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...

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 here Submit a comment here or mail your comment to this address: Superintendent, Attn: Bison Management Plan, PO Box 168, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190 Listen to our first dispatch on the plan here Learn more about how many bison Yellowstone can support: The Yellowstone...

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...

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:...

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,...

Threshold needs you! It's our year-end campaign, and we're hoping to get 100 NEW donors to support our show before the end of 2022.  If 100 of you choose to support our work for the first time, we get a one-thousand dollar bonus award! A gift in any amount helps us reach our goal to keep bringing you great storytelling. We’re a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and our work is funded almost entirely by gifts and grants. When you make a donation to Threshold, you’re directly supporting our...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

There are quite a few things working against us when it comes to understanding how urgently we need to act on climate change. But there's also the simple fact that we can't literally see how we're changing the atmosphere. It’s time to give the atmosphere its due. This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we go straight up, into our atmosphere.  This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.org

After decades of scientific study and political wrangling the world has agreed—at least on paper—that 1.5C of heating must be the upper limit of our impact on the climate system. How could something that sounds so small matter so much? This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we take you inside the scientific and political origin story of 1.5C, from the holocene to the halls of COP26 in Glasgow.  Learn more about Threshold on our website. This work depends on people who...

Humanity has a mission right now: to keep global heating to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels. Science tells us that we have less than a decade to do it, and that if we don't, the consequences will be dire. That's humanity's mission, and that's what season 4 of Threshold is about. It’s called “Time to 1.5.”  In this season, we’re going to grapple with what it means to be living through this pivotal moment, when what we do and don't do will have impacts that...

For the last few months now, we’ve been telling you that we’re working on season four of Threshold. But we haven't told you what it's about. We're going to fix that now...sort of. We're going to tell you a story of something Amy did several years ago—something that very nearly had disastrous consequences—which is kind of a metaphor for what season four is all about. Consider this a strong hint about what's to come in just a few weeks. In-depth reporting on climate change, environmental...