Animalia

Welcome back to 53 Miles in Maine, our 5-part series covering a controversial clean energy project that got shut down by a pubic referendum in Maine in November 2021 and is now being decided in the courts.

In this series, we are looking into what happened in Maine as a lens into 3 broader themes impacting our much needed transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy when it comes to our electricity grid.

• In Episode 1, we provided a detailed timeline of what took place in Maine
• In Episode 2, we discussed why Environmental Activists & Clean Energy Advocates are increasingly at odds with these projects
• And now here, in Episode 3, we are discussing why and how these big Clean Energy Projects are shifting from a solely Regulatory review process to a hybrid of a Regulatory + Public Review and how that played out here in Maine

In Episode 4, coming next, we will tackle our 3rd and final theme, the playbook big energy companies are using to stall and block clean energy projects that are not their own

The regulator system designed to govern these types of projects was not really built for the variety and volume we are seeing now as we shift of fossil fuels, let alone the new world order we are in where everything also needs to go through the court of public opinion. In the case of the New England Clean Energy Connect in Maine, they checked all of the regulatory boxes but were unable to convince the public.

This is especially important for renewable energy and the infrastructure needed to support it because so many of these projects will live and die at the hands of local support.

There are a lot of lessons learned here and we aim to bring this out to the forefront.

Here are a few documents and studies that are referenced or in support of the conversations in this episode:

Welcome to the 2nd episode in our 5-part series covering a controversial clean energy project in Maine. It’s a hydropower initiative that initially got approved by state and federal agencies, then voted down in a public referendum, and now being determined in Maine’s courts. While the project was is taking hydropower from Canada and moving it into the New England electricity grid via a commercial deal with Massachusetts, it relies on moving all that energy through the state of Maine.

We are not going to answer if we think the project should move forward or not. Rather, we are using the Maine story to provide a lens into 3 distinct themes that are playing out all over the country in our shift to renewable energy.

You will hear from folks who both support and oppose this project throughout the series. A reminder that Episode 1 provides a detailed timeline of what happened in Maine, so if you have not listened that yet, please do!

In this episode, we dive into 1 of those 3 key issues: THE GROWING TENSION BETWEEN ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISTS AND CLEAN ENERGY ADVOCATES

While both sides are very much for saving this planet and addressing our climate crisis with urgency, there are differing opinions over what renewable energy sources we prioritize, how we get there, and what environmental trade-offs we can accept along the way.

Welcome to Part 1 of our 5-part series covering a very controversial renewable energy project that got shut down in a public referendum in Maine despite previously getting approval from state and federal regulators.

While this energy was being purchased by the state of Massachusetts and generated by a hydropower company in Canada, it would require transmitting the energy through the state of Maine and thus in order to build out that transmission it needed Maine’s approval to move forward.

Supporters of this project call it the New England Clean Energy Connect. Opposition groups call it the CMP Corridor. Just the difference in naming alone tells you a lot about their respective viewpoints.

You’re going to hear throughout this series from folks on both sides of this particular initiative. But the reason we are covering it here at Animalia is not because we are taking our own stance on whether or not this project should move forward - we purposely leave that a bit open ended and we shall see how it plays out in the courts - but rather to use it as a lens into 3 larger issues playing out across the country as we grabble with figuring out how to shift from fossil fuel power generation to renewable generation.

In Episodes 2-4, we will cover each of those in detail.

• In Episode 2, we will dive into the battle brewing between Environmental Activists & Clean Energy Advocates.  All forms of energy, including renewables, have environmental trade-offs.  Evaluating where and when they are worth taking is increasingly becoming complex and divisive, creating tension between environmental activists and clean energy advocates, despite both camps wanting to get off fossil fuels and save this planet.  
• In Episode 3, we will explore why the most critical decisions ahead in our transition off of fossil fuels are very much happening at the local level because of the land use and infrastructure needed for scaling renewable power generation.  We can no longer just rely on regulatory approval, and need to increasingly engage the public and get their buy in sooner than later.
• In Episode 4, we will look at how big energy companies around the country are using social media, marketing, and propaganda to stall clean energy projects.  In all cases this is to protect their own business interests, be it fossil fuels or their own renewables.  In the case of this project in Maine, there were big energy companies on both sides with renewable and fossil fuels interests when you roll things up to parent company levels.  How and why did 3 big energy companies seemingly not involved get involved and support the opposition to help build the public pushback?
  

Then in Episode 5 we will do a recap with key takeaways.

Here are some reference materials to read up further on this story. Feel free to reach out with any quesitons!

If you care about this planet and are worried about where things are heading when it comes to global warming and biodiversity collapse, well, you're not alone. You've probably experienced some forms of climate anxiety or eco-anxiety because you care.

For some, this feeling of worry and concern can be so severe that it can disrupt your life.  Maybe you start to worry too much about the things you are buying, about loved ones not caring, or about the doomsday scenarios that lie ahead if we keep on this track. Or maybe you are already experiencing personally the damages from climate change perhaps due to a recent wildfire or flood or tropical storm.  Maybe you live in one of the areas in the world dealing with water shortages and poor water quality due to toxic runoffs and droughts.

Here at Animalia, we feel these forms of anxiety all the time.  It's normal and ok.  It means you care.  We just don't want those negative thoughts to consume you.

Welcome to Season 3 of the Animalia Podcast!

We’re back!

We felt the best way to kickoff this new season would be talking about the Arctic.

As you’re probably aware, the Arctic is melting thanks to global warming. What you may not know is the unique role the Arctic plays in reflecting solar radiation back into space, a critical component keeping this planet as cool as possible. As the Arctic melts however, it also darkens, leading it to absorb more and more sunlight and reflect less and less.

Today we sit down with Dr. Leslie Field & Tom Light of the Arctic Ice Project for a deep dive into what’s happening in the Arctic and their highly ambitious, innovative solution to save it using small microspheres of silica.

Today on Animalia we dive into the wonderful, critical world of Kelp! A special type of seaweed that will likely, and hopefully as you’ll learn in this episode, be a cornerstone of our future food supply.

This is because Kelp is a tremendously regenerative species full of nutrition. We also really need our kelp forests, and proper, ethical kelp farming can be a big step forward in protecting them. This is because they are home to thousands of critical marine species, sequester more carbon than terrestrial forests, help improve water quality, and produce a boatload of oxygen.

What is kelp farming exactly? And how do we convince more people to eat it?

This is the short, 5-minute (ish) teaser of our episode about de-extinction.  Now that the technology has arrived, larger questions loom about whether or not this is a good idea, what the consequences might be good or bad, and the potential role in our biodiversity and climate crises.

We have three incredible scientists joining us for this roundtable discussion:

Welcome to a very special episode of Animalia. Today we are talking about the merits, ethics, and potential outcomes good and bad with de-extinction.  Earlier this year, a company named Colossal announced $15M in funding to create a new hybrid wooly mammoth species with plans of reintroducing them to Siberia in hopes of reviving their grasslands.

Now that the dawn of de-extinction possibilities are upon us, we need to carefully consider how this could play out, and what the positive and negative impacts on our climate and biodiversity crises could be.

We have three incredible scientists joining us for this roundtable discussion:

Today we are bringing you a very special and valuable discussion with two incredible young climate activists:

• Raeesah Nor Mohamed from South Africa
• Hussein Ali Ghandour from Lebanon

Over the past few years, you've seen an uptick in protests, marches, and demonstrations from incredible people like Raeesah and Hussein from all over the world.  At COP26 in Glasgow, over 100,000 activists made their way outside the event to demonstrate and push for more decisive action from world leaders.

But have you had the chance to actually talk to them?  To understand what motivates them to give everything they have to this issue? To sacrifice so much?  To listen to their message?  To step into their shoes even for a moment?  Well today you do. Because Raeesah and Hussein have been kind enough to join us.

I encourage you to share this episode with friends and family so they too can hear the perspectives they probably don't often get to hear, especially from uniquely challenging places in the world such as South Africa & Lebanon.

And please go and follow and support them both online if you can!
Raeesah on Instagram is @pure.rae.of.sunshinee and on Twitter she is @raeesahnm
Hussein on Twitter is @ghandour567

Raeesah also wanted us to share a link to the Climate Justice Charter, so I encourage you all to check it out.

https://www.safsc.org.za/climate-justice-charter/

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This is the 5-minute summary version of our episode sitting down with New Belgium's Katie Wallace and how the company is pioneering ways to help save this planet, including making a rather horrible version of their flagship beer, Fat Tire, to resemble what beer may taste like if we don't get our act together.

If you are interested in this short summary version, please go and check out the full episode!

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We've long been exploring ways to help people understand the relationship between our climate and biodiversity crises.

Well, who better to do this than an Environmental Anthropologist?  After all, theses crises are results of human behavior and systems, and anthropology is the study of that those behaviors and systems.

This is the abbreviated, 5-minute teaser version of our episode with Dylan Leazes, who works in Congress, on the need to decarbonize our electricity grid and some of the policy work it will take to get there.  If you are interested in hearing more based on this discussion, be sure to check out the Full Episode published just before this.

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One of the most important things we can do in order to address climate change is decarbonize our electricity grid. As much as 25-33% of our emissions come from electricity and that is only going to increase as the world becomes more and more electric - from transportation to data centers to currency.

While there are plenty of zero-carbon sources to cover our power needs - wind, solar, hydro, nuclear - the transition is difficult and needs more policy to push it forward.

So today on Animalia we are sitting down with Dylan Leazes to discuss. Dylan works in Congress and spends a large chunk of his time on Energy Policy. He’s just the fella to talk with about how best we can accelerate this work.

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This is the shortened, 5-10 Minute Summary edition of our episode on parasites and why it's critical to conserve them to combat our biodiversity crisis.  For the full episode, please go check out the one just before this!

Joining us is renowned parasitologist McKenzie Kwak, parasitologist at the National University of Singapore. One of the few in his field that are actively working on parasite conservation.

You can follow Mackenzie on Facebook @mackenziekwakparasitologist

Or on IG @Mackenzie_kwak_parasitologist

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Raise your hand if you have ever actively thought about parasite conservation and the importance of protecting these species. Most of you probably have your hands down. And understandably so, after all, don’t parasites just cause problems for their hosts? Why would we conserve them?

As it turns out, most parasites often have a fairly neutral relationship with their hosts. In addition, they can have vast benefits to our ecological systems. They are the glue that very much holds the food web together. And they may be our best tools for fighting future viral and disease outbreaks.

So today on Animalia, we are going to learn about parasites and why they are so important from renowned parasitologist McKenzie Kwak, parasitologist at the National University of Singapore. One of the few in his field that are actively working on parasite conservation.

What exactly is parasite conservation? You’re going to learn about that as well.

You can follow Mackenzie on Facebook @mackenziekwakparasitologist

Or on IG @Mackenzie_kwak_parasitologist

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This is the very short, 5-minute (ish) summary of our full episode on Living Sea Walls, a really critical innovation that we are excited to profile!  Through this work, sea walls can protect both human habitats and marine habitats together.

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One of my favorite novels of all-time is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.  The idea of breathing life into something that previously housed none is both exhilarating and fantastical.  Now in the case of Dr. Frankenstein, it did not work out all too well.  However in the case of sea walls, it seems it very much will!

Sea walls are everywhere across the world.  And they have been for a long time.  They are growing larger and more numerous and ambitious due to our warming oceans, rising sea levels, and increases in flooding and storm intensity. Over 40% of humans on earth live within 100km of a coast.

Traditional sea walls do a great job of protecting human habitats from waves, floods, and storms.  But they do a terrible job of doing the same for our marine habitats.  They disrupt ocean drift and cause coastal erosion, and that then disrupts critical coastal marine habitats that house many of the fish we eat, oxygenate our oceans, improve water quality, and sequester carbon.

An amazing team has come up a solution. A way to breathe life quite literally into sea walls so they can protect both humans and marine life at the same time.  Want to know how? That's today on Animalia!

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Is it possible to pull enough carbon out of the air to meet our emissions goals? Today on Animalia, we are talking Carbon Removal. We delve into the current state of the technology, the difference between Carbon Capture vs. Carbon Removal, and why we need clear, ambitious targets for both lower our emissions and removing carbon already in the atmosphere.

This, is the 5-minute (ish) summary of our episode How Saving Sea Stars Can Save Our Forests.

Nuclear Energy! In today’s episode we give you a deep dive into nuclear energy and why it may be our only way off of fossil fuels.

Like many others, when you think of nuclear you probably think of large scale accidents, radiation, nuclear waste, and nuclear weapons. All bad things!

However it’s also a carbon-free, zero-emission energy source that produces more output at a more consistent pace than wind or solar, and is cheaper than coal or natural gas. And there are a ton of innovations happening to mitigate the historical challenges of accidents, radiation, waste, and threats.

What's the first emotion that comes to mind when you think of sharks?  For most people it's fear.  Fear of an open water attack.  A fear that has been culturally woven into our lexicon dating back thousands of years.  

That fear is justified - sharks are powerful predators.  However, it's also over blown.  300 times more people bite other people on subways each year than how many sharks who bite people globally each year!

Sharks are vital to our oceans. In fact, given every curveball we are throwing at our oceans right now - warming, acidification, plastic pollution - sharks are more critical than ever.  They've been around for over 400 million years, yet have never been so valuable to the survival of our oceans.

Find out why this week on Animalia.

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You’ve probably heard the disturbing stat before: we throw away 40% of our food here in the US.

And that’s a big problem on multiple fronts. For one, landfill waste is a major source, in fact our biggest source, of methane. A greenhouse gas that traps heat at a rate 25 times stronger than carbon.

In addition, that food waste could have otherwise been converted into nutrient rich soil, at a time when we are in a massive soil criss after decades of soil degradation spurned from an agriculture industry focused only on efficiency and scale.  

While there is no single silver bullet to any of our environmental and climate issues, there is a powerful elixir that can combat both our soil and waste crises.....composting.

Know doubt you know what composting is. Maybe you've tried it.  Maybe you compost regularly. Maybe you are one of the 75% of US Households that are not offered curbside composting.  

In this episode, you'll learn both why composting is so important in our fight against climate change AND all the ways it is become more and more accessible.

Joining us are the 3 Compost Commandos:

Welcome to Episode 4 of Animalia’s The American War on Wolves.

In this 4th and final episode of the series, we dig into what’s been happening in 2021 so far since Federal protections for gray wolves were lifted in January. State by state, wolf protections are falling away and senseless killing is picking up steam.

In order to change this trend, we need to understand why it’s happening. So our focus in this episode will be to break down the justifications the anti-wolf community uses in their policies and programs to kill wolves, and look specifically at Wisconsin and Idaho as examples.

We will also look at two states still on the side of wolf advocacy, Oregon and Washington, albeit there are aspects of their programs that also feel like they are on shaky grounds.

Finally, we hear from the many experts and advocates throughout this series on what we can do to prosper coexistence with wolves and return them to their rightful range and habitat.

In so many ways, our relationship with wolves is symbolic of our relationship with the natural world overall. For far too long, it has been adversarial and exploitative, rooted in cultural disdain. We are seeing right now how this disdain, misinformation, and polarizing politics rear their ugly heads in causing us to go backwards, not forward.

In the series finale, we detail what is happening across 4 specific states, analyze the arguments given by the anti-wolf community, and talk through some different solutions for getting us to peaceful coexistence with wolves.

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Welcome back to The American War on Wolves, a 4-part series chronicling the historic extermination of the critical gray wolf in the United States culminating in the battle grounds of 2021 as states wrestle to determine the fate of this species.

If you didn’t get a chance to check out Episodes 1 or 2, please do so. Episode 1 provides an important foundation for understanding wolf behavior and sociology that serves as context for evaluating the policies aiming to control and manage them. Episode 2 is a walk back in time, taking us through the mid 19th century when Western Settlers ignited the wolf extermination process up through the modern day.

And here we are in Episode 3: Recovery & Reintroduction.

In this episode we are going to dissect 2 specific recovery and reintroduction programs, one that has gone quite well in Yellowstone, and one that has not gone well at all in the US Southwest for the Mexican gray wolf, also known as the lobo. It is important to understand what we can learn from each before we finish up in our 4th and final episode next week, The Battle Grounds of 2021.

Welcome back to Episode 2 in our 4-part series: The American War on Wolves.

In this episode we are going to go back in time to the mid-1800s when Western Settlers moved into the Great Plains, the Southwest, and the Northwest and began forever changing these ecosystems.  Native American communities and roaming bison would be replaced by Western outposts and grazing livestock.

What followed was a systematic extermination of wolves and other wild predators, led by the collaboration of private economic interest, namely the livestock industry, and government help, namely the US Biological Survey which would become the US Fish & Wildlife Service.

In order to better understand the state by state battleground for wolf recovery happening today, we must first know how we got here.

Two incredible guests join us for this episode.

We’re so excited to bring you our first ever mini-series here on Animalia.

The American War on Wolves

If you’re not already aware, 2021 has become a pivotal year, a year like no other, in the fight to save this species here in the United States. After the Trump Administration delisted wolves from Federal protection in January of this year, many states have returned to the horrific, sweeping legalization of killing wolves. The same programs and strategies that led to their near extinction from the mid 1800s through the Endangered Species Act of 1973.

It’s critical we bring more awareness to what’s happening, spread the facts, and share the love across the incredible community fighting for this species. Because the biggest threats to wolves continue to be a combination of misinformation and ingrained cultural disdain.

So here we go. We can’t wait to bring this to you.

The 4 episodes will take you through a journey starting with highlighting some of the many incredible traits of wolf behavior and sociology in order to lay a foundation of understanding and appreciation. In Episode 2 we’ll move into the historical extermination that began in the mid 19th century. Episode 3 will walk us through reintroduction efforts in the mid 90s through today, what has worked, and what hasn’t. Finally, the 4th and final episode will focus on the ideological and political war going on right now that may very well determine the fate of the species.

You’ve probably seen the “US Southern Border Crisis” plastered across news media the last few months. There is a surge of migrants coming from Central America, particularly what’s known as the Northern Triangle, highlighted by Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Only this surge is nothing new, it’s been building for over a decade. And the true cause of it is barely touched on in the news media, be it left or right leaning, and that’s climate change.

If terms like climate displacement, climate migration, and climate refugees are not too familiar, you’re not alone. And that right there is a big part of the problem. Of all the issues and problems climate change poses in the decades ahead, one of the largest and most overlooked is climate migration.

This is essentially when people are forced to move and change locations because climate issues, be it extreme weather or rising coastlines, have rendered their how and/or trade untenable.  It’s hurting those most who are marginalized and living in lower-income areas, and it’s only going to get worse.

In this episode, we dive deep into Climate Migration, what it is, how its being discussed globally, and specifically how it is impacting people in Guatemala as an example of what lies ahead.

We’re lucky to have two amazing guests joining us for this episode:

One of the most fascinating shifts happening right now in conservation biology is factoring in different cultures within certain species and the need to protect and preserve each one as we do the species overall.

You might think, well how do we know animals have culture?  How do we know their behaviors are not all genetically programmed?  And if they do have succinct subcultures, why is it important to preserve each one?  Well, in today's podcast episode we are going to answer these questions and more.

The species we are going to draw from are Sperm Whales.  Known as an "animal of extremes" for their unique characteristics and lifestyle, sperm whales are the whales made famous by the book Moby Dick, and are one of the most social and communicative whale species on the planet.

The hottest trend in agriculture is indoor, controlled farming. Often called “vertical farming”. These are massive warehouses, some as large as football stadiums, that are growing billions of pounds of fresh produce every day.

So what is vertical farming and why is it growing like crazy? The modern concept of indoor farming has been around for over 20 years, but only in recent years have efficiencies in key technologies such as LED lighting, AI, hydroponic systems, and robotics made this concept commercially viable.

There are tons of benefits - less land usage, less water usage, no pesticide usage, and local access to fresh produce in large, dense urban areas - and some limitations as well in terms of what crops are most suitable for this type of system today.

This episode is hopefully going to forever change your prospective on rats!

Yes, the well known rodent that we often look at as pests in our day to day lives.

If you’ve ever had a rat problem in your home, you know how clever and smart they are, how easily they can outmaneuver you. They are natural problem solvers with such a keen sense of smell and a nose for food.

Well an awesome organization called APOPO, headquartered in Tanzania, has found a way to channel the abilities of rats to help people. To quite literally save lives. Today APOPO is working with Rats to detect land mines that have been buried for years, and to detect tuberculosis in humans, the most deadly disease in the world.

The deforestation crisis in the Brazilian Amazon has been making headlines globally dating back to 2019. In fact, the latest finding - that the Amazon in Brazil is now officially producing more greenhouse gas than it captures due to forest degradation and deforestation - is as alarming and concerning as it gets. Studies are now showing the Amazon is on the brink of a point of no return where it could mostly dry out and turn into a savannah like ecosystem, causing major negative ramifications globally in terms of climate change.

So what exactly is happening? Why is it happening? And what can be done to stop it? In this episode we sit down with Ana Ionova - an environmental journalist in Brazil who has been covering the Amazon issue for years. She gives us a first hand account of what is happening right now in Brazil, and we talk about everything from President Bolsonaro to the impact on indigenous people and dissect everything going on.

We really encourage everyone to listen to this episode and become well informed on this issue.

We also encourage you to read a couple of Ana’s past work on this topic and support her as the standout journalist she is!

If you are like us, you probably try to buy and consume organic food whenever you can.  Sometimes it's not available, sometimes it's a bit too expensive, and sometimes you might just wonder, "what exactly makes food organic and where do those lines get drawn."  

You're not alone, we have those questions as well.  Which is why we sat down with Jessica Shade from The Organic Center to answer all these pressing questions for us!  She's the Director of Science Programs at The Organic Center, where she directs projects associated to communicating and conducting research related to organic agriculture.  Her full bio is below!

You've heard this question a lot in the last few years.  What's killing the bees?  Why are they dying? How bad is this?
Well, while many articles share this headline, few actually explain it.

For starters, do you even know there is a difference between Wild & Domestic bees?  Or that the classic honey bee we are all so familiar with is not native to the US?

The Polymita Picta is one incredible, beautiful snail you are gonna want to get to know!

It is native to Cuba and does some incredible work in supporting the forest and the species within it.  Sadly though, it's under serious threat. Their remarkable colored shells are a thing of wonder, but also enticing to poachers.  Polymitas are being collected and killed for their shells, and when combined with habitat loss and invasive species, this is putting this critical species in danger of collapse.  And with it, the Cuban rainforest.

Joining us today is Norvis Hernandez, a biologist in Cuba and founder and forever leader of the Polymita Fan Club! She has dedicated her entire life to this little gastropod, and her story and work is inspiring.  

Did you know that everyone uses the scientific method everyday, even when we don't realize it?  That's highly recommended when making any important decisions, however, it's not quite Citizen Science.  Citizen Science is when anyone, regardless of qualifications or training, can contribute to the collection of analysis of data in the natural world as part of a collaborative project with professional scientists. You may have heard of apps like iNaturalist as an example.