Tristan is 21. He is a high school student looking forward to graduating in the spring. His mom, Trisha, has spent 21 years caring, advocating, driving, and scheduling.

In this episode, I sit down with each of them to ask the questions I’d never asked out loud. What we find says a lot about Cerebral Palsy, and what it’s like to live it every day.

Hosted by Benjamin Murphy. Produced for Murphy's Field Notes.

Every fall, billions of birds migrate south in the dark, steering by the stars and the earth's magnetic field. Then they meet our cities. In this solo episode, we look at how artificial light pulls migrating birds off course, drains their energy, and sends them into glass, and why it's one of the more fixable environmental problems out there. From Chicago's Lights Out program to the Tribute in Light, we look at what's already working, plus simple steps you can take this week to give migrating birds a clearer path.

In this episode:

• How birds navigate at night
• What artificial light does to them
• Cities and landmarks that are making a difference
• What you can do at home and in your building

More information and other stories can be found at Murphy's Field Notes

Follow along on Social Media

Instagram

Threads

X

Bluesky

Substack

New York Climate Week brought a thousand events, a hundred thousand people, and no shortage of big promises. This episode cuts through the noise with the numbers that actually matter: how close the world really is to tripling renewable energy by 2030, the staggering gap in climate finance nobody wants to say out loud, and why satellite data keeps catching methane leaks even as more countries pledge to stop them. A clear-eyed look at what got decided — and what didn't — heading into COP31 in Antalya this fall.

Every year, heat kills more Americans than hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes combined — and the people most at risk aren't who you'd expect.

In this episode, we go inside the housing gap nobody's talking about: manufactured homes and mobile home communities, where thin walls, aging cooling systems, and outdated federal standards are colliding with a climate that's stopped cooperating. We break down why these homes trap heat worse than standard construction, why the policy fixes have been stuck in neutral for years, and why this quiet crisis is a preview of a much bigger pattern in climate adaptation.

No guests, no filler — just the story, straight through, in about 7 minutes.

The planet had a rough week. A landmark UN report confirms the 1.5°C climate target is essentially gone — so what happens now? Meanwhile, historic wildfires are burning across Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, a haze crisis from Indonesia's fires is affecting five countries, and the world's coral reefs are facing their most severe bleaching event on record. We break down what's driving each story and why it matters

The UN just said what climate scientists have been dreading: there's no realistic path left to keep global warming under 1.5°C. In this episode, we break down UNEP's landmark Limiting Overshoot report — what it actually says, why the carbon math doesn't add up anymore, what "tipping points" really mean, and why crossing this line doesn't mean the fight is over. If you've heard the headline but not the full story, start here.

During this episode I was joined by Flora Finchley, an author from Saint Ignace. We discussed the possibility of how climate based fiction can help to save the real world.

The trailer for things to come every Friday I will be covering environmental issues, climate change, or conservation from Northern Michigan.