Cat of the Clouds

November 25, 2020 by Taylor Quimby

Marty, Maine coon cat, 12-year resident of the Mount Washington Observatory, and the highest-altitude feline in the Northeastern United states, died after a sudden illness on November 9th, 2020.

The Forest for the Carbon

November 19, 2020 by Guest User

A carbon offset is a simple premise: if you take a cross-country flight and are responsible for a half ton of carbon emissions, spend a few dollars to fund the growth of a half ton worth of carbon in the form of a forest. A fossil fuel company can do the same: buy offsets to write off emissions and call it green. But is this just another form of greenwashing? Do carbon offsets bring us closer to carbon-neutrality?

Featuring Kaarsten Turner Dalby, Heather Furman, Charlie Stabolepszy, Barbara Haya, Jim Shallow, and Adeniyi Asiyanbi.

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Credits

Outside/In was produced this week by Sam Evans-Brown with Taylor Quimby and Justine Paradis.

Erika Janik is our executive producer.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Special thanks to Dave Publicover, Karin Bothwell, Stuart Hale, Mark Ducey, John Gunn, Charles Levesque, Mindy Crandell, Bill Keeton, Erik Kingsley, Tom Pugh, Mariko Yamasake, Fiona Jevon and Lauren Gifford.

If you’ve got a question for our Ask Sam hotline, give us a call! We’re always looking for rabbit holes to dive down into. Leave us a voicemail at: 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837). Don’t forget to leave a number so we can call you back.

Fortress Conservation

November 05, 2020 by Taylor Quimby

Throughout the 20th century, conservationists and environmentalists have looked to protect wildlife and biodiversity through the creation of parks and other forms of exclusionary wildlife zones. Zones that seek to preserve spaces devoid of human impact - or to create them, by displacing indigenous and poor people who already live there. Today, some academics call this strategy by a pejorative name: Fortress conservation.

In this episode, we look at medieval forest law, the early days of Yellowstone National Park, and spreading concern over how conservation efforts are enacted and enforced around the world.

10x10: Pine Barren

October 22, 2020 by Guest User

Another year… another record-breaking wildfire season. Thanks to climate change the fire season now starts sooner and ends later. Scientists also say climate change will make lightning more frequent, and winds more powerful. Basically, the world is a tinderbox.

But maybe the problem with these big, out-of-control fires is actually *not enough* fire.

Featuring Luke Romance, John Bailey, Mike Crawford, Jeff Lougee, Paul Gagnon, Tony Harwood, Steve Pyne and Adele Fenwick.

This episode originally aired in 2018. For more pictures and material, visit the original episode post.

Credits

Outside/In was produced this week by Sam Evans-Brown, and Taylor Quimby, with help from Hannah McCarthy, Justine Paradis, Nick Capodice, and Jimmy Gutierrez. Erika Janik is our Executive Producer.

Thanks this week to Melissa Thomas-Van Gundy and Greg Nowacki of the Forest Service, William Patterson of UMass Amherst and the many folks at the Nature Conservancy who helped us figure this story out.

Music in this episode by Franco Luzzi, Blue Dot Sessions, Jason Leonard and Ikimashoo Aoi.

Our theme Music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

The Olive and the Pine

October 08, 2020 by Justine Paradis

Planting a tree often becomes almost a shorthand for doing a good deed. But such an act is not always neutral. In some places, certain trees can become windows into history, tools of erasure, or symbols of resistance.

Featuring Liat Berdugo, Irus Braverman, Jonathan Kuttab, Noga Kadman, Iyad Hadad, Raja Shehadeh, Rabbi Arik Ascherman, Miri Maoz-Ovadia, Nidal Waleed Rabie, and his granddaughter Samera.

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Liat Berdugo and her family planting trees in the Jerusalem Forest. Courtesy Liat Berdugo.

Liat Berdugo in the Jerusalem Forest. Courtesy Liat Berdugo.

Iyad Hadad harvesting olives. Courtesy Iyad Hadad.

Iyad Hadad and his family. Courtesy Iyad Hadad.

Iyad Hadad’s olive trees. Courtesy Iyad Hadad.

Iyad Hadad harvesting olives. Courtesy Iyad Hadad.

Cooking tomatoes over the fire. Courtesy Iyad Hadad.

An olive tree. Courtesy Iyad Hadad.

Bibliography

Berdugo, Liat. “A Situation: A Tree in Palestine.” Places Journal. January 2020.
Braverman, Irus. Planted Flags: Trees, Land, and Law in Israel Palestine. Cambridge University Press: 2009.
Kadman, Noga. Erased from Space and Consciousness: Israel and the Depopulated Palestinian Villages of 1948. Indiana University Press: 2015.
Long, Joanna. “(En)planting Israel: Jewish national fund forestry and the naturalisation of Zionism.” University of British Columbia: 2005.
”Our History.” Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael Jewish National Fund. Accessed 8 October 2020.
Pappe, Ilan. The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. One World Oxford: 2006.
Shehadeh, Raja. Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Vanishing Landscape. Scribner: 2007.
Tal, Alon. Pollution in a Promised Land: An Environmental History of Israel. University of California Press: 2002.

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Credits

Outside/In was produced this week by Justine Paradis with Taylor Quimby and Sam Evans-Brown.

Erika Janik is our executive producer.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Special thanks to Yehoshua Shkedy, Amit Gilutz, Eliana Passentin, and Vered Ben Saadon.

Rice is Food and Other Stories

September 24, 2020 by Taylor Quimby

Listeners submit their cases for the best fruit ever, and we explore the intersections of fruit, food, and colonialism.

Featuring Alicia Kennedy, Coral Lee, Lauren Baker, Grant Bosse, and Hallie Casey.

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Links

“On Luxury” by Alicia Kennedy

“C is for Colonialism’s Effect on How and What We Eat” by Coral Lee

Here’s the 2013 Scientific American article Taylor mentioned on America’s corn system.

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Credits

Outside/In was produced this week by Taylor Quimby and Justine Paradis.

Erika Janik is our executive producer.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions.

The Lithium Gold Rush

September 10, 2020 by Taylor Quimby

In one version of a sustainable, carbon-neutral future, the world’s cars will transition from fossil fuels to electricity. Right now that vision absolutely depends on lithium, a primary component of the lithium-ion battery.

But there is no “Lithium Central Planning Committee” balancing supply and demand or making sure that lithium is mined in environmentally and socially responsible ways. In fact, there is almost no lithium mining in the United States at all. So where does it all come from? And who is being affected?

Sidedoor: The Riverkeeper

August 27, 2020 by Guest User

Fred Tutman is a voice for Maryland’s Patuxent River. In 2004, he founded Patuxent Riverkeeper, an environmental advocacy organization. His mission is to protect and preserve all 110 miles of the Patuxent—a mission that takes him to the courtroom and to the riverbank. Fred is also the only African-American "Riverkeeper" in the Waterkeeper Alliance in the U.S., which he sees as an indicator of an environmental movement that is incomplete—one the planet will pay the price for.

“It’s very hard in these big conservation movements for people of color to be ourselves,” said Tutman.
“We need not only all hands on deck, but we actually need movements that are adaptable enough to embrace and serve all.”

Featuring Fred Tutman.

This episode was produced by Sidedoor, a podcast from the Smithsonian.

Credits

Sidedoor is a production of the Smithsonian.

Outside/In is produced by Sam Evans-Brown, Justine Paradis, and Taylor Quimby.

Erika Janik is our executive producer.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

The Darién Gap

August 13, 2020 by Guest User

There are places on the map where roads end.

The Darién Gap, or el Tapon del Darién, is one of them. It’s a stretch of rainforest in southern Panama, right on the edge of Central and South America. From a globetrotter’s perspective, the Darién Gap might seem to exist mostly as an obstacle to tourists dreaming of a truly epic road trip from Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego.

But, while a road is one way for movement, it’s not the only way to get somewhere. What happens, or does not happen, in a place without roads?

Featuring Jorge Ahumada, Roland Kays, Hector Huertas, Ustin Pascal Dubuisson, and Alicia Korten.

Credits

Outside/In was produced this week by Sam Evans-Brown with Justine Paradis and Taylor Quimby.

Erika Janik is our executive producer.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions.

For additional reading about the history of Pan-American highway and how it came to be that it is still incomplete, check out The Longest Line on the Map: The United States, the Pan-American Highway, and the Quest to Link the Americas by Eric Rutkow.

Special thanks to Nick Capodice, Pedro Mendez of the University of Panama, and Ross Irwin of Humanizando la Deportacion.

Title image by Alex Torrenegra via Flickr.

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Ask Sam: Spice Must Flow

July 30, 2020 by Guest User

Are snow-making machines an example of climate adaptation, or an example of an emissions feedback loop? Does the fire risk posed by planting trees outweigh the benefits of their use as a carbon sink? Can the team talk big planet problems and still leave room for bad puns? We’ll answer these questions and more climate queries on this special edition of Ask Sam.