Melting glaciers, crumbling mountains, and Alaska's climate crisis

Across Southeast Alaska, landslides have killed at least a dozen people since August 2015. Landslides happen across the U.S., but geologists say they’re inescapable in Southeast Alaska. In the latest installment of our climate series Reverse Course, Here & Now’s Chris Bentley reports on the role of climate change in landslide risk, and what can be done to mitigate it.

Then, Here & Now’s Peter O’Dowd heads to Juneau right after a glacial lake dumped its annual flood down the Mendenhall River. He talks with people whose homes have been flooded, as well as Eran Hood, an environmental scientist who has studied the glacier for 15 years. The annual floods started off small, but, as the glacier melts more rapidly each year, have become more destructive. Peter learns more about proposals to find a “lasting solution.”

And, Alaska’s shellfish industry is growing, but not without risk. It’s almost impossible to prevent or predict poisonous algal blooms that make clams, oysters, cockles and other shellfish dangerous or deadly to eat. Chris talks with farmers, researchers and residents about how climate change may be raising the threat, and what’s being done to help.

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