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WPBS Presents Special Earth Day Programming in April 2023

WATERTOWN, NY (March 30, 2022) – Since 1970, Earth Day – April 22nd – has been an opportunity to reflect on and renew our collective commitment to a healthy planet. Building on more than 200 hours of climate and environmental content currently available across its various platforms, PBS and its member stations will focus on the challenges of a changing climate while highlighting examples of positive impact during Earth Month in April 2023. WPBS is pleased to present special programming all month long, including:

Tuesday, April 4th
American Experience: The Sun Queen (9:00 pm) For nearly 50 years, chemical engineer and inventor Mária Telkes applied her prodigious intellect to harnessing the sun’s power. She designed and built the world’s first successfully solar-heated home in 1948. Along the way she was undercut and thwarted by her male colleagues at MIT.

Wednesday, April 5th
NOVA: Arctic Sinkholes (9:00 pm)
Scientists investigate colossal explosions in Siberia and other evidence that rapidly melting soil in the Arctic is releasing vast amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

Wednesday, April 12th
NOVA: Weathering the Future (9:00 pm)
It’s hard not to notice: our weather is changing. From longer, hotter heat waves, to more intense rainstorms, to megafires and multiyear droughts, the U.S. is experiencing the full range of impacts from a changing global climate. At the same time, many on the front lines of these destabilizing weather trends are fighting back — innovating solutions, marshaling ancient wisdom and developing visionary ideas. The lessons they’re learning today can help all of us adapt in the years ahead as the planet gets warmer and our weather more extreme.

Earthshot Prize 2022 (10:00 pm) Celebrate the annual ceremony of Prince William’s prestigious environmental award: The Earthshot Prize. The star-studded event honors this year’s five winners and their innovative solutions to help repair our planet.

Wednesday, April 19th
Changing Planet (9:00 pm)
This urgent and important series charts six key wildlife habitats adapting to the challenges of our climate crisis over the next seven years. Global conservationist M. Sanjayan starts in California as it suffers the longest dry period in a thousand years.

Sunday, April 23rd
Beneath the Polar Sun (12 noon)
In the Arctic’s Last Ice Area, 500 nautical miles from the North Pole, a scientific team is on a rare mission to measure the world’s oldest ice floes. Tiny specks in a vast ocean wilderness, they are alone. And they’re in trouble. The science is scuttled: bearing witness to Earth’s most pressing existential threat, what matters now is survival. They must escape the chaos by traversing a narrow channel between Canada and Greenland – the most formidable passage of the polar North.

River’s End: California’s Latest Water War (1:00 pm) Get an inside look at California’s complex struggle over who gets fresh water, and discover how big money and special interests take what they want and ordinary residents are left high and dry. It’s a story that heralds an impending crisis—not just in California, but around the world.

Carbon Farming: A Climate Solution Under Our Feet (3:00 pm) Carbon farming, also called regenerative agriculture, is a revolutionary method that traps carbon from the air into the ground to produce nutritious food. Instead of tilling and using agrochemicals, farmers let the natural ecosystem do the work. Featuring pioneers of this method, including Gabe Brown in the U.S. and Yoshida Toshimichi in Japan, viewers will gain insight on the possibilities of carbon farming and its potential benefits to the environment.

One Carbon Footprint at a Time (4:00 pm) As discussions of the impact of climate change intensify around the world, many Americans are wondering if changes they make in their everyday lives can make a difference. The short answer is that they can. As seen through the lens of a diverse range of university and middle school students enthusiastically engaged in a wide range of climate change activities as part of the curriculum at their schools, everyday actions play a critical and potentially inspirational role in impacting climate change.

Wednesday, April 26th
NOVA: Chasing Carbon Zero (9:00 pm)
Can the U.S. reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and avoid the biggest impacts of climate change? Experts say it can be done. Here’s the technology that could get us there.

Special Event:
In addition to special programming in April, WPBS will be attending Earth Day at the Zoo at Thompson Park on April 22, 2023 from 10:00 am – 3:00 pm and handing out Wild Kratts activities with PBS KIDS character Nature Cat. Find more information at www.wpbstv.org/events.

About WPBS
WPBS is a PBS station serving approximately 650,000 households throughout Northern New York and Eastern Ontario via cable, satellite, Internet and over-the-air distribution. WPBS is a non-profit organization whose mission is to educate, inform, and engage its two-nation region with exceptional and trusted content across multiple platforms. Its vision is to be the premier provider of extraordinary public media that instills wonder and curiosity across generations and borders. More information about WPBS, including a full channel listing, is available at wpbstv.org, or by following WPBS on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.