#27 Vicki Hird: Rebugging the Planet
Muse Ecology
Bugs are foundational to life on Earth, and their numbers are plummeting due to human activity. In this conversation with Vicki Hird, author of Rebugging the Planet, we explore the wonders of bugs and how we can restore our relationship with them. You can find more information about rebugging, and purchase the book, at . Here's the two papers referenced in Vicki's book that came up in our discussion, on the potential effects of new higher frequency radiation on invertebrates: Arno Thielens et al., Exposure of Insects to Radio-Frequency Electromagnetic Fields from 2 to 120 GHz, Science...
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#26 Addressing the Other Leg of Climate Change, 2nd Panel
Muse Ecology
"Water begets water, soil is the womb, and vegetation is the midwife." -Prof. Millan M. Millan This last episode, for now, in the Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization series, was a great panel conversation with 6 people from 3 different organizations, each working from distinct approaches to restore weather and climate through restoring natural processes. It was a lovely example of the diversity of backgrounds that are beginning to come together around this idea. Juliette Kool and Ties van der Hoeven, Maya Dutta and Jim Laurie, Marcel de Berg and Pieter-Paul de Kluvier, Here...
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#25 Addressing the Other Leg of Climate Change, 1st Panel
Muse Ecology
The understanding that we can restore weather and climate systems by protecting and restoring the living surface of the Earth is an idea whose time has come. In these final two episodes in this Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization series, we'll hear discussions of how this understanding is beginning to guide our response to climate change, from grassroots to international levels.
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#24 Renewables and Accountability: A Panel Discussion
Muse Ecology
This episode is a diverse panel discussion on the implications of renewable energy supply chains on life, water, and local communities, and how we might address them.
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#23 Life and Lithium at Thacker Pass
Muse Ecology
In this episode in the Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization series, we hear diverse voices from the resistance to the proposed lithium mine at Thacker Pass in northern Nevada, on Paiute and Shoshone ancestral lands.
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#22 Judith Schwartz and Walter Jehne: Climate Change Narrative Shift
Muse Ecology
In this conversation with author Judith Schwartz and scientist Walter Jehne, we discuss the importance of the shift from seeing the Earth as a resource base to seeing ourselves as enmeshed in a web of life that both manages and depends on natural processes. In particular, we focus on how this perspective shift affects how we understand and are empowered to address anthropogenic climate change.
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#21 Paul Cereghino Part 2: Bioregional Restoration and Social Complexity
Muse Ecology
In this conversation with Paul Cereghino, we discuss some of the challenges of collaborating in groups and groups of groups to protect and restore the Earth, including such topics as the role of online interactions, the importance of place-based reality, benefits and pitfalls of systems like sociocracy, Covid complications, and much more.
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#20 Paul Cereghino Part 1: Ecosystem Guild and Restoration Camping
Muse Ecology
In this episode in the Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization series, we explore one of the great challenges on our way back to harmony: humans. Through the lens of his Ecosystem Guild and Restoration Camping project in western Washington State, Paul Cereghino and I discuss some of the interhuman and intergroup complexities of grassroots ecological restoration efforts.
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#19 The Mangrove Action Project
Muse Ecology
In this episode we continue the Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization series with Alfredo Quarto, co-founder and international program director of the Mangrove Action Project. In our conversation with Alfredo, we discuss the importance of mangrove ecologies, their devastation by the shrimp farming industry, and how the mangrove action project uses an approach called Community Based Ecological Mangrove Restoration to facilitate their natural regeneration.
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#18 Neal Spackman; The Business of Restoring the Earth
Muse Ecology
We continue the Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization series with Neal Spackman, ecological restoration designer, regenerative entrepreneur, and bold visionary. Previously in this series, we heard how agriculture and development having long been destroying ecology and hydrology, causing disruptions of weather and climate systems, and leading to the fall of empires. Neal is working to change that ancient dynamic, by restoring ecological function and hydrology to regenerate economies and rainfall patterns.
info_outlineIn spring 2018 I visited the headquarters of the Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap Company in Vista, California, where the Bronner family carries on the legacy of 5 generations of traditional soapmaking and the quirky and passionate All-One vision of Emmanuel Bronner (Dr. Bronner). You are probably familiar with their colorful liquid soap bottles covered with words exuberantly enumerating what Dr. Bronner called the Moral ABC's.
The Bronner Family still uses their castillian soap product as a platform for world healing. I met with David Bronner, Emmanuel's grandson, intending to discuss the new Regenerative Organic Certification that they are championing along with Patagonia, The Rodale Institute, and quite a few other companies who are seeking to help create a more harmonious agricultural system.
David also invited Mickey Norris and Chris Conrad to join our factory tour and conversation. David described Chris and Mickey as "the godfather and godmother of cannabis" because of their 30 plus years of pioneering advocacy work towards legalizing cannabis.
We ended up discussing much more than just regenerative agriculture, but it all fluently flowed together in the All-One story. Legalization of psychedelics and cannabis, regenerative grazing and dietary choices, bison, beaver, David's relationship with his granddad, the history of soapmaking...you can't really draw the line between these threads, for it's All One or None! Exceptions Eternally? Absolute None! All One! All One!
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You can visit Dr. Bronner's website at www.drbronner.com.
Here's the official website for Regenerative Organic Certification: www.regenorganic.org.
The silly, swaggery instrumental music used in the intro and outro this episode is instrumental clips from a recording of my song Meter Maid Betty from a few years ago at Dave Clark's (Banjo Dave's) house. Such a pleasure to play with the amazing Ross Plunkett on trumpet and the sweet, sultry sounds of Angelica Pray singing along here and there. Katie was on the flute, but I forgot her last name. Good times. I hope to play with you folks again. Here's that full recording:
And again, I want to thank Peia, the angelic Songkeeper who has allowed me to use her song The Old Ways Restored for my Muse Ecology introduction. She writes beautiful Earth songs that soothe the soul and inspire courage, and she carries songs from old cultures around the world, from times when the village was intact and humans were more connected with the greater ecology around them. She has been mostly focusing recently on the music of her own Gaelic ancestry. I highly recommend her music and also performances and workshops if you can make it. You can see what she's up to at peiasong.com