The lust that once lured prospectors to California is today drawing countless thousands to remote tropical rainforests on a quest for gold. It’s a valuable source of income in developing nations. But Smithsonian scientist William Laurance says the thirst for gold and other metals is fueled by both illegal and legal trade that carries heavy social, environmental and public health costs.
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About half of the year, actor and comedian Harry Shearer lives in the French Quarter of New Orleans. He’s been watching Gustav’s wrath from afar, via satellite feeds from his other home in Southern California.
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Read Senior Editor Femi Oke's notes on the series below.

It's been three years since Hurricane Katrina tore through the Gulf Coast and changed the lives hundreds of thousands of Americans. This week, The Takeaway is talking to some of those people and looking back at the events that followed the storm.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, then FEMA director Michael Brown took a beating for his lack of formal emergency management experience. It’s been three years since Brown stepped down as FEMA’s director. But in one way at least, he’s picked up where he left off: Brown now owns a crisis management firm. We check in with Michael Brown about life after Katrina, lessons learned, and how he thinks about that tragic moment now that he has the clarity that often comes with the passing of time.
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With energy prices soaring, the economy slumping and global warming fears taking center stage, there is no end of innovative responses to this new world order. But today, hybrid cars, compact fluorescent lights and low-flow shower heads seem old school compared to the latest energy saving trend: the four-day work week.
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Guest: Blair Heusdens, spokeswoman with the Florida Division of Emergency Management
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Five years ago today, a power outage blanketed states in the Northeast, Midwest and parts of Canada. Leaving 50 million in the dark, it was the largest blackout in North American history. The outage highlighted the fragility of our electricity system. And with energy demands rising, and economy in a slump and global warming fears taking center stage, "smart grid" technologies could provide solutions.
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Guest: Karla Raettig, Legislative Representative for Wildlife Conservation at the National Wildlife Federation, and Kaush Arha, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
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There’s an oil boom in North Dakota, and the wealth under ground is creating millionaires.
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Jason Burnett, a former Environmental Protection Agency official, told the Senate's Environment and Public Works committee that the White House pressured the EPA in 2007 to deny climate regulation that would have required a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from cars in California. Burnett's testimony contradicts earlier statements from EPA chief Stephen Johnson, who said the denial was solely his decision.
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The solution to high gas prices may not be offshore drilling. For a remote community in South Dakota, the future is not farming, it's oil. Plans are underway to make Union County, S.D., home to the nation’s first new oil refinery in 30 years. The company behind the project bills the refinery as a "green energy center" and many local politicians support the plans, but it's a sore point for residents closest to the site.
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Hundreds of beekeepers, researchers and vendors are gathering in Huntington, W. Va., today for the Heartland Apiculture Society’s 7th annual bee conference. The buzz this year is the honeybee crisis. Since 2006, they have been disappearing en masse and the cause for the collapse remains unknown.
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Guest: James Reynolds, BBC correspondent in Beijing, China
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Guest: Michael Hiskey, chemical engineer and co-owner of DMD Systems
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Guest: Damien Cave, The New York Times
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Saudi Arabia wants to call a meeting between oil-producing and oil-consuming countries to discuss record high prices. President Bush has called for the United States to be less dependent on hydrocarbons. The Takeaway speaks with Lisa Margonelli to discuss the persistent high price of energy and its social and cultural effects.
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Join the discussion by clicking "get in the mix", by emailing mytake@thetakeaway.org, or by calling our SpinVox line at 1-877-8-MY-TAKE.

NASA

20% of the world's fresh water is in the 5 Great Lakes of North America. The lakes are what's left over from a giant glacial melt at the end of the last ice age 20 or 30 thousand years ago...which is why the water isn't salty. It's a lucky break for North America and an enticing solution to water problems outside the Midwest.
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R&C Buchanan - http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/

"During the 4.5 billion years that this planet has been in existence, 99 percent of the species that have ever lived are now extinct. To think that humans are not in the crosshairs of extinction would be naïve. And to think that humans cannot overcome this challenge is equally naïve."

Almost 40,000 acres of the Everglades National Park are on fire.
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State media estimates nearly twenty thousand people have died in the 7.9 earthquake, and tens of thousands are still buried under rubble. Fifty thousand troops are conducting searches for survivors and delivering aid, but bad weather is making a hard job harder with rain storms triggering landslides, blocking roads. The country's prime minister is personally overseeing the operation.
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The world is looking like it’s about to end at any moment, there’s no zeitgeist that seems to suggest anyone is that worried. What’s the deal with that?

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More than 12,000 are dead in the Sichuan province alone in the 7.9 earthquake that struck southwestern China yesterday. In Mianzhu, not far from the center of the quake officials believe over 18,000 people are buried in one city.
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The earthquake that struck China’s central region yesterday is the deadliest the country has seen since 1976. We talk with Roger Bilham, professor of geological sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder, about how both natural and man-made factors created such devastation.
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