When you imagine ocean sounds, maybe you hear the smooth arcing songs of the humpback whale, or the energetic, rhythmic clicks and snaps of dolphins. But it turns out the oceans are home to a much wider range and diversity of sounds than we could ever imagine, and today some of them are being captured by hydrophones (underwater microphones). In this episode, we take an audio journey of the oceans, learning what sound can reveal, what scientists have yet to identify, and how the underwater soundscape is changing in the Anthropocene.
Category: Season 9
Telltale Signs
Two stories of ecological disruption: the great sea star wasting, and a graveyard of trembling aspens. As climate change unfolds, one of the scariest prospects is that we will witness large scale ecosystem collapse. So is that moment already upon us? Will we be able to recognize the symptoms in time, and do we have enough information to take steps in advance? In both of today’s stories, from the oceans to the mountains, scientists are trying to understand the magnitude of ecological transformation underway – and what that might mean for the future.
Rising Seas in Silicon Valley
Sea level rise is a global concern, and on the whole, policy and funding for mitigation aren’t keeping pace. Today on Gen Anthro, producer Isha Salian shares a story about a unique mitigation method in the San Francisco Bay Area – wetlands restoration, which is happening right next door to Silicon Valley’s biggest tech campuses. The Bay Area has a reputation for being environmentally conscious, but even here, local ecologists and policy makers are facing big challenges.
Isha originally produced this story for Peninsula Press, a project of Stanford Journalism. The Gen Anthro version of the piece has been edited by Leslie Chang and Mike Osborne.
Interview: Kim Stanley Robinson (the sequel)
What will New York City look like in 2140? Scifi author Kim Stanley Robinson’s latest novel explores a possible future in which NYC is partly submerged, due to catastrophic sea level rise. In this conversation with producer Mike Osborne, KSR discusses the bedrock of science and economics in New York 2140, his writing process for the novel, and of course, the Anthropocene.
This is the second time Mike has interviewed KSR! Listen to the first conversation here.
State of the Human’s ‘Crashing’
Once upon a time, Miles crashed a server with his project Geology of Game of Thrones. Today on the show, we’re featuring a short piece in which Miles shares the backstory to the project (and the server hullaballoo), as well as the connection he sees between Geology of GoT and the Anthropocene. Today’s episode was produced by Eileen Williams of the Stanford Storytelling Project, and was originally broadcast on their podcast State of the Human.
Check out the entire State of the Human episode Crashing.
Interview: Christian Parenti
Capitalocene – maybe it doesn’t roll off the tongue, but a group of thinkers argue the term is preferable to Anthropocene because it’s more diagnostic of what underlies our environmental problems. One of those thinkers is Christian Parenti, a reporter and scholar. In 2011 Parenti published Tropic of Chaos, a book about the connections between climate and conflict. More recently, he contributed to the book Anthropocene or Capitalocene? where he lays out the case for why the state is an environment-making institution, and why the state should be the entity we look to in order to start remedying environmental issues.
Saving the Last Ocean
We hear a lot in the news about the Antarctic ice sheet melting – but other than climate change, it’s hard to imagine what else threatens a place so cold, so remote, and so seemingly barren. What other ecological protection could the southern continent possibly need? But Antarctica is…a really weird place. No single country “owns” or governs Antarctica, so decisions about conservation are a huge challenge that involve diplomacy and cooperation. On today’s show, we learn about polar history and the recent fight to save the surprisingly biodiverse waters of Antarctica’s Ross Sea.
Image: John B. Weller
Interview: Admiral Lee Gunn
How is climate change going to affect national security and the work of our armed forces? On today’s show, Admiral Lee Gunn shares his perspective on this overlooked topic. Now retired from the Navy, Admiral Gunn has been working on connections between climate and military intervention for many years. In this conversation, he discusses the implications for climate refugees, the idea of climate change as a threat multiplier, the politics inside the armed forces, and some of new technologies the military is adopting as the climate threat grows.
Trump on Earth’s ‘The Climate of Mann’
Trump on Earth is a new podcast about the environment under the Trump administration. They’re doing a fantastic job keeping tabs on policy changes coming out of Washington, so today on Gen Anthro, we want to feature one of their episodes – an interview with renowned climate scientist Michael Mann. Back in March, Mann testified before the House Science committee, and in this interview he talks about what it was like to be the ONLY participant on the panel who supported the scientific consensus on global warming.
Interview: Camille Dungy
How do cultural constructs, like race, influence our relationship to the natural world? Poet and professor Camille Dungy explores this question by highlighting African-American voices in her 2009 anthology, Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry. In this conversation with producer Jackson Roach, Camille shares her perspective on the intersection of race, identity, history, and the human-environment relationship.
