A show where curiosity and the natural world collide
The passenger pigeon is one of the world’s most symbolic extinction stories. It’s a cautionary tale of how in just a few short generations, one of the wonders of the world could be completely eradicated.
But when that narrative was questioned in a popular book, 1491 by Charles Mann, what does the response tell us about the conservation movement as a whole?
The winner of our “Battle of Tiny Proportions” is revealed! Plus, one of our favorite episodes about the pace of technology: The Forest for the Treesap.
Mysteries are brewing in the sugar shack. Changes are coming to New England’s sugar bushes. And the very identity of a product that we’ve been crafting in basically the same way for centuries could be on the verge of a radical shift. But a shift towards what?
Read MoreIn New England, the Waterman name is like mountain royalty. But beyond a tight circle of outdoors-people, they're not a household name. Today, we tell the story of one of the most influential voices in American wilderness philosophy, Laura Waterman, and how she has changed following the death of her husband.
Read MoreA government bureaucrat builds a website that saves a billion gallons in gas. The minuscule Irish invention that enables the industrial revolution. An innovation for doctor’s gloves kicks off women’s liberation. An ill wind leads to America being stuck with the gallon forever.
On this episode, we present a series of small “nudges” (but not actual nudges) that have had profound impacts for the environment… or maybe not the environment, maybe just generally.
Depending on who you ask, astrology is a science, an art, a form of therapy… or, a pseudo-science, fortune-telling, a scam. But astrology is way more than a horoscope, and now, it’s all over your internet.
Read MoreFrom the ancient charcoal animals of France's Chauvet Cave, to 17th century Dutch windmill paintings, art history can tell us a lot about our evolving view of the natural world. In this episode, producer Taylor Quimby (a self-described art-world neophyte) searches for individual works and genres through history that reveal something interesting about human society and the outdoors.
Read MoreAs extreme weather wreaks havoc around the globe NPR's Throughline looks at a natural disaster more than 200 hundred years ago that had far-reaching effects. This week, how the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Laki awed, terrified and disrupted millions around the world and changed the course of history.
Read MoreBefore Hurricane Maria hit in September of 2017, Puerto Rico's rickety electric grid was a notorious headache. After the storm, it was a crisis.
This is the story of how a pair of star-crossed lovers came to see nuclear as the unlikely solution to Puerto Rico's energy woes, and how their vision for the island might be changing the way we approach power... even if their plan never comes to pass.
Read MorePeople love fishing for trout. They love it so much that we are willing to go to insane lengths to catch them. But what should we make of the fact that much of that experience of fishing for trout is just a facsimile of what it once was… and may actually be BAD for the very same fish, that we so love to catch?
Read MoreWhen most of us heard about the "insect apocalypse" we were worried. When producer Jimmy Gutierrez heard it, he thought "this is great."
Today he takes a journey in which he tries to learn to appreciate our many-legged companions.