Thin Green Line

January 14, 2021 by Taylor Quimby

“Cops presents a world that is much more violent than the real world and much scarier than the real world,” said Dan Taberski, host of Running from COPS, a podcast series investigating the long-running TV show that follows police officers on the job. Taberski and a team of screeners watched and took notes on 846 episodes of the show.

"Three times the amount of violent crime, four times the amount of drug crime, ten times the amount of prostitution. It also presents a world where the police if much more effective than they really are. So if they pull somebody over, it ends up in arrest something like 90% of time.”

Part of the reason this is significant is that police have editing power on COPS, which means the show provides insight into how police officers want to be seen by an American audience.

There’s another show that uses the same model - same reality TV style, same oversight - called North Woods Law. It follows state conservation officers employed by New Hampshire’s Fish & Game Department. But on North Woods Law, you’re more likely to see an injured loon than an honest-to-goodness arrest.

If COPS presents a world more dangerous than reality, North Woods Law presents something else. But what?

Producer Taylor Quimby makes his report on watching North Woods Law in hopes of gaining a better understanding on the purpose and the role of conservation law enforcement.

Featuring Jamiles Lartey, William Browne, Erika Billerbeck, Colin Woodard, Colonel Kevin Jordan, Dan Taberski, and Scott Rouleau.

For more on the history of policing in America, we highly recommend “American Police” from NPR’s Throughline.

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story stated incorrectly that, “the Adirondack Park was created, in part, to protect the watershed of New York City”. The Adirondack Park was in fact created (in part) to protect the watershed of New York state, and various waterways that were a vital part of the state’s economy at the time.

Credits

Outside/In was produced this week by Taylor Quimby with Justine Paradis 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 Jenny Palomino, Meredith Gore, Charles Huyck, David Sykes, John Sigler, Tim Huss, and Karl Jacoby.

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.

If You Wanna Get Koselig, You Gotta Get a Little Friluftsliv

December 31, 2020 by Guest User

It’s the Outside/In how-to-thrive-in-winter recommendation show, 2021 edition.

For many of us during the pandemic, the dark and cold of winter brings a special sense of dread. But it’s not just this year: the seasonal darkness often collectively takes us by surprise. Like clockwork, we forget how dark and cold it gets - and it turns out, there are reasons for that.

But our perception of the seasonal darkness can also be influenced by our attitudes about it.

In Norway, cultural ideas around winter help shape attitudes and experiences of the cold.

First, there’s the idea of getting cozy, or kosileg. Think candles, slippers, the glow of a fire in the window on a snowy night, eating wood-fired pizza under the stars, or “the smell of baked goods and the Christmas tree,” said Anders Folleras, college friend of Sam Evans-Brown and honorary Outside/In Norwegian cultural attaché.

Koselig is the Norwegian analogue of the Danish idea of hygge. But there’s another concept that goes hand-in-hand with koselig: friluftsliv.

“Being outdoorsy, I’d say,” said Folleras. “Outdoor lifestyle.”

Embracing friluftsliv means open-air living, or getting outside every day, and outdoor adventures for all ages.

So, we think: if you really want to get koselig, you’ve gotta get friluftsliv too.

Embracing the Outdoors: Outside/In Friluftsliv Recommendations

Dress for the temperature. We like the saying, “there is no bad weather, just bad clothing.” For instance, as dogsledder Blair Braverman tweeted, if you’re aiming for warmth, don’t look for “sleek” coats. Embrace the puff!

Layer up. Keep breathable layers closest to the skin, less permeable layers on the outside.

The thermos in action, courtesy Justine Paradis

Experiment and get to know the cold. Figure out what works for you. What’s your circulation like? Do you need hand warmers in your gloves, or you good? Sam’s recommendations for how to dress are really just encouragement that you can get outside when it’s really cold and wintery, and once you experiment with it, you’ll see that it’s possible.

Getting a little chilly is not the end of the world. Yes, there’s a limit to this, but it’s empowering to learn the way your body works, how you respond to the cold, and what your limits are.

Set a goal. Pick an area, like your town or a neighboring preserve, and set a goal to walk all the trails on the map, a strategy also, unfortunately, known as redlining. It took a few years, but Erika visited all 270 parks in Madison, Wisconsin, using this approach. At the beginning of the pandemic, Sam decided to visit his neighboring beaver pond every day.

Take it one step at a time. Winter adventuring takes time and cold-weather gear costs money. If you’re on a budget, buy one piece of gear a year, and work up to more ambitious excursions over time.

Bring a thermos. A hot drink makes everything better.

Snowy night walks. Magical! Especially after a storm.

Screen-Time: Outside/In Koselig Recommendations

The latest season of The Crown has some serious Outside/In moments, especially in episode two, “The Balmoral Test.” The episode ties into themes we explored in “Fortress Conservation'' about how elitism pervaded 20th century conservation. In my opinion, you don’t need to have watched the rest of the show to enjoy the latest season. - Justine

Alien Worlds on Netflix is a really cool mix of speculative science fiction and nature documentary. The basis of the show is that scientists have been searching for “Goldilocks exoplanets” for decades now, so how would different biological concepts play out under different Earth-like conditions? So, for example, the first episode explores what life might look like on a planet with two times Earth's gravity… the extra gravity makes the air in the atmosphere really dense, so it operates more like water. So there are these animals that they call “sky grazers” that are basically swimming through the atmosphere, eating floating seeds. - Taylor

Occupied, a Norwegian climate change political thriller set in the near future. For me, part of the fun of watching foreign language shows is I have to read the subtitles. It's one of the only times that I can’t multitask, and in some ways that feels relaxing. - Erika

The Expanse, a sci-fi show set in a future in which humans have colonized the solar system. It’s pure escapism. They do the physics of space really well - for instance, because they’re on ships, the gravity makes liquids behave kind of strangely. There’s this scene where a character pours a shot of whiskey and it does this little spiral out of the bottle into the glass, and they don’t even mention it. - Sam

Off-screen: Crafts, Games, and More Koselig Recs

Embroidery. I can’t resist recommending a craft and this is one you can do while watching TV, listening to Outside/In… whatever you decide to do. Embroidery doesn’t require a lot of tools (embroidery floss and hoops are inexpensive and you can embroider just about any fabric, though I recommend not using anything stretchy to start), and you can do a lot with a few basic stitches. - Erika

Paper gems. This is another great craft that also doesn’t require a lot of tools. I just found a free template online, picked some card-stock I like, and spent several evenings making garlands as gifts (here’s a beautiful but slightly more complicated template I want to try, with a helpful tutorial). - Justine

Broom making. You too can make your own handbrooms! Sunhouse Crafts has a great starter kit and instructional videos to get started. The only other thing you need is a stick (and scissors). - Erika

This playlist of author Haruki Murakami’s jazz vinyl collection. I put it on shuffle and imagine that I’m in his erstwhile jazz club in Tokyo. - Justine

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. This book came out in 2016, but I just read it a few months ago. It looks at how the legacy of enslavement passes through generations, starting in the 18th century in Ghana with two half sisters - one becomes enslaved, the other does not. So, the book follows a different person from each side of the family through the generations, all the way to America, through the Civil War, Harlem... it's written just with so much care and love, and each of the characters in each of the chapters really just come alive. I just loved it and found it transporting and beautiful. - Erika

Cartographers, a mapmaking game. The theme is that you're a cartographer and you're building a fantasy map that has forests, rivers, and occasionally hoards of goblins. You arrange the shapes of those different land masses onto a grid. It's kind of like Tetris or like Blokus, but has this feeling that you're making a map. You can inject a little more artistic aesthetic into it if you want, or just do it really simple and play it for the points. My nine-year-old likes to play it, and he doesn't like competitive games, so we play it for the fun of it and de-emphasize the points, and just add them together at the end. - Taylor

Wingspan, a competitive card-driven board game. The art is gorgeous - this is a beautiful game that’s very inspired by the natural world. The cards represent real birds, and each bird has a special power. You're attracting them to your nature preserve throughout the game. Their powers are actually associated with the behavior of that species, so with predator birds, you get points for killing mice, while other birds cash seeds in the bark of trees. - Taylor (and Sam)

Yoga nidra, or “yogic sleep.” I’ve definitely had moments of anxiety during the pandemic, and I’ll use this technique sometimes if I have trouble sleeping. It's part of a restorative yoga practice, and I’ve also seen it called body scan meditation. Basically, you'll lie down in a comfortable position, and your teacher (or the video) will prompt you basically to move your mental attention to different parts of your body in a scan. It activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which is also active during sleep, during digestion, etc. It can literally put me to sleep. It’s very effective for me. - Justine

The Outside/In winter fund drive is nearly over, and we’re almost to our goal of 100 donors! Visit outsideinradio.org/donate to support the show - and vote on the topic of a potential bonus episode if we reach our goal.

READ A TRANSCRIPT

DOWNLOAD A TRANSCRIPT

Credits

Outside/In was produced this week by Sam Evans-Brown, 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 Anders Folleras.

Coal and Solar in the Navajo Nation

December 17, 2020 by Guest User

This week, we’re featuring an episode from A Matter of Degrees, a podcast about climate change hosted by Dr. Leah Stokes and Dr. Katherine Wilkinson. This episode was reported by Julian Brave NoiseCat.

The energy transition isn’t going to be a one-size-fits-all process. In this episode, a broad lesson gleaned from a very specific story: the effort to move from coal to solar in the Navajo nation.

Featuring Wahleah Johns and Andrew Curley.

Support Outside/In by making a donation in our year end fund drive.

Credits

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

Erika Janik is our executive producer.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Climate Migration

December 03, 2020 by Justine Paradis

In the coming decades, the scale of climate migration could be dizzying. In one projection, four million people in the United States could find themselves “living at the fringe,” outside ideal conditions for human life.

In collaboration with By Degrees, NHPR’s climate change reporting initiative, we’re devoting the entire episode to answering one question: if you’re worried about climate, where should you live? And how should places prepare for the wave of climate migrants just around the corner?

Featuring Bess Samuel, Jesse Jaime, Aurelia Jaime Ramirez, Kate McCarthy, Elena Mihaly, Jola Ajibade, Nadege Green, Suzi Patterson, Alex Whittemore, and Mike Hass.

Sign up for the Outside/In newsletter for our biweekly reading lists and episode extras.

Donate to Outside/In during our year end fund drive!

Links

“Locals Bristle As Out-of-Towners Fleeing Virus Hunker Down In New Hampshire Homes” by Annie Ropeik for New Hampshire Public Radio

Yayoi Kusama’s “Fireflies on the Water” (2002) by maurizio mucciola on Flickr.

Nadege Green’s reporting on climate gentrification in season 3 of There Goes the Neighborhood, a collaboration between WNYC and WLRN.

“Why climate migration is not managed retreat: Six justifications” (2020), coauthored by Idowu (Jola) Ajibade and published in Global Environmental Change.

ProPublica’s Climate Migration project

The EPA’s Climate Resiliency Screening Index (2017). Scroll to page 79 for their list of the top 150 most resilient counties in the United States.

The quote from Charles Simic comes from Letters of Transit: Reflections on Exile, Identity, Language, and Loss (The New Press, 1999).

“Immigration, exile, being uprooted and made a pariah may be the most effective way yet devised to impress on an individual the arbitrary nature of his or her own existence. Who needed a shrink or a guru when everyone we met asked us who we were the moment we opened our mouths and they heard the accent?

The truth is, we had no simple answers. Being rattled around in freight trains, open trucks, and ratty ocean-liners, we ended up being a puzzle even to ourselves. At first, that was hard to take; then we got used to the idea. We began to savor it, to enjoy it. Being nobody struck me personally as being far more interesting than being somebody. The streets were full of these "somebodys" putting on confident airs. Half the time I envied them; half the time I looked down on them with pity. I knew something they didn't, something hard to come by unless history gives you a good kick in the ass: how superfluous and insignificant in any grand scheme mere individuals are. And how pitiless are those who have no understanding that this could be their fate too.”

READ A TRANSCRIPT

download a transcript

Credits

Outside/In was produced this week by Justine Paradis, Annie Ropeik, Taylor Quimby, and Sam Evans-Brown with support from Cori Princell and Tat Bellamy-Walker.

Erika Janik is our executive producer.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Additional music by Massimo Ruberti.

Special thanks to Anna Marandi, Chris Campany, Lauren Gaudette, and Garrett Neff.

Thank you also to everyone who responded to the survey and to those we spoke with for this episode: Alex Whittemore, Daniel Mitchell, Mark Nystrom, Meaghan Kelly, Alex Texeira, Jesse Jaime, Aurelia Jaime Ramirez, Jenny Stowe, Mike Hass, Suzi Patterson, Mike Thiel, Allyshia Dycus, and of course, Bess Samuel

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.

Sign up for the Outside/In newsletter! Every two weeks we’ll send you episode extras, occasional call-outs to participate in our episodes, and our reading list.

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.

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.

Sign up for the Outside/In newsletter.

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.

READ A TRANSCRIPT

DOWNLOAD A TRANSCRIPT

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.

Get more Outside/In in your inbox! Sign-up for the Outside/In newsletter.

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.

Outside/In is free to listen to… but it isn’t free to make. Make a donation to support Outside/In today!

Donate

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.