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Bees are disappearing from their hives in mass numbers, and there’s no clear explanation of why. Many believe that bees are a barometer of the health of the planet, and colony collapse disorder is raising questions about pesticides, genetically modified crops, monocultures, and mechanization of beekeeping. Taggart Siegel, director, and Jon Betz, producer, of the documentary “Queen of the Sun” tell us why honeybees are important to human life and agriculture, and the factors that are most likely leading to colony collapse and honeybee death on a grand scale in the United States and in Europe. In addition, they explain how some devoted beekeepers are trying to save them. “Queen of the Sun” opens at Cinema Village June 10.

Susan Freinkel describes why the plethora of plastics has created a major problem—we’ve produced as much plastic in the last 10 years as we did in the entire 20th century, and plastics draw on dwindling fossil fuels, leach harmful chemicals, litter landscapes, and destroy marine life. In Plastic: A Toxic Love Story, Freinkel tells the story of plastic through eight familiar objects: comb, chair, Frisbee, IV bag, disposable lighter, grocery bag, soda bottle, and credit card. She combs through scientific studies and economic data, reporting from China and across the United States to assess the real impact of plastic on our lives, and how we can learn to live without it.

Over the past few decades, an incredible amount of time and money has been spent trying to remove populations of "non-native" plants. But according to a panel of ecologists, climate change, urbanization and other changes in land use have largely invalidated the theory that foreign plants are inherently harmful to their newly adopted ecosystems.

Environmental and consumer advocate Erin Brockovich talks about her debut novel, Rock Bottom, the first in a series of thrillers. It tells the story of Angela Joy Palladino, who became pregnant at 17 and fled her hometown in West Virginia as a pariah. Years later, she takes a job with a lawyer crusading against mountaintop removal mining, and has to return to that town.

Tuesday a bill was blocked by the Senate that would have repealed about two billion dollars in tax breaks currently enjoyed by the five biggest oil companies. The majority actually voted in favor of the bill, 52-48, but because it was a procedural vote (a vote on whether to vote on the measure), it required a 60-member majority to proceed.

The voting split along predictable party lines for the most part, though three Democrats — Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu, Alaska’s Mark Begich, and Nebraska’s Ben Nelson — voted against it.  Two Republicans voted for the measure: Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both from Maine.

Mike Berners-Lee, founding director of Small World Consulting and the author of How Bad Are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint of Everything, says to forget everything you think know about carbon footprints.  He even says there are times when driving beats out bike-riding.

Lester Brown, President of The Earth Policy Institute, discusses the emerging geopolitics of food scarcity. His latest article in Foreign Policy looks at the role food scarcity has in driving political upheaval in the Middle East and threatening stability in other developing regions. Falling water tables, eroding soils, and rising temperatures threaten food supplies, and Brown will discuss the political implications.

Stephen Power, Wall Street Journal reporter covering environment and regulations, briefly discusses subsidies for oil companies in the United States. 

Tim Flannery, scientist, explorer, conservationist, and co-founder and Chair of the Copenhagen Climate Council, discusses the Earth’s evolution—from a galactic cloud of dust and gas to a planet teeming with life. Here on Earth: A Natural History of the Planet describes how the Earth’s crust and atmosphere formed, how its oceans transformed from toxic brews of metals to life-sustaining bodies of water covering 70 percent of the planet’s surface, and how our own species evolved.

Bushwick has some of the lowest recycling rates in the city. Residents are hoping to change that with education and theater.

Climate change is having dramatic effects on the world’s oceans as ice sheets collapse and the sea becomes more acidic. Warmer temperatures allow some deep sea predators, like King Crab, to expand their range into new areas—to the detriment of many other sea creatures. According to James McClintock, a Professor of Physiology & Ecology of Aquatic & Marine Invertebrates at the University of Alabama, an army of deep sea King Crabs are slowly working their way up the Antarctic slope, a habitat they have never been found in before, and are potentially decimating the extremely delicate marine ecosystem.

The Tigris River is one of the most important bodies of water in the Middle East, but years of extensive toxic dumping and gravel mining have severely compromised its ecosystem. We’ll speak with Humbolt Baykeeper Executive Director Pete Nichols and Nature Iraq founder Dr. Azzam Alwash about efforts to clean up the river and the newly founded group, Upper Tigris Waterkeeper.

More than 1.5 million acres have burned in what officials are calling the worst wildfires that Texas has ever seen. The Texas Fire Service reported yesterday that there had been some progress in fighting The Wildcat Fire, north of San Angelo, The Cooper Mountain Ranch Fire, east of Lubbock and the The Rockhouse fire, south east of El Paso. Some strides were also made at Possum Kingdom Lake, west of Ft. Worth. But two fire fighters have died in the fight to control the blazes, and federal teams have been called into help.

It's been a year since the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill and many questions remain about the long-term impact that the disaster will have not just on public policy, but on the fragile ecosystems of the Gulf Coast. To mark the one year anniversary of the disaster, two of our regular contributors reflect on what the future looks like one year later. Lisa Margonelli is the Director of the Energy Policy Initiative at the New America Foundation and David Biello is an editor at Scientific American.

Environmental and consumer advocate Erin Brokovich talks about her debut novel, Rock Bottom, the first in a series of thrillers. It tells the story of Angela Joy Palladino, who became pregnant at 17 and fled her hometown in West Virginia as a pariah. Years later, she takes a job with a lawyer crusading against mountaintop removal mining, and has to return to that town. She winds up facing the betrayal of those once closest to her and confront the harrowing past she thought she had left behind.

Philip Connors talks about leaving his job as an editor at the Wall Street Journal to take a job as one of the last fire lookouts in America, spending nearly half the year in a 7' x 7' tower, 10,000 feet above sea level in remote New Mexico. Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout is about his job to keep watch over one of the most fire-prone forests in the country and sound the alarm at the first sign of smoke. It’s also a reflection on work, the power of nature, our place in the wild, and the charms of solitude.

Anna Cummins, a marine conservationist who has studied the impact of plastic refuse on marine life and coastal communities, and Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, a specialist in gorilla conservation and public health, talk about their work in their fields and about women in science. They’re all being honored with Wings WorldQuest Women of Discovery Awards.

Bryan Walsh, environment and energy reporter for Time and the man behind the Ecocentric blog, to discuss recent natural gas news, from a report about its true carbon impact, T. Boone Pickens investing heavily, and fracking concerns.

Every day between April and August, Philip Connors climbs a 55-foot tower and settles into a 7-by-7 foot enclosed platform for the next eight hours. The tower is in the Gila National Forest of New Mexico, and his duty while there, is to look out for fires. But while Gila receives more than thirty thousand lightening strikes per year, Connors’s job is actually closer to Walden Pond than reality TV. Alone with nature, and his thoughts, he enjoys solitude, freedom and independence — independence which surely helped him complete a new book called “Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout.”

Katherine Leiner talks about the new food revolution and new generation of taking up sustainable farming and focusing on healthy, natural food. She’s joined by Jen Small and Mike Yezzi, who raise heritage pigs at Flying Pigs Farm. In Growing Roots: The New Generation of Sustainable Farmers, Cooks, and Food Activists, she profles farmers, beekeepers, fishermen, chefs, food activists, and cheesemongers.