What On Earth

About What On Earth

About the show

How to Hear Us

Podcast
Anytime on CBC Listen, Apple Podcasts, Google Play or wherever you get your podcasts

CBC Radio One

Sundays at 11 a.m. (11:30 a.m. NT), Wednesdays at 2 p.m. (2:30 p.m. NT)

Sirius XM
Sundays at 11 a.m., Mondays at 7 a.m., Wednesdays at 2 p.m. (All times ET)

About the Show 

The climate is changing. So are we. Explore a world of solutions with host Laura Lynch and our team of journalists. We find inspiration in unexpected places, scrutinize new technologies, hold powerful people accountable and join you on the journey to fix this mess. 

About the Team

Laura Lynch, Host

A photo of a woman with short blonde hair.

Laura Lynch is best known for her award-winning work as a globe-trotting foreign correspondent and her political prowess from decades spent covering different governments, both in Canada and abroad. 

Laura has also covered environmental issues around the globe, including stories of the destruction of a way of life in river delta towns in Pakistan, the increasing presence of baboons in and around Cape Town as they search for food out of their regular habitat, and a Danish island that's become a model for carbon-free sustainable living.

As the environment reporter for CBC News in Vancouver early in her career, her reporting led to the resignation of a B.C. cabinet minister over an undisclosed conflict of interest regarding a crucial decision cut timber in an area opposed by Indigenous people.

In the 1990s, Laura served as a national reporter with CBC's parliamentary bureau in Ottawa. She was also based in Washington, D.C., when the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks happened and covered the aftermath.

While posted in London as CBC's Europe correspondent, she reported on the 2004 Madrid train bombings and the 2007 assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto. That same year, Laura went undercover to report on the Zimbabwe election when Western journalists were barred from entering the country. 

Catherine Rolfsen, Senior Producer

A photo of a woman with medium-length blonde hair, wearing an orange-brown turtleneck sweater.

Catherine is an award-winning reporter and producer who is fascinated by the interplay between communities, development, climate and the environment. A graduate of UBC's Master of Journalism program, Catherine started out as a reporter at the Vancouver Sun. While there, she received a fellowship to report on conflicts between industry and Indigenous peoples in Peru and Honduras.

At CBC, Catherine has worked as a newsreader, story producer and producer of On the Coast and The Early Edition. She has led or been a key contributor to many award-winning projects, including The Early Edition's COVID coverage, a televised town hall on B.C.'s vaccine roll out, a project documenting Syrian refugees' arrival in Canada, a provincial radio special on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, and Killers: J pod on the brink, a podcast exploring environmental threats to orcas.

Catherine also co-created and is the co-coordinator of the Mentorship Project, which matches temporary employees with mentors to provide career development and a sense of belonging at CBC. 

She has led or been a key contributor to many award-winning projects, including The Early Edition's COVID-19 coverage, a televised town hall on B.C.'s vaccine roll out, a project documenting Syrian refugees' arrival in Canada, a provincial radio special on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Killers: J pod on the brink, a podcast exploring environmental threats to orcas, and Land Back, a podcast about Indigenous land reclamation in Canada.

When she's not at work, Catherine can be found trail running with her dog or exploring the West Coast with her family in their little tin boat.

Molly Segal, Producer

A photo of a woman with shoulder-length dark hair, wearing a blue blouse and standing outside.

Always ready for a reporting adventure, Molly's toolkit includes bear spray and binoculars along with mics and a recorder. Her audio work focuses on the environment and science, taking her up in helicopters over remote mountain tops, to the side of scree slopes looking for fossils, or riding along with scientists capturing grizzlies.

She was host and producer of a podcast about a celebrity grizzly, Bear 148, and her documentaries have aired internationally and across Canada on CBC Radio programs, including Quirks & Quarks, Ideas, Tapestry and The Current.

Molly was a 2019/2020 Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT in Cambridge, Mass., where she researched how people relate to large, toothy animals, and studied at Harvard and MIT, including the history of scientific misinformation and climate change technologies. In 2018, Molly was Science Communicator in Residence at York University in Toronto. She has given talks on field reporting at universities in Canada, the U.S. and Germany.

Rachel Sanders, Associate Producer

A photo of a woman with short brown hair, wearing glasses and a red scarf, standing in front of greenery.

Rachel Sanders has been an audio storyteller for more than two decades, reporting on Canadian arts and culture, education, health, the environment and the changing world of work. 

She seeks to tell stories with heart, humour and impact and is never happier than when she hits upon the magical combination of all three. Her work has won and been nominated for a number of awards, including the Canadian Journalism Foundation's Landsberg Award for reporting on women's equality issues in Canada. 

Rachel's longstanding interest in environmental issues has grown even stronger in recent years as she has watched her two children become aware of the realities of climate change.

Vivian Luk, Producer

A headshot of a woman with dark hair and earrings, holding a cup and straw.

Vivian Luk (she/her) has been a journalist for over a decade. After reporting stints at The Canadian Press and other newsrooms, she landed at CBC Vancouver as an audio producer, and has since contributed to award-winning programs including The Early Edition and On The Coast.

Vivian was part of the team that produced the 2018 podcast Sanctioned: The Arrest of a Telecom Giant, which won a Jack Webster award for Excellence in Legal Journalism and an RTDNA for Excellence in Social Media. She was also a key contributor to the award-winning televised townhall Unmasking Racism: What are we going to do about it? in 2020, when the death of George Floyd and the surge in anti-Asian racism prompted more scrutiny of race-based violence and white supremacy in Canada. Vivian is also the co-host and producer of two CBC Radio specials, 100 Years Later: The Dark Side of Gold Mountain and Model Minority, both of which explore the legacy of anti-Asian racism in Canada. 

Now on the climate beat, Vivian is always on the lookout for environmental justice stories that reflect the lived experiences of diasporic communities.