Living on Earth comes from the Waverley Street Foundation, working to cultivate a healing planet with community-led programs for better food, healthy farmlands, and smarter building, energy and businesses.

[CUTAWAY MUSIC: Eric Clapton, “Peaches and Diesel” on Slowhand 35th Anniversity, Polydor Ltd. (UK)]

Insurance and Homeowners Underwater

DOERING: It’s Living on Earth, I’m Jenni Doering.

CURWOOD: And I’m Steve Curwood.

So far this year the Atlantic hurricane season has been relatively quiet, but last year damages from three major hurricanes ran to over 200 billion dollars and claims have stressed homeowners and insurance companies alike. It’s become a crisis in the sunshine state, where Florida homeowner Amy Green writes for our media partner Inside Climate News. She says there are added pressures on low- and middle-income folks who need insurance to meet the covenants of their mortgages. Amy Green joins me now on the line from Orlando. Welcome back to Living on Earth, Amy!

GREEN: It's great to be here. Thank you.

CURWOOD: Now, Amy, talk to me about this story that you wrote for Inside Climate News, where in the title you refer to Florida's home insurance crisis. How does one explain this crisis to someone unfamiliar with the situation?

GREEN: So I would say that in Florida, we kind of have two main problems when it comes to insurance. The main problem our story addressed was a situation where escalating climate risk is driving insurance companies to withdraw policies from homeowners altogether, and Floridians are receiving insurance non-renewal letters, cancelation letters, from their insurance companies. And Inside Climate News, we did an analysis that found that while this is a problem all across the country, especially in kind of climate risk hot spots like Louisiana and California, Florida, as you said, is kind of ground zero for this problem because of the hurricanes we get in our state. And our analysis found that the problem is especially acute, not in the coastal areas where you might expect but in the agricultural communities in the heartland of our state.

CURWOOD: Wait a second, now we think of the storms coming ashore and the storm surge and everything, but you're saying it's the center of the state, closer to the middle, that's more of a problem? How is that?

GREEN: We were very surprised. Our analysis found that in counties like this, counties where climate risk is combined with poverty and other socioeconomic factors that make it harder for communities to recover from disasters, these are communities where insurance non-renewal rates are some of the highest.

CURWOOD: So in other words, if you're poor, you're going to pay more for insurance or lose it, than if you're rich, even though you're not along the coast where you would expect these storms to come ashore.

GREEN: Well, our analysis focused on insurance non-renewals, but you brought up kind of the other side of the coin when it comes to insurance problems in Florida, which is the exorbitant cost. The cost of insurance in Florida is jumping by leaps and bounds. And while that was not the problem that our analysis really focused on, it was one that we couldn't help but touch on in our project, because it was such an important problem. When I visited one of these counties, Okeechobee County, on the north side of Lake Okeechobee, the state's largest lake, I talked with people who were receiving renewal letters from their insurance companies for $12,000, $16,000 a year, and these are in communities where the median income is $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 a year. So these are really exorbitant insurance costs. And so what you have is a situation where the people who have the least resources for dealing with disasters are really the ones who are most vulnerable to losing insurance, either because their insurance companies cancel their policies or because they just can't afford it, and if they have their mortgage paid off, more and more of these people are going without insurance altogether, and that just leaves these communities even more vulnerable to the next disaster.

CURWOOD: Indeed. So Amy, not only are insurance companies raising rates, but they're pulling out of markets entirely. I mean, it's just got to be really difficult for homeowners confronted with that.

GREEN: It's a major problem. For most homeowners with a mortgage, the mortgage companies require homeowners to have insurance, and so where people can get insurance, in these communities where insurance is hard to get, a lot of these people will pay whatever is asked of them because they're just happy to have an insurance policy. So it's a major economic concern for these communities, because paying more on insurance means, you know, having less money to go out for dinner or buy a new car, and that can affect other businesses in the communities. I talked with residents who had family members who were working two jobs or they were working overtime. One woman had a family member who was a firefighter and he was working overtime to pay for a $16,000 a year insurance policy. And I even found that when I visited Okeechobee County, insurance, it's supposed to be something that you pay for, and you forget about it, but it's there if you need it. But I found that in these communities, people think about insurance a lot, and they will tell you not only about their own insurance problems, but their friends’, their neighbors’, people they go to church with, people they play golf with. It's a big topic in these communities.

CURWOOD: And Amy, by the way, how much of this non-renewal rate, these high rates, appear to be connected to the climate crisis?

GREEN: The problem is very connected with climate change. And there has been academic research into the fact that insurance companies are increasingly passing the costs associated with climate risk on to homeowners, and that's certainly what we're seeing here in Florida. State efforts to help these homeowners really have fallen short, and that has left homeowners to bear this economic burden, really, by themselves.

CURWOOD: Well, now, there's a state-backed insurance company there. How does that state-backed insurance program factor into all of this?

GREEN: Yes, we have a state backed insurer called Citizens, and that provides insurance for people who are unable to get insurance through the private market. Citizens, the number of policies has grown to the point where that has become a considerable concern, because if we were to have a major disaster, there are concerns that citizens would have a hard time paying the costs of that disaster. Our analysis did examine that issue. We were told Citizens can never go broke, that Citizens is able to impose surcharges on premiums paid by Florida homeowners, including not just its own customers, and that Citizens had already done that in the past after severe hurricane seasons in 2004 and 2005 and that Citizens was able to recover the money it paid out over the following decade. But that has become a concern. So there's been an effort to depopulate Citizens and move Citizens customers back into the private insurance market.

CURWOOD: Now I want to go to the mortgage question here. Almost all mortgages require the mortgagee to have an insurance policy. How are people responding to this squeeze? One of the people you just talked about spending like 1,200 bucks a month for home insurance, I suspect that might be more than their mortgage payment if they have a simple house. How are they coping?

GREEN: Yes, a lot of other people who I talked to, if they were able to pay off the mortgage, they were going without. One homeowner I talked to, he was retired. He was planning to leave the house to his son, who lived in another state, but he was concerned about how the insurance situation might affect the value of the property, and he was concerned about whether leaving the house to his son might be leaving the son with a burden. One homeowner I talked to took out a personal loan so that he could use the personal loan to pay off his mortgage, so that he could go without insurance. And this, again, is another concern, because then you have a disadvantaged community where a large percentage of people have no insurance, and that is a concern if they were to have another disaster in the future.

CURWOOD: Yeah, let's talk about the population trends now then, in the face of this insurance crisis related to the climate, what has the impact been on Florida's population? I mean, are people still moving there in numbers, or more people moving out? What's going on?

GREEN: Yes, people are still continuing to move to Florida. The real estate market remains very strong. Florida is just a place where people want to live, even on the coasts, in the more affluent, desirable areas, it continues to be a popular place for people to come.

CURWOOD: Okay, I know you're a journalist, you're not a social psychologist, but what the heck is going on? We're told economic theory says that if prices rise, consumers make other choices. So if it costs an awful lot to insure there, and it's cheaper elsewhere, and it's, in fact, unaffordable for some people, especially lower income people, they should go where their pocketbooks are telling them. But doesn't sound like they are.

GREEN: Yes, the insurance situation definitely is making housing harder to afford in the state of Florida. It's definitely increasing the cost of housing in the state of Florida. Florida is just a place where people want to live, and the coast, it's a beautiful place, and so people who have the means are willing to take on that risk. I would also add too that people have short memories and people receive mixed messages from our leaders when it comes to climate risk. It can be hard to understand what the climate risk actually is.

CURWOOD: Well, just let me say, as a state, Florida has a rather interesting relationship with the realities of climate disruption. I mean, the state is famous for intense storms, what three major ones this last year alone, right? But the state government, under Republican Governor Ron DeSantis is really doing its best to not just ignore but outright deny climate change. With that context, what do you make of this insurance crisis on the state level?

GREEN: I think that it leaves homeowners on our own when it comes to this insurance problem, I think that state efforts to help homeowners have really fallen short. There was legislation a few years ago. There is a state program called the My Safe Florida program that offers money to help homeowners fortify our homes, like put a new roof on and put new windows in and that will help protect homes from damage during disasters, and it also can help lower insurance rates. The money really is not enough to meet demand, and efforts to expand that program have not been successful. Our Governor Ron DeSantis, who is Republican, he also has initiated a program called Resilient Florida that offers money to communities to help fortify infrastructure against hurricanes and floods, and that has been a good program, and that has helped a lot of communities. But DeSantis and our other state leaders have really done next to nothing when it comes to addressing the cause of climate change, which is greenhouse gas emissions. And as a matter of fact, a few years ago, DeSantis signed separate legislation that removed instances of the words climate change from our state code when it comes to our energy policy. So you're right, our state government really has kind of taken a stance of denial to a degree when it comes to climate change, and I think that leaves homeowners kind of on our own when it comes to this insurance problem.

CURWOOD: Amy Green is a reporter with our media partner Inside Climate News, based in Orlando, Florida. Thanks so much for taking the time with us today.

GREEN: It's a pleasure to talk with you. It's a great show.

Related links:
- Inside Climate News | “Florida’s Home Insurance Crisis Hits Hardest in Some of the State’s Poorest Counties”
- Inside Climate News | “In the Midst of Florida’s Insurance Crisis, What Recourse Do Residents Have?”
- WUSF | “How Climate Change Is Contributing to the Home Insurance Crisis in Florida and Across the Country”
- Amy Green’s profile at Inside Climate News

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[MUSIC: Eric Clapton, “We’re All The Way” on Slowhand 35th Anniversity, Polydor Ltd. (UK)]

Massachusetts Ends Gas Subsidy

DOERING: In the last century, when utility companies were building out infrastructure to bring energy and communications to homes, and they got a fixed return on their investments, it seemed only fair that rate payers should help bear the burden. But that was before deregulation and the climate crisis. Massachusetts now has a plan to eliminate the use of fossil fuels by 2050. So, the Bay State is now making developers pay for new homes to be connected to natural gas, rather than having rate payers subsidize new hookups that would increase global warming emissions. Inside Climate News reporter Phil McKenna spoke with Living on Earth’s Paloma Beltran.

BELTRAN: So describe this policy and what it entails. You know, this recent policy that was proposed in Massachusetts.

MCKENNA: Yeah. So basically, there's a new policy in Massachusetts where if you want a new gas connection, you are going to have to pay for it. You being the homeowner, the developer, and that's very different from how it used to be in the past, a utility company would pay that cost and then recoup the cost, pass it on to existing rate payers. And it was interesting to see how the utilities responded to this new policy, largely in favor of it, saying, you know, we recognize the state has these mid-century goals of decarbonizing. We want to take a closer look at it, and the devil may be in the details, but by and large, they were in support of it. It is a subtle shift, but one that could have a significant impact as the state looks to decarbonize, to get off fossil fuels and to electrify home and business heating and cooling.

BELTRAN: And in what instances would gas be the only option here?

MCKENNA: There was one carve out in the policy that said, if you have no other alternative than gas, then we will allow you, the utilities, to pass this cost on to rate payers. I think that's going to be a tiny fraction of homes, you would have to be a home that isn't connected to the electric grid, or, for whatever reason, couldn't use a heat pump for heating and cooling. And I'm really scratching my head to see how that might apply.

BELTRAN: So from what I understand, this new order aims to discourage the expansion of natural gas, as you mentioned. But how does it actively affect existing rate payers who have been subsidizing new gas customers?

Gas utility ratepayers in Massachusetts paid $160 million in 2023 for others to connect to the gas network. New state regulations would have new users pay the costs themselves.
insideclimatenews.org/news/1508202...

[image or embed]

— Phil McKenna (@mckennapr.bsky.social) August 18, 2025 at 9:47 AM

MCKENNA: Right. So last year, existing rate payers, existing gas users, spent $160 million paying for new customers to come online. That comes to about $9,000 for each new gas hookup, and that's something that ratepayers going forward will no longer have to pay. And by also making people who want to get on the gas system pay that and pay it all at once, $9,000 upfront, hopefully discourage them from installing gas in their homes and instead going with electric heating and cooling.

BELTRAN: To what extent do gas customers know their bills help fund new homes, and is that clearly shown in the bill?

MCKENNA: Oh, it's hard to make heads or tails of most utility bills, as you probably know as well. You look at them and there's a lot of small, very small surcharges, and it's not clear what exactly they're funding, and the charges per month are pretty small, but when spread across a large number of users and month to month over time, it can be a substantial, really substantial amount.

BELTRAN: And how has the real estate business reacted to this new policy?

MCKENNA: Realtors were not excited. The Boston Real Estate Board opposed the new measure. They sent in a letter saying, this policy lacks empathy for developers who are trying to build low-cost housing, and it's going to lock us into having to go with something that's more expensive. Interestingly, though, the state shot back, saying, look, you know, we've run the numbers, and there's really no difference in the cost of a new home whether you're building it to hook up to gas or to be all electric. And they said, here in this policy, we're really focusing on trying to get off of fossil fuels, and if we need to deal with the high price of housing, that's something we should definitely be looking at, but looking at elsewhere.

BELTRAN: So if the Department of Public Utility says construction costs are nearly equal, what still stands in the way of a full shift to all electric homes, and how much closer does this policy bring us?

MCKENNA: I think it's one of several levers that the state is trying to pull to further incentivize electrification, decarbonization, and further disincentivize fossil fuel heating and cooling. There's another policy that's being rolled out by the state that will go further to incentivize heat pumps, and that will effectively make it less expensive on your electric bill in the winter if you have a heat pump installed in your home.

BELTRAN: And where does that policy stand?

MCKENNA: That policy is set in stone. It will begin in November, the three major utilities in the state have submitted their plans, what their new seasonal rates will be, and for distribution, the distribution charges on your bill, it's going to be about a third of what it previously was for about six months each year. Overall, that will result in about a 20% decrease in your total bill, because they're, like we said earlier, a lot of different charges on your electric bill, not just distribution, but also generation and other things. And the average home is expected to save about $500 or $600 on their heating bill in the winter if they have a heat pump installed.

BELTRAN: How would these two policies both dealing with the energy transition in Massachusetts, how would they impact the grid?

MCKENNA: Right. So one is discouraging the further build out of the natural gas grid, and the second is incentivizing electrification, which will add more users to the electric grid, more strain on the electric grid, but for the time being, there is plenty of capacity in that grid for additional wintertime use, and that is what drove the state regulators to mandate that there would be lower costs for heat pump users because they felt that they were overcharging those users for their electricity use.

BELTRAN: There's been proponents in Massachusetts asking for the development of a new gas pipeline. To what extent is that necessary in order to meet the energy demands of the state?

MCKENNA: That's a great question. I think a lot depends on our ability as a state and a region to develop offshore wind. There are offshore wind farms that now are near completion and are getting stop-work orders from the federal government. And I think the harder it becomes to develop offshore wind, the more unfortunately, yeah, we may need to look to other alternatives, and the gas pipeline companies would love to expand existing pipelines and ship in more gas, which will provide the power, but unfortunately, will send us in the opposite direction towards our climate goals.

DOERING: Phil McKenna, a Boston-based reporter with Inside Climate News, speaking with Living on Earth’s Paloma Beltran.

Related links:
- Inside Climate News | “Massachusetts Seeks to End Ratepayer-Funded Subsidy for New Natural Gas Connections”
- Canary Media | "Massachusetts Residents No Longer Must Subsidize New Gas Hookups”
- Phil McKenna’s profile at Inside Climate News

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[MUSIC: Eric Clapton, “Mean Old Frisco” on Slowhand 35th Anniversity, Polydor Ltd. (UK)]

CURWOOD: After the break, the magic of apples and fall apple picking. That’s just ahead on Living on Earth.

ANNOUNCER: Support for Living on Earth comes from the estate of Rosamund Stone Zander - celebrated painter, environmentalist, and author of The Art of Possibility – who inspired others to see the profound interconnectedness of all living things, and to act with courage and creativity on behalf of our planet. Support also comes from Sailors for the Sea and Oceana. Helping boaters race clean, sail green and protect the seas they love. More information @sailorsforthesea.org.

[CUTAWAY MUSIC: Martin Klem, “Coyote Wedding” on Coyote Sundance, Epidemic Sound]

The Light Between Apple Trees

CURWOOD: It’s Living on Earth, I’m Steve Curwood.

DOERING: And I’m Jenni Doering.

As the air turns crisp in the northern U.S., many of us are heading out for the autumn tradition of apple picking. We’ll sample Honeycrisp and Ginger Gold, Blondee and Mcintosh, Cortland and Macoun and of course fresh, hot, apple cider donuts. But few of us know the fascinating and complex science and history behind the iconic apple. Priyanka Kumar is the author of The Light Between Apple Trees: Rediscovering the Wild Through a Beloved American Fruit, and she joins us now. Welcome to Living on Earth, Priyanka!

KUMAR: Thanks so much for having me here, Jenni!

DOERING: So throughout this book, you keep returning to some formative childhood experiences with apples and apple trees. Can you take me to the setting of your childhood and how did that environment shape who you are today?

KUMAR: Sure, I was incredibly fortunate to grow up in the foothills of the Himalayas, and these were beautiful, pristine areas that scientists now know are among the top 20 most valuable biodiversity hotspots on our planet. So I was living in the heart of the apple growing region there, and so I remember myself as a two-year-old child wandering among these mature apple trees, mother trees, and just feeling that they are these beings that are towering over me. And a little later, when I started walking to school every day, I would see these mountains that were streaked with snow, and strangely, I felt like they were my friends. I would have conversations with them. I mean, I would say that I didn't have a lot of toys to speak of, but in a sense, nature was my playground.

DOERING: I mean, it sounds like it was a place that was imbued with magic for you as a kid.

KUMAR: Yeah, and I think it really unlocked my imagination. I mean, for one, it made me a lifelong naturalist. I mean, certainly in this book, I circle back to a core formative memory. When I was about four years old, my dad took me to a magical apple orchard, and I spent the entire day weaving among the trees and experiencing the same connection that I did with the mountains. And I felt like these trees were living beings, and I could be with them and not be lonely. And then at the end of the day, we walked up to this little glass turret, I was sitting on my dad's lap, and the orchardist came up to us and offered us a yellow apple, and I took it and bit into it, and sitting up there in this glass turret, looking down at all those trees that I'd spent the whole day with, biting into this apple, I felt like the earth herself was giving me an apple-scented kiss. And I just felt very close to all the elements. And I felt like, this is it. I'm a child of all of these elements. I belong here, and I think in some way, I, that was the spark for the rest of my life.

DOERING: That's beautiful. So apple trees, fruit trees, have evolved and been cultivated over thousands of years. They appear in countless stories across cultures and religions. You write about this in your book, and here you are adding your own story to this tapestry. Why do you think the symbolism of the apple has endured for so long?

KUMAR: There's something powerful about fruit trees. I almost think sometimes that fruit trees are a symbol of love. I have a chapter in the book called, "Love Notes from Nature." I feel like a fruit tree is the ultimate love note from nature. It's giving you this shade. There's also this aroma, and you settle into yourself, you know, whether it's the blossoms or the ripening fruit, and then, you know, just the act of reaching up and grabbing the fruit, I feel like many of my joyous memories have to do with that. I mean, it's not always an apple tree, but sometimes it's like an apricot or a peach or a cherry tree, just this feeling of being supported by nature. I mean, I'm very interested, as a naturalist, in the inner workings of nature, but I think I'm also interested in all these fascinating ways in which nature supports us, and I think fruit tree is a very powerful symbol of that.

DOERING: Absolutely. And when you think about like, you know, it's love notes from nature, as you say, it's also all of the care that people have put into cultivating these varieties over time, there's a lot to be thankful for, I guess, when you reach for an apple in a tree.

KUMAR: I mean, the history of apple trees in America is mind blowing. And we've had apple trees here for over 400 years now. And if you go back and think about how the early settlers and the Jesuit priests brought, you know, they tucked apple seeds into their pockets, you know, when they were coming to America. And the first thing that they did, even before they started to, you know, make any kind of a one room dwelling, is they planted those seeds. That was, like the first act. It was so important.

DOERING: Yeah, you write about, you know, Quebec, when these Jesuit priests were coming to North America, they would plant apple trees there, and then also the Spanish in the southwest, where you are now.

KUMAR: Yeah. I mean, a lot of times we think about settlers from England bringing apple trees, or perhaps Ireland, and that is so true, but there's an equally rich history of French settlers and Spanish conquistadores bringing in little apple seeds, which they planted and nurtured with great care. So one of the things that really amazes me is there's a orchard here, Las Golondrinas. It's an old, old orchard, and they grow this apple that is called the Wolf River apple. And it's amazing to look into the history of this apple and to find that it was actually planted by French settlers in Quebec, way in the 1600s and then brought down to Wisconsin by a woodsman and planted there near the Wolf River, and then brought all the way down to New Mexico and planted here. It just increases your sense of connectivity.

DOERING: So where does the apple come from? I mean, everything that we eat and have domesticated at some point came from a wild plant. Where did the apple come from?

KUMAR: That's a great question. So it turns out that the origins of the apple are wilder than we ever imagined. So for a long time, scientists believed that the primary ancestor of the cultivar apple, this is Malus domestica, the apple that we eat today, was the wild apple, the wild Kazakh apple that grows on the flanks of the Tian Shan mountains in Kazakhstan. Well, it turns out the story is much more complicated than that.

DOERING: Yeah?

KUMAR: It’s only in the last 20 years that genetic science has gotten us closer to understanding the true origins of the apple. It's true that they were growing and they still do grow in the Tian Shan mountains, but they were soon traveling along the Silk Route and traveling through parts of Europe where the apple, the wild apple, hybridized with the wild European crab apple, and then made its way to America. So now we know that the apple is this world traveler, a truly transnational fruit. So you know, when you hold an apple in your hand today, I mean, there's a sense of adventure there thinking about its roots.

DOERING: Yeah, and I love it as a metaphor for you know, when you're thinking about apples in America and this country as a melting pot of so many different traditions and cultures and ethnicities, like the apple itself is sort of woven together from different strands of ancient species.

KUMAR: Absolutely, I think, for those reasons you put it so well, Jenni, the apple truly is an American fruit because it, like America itself, the apple has been put together with all these strands, and some of those strands actually go back into deep time, where it comes from this ancient flowering rose that started growing on planet earth about 80 million years back.

DOERING: Wow, that's pretty deep roots.

KUMAR: That's pretty deep roots.

DOERING: So now is a perilous time in the apple's history. What are the climate threats facing apple trees today, both in New Mexico, where you live, and elsewhere?

KUMAR: So scientists have come up with six climate metrics that can negatively impact apple trees, and they mostly have to do with exposure to severe heat, fewer chill hours. Apples tend to need about 500 to 1000 chill hours for proper development of the flower and eventually the fruit. We're in the southwest. We've been in a mega drought for the last 22 years, and it turns out that the apples in Yakima County, a lot of our apples come from Yakima County, and Oh, yeah. So, so the apples there have already been adversely impacted by five of these six metrics. So when it comes to climate change, it's not something that is going to happen five years from now. It's already happening. We're in the throes of it right now. And for me, it certainly came home when one of the orchards where I spent time, and I know the orchardist well, John Trujillo, told me that because of global warming, which had killed off essentially all of his cherry trees, he told me that it's just too hard. He's not going to plant fruit trees anymore. And for me, it was, it was a devastating moment. It really broke my heart, because John is a third-generation orchardist. You see how it's changing lives right in front of you, so it's no longer abstract numbers that you're dealing with but, but you're face to face with the people who are up against it.

DOERING: What can be done for apple trees amid these threats, and how might those actions also help the wider ecosystem to thrive?

KUMAR: You know, back when America had a love affair with apples, I mean, I think we still love apples, but I think we really had a, we celebrated apples more and we were more connected to them. We were growing more than 10,000 varieties of apples in this country. I mean, that's--

DOERING: Wow. Incredible.

KUMAR: That's amazing. You know, there's, there's more than 16,000 named apple varieties, and today only about less than a fifth of those varieties are accessible to us. So one of the things that's happened with this distancing from nature, with this industrialization of apple growing, is that we have far fewer varieties, so that richness is gone. And so what happens in a changing climate, because apples are susceptible to disease, you know, viruses, fungal issues, when you have industrial apple growing with a monoculture of apples, a certain apple variety is hit, and then you lose all of those apple trees, you lose that variety. So I think if we were all growing different varieties, we would be more resilient to climate change.

DOERING: Priyanka, your book isn't just about the history and science of apples, although that is fascinating. It's also about connecting with people. How can apples and food in general build community in today's world?

KUMAR: That's a great question. So I come from a culture where hospitality is a very important value, and one of the things that I missed a lot during the pandemic is, I couldn't have people over, and so I started doing these apple tastings out on my porch, and I would bring all kinds of apple varieties, and have friends and neighbors and strangers waft through, and and I felt like I made a lot of lovely "apple friendships" through that. And then later, when I was in places like Charlottesville, for instance, I found that, you know, I would run into people where maybe we thought a little bit differently about some political issues, but we could always get excited about the same apple varieties, and we could talk about apple history. I would tell people about these wonderful apple stories. One of the most inspiring figures for me is John Adams, who was very hands on with his apple growing. I mean, he was putting seaweed into his compost pile and spreading it along on his meadow and growing his own apple trees and make, and he and his wife, Abigail, making their own cider.

DOERING: And he wasn't using slave labor like Jefferson was.

KUMAR: Yeah, I mean that was the inspiring part. He was, you know, the only one of that group that wasn't using slaves. So, so it felt good to tell people some of these stories about how dedicated he was to having a gill of cider every morning. He thought it was a health-giving habit, and he was right. It was his dream that his grandchildren would one day eat an apple from an apple tree planted by his own hand. And for me, that's profoundly moving. It's the ultimate act of generosity to plant these trees and, and care for them and just trust that this is going to be your legacy. I know this was my dad's legacy to me, and so I feel like I want to have that be my legacy, not just for my own children, but for a cohort of children.

DOERING: Priyanka Kumar is the author of The Light Between Apple Trees: Rediscovering the Wild Through a Beloved American Fruit. Thank you so much, Priyanka.

KUMAR: It's my pleasure. Thank you, Jenni.

Related links:
- Find a copy of The Light Between Apple Trees (Affiliate link helps donate to LOE and local independent bookstores)
- Learn more about Priyanka Kumar

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[MUSIC: Martin Klem, “Coyote Sundance” on Coyote Sundance, Epidemic Sound]

DOERING: Next time on Living on Earth, a California highway threatened by erosion and sea level rise gets a new life as a public park.

LIPTON: Sunset Dunes is a 50-acre park at the edge of San Francisco along the Pacific coast. It used to be a four-lane highway and has been converted into a recreational space for people to walk and bike and sit by the ocean, have a bite to eat and just enjoy our Pacific coast.

DOERING: Tune in next week to hear that and more on Living on Earth.

[MUSIC: Martin Klem, “Coyote Sundance” on Coyote Sundance, Epidemic Sound]

CURWOOD: Living on Earth is produced by the World Media Foundation. Our crew includes Naomi Arenberg, Paloma Beltran, Sophie Bokor, Daniela Fariah, Swayam Gagneja, Mark Kausch, Mark Seth Lender, Don Lyman, Ashanti Mclean, Nana Mohammed, Aynsley O’Neill, Sophia Pandelidis, Jade Poli, Jake Rego, Andrew Skerritt, Bella Smith, Melba Torres, and El Wilson.

DOERING: Tom Tiger engineered our show. Alison Lirish Dean composed our themes. You can hear us anytime at L-O-E dot org, Apple Podcasts and YouTube Music, and like us please, on our Facebook page, Living on Earth. Find us on Instagram @livingonearthradio, and we always welcome your feedback at comments@loe.org. I’m Jenni Doering.

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