Threshold

All around the Northern Hemisphere, the evocative call of a curlew is a telltale sign of spring. With their tall, skinny legs and long, curved bills, this group of migratory shorebirds has earned a reputation in many different cultures—but now they’re facing serious threats, and one species is already extinct. Last spring, one man became so concerned about the plight of these iconic birds that he walked for two days across the English countryside inside a giant curlew costume. His name is Matthew Trevelyan, and in his day job he works to protect the pastoral grasslands of Nidderdale, a landscape in Northern England where Eurasian Curlews love to nest. Matthew joins us to talk about his long walk, the challenges facing curlews in the UK and worldwide, and why so many of us find the song of this slender bird to be so moving. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.Credits: Threshold Conversations is produced by Sam Moore. Our music is by Todd Sickafoose. Amy Martin is our host and executive producer. Resources and Links: Matthew in the BBC in his giant curlew costume Matthew’s new plan to climb the Yorkshire Peaks in the curlew costume The Nidderdale National Landscape where Matthew works to conserve curlewsCurlew conservation and news at curlewaction.orgCurlew Moon by Mary Colwell

How much of what we know about animals is actually just an assumption? From dominant males and passive females to stigmas around same-sex sexual behavior, ideas from our human world influence our understanding of the nonhuman one.Ambika Kamath is a behavioral ecologist and evolutionary biologist, and Melina Packer is a scholar of race, gender and sexuality. Together they wrote the book Feminism in the Wild: How Human Biases Shape Our Understanding of Animal Behavior. They join us to unpack some long-held ideas in biology, explain why these ideas are so powerful, and imagine how we might open our eyes to animal behavior that defies our expectations.Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.Credits: Threshold Conversations is produced by Sam Moore. Our music is by Todd Sickafoose. Amy Martin is our host and executive producer.Resources and Links: Episode transcriptFeminism in the Wild from MIT PressThe paper on female birdsong by Michelle Hall and colleaguesAmy’s Substack, Letters to Earthlings

Thirty-four years ago, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) established the annual “conferences of the parties,” known as COPs, where almost every nation on earth comes together to negotiate a solution to climate change. But this past November, for the first time ever, the United States did not send a delegation to COP, and this month, the Trump Administration announced its intention to withdraw from the UNFCCC entirely. Lina Yassin has been to nine COPs, including the most recent, COP30, in Brazil. Originally from Sudan, Lina provides support for some of the world's poorest and most climate-vulnerable nations at these negotiations. She joins Amy to talk about what happened at this year’s conference, and why, despite the U.S. withdrawal, she believes it’s essential to keep this multilateral process alive. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.Credits: Threshold Conversations is produced by Sam Moore. Our music is by Todd Sickafoose. Amy Martin is our host and executive producer. Resources and Links: Lina’s work at the International Institute for Environment and Development Key outcomes of COP30 from Carbon BriefAmy will be writing more about recent developments in climate diplomacy at her Substack, Letters to Earthlings

All over the world, small groups of complete strangers are getting together to share their feelings about climate. These gatherings are called Climate Cafes, and they’re carving out space for some big emotions we might prefer to avoid. But what if talking about our feelings can also help us address the climate crisis? Audrey Martin is a Bay Area psychotherapist and one of the leaders of the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America. She also happens to be Amy Martin’s sister. Audrey joins us to unpack some of our complicated, scary emotions around climate, and to make the case for why this kind of self-reflection isn’t just comforting—it’s crucial. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.Credits: Threshold Conversations is produced by Sam Moore. Our music is by Todd Sickafoose. Amy Martin is our host and executive producer. Resources and Links: Climate Psychology Alliance of North America

Last June, the U.S. the Secretary of Agriculture announced that the Trump administration intends to repeal something called the “Roadless Rule”—a policy implemented in 2001, which protected some of the Forest Service’s wildest lands from logging, mining, and road-building. Author Ben Goldfarb examined the impacts of road and roadless areas in his 2023 book, Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet. We talk with Ben about why our Forest Service lands already have so many roads, and what building more would actually mean for wildlife and for people. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.Credits: Threshold Conversations is produced by Sam Moore. Our music is by Todd Sickafoose. Amy Martin is our host and executive producer. Resources and Links: Ben’s book, “Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet” at W.W. Norton To read more of Ben Goldfarb’s ecological writing, go to his website, bengoldfarb.comA map of Forest Service Roadless Areas in the United StatesThe Forest Service website about Roadless Areas and the new rule40 Years a Forester by Elers Koch

Something new is coming to your feed next week.Threshold is made possible by our listeners. To keep making our show, we need to raise $75,000 by the end of the year — and we’re already 15% of the way there! Support real journalism, powered by real listeners.Make a donation today and your gift up to $1,000 will be doubled. DONATE NOW

In this final episode of Hark, we think about listening with Indigenous storytellers on three different continents—and we have one more encounter with those magical Shark Bay dolphins.Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.

New technologies like artificial intelligence have helped to accelerate and open up the entire world of bioacoustics, launching us into a new era of communication with the more-than-human world. In this episode, we explore the promise and perils of using AI in bioacoustics.Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.

Humans have filled the world with so much noise that the only sounds many of us often hear  on a daily basis are  our own. But all this sound isn’t great for our planet mates and it isn’t great for us either. In this episode, we look at how human-made sound makes it hard for other creatures to listen and communicate.Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.Special thanks to:Glacier Bay National Park & PreserveDiscovery of Sound in the SeaScripps Whale Acoustics LabShips, Whales & Acoustics in Gitga’at TerritoryThese sounds were recorded in Gitga’at Territory and sourced from the Ships, Whales & Acoustics in Gitga'at Territory Project, a collaborative initiative of the Gitga’at Nation, North Coast Cetacean Society (BC Whales) and WWF-Canada.Brian Miller, Australian Antarctic DivisionNOAALofoten-Vesterålen Ocean ObservatoryThank you to everyone who submitted frog sounds for this episode: Andrew Cronin, Aaron Jonah Lewis, Adrienne van Eeden-Wharton, Alan Burger, Barry Truax, Bess Samuel, Cliff Bahlinger, Craig Hemsath, Curt Newton, Dan Carreno, Diogo Matias, Dr. Paola Moscoso, Edward Ruchalski, Henry Koch, Indraneil Das/UNIMAS, Jenny Skopliak, Joel Watters, Judith Smit, Karthic SS, Klaartje Van Loy, Kriistina Ovaska, Lindsey Nielsen, Mara Altman, Nancy Pick, Natalie Smith, Pablo “Rana” Diserens, Paul Williams, Ren Fergusen, Tony Wobeter, Tracy Leung, Vincent Chanter, and group shoutout to everyone on the Acoustic Ecology listserve

Homo sapiens joined the story of life on Earth just 300,00 years ago.  So when and how did we start making music and creating languages? In this episode, we explore these signature sounds and discover how they just might be rooted in listening.Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.

Elephants communicate through a variety of calls, trumpets, and rumbles. But despite being some of the largest land animals on Earth, elephants  can also be incredibly quiet. In this episode, we open our ears to  elephants and discover how listening may play a key role in saving them.Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.

Modern humans emerged into a world filled with and shaped by elephants. But for elephants, living with humans isn’t always easy. Elephants have survived by adapting to all the changes we’re making to their world. But there’s only so much they can do. In this episode, we look at how we can learn to live with—and listen to—elephants.Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.Learn more:Reteti: reteti.orgLonguro: reteti.org/blog/longuro-storyShaba: amivitale.com/product/shabaSarara Foundation: sarara.co/foundation

More than 60 million years ago, an asteroid hit the Earth, wiping out almost all the dinosaurs. But one group made it through—the ancestors of birds. In this episode, we look at how these ancient creatures learned to listen and communicate, and how listening to birds has changed us.Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.Operation frog sound! Send us your frog sounds for an upcoming episode. We want you to go out, listen for frogs and toads, and record them. Just find someone croaking, and hit record on your phone. It doesn’t matter if there’s background noise. It doesn’t even matter if you’re not sure whether or not you’re hearing an amphibian—if you think you are, we would love to get a recording from you.Please also say your name and where you are in the world, and then email the recording to us at [email protected]

Birds, frogs, dolphins, and humans—we're all big talkers. Turtles, on the other hand, are considered to be silent. But are they? In this episode, we challenge what we know about some of our quieter planet-mates.Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.Operation frog sound! Send us your frog sounds for an upcoming episode. We want you to go out, listen for frogs and toads, and record them. Just find someone croaking, and hit record on your phone. It doesn’t matter if there’s background noise. It doesn’t even matter if you’re not sure whether or not you’re hearing an amphibian—if you think you are, we would love to get a recording from you.Please also say your name and where you are in the world, and then email the recording to us at [email protected] links: Gabriel Jorgewich-CohenTurtle Island

Living together in a group is a strategy many animals use to survive and thrive. And a big part of what makes that living situation successful is listening. In this episode, we explore the collaborative world of the naked mole-rat. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.Operation frog sound! Send us your frog sounds for an upcoming episode. We want you to go out, listen for frogs and toads, and record them. Just find someone croaking, and hit record on your phone. It doesn’t matter if there’s background noise. It doesn’t even matter if you’re not sure whether or not you’re hearing an amphibian—if you think you are, we would love to get a recording from you.Please also say your name and where you are in the world, and then email the recording to us at [email protected]

A name is essential to your identity. It’s what people call you and what you respond to—it’s part of what you understand about yourself. But do other living things call each other by names? In this episode, we look at how names work in some non-human worlds. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.

Listening and looking for loons.Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.We want to hear from you! Send us your questions about the new season, the content or how it’s made, for an upcoming behind-the-scenes episode. You can submit your questions to [email protected] 

We answer listener questions about the making of Season 5: Hark and of Threshold more broadly in this special AMA episode with host Amy Martin, managing editor Erika Janik, and producer Sam Moore. Thanks to Kraftkabel for the use of his music. You can find the whole track here.Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.

Sometimes a place we consider quiet is just a place we haven’t taken the time to listen.Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.We want to hear from you! Send us your questions about the new season, the content or how it’s made, for an upcoming behind-the-scenes episode. You can submit your questions to [email protected] 

If a being doesn’t have ears, can it hear? And if it doesn’t have a mouth, can it talk?  In this episode, we spend a golden afternoon conversing with the flowers, plants, and trees. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.We want to hear from you! Send us your questions about the new season, the content or how it’s made, for an upcoming behind-the-scenes episode. You can submit your questions to [email protected] 

Listening to Threshold is free. Creating it is not.We’ve always been committed to making the best show we can—and making it available for free. This is only possible with your financial support.Our year-end fundraising campaign is happening now through December 31st, and each gift will be matched by our partners at Newsmatch. That means if you can give $25, we'll receive $50. It’s easy to make a tax-deductible donation at thresholdpodcast.org. Just click donate and give what you can. Thank you for listening. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.We want to hear from you! Send us your questions about the new season, the content or how it’s made, for an upcoming behind-the-scenes episode. You can submit your questions to [email protected] 

Insects invented song. They’ve developed a multitude of ways to listen. But insects couldn’t have evolved these complex skills without plants. In this episode, we explore the interconnected acoustic lives of insects and plants. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.We want to hear from you! Send us your questions about the new season, the content or how it’s made, for an upcoming behind-the-scenes episode. You can submit your questions to [email protected] 

Sometimes we have to be loud when we want to be quiet. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.We want to hear from you! Send us your questions about the new season, the content or how it’s made, for an upcoming behind-the-scenes episode. You can submit your questions to [email protected] 

What is sound? And what does it mean to listen? In this episode, we ask what sound is, how it works, and how what you hear may not be the same as your neighbor.Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.We want to hear from you! Send us your questions about the new season, the content or how it’s made, for an upcoming behind-the-scenes episode. You can submit your questions to [email protected] Resources:Check out more from Evelyn Glennie on YouTube and on her website.

Coral reefs are some of our planet’s most beautiful and biodiverse habitats. They’re also rich with sound, a bustling marine metropolis whose future is severely threatened by climate change. In this episode, we discover the important role of listening in coral communities. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.We want to hear from you! Send us your questions about the new season, the content or how it’s made, for an upcoming behind-the-scenes episode. You can submit your questions to [email protected]

The planet is filled with unexpected and magical sounds… all you have to do is listen.Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.We want to hear from you! Send us your questions about the new season, the content or how it’s made, for an upcoming behind-the-scenes episode. You can submit your questions to [email protected] 

Beneath the water lies a whole world of sound: snorts, boops, croaks, grunts. Fish, it turns out, have a lot to say, and they’ve been communicating for a long time. In this episode, we take a dive with some of the planet’s oldest vertebrates Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.We want to hear from you! Send us your questions about the new season, the content or how it’s made, for an upcoming behind-the-scenes episode. You can submit your questions to [email protected] Special thanks to Lauren Hawkins, Miles Parsons, and Tim Lamont for many of the fish recordings. Clara Amorim and Raquel Vasconcelos recorded the Lusitanian toadfish, Herbert Tiepelt recorded the pikeperch percussionist, and Marta Bolgan provided the “unknown kwa.” Additional recordings came from more than a dozen other scientists, many of whom have contributed sounds to the website Fishsounds.Here are the fish sounds we used in the episode:160000_Parsons_Blackspotted croaker chorus130000_Picciulin_Brown meager_Chorus180000_Pine_Unknown_Chorus170000_Parsons_Unknown_Chorus180000_Dilorio_Unknown_Kwa Chorus190000_Bolgan_Unknown_Kwa050000_Tiepelt_Pike-perch_Scrape070000_Stolkin_Striped Cusk-eel_Jackhammer chorus180000_Staaterman_Toadfish_Boop-Grunt-Swoop150000_Casaretto_Haddock_hum080000_Amorim_Lusitania Toadfish_Boatwhistle_edited1970_MP Fish_Seahorse_Click170000_RountreeR_Aplodinotus-grunniens_Drum-Call-Chorus180000_Rowell_Epinephelus striatus_agonistic050000_AmorimC_Eutrigla-gurnardus_Growl-Grunt-Knock180000_AmorimC_Pomatoschistus-pictus_Drum

For most of our planet’s existence, the Earth was quiet. The boisterous sounds of life we know today are a recent development, one that the growing field of bioacoustics is helping us understand and interpret. In this episode, we travel to Australia to listen to dolphins and meet the microbes that helped usher in life on the planet.Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.We want to hear from you! Send us your questions about the new season, the content or how it’s made, for an upcoming behind-the-scenes episode. You can submit your questions to [email protected]

Humans are born into a wondrous planetary chorus. But today, many of us rarely hear anything other than ourselves. In this season of Threshold, we explore a world teeming with sound and ask what happens when we tune into the life all around us. Season 5 of Threshold, Hark, is coming Tuesday, November 19th. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.

In June 2024, the planet hit a terrifying milestone: 12 straight months of global temperatures at or above 1.5 degrees over pre-industrial levels. But even as the impact of climate change becomes more visible and far-reaching, the opportunity to change the trajectory of this global crisis remains possible. Hope is possible. Today, we’re sharing a conversation with writer and activist Rebecca Solnit, a leading voice on the climate crisis and a dogged champion of possibility and promise. Subscribe to the Threshold newsletter for sneak peeks behind the scenes and news about our upcoming new season. Subscribe here.Listening to Threshold is free, but creating it is not. Support independent journalism by making a donation to support Threshold. Donate here.

In Season 1 of Threshold, we reported on the decades-long fight to get the federal government to transfer the National Bison Range, and the bison, back to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. In 2020, it finally happened. Stewardship of the herd was returned to the people who had helped to save these animals from extinction more than a century before. It’s one of just a few cases where the U.S. government has actually returned a piece of land to the Native American people it was taken from. Earlier this year, we came back to the Bison Range to find out how things are going for the herd and what the restoration of this land has meant to the Tribes.TranscriptA special offer for our year-end donors!On March 13, 2024, host Amy Martin and managing editor Erika Janik will take you behind the mic for a special virtual event—Stories in the Wild: Seven Years of Making Threshold—sharing the triumphs and tribulations we experience when creating a season of our show.Year-end donors—at any giving level—will receive a code for a complimentary ticket when reservations open. Can't make the event? Ticket holders will gain access to a free recording. Donate today to support our work.

A few weeks ago, Yellowstone National Park released a draft plan for managing bison in the park. In this dispatch, we answer your questions about the plan and what it means for the future of the herd.Read the NPS plan hereSubmit a comment here or mail your comment to this address: Superintendent, Attn: Bison Management Plan, PO Box 168, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190Listen to our first dispatch on the plan hereLearn more about how many bison Yellowstone can support:The Yellowstone Bison Program’s 2020 Conservation Update (especially “Making Sense of Numbers” on Page 12) A paper by other scientists with a different perspective: “Bison limit ecosystem recovery in northern Yellowstone”Subscribe to our newsletterEpisode transcriptSupport Threshold by making a donation today

Yellowstone National Park recently released a new plan for managing the bison herd. It’s in draft form, and maps out three alternatives for how to manage the herd in the future. Before it gets finalized, the public has a chance to read it and weigh in on which path is best. We talked with Morgan Warthin, chief of public affairs at Yellowstone National Park, to learn what this could mean for the future of the bison.What questions do you have about bison, bison science, bison history, and bison management? Send your questions to us at [email protected] and we’ll try to answer as many as we can in an upcoming dispatch.Read the plan hereLearn more about the plans at one of the virtual public meetings:August 28, 2023 10:30 AM -12:00 PM MT and August 29, 2023 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM MTWhat's brucellosis? It's a bacterial disease, primarily occurring in bison, elk, cattle, and pigs.Learn more about brucellosis here.Sign up for the Threshold newsletter here. It's the best place to stay up to date on this issue and everything else going on at Threshold.Episode transcriptSupport independent nonprofit journalism by making a donation to support Threshold today. Donate here

A lyrical ode to our atmosphere: the invisible, underappreciated substance that makes all life on Earth possible. There are quite a few things working against us when it comes to acting on climate change—not least of them, the simple fact that we literally can’t see the atmosphere, or how we’re changing it. In this episode, we take a guided tour of the Earth’s atmosphere to understand the science, beauty, and wonder of our “magical safety blanket.” Our tour is led by a trio of scientists: astrophysicists Dr. Anjali Tripathi and Dr. Hannah Wakeford, and hydroclimatologist Dr. Francina Dominguez. Join us in giving the atmosphere its due.This episode originally aired on February 8, 2022.Find the transcript for this episode here.Please share Threshold with friends, family, and community.Sign up for our newsletter, a monthly invitation to explore our relationships with the changing planet.Stay in touch with us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook or at [email protected]

A few weeks ago, the Biden administration approved the Willow project. It’s a plan to extract 600 million barrels of oil from northern Alaska. There’s a lot of history and politics behind this story, things that tie to issues we’ve reported on in past seasons of Threshold. Amy Martin wrestles with this project and what it means for our netzero future in this month’s issue of our newsletter. Are you a subscriber? Stay connected to Threshold between seasons and find out what we're reading, watching, and listening to by subscribing to our newsletter. Subscribe to the newsletter

Representatives from nearly every country in the world are in Egypt right now for COP27, the annual climate conference hosted by the United Nations. The overall goal of each COP is to make progress on climate; to get all countries moving in the same direction, toward a decarbonized world, in an equitable way, based on the best scientific information available. But some are now saying that we should abandon hope of holding global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial temperatures.But we don't think that. And here's why.Threshold's year-end fundraiser is underway right now. Donate today to keep Threshold going strong. Our listeners make this work possible. Sign-up for our newsletter 

In many ways, the climate crisis is an identity crisis. As we reckon with the damage we’ve done, we’re being forced into a massive confrontation with the powers, limitations, and essential nature of our species. How do we even process the notion that we can do—that we are doing—so much harm to ourselves and to all life on Earth? What is it about us that led us into this mess, and do we have what it takes to get ourselves out of it? Who are we? And who do we want to become? This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we explore what we learn about ourselves from bonobos, the necessity of getting everyone on the planet in the same boat, and the power of stories to shape our future. This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.org

The climate crisis is not just a problem of carbon emissions: it's one of inequality. In fact, global warming and global inequality are the same problem manifesting in different ways. And one of the places we see this connection clearly is at COP26. This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we follow the conflict over loss and damage, mitigation, and finance in the negotiating room. Who wins and who loses in the making of an international climate pact? This episode contains strong language that may not be suitable for all listeners. This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.org

The UN climate talks, or COPs, are attempting the biggest, most complicated, highest-stakes group project humanity has ever known. They are, in a sense, an attempt to design a revolution—to help guide a massive societal transformation that needs to happen all around the world, all at once, to curb climate chaos. But design and planning are rarely how paradigm shifts actually happen. So how do we actually make it happen? And can we do it fast enough? This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we continue our journey at COP26 in Glasgow to see what the process for organizing a social and economic revolution really looks like and explore what kind of collaboration this kind of climate transformation asks of all of us. This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.org 

The UN climate talks, or COPs, are a lot of different things: they're confusing, bureaucratic, inspiring, boring, infuriating, and exhilarating. They are also the only thing we’ve got to deal with climate change on a scale that matches the problem—that is to say, globally. The overall goal of each COP is to make progress on climate: to get all countries moving towards a decarbonized world—as equitably as possible and based on the best scientific information available. But of course, every country has a different idea of what that looks like and how we should get there. This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we take you into the trenches of COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, to explore how the process of climate negotiation works and what’s at stake for every human on the planet.This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.org

If the steel industry were a country, it would be the world's third-largest emitter. So to prevent a climate catastrophe, this industry has to change. And not just a little bit: we have to fundamentally transform how we make one of the most versatile, durable, widely used materials human beings have ever created. That's exactly what a group of companies in northern Sweden is aiming to do.  This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5” In this episode we travel to northern Sweden to explore how a greener process could revolutionize the iron and steel industry, dramatically reduce fossil fuel emissions, and make life better for people in industrial communities.This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.org 

Listening to Threshold is free, but creating it is not.We have always been committed to making the best show we can—and making it available for free.But that's not possible without financial support.We’re a 501c3 nonprofit organization, and our work is funded entirely by gifts and grants. When you make a donation to Threshold, you’re directly supporting our independent nonprofit journalism. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.org

For centuries, we have been willing to sacrifice places, ecosystems, and entire species for industries like steel. While steel is one of the most useful materials humans have ever created, it’s also one of the most damaging to the climate and to the people who work in and live near these mills. These conditions help explain why the workers in the steel mills of Gary in the first half of the 20th century came from two main groups: newly arrived immigrants and African Americans who had moved up from the southern United States.This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we explore the intersection of racism, industrialization, and climate change in Gary, Indiana. Also Michael Jackson.This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.org

Steel is the signature material of the Industrial Revolution. It’s also an essential component of the wind turbines, electric cars, and climate-friendly buildings we’ll need in a decarbonized world. But making steel requires mountains of coal. So we both really need steel and really need to stop making it the way we’re doing now.This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we explore the costs and benefits of our industrial processes on people, communities, and the climate through the story of Gary, Indiana.This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.org

One of the most challenging aspects of the climate crisis is that we have to do everything at once - transition the entire global economy away from fossil fuels AND deal with the warming that’s already happening. In climate-speak, these two things are called mitigation and adaptation, and one of the places where you can see this playing out is Lagos, the largest city in Nigeria and one of the most important ports in Africa. It’s a city that’s flourishing and also one that is facing a huge problem as the world warms and the ocean encroaches. This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we pay a visit to two communities in Lagos, just a few miles apart, responding to climate change in very different ways.This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.org 

A lot of the changes needed to keep global heating below 1.5 degrees have to occur at a huge, international level. But nearly a fifth of carbon emissions in the U.S. come from our homes. Are there things we can do at home to help the climate crisis? And just how effective are individual actions?  This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we zoom in to look at what individuals can do to decarbonize their homes, from small town Livingston, Montana, to New York City. This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.org

We keep hearing (and saying) that solving climate change is really hard. But we actually know what we need to do - and have the technology to do it - right now. It’s more a question of what happens if we don’t act fast enough.This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we look at some models for how we can realistically meet the 1.5C goal and get to net zero by 2050. There is hope and there are also challenges, but the biggest barriers and our most promising tools are our imperfect human selves.This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.org

The number of things at stake in the climate crisis do not fit inside one episode. It's hard to even fit them inside your mind. Part of what makes the potential losses so hard to grasp is that they're happening at lots of different scales, all at the same time. And as we move back and forth between what's happening out our own backdoors with what we know is happening all around the globe, one thing becomes very clear: there's no separating what we're doing to nature from what we're doing to ourselves. This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we look at what climate chaos could do to our ability to meet our basic needs and live together in relative harmony, and explore what we all stand to lose if we don’t act fast enough. This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.org

Britain was the first place in the world to go through what we now call the Industrial Revolution, a transformation of an agricultural, rural society into a manufacturing powerhouse that kicked off the mass migration of ancient carbon from the ground to the atmosphere. This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we explore the mass acceleration of nearly every process on earth that began in Britain in the 1700s and continues to this day, a multi-century fossil-fuel binge that knocked the climate out of whack. This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.org