In Australia, conventional conservation wisdom has stated that in order to save the small indiginous mammals, it's necessary to kill invasive predators. But is it? Today on the show, we follow environmental writer Emma Marris as she explores the concept, and possible limits, of compassionate conservationism.
The Sununus are one of New Hampshire's grandest families. John H. Sununu was governor and White House Chief of Staff. One of his sons John E. Sununu was a U.S. congressman and senator, and another Chris Sununu is governor today. In their roles of political power, all of these men have faced a different landscape with regards to climate change, and what it means to be a Republican. Today, we track the party's evolution on the subject, through the frame of this one family.
Read MoreFor a long time, the elusive night parrot of the Australian outback was believed to be extinct. Then, an experienced birder with a reputation for dubious finds offered up foolproof evidence that the bird is still alive: photographs, feathers, and birdsong that he promises is the real deal. This week on the podcast, we're featuring our Australian podcast pal Ann Jones, host of ABC's Off-Track, as she heads out into the bush to try and capture sound from a bird few have ever heard.
Read MoreIn our series 10X10, we examine places that might not seem all that interesting... places like your typical frozen pond. Sure, on the surface it's a wind-swept desert of crunchy snow and frigid temperatures, but drill a few inches down though, and you'll discover a world turned upside-down. In this episode, we give the down low on bizarre properties of water, fish that thrive in a capped-off environment, and long beards of algae clinging to the underside of a secret ecosystem few have ever explored.
Read MoreOutdoorsy types are the among the biggest ambassadors of Leave No Trace, a set of principles and best practices for sharing and conserving wilderness areas. But while most people agree on the broad strokes - DON'T SCREW UP NATURE! - sorting out the details can be an emotional and argumentative affair... especially when it comes to rocks.
Episode photo courtesy of Paul St. Cyr.
The 40-hour workweek is as American as apple pie, and it’s been around almost just as long. So, is it finally time to re-think our Monday-through-Friday lifestyle? Producer Jimmy Gutierrez looks into the history of work culture, where it’s being challenged, and makes the argument that we ALL should be working less, you know, to save the planet.
Here's a humdinger of a thought experiment: How fast could people go before the combustion engine and other technologies drastically increased the speed of the human race? And how did they pull it off? Skis? Sled-dogs? Catapults? From ancient horseriders and viking ships to primitive luges and "Russian Mountains", the Outside/In team researches all sorts of old-fashioned methods of locomotion and presents biggest the speed trial of the millenium.
Read MorePirate trails are everywhere: the pioneers of mountain biking built them on private land, public land and everything in between. They were built by riders just looking for a place to take their new bikes, and in the process they simply appropriated land that they wanted for their trails.
But what happens when the evolution of a sport threatens the very thing that made it so attractive in the first place?
Everyone's heard of Vikings - their daring North Atlantic voyages, their mysterious runes. But there's another ancient culture in Arctic Scandinavia that's much older, and just as fascinating - the Sámi. While the Vikings have been celebrated, Sámi music, language and traditions were forced underground. Why?
Read MoreThere's only one place in the world that you can find the axolotl—the Mexican salamander—in the wild. This creature is the living embodiment of Xolotl, the Aztec god of heavenly fire, of lightning and the underworld, and the renegade twin brother of Quetzalcoatl. But the wild axolotl’s fate might be bound to the Aztecs by more than myth: its life in 21st century could rely on the last surviving fragments of a landscape both very old and very human.
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