Threshold

For decades, the residents of St. John the Baptist Parish breathed in toxic chemicals from a massive complex that makes neoprene - a synthetic rubber. But while residents suspected something was wrong, they were still shocked when the EPA told them they had the highest risk of cancer in the nation. Why were they just now being warned? And what was the government going to do about it? In this episo...

People have objected to the toxic side effects of industry in Louisiana and across the country for a long time. A swell of activism in the 70s and 80s connected civil rights with environmental issues and public health, so that by the 1990s, it seemed like the nation was entering an environmental justice renaissance. And yet, low income and minority communities have remained at risk. In this episod...

We know that many of the chemicals being released by plants in the corridor can cause cancer. We also know that the cancer risk along this stretch of the Mississippi is unusually high. But how do we know for sure that these things are connected? In this episode, we explore what we know about pollution and disease. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can supp...

At the beginning of the 20th century, the corridor began a transition from one deadly industry to another—from sugar to petrochemicals. This transition wasn’t a coincidence. The history of industry intersects with the history of race in Louisiana all the way up to the present day. In this episode, we look at how and why petrochemicals came to the corridor. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supporte...

Before gas, oil, and benzene, there was sugar. This is the story of the first industry that exploited people in the Corridor, an industry that brought the ancestors of today’s residents to the area and laid the foundations for the modern petrochemical industry. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today . To stay connected, s...

One of the largest concentrations of petrochemical plants in the country lies along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Petrochemicals are made from fossil fuels. We use them to make a huge range of synthetic materials that are found in almost every part of our daily lives — but petrochemicals are made where people live. Here, amidst houses, schools, and churches, more than...

Coming Tuesday, June 2nd: A podcast about history, pollution, and resistance on the frontlines of America’s petrochemical industry. Over seven episodes, The Corridor examines how Louisiana became a center of industry and an epicenter of disease, with some communities facing cancer risks among the highest in the nation. Everything that’s happening in the industrial corridor today has been shaped by...

Like many countries, Iran has struggled with major water scarcity in recent years. Last summer its capital, Tehran, came very close to “day zero,” the day when the whole city runs out of drinking water. Now, with the United States at war with Iran, President Donald Trump has further threatened the country’s civilian water infrastructure, including dams, water treatment plants, and the electrical g...

As surprising as it may be to encounter a coyote in the big city, these wild carnivores aren’t passing through—they’re right at home. Whether it’s a quiet grassland or a downtown Quiznos, they’re adapting to their environment, and to us. Dr. Christopher Schell is an ecologist who studies city-dwelling carnivores at UC Berkeley, and he joins us to think about how wild animals live in the built envi...

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...

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 i...

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 announc...

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 Climat...

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 t...

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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...

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....

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 o...

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 don...

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 prod...

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...

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!...

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 newslette...

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...