Hurricane Ian left an indelible mark on southwest Florida, especially our barrier islands, when it made landfall on Sept. 28, 2022 as a powerful category 4 storm with 150+-mile an hour winds and storm surge levels we hadn’t seen in this part of Florida for decades. Our guest has lived on Sanibel Island for nearly 40 years, and he writes about this area’s flora and fauna so has a keen sense of the natural world around us, particularly on the barrier islands. Charles Sobczak has published ten books, including “The Living Gulf Coast: A Nature Guide to Southwest Florida” and “Living Sanibel: A Nature Guide to Sanibel & Captiva Islands” — and he gives lectures on topics like “The Changing Face of Nature” and “The Great Florida Invasion – From Pepper to Pythons” and his newest one, which reflects on Hurricane Ian, is called “Surviving the Storms: Hurricanes, Humans & Wildlife.”

When OpenAI launched ChatGPT on Nov. 30, 2022 and made it accessible to the public for free, a new season of AI began around the world. But, what it all means for individuals, our communities, our countries, and the world remains to be seen. There will undoubtedly be benefits in many fields, but there is also great concern that such power could bring problems that we may not even be able to imagine yet, including job and industry disruptions. We get some context from Dr. Chrissann Ruehle, She is an Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Researcher, and Strategist, and she is a Management Instructor in Florida Gulf Coast University’s Lutgert College of Business, and she is Provost Faculty Fellow for AI at FGCU.

Bertha Vasquez spent most of her career in the classroom teaching science to middle schoolers in Miami-Dade County. She’s a passionate advocate for the scientific method and the many ways it’s made life better for humanity. And she’s a strong believer in skepticism when it comes to understanding the world around us, especially when extraordinary claims are made — like we see more and more these days thanks to the power of social media and the internet. Since retiring last year, Ms. Vasquez has taken on the role of Director of Education at the The Center for Inquiry, and Director of its Teacher Institute for Evolutionary Science. The CFI’s roots go back to the 1970s when Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, and other critical thinkers began seeing the need to mitigate growing belief in pseudoscience and paranormal claims using rational means and methods.

The Philadelphia A’s were the first Major League Baseball team to spring train in Fort Myers, beginning in 1925. Over the decades were followed by teams from Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Kansas City. The Minnesota Twins arrived in 1991, and the Boston Red Sox moved their spring training operations here two years later in 1993. We dig into the City of Palm’s rich baseball history with two men who just love digging into rich baseball history. They’ll be two of the presenters at the upcoming fundraiser for the Southwest Florida Historical Society called “What it was, was baseball. An evening of Fort Myers history as told through the prism of diamonds…baseball diamonds.”

Last year was the hottest year in recorded history, both in terms of air temperatures and ocean temperatures. And it was the eighth record-breaking year in a row. And while climate scientists have been telling us for decades that as temperatures increase we’re going to see disruptions in our weather patterns — someday in 'the future' — it’s starting to feel like that future is already upon us. We’re previewing the 2024 Southwest Florida Climate Summit, hosted by the Coastal & Heartland National Estuary Partnership, which gathers experts to present the latest climate science pertaining to our region, and methods for building resiliency in our communities. It’s Wed. and Thurs., Feb. 28 and 29 at the Charlotte Harbor Event & Conference Center in Punta Gorda. The summit is free and open to anyone but pre-registration is required.

On Feb. 14, 2018 — six years ago today — a former student at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida walked into the school and opened fire on students and staff, killing 17 people and injuring 17 others. It was then, and remains today, the deadliest mass shooting at a high school in U.S. history. To mark the anniversary of that horrific day we're airing a one-hour special from Connecticut Public Radio called ‘Life after Parkland: A victim’s dad turns art to activism.’

We sit down with Barbara Peterson, from the Florida Center for Government Accountability to talk about the crucial role of investigative journalism in keeping government accountable, and how exactly to do your own public records request here in Florida.

Gospel’s story begins with The Great Migration, when millions of African Americans from the rural Southern United States moved to urban areas in the North, Midwest, and West beginning in the early 20th century. But as this new style arrived on the scene, it wasn’t immediately accepted, because until this new fusion of music and message came along, most preachers and church leaders believed you didn’t SING gospel — you PREACHED it. We learn a bit about Gospel’s story from Stacey L. Holman, Series Producer and Director of the new 4-part series on PBS called Gospel.

A day-long event, created by and for LGBTQ youth, is coming up Saturday. Students in grades 6 through 12, from anywhere, are invited to attend. The event will include a concert, food, and activities, and is entirely free.

We listen back to last week’s forum with City of Naples Mayoral candidates ahead of the March 19 election. The forum included all three candidates: incumbent Mayor Teresa Heitmann, current Naples City Councilman Ted Blankenship, and former councilman Gary Price. The forum was moderated by WGCU’s John Davis and Naples Daily News Executive Editor Wendy Fullerton Powell, and organized by the League of Women Voters of Collier County and the Collier Forum Coalition.