logo
episode-header-image
Nov 2019
19m 15s

March of the Beaver

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
About this episode
The desolate Alaskan tundra - a landscape that has literally been frozen solid for thousands of years - is suddenly caving in on itself. Colonizing beavers are engineering new wetlands that thaw the soil, rapidly releasing greenhouse methane into the atmosphere. Beavers can survive in the arctic because - like people - they change the environment to make hom ... Show More
Up next
Jul 2023
Trapped in the icy waters of the Northwest Passage
For centuries, the Northwest Passage, the long-sought sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through northern Canada, was a holy grail of Arctic exploration. Even now, sailing through it isn’t guaranteed. Mark Synnott, a National Geographic Explorer, writer, and adv ... Show More
34m 16s
Jul 2023
Playback: Modern Lives, Ancient Caves
There’s a lost continent waiting to be explored, and it’s right below our feet. We’ll dig into the deep human relationship to the underground—and why we understand it from an instinctive point of view, but not so much from a physical one. (Hint: We’re afraid of the dark.) In an e ... Show More
28m 39s
Jun 2023
Playback: This Indigenous Practice Fights Fire with Fire
For decades, the U.S. government evangelized fire suppression, most famously through Smokey Bear’s wildfire prevention campaign. But as climate change continues to exacerbate wildfire seasons and a growing body of scientific research supports using fire to fight fire, Indigenous ... Show More
29m 8s
Recommended Episodes
Nov 2023
The Beaver
Kenneth Steven considers the introduction of wild animals back into the Highlands of Scotland and the impact on rural life, reflecting in poetry at the end of each Essay.There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that at one time beavers were distributed widely throughout mainland Sco ... Show More
13m 30s
Jul 2021
Losing Alaska
As floods, wildfires, and heatwaves hit many parts of the world, signs of climate change seem to be all around us. Scientists have been warning us for years about the looming threat of a warming planet. And yet it’s really hard for many of us to wrap our minds around this existen ... Show More
24m 23s
Jul 2023
The Anthropocene
As we confront the realities of a changing climate, a group of scientists says we're living in a world of our very own making - a world altered by the burning of fossil fuels, the explosion of nuclear weapons, plastic pollution and environmental degradation. The scientists call i ... Show More
9m 56s
Dec 2023
Climate Heroes - Protecting Bears in Bolivia - Revisited
A Bolivian scientist sets out to study a species of bears critically endangered by drought and loss of habitat. Along the way, she shows the local community how helping the bears can protect their livelihood and the forest against climate change. A transcript of this episode is a ... Show More
20m 16s
Aug 2019
How Many Trees Would We Need to Plant to Slow Climate Change?
Trees pull and store carbon, but lots of land that could support them is deforested. Learn how researchers think planting trees could help mitigate climate change in this episode of BrainStuff. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio ... Show More
7m 6s
Jun 2024
On Thin Ice: Supercharged Phytoplankton (Part 1)
All aboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer, a research vessel making its way through the waters of West Antarctica. Journalist Sofia Moutinho is joining a team of chemists trying to find out how glacial melting is changing ocean chemistry—and what those changes might mean for the global ... Show More
21 m
May 2023
I’ll Be Dammed: Beavers Fighting Climate Change
Today, we give a dam about beavers. These busy rodents don’t just chill and go with the flow — it turns out their grabby paws are actually helping hands in the fight against climate change. We dive into how this works with ecologists Dr. Emily Fairfax and Dr. Ben Dittbrenner. Fin ... Show More
18m 26s
Dec 2023
La longue histoire des forêts et du climat - Entretien avec Brigitte Musch
Mes chers camarades, bien le bonjour, et bienvenue dans ce nouvel entretien historique en partenariat avec l’ONF, l’Office National des Forêts, qui est tout simplement l’établissement chargé de la gestion des forêts publiques françaises. J’y ai reçu Brigitte Musch, une forestière ... Show More
1h 48m
Jun 2024
The Remarkable Beaver, Part 2
Beavers are incredible creatures and significant ecosystem manipulators, but they’ve also been subject to various written and illustrative inaccuracies. Medieval bestiaries often depict the common beaver as a weird-looking dog that bites off its own testicles when pursued by moun ... Show More
47m 56s