Chrysalis with John Fiege

Subscribe to Chrysalis at https://www.johnfiege.earth/ Show notes: https://www.johnfiege.earth/30-carey-thornton Listen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , YouTube , and Captivate . See my series of photographs from Rainier Beach Urban Farm & Wetlands. Tilth is a word that’s not used much anymore. It comes from the Old English word “tilþ,” which is spelled in a funny Old English way and...

Subscribe to Chrysalis at https://www.johnfiege.earth/ Show notes: https://www.johnfiege.earth/29-henri-cole-haiku Listen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , YouTube , and Captivate . Henri Cole wrote his poem, "Haiku," after visiting a jellyfish exhibit at an aquarium. In the poem, he places himself on the beach, in red pajamas, observing and contemplating what he calls the “unnatural cycl...

Subscribe to Chrysalis at https://www.johnfiege.earth/ Show notes: https://www.johnfiege.earth/28-beth-osnes-shine-a-climate-musical Listen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , YouTube , and Captivate . Young people are a crucial part of transforming the climate crisis into a more promising future, but their voices are seldom included in discussions of how to reshape our societies in respons...

Subscribe to Chrysalis at https://www.johnfiege.earth/ Show notes: https://www.johnfiege.earth/27-alina-simone-siberias-black-snow-and-the-environmental-threat-of-authoritarianism Listen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , YouTube , and Captivate . Imagine going up against a coal company to protect the health of your children and your community. Here in the United States, it's a daunting ch...

Subscribe to Chrysalis at https://www.johnfiege.earth/ Show notes: https://www.johnfiege.earth/26-christi-cooper-the-biggest-crime-against-humanity-ever Listen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , YouTube , and Captivate . The oil industry is scared. The impacts of climate change are upon us, and oil companies knew decades ago that burning fossil fuels would warm the planet. Listen on Apple...

Subscribe to Chrysalis at https://www.johnfiege.earth/ Show notes: https://www.johnfiege.earth/25-abraham-joffe-the-polar-bear-trade Listen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , YouTube , and Captivate . Why is there an international trade in polar bear body parts, despite their iconic status as a symbol of climate change? More than any other animal, the polar bear is an icon of climate chang...

Subscribe to Chrysalis at https://www.johnfiege.earth/ Show notes: https://www.johnfiege.earth/24-laura-dunn-live-prophets-live Listen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , YouTube , and Captivate . If you’re concerned about what we’re doing to the climate and ecosystems around the planet and you’ve ever expressed those concerns to anyone, you probably know what it feels like to be seen as a...

Subscribe to Chrysalis at https://www.johnfiege.earth/ Show notes: https://www.johnfiege.earth/23-christy-rupp-from-rubble-rats-to-plastic-pangolins Listen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , YouTube , and Captivate . Waste is often invisible—or at least many people work hard to make it disappear. Through landfills, incineration, and cargo ships traveling across oceans, we have become adept...

Subscribe to Chrysalis at https://www.johnfiege.earth/ Show notes: https://www.johnfiege.earth/22-revisiting-poisoned-ground-at-love-canal-with-luella-kenny-photographs-and-upcoming-live-event Listen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , YouTube , and Captivate . See Luella Kenny Tour Photos In 1978, Luella Kenny was living in the Love Canal neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, when her 6...

Subscribe to Chrysalis at https://www.johnfiege.earth/ Show notes: https://www.johnfiege.earth/21-ken-baker-rethink-food/ Listen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , YouTube , and Captivate . New York City is one of the wealthiest cities in the world–and the financial capital of the world. And yet, food insecurity in the city is rampant. About one in three adults and nearly half of families...

Subscribe to Chrysalis at https://www.johnfiege.earth/ Show notes: https://www.johnfiege.earth/20-todd-scott-detroit-greenways-coalition 20. Todd Scott – Detroit Greenways Coalition Listen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , YouTube , and Captivate . The ways we live our lives, design our communities, and move around within those communities are all intimately connected to the ecological he...

Subscribe to Chrysalis at https://www.johnfiege.earth/ Show notes: www.johnfiege.earth/19-jim-morris-dont-worry-nothing-here-will-hurt-you/ 19. Jim Morris — Don't Worry, Nothing Here Will Hurt You Listen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , YouTube , and Captivate . You may have Goodyear tires on your car or truck. Many Americans do. Goodyear is the leading tire manufacturer in this country....

Subscribe to Chrysalis at https://www.johnfiege.earth/ Show notes: https://www.johnfiege.earth/18-lois-gibbs-the-legacy-of-love-canal/ 18. Lois Gibbs — The Legacy of Love Canal Listen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , YouTube , and Captivate . When Lois Gibbs moved into the Love Canal neighborhood of Niagara Falls in 1972, she had no idea how radically her life was about to change. Listen...

Subscribe to Chrysalis at https://www.johnfiege.earth/ Show notes: https://www.johnfiege.earth/17-transformation-for-a-new-era/ 17. Transformation for a New Era Listen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , YouTube , and Captivate . Today, I’m relaunching the Chrysalis newsletter and podcast with a new website, a new logo, and a new purpose. In the past year, here in the United States, we have...

The tires of your car have a chemical in them, called 6PPD, that slows tire degradation by binding with oxygen and ozone that could break down the rubber. But these same reactions that protect the rubber are also creating a new chemical, called 6PPD-quinone, which scientists just found in 2020 to be highly toxic to aquatic organisms. 6PPD is in essentially every tire made since the 1960s, and aqua...

There is a line in Allison Adelle Hedge Coke’s poem, “When the Animals Leave this Place,” that I find haunting: “They said no one belongs here.” She’s writing about land that used to flood cyclically but that settlers used for farms and pastures, against the advice of Indigenous elders and without regard for the seasonality of the rain. Listen on Apple Podcasts Embedded in these six words—“They sa...

I love beautiful pictures of animals surrounded by their natural habitats. It’s exhilarating to see idyllic environments and the animals so amazingly well-adapted to live in them. It’s also comforting to know those places still exist, despite what we’re doing to the planet. Listen on Apple Podcasts But there’s a danger in that exhilaration and comfort: these animals appear to live in a world so se...

Before I read Brian Teare’s poem, “Doomstead Days,” I had never heard of a doomstead. It’s a clever portmanteau, combining homestead with doomsday: an alternative universe where the homestead is a preparation for the climate apocalypse. Listen on Apple Podcasts The poem Brian weaves around his encounter with this word is a lyrical romp through our connection to land, water, and each other. Water f...

What is our relationship to the land, to its other-than-human inhabitants, and to the rest of humanity? These are fundamental questions for thinking through how we can transform ourselves in ways that allow a multiplicity of ecologies and human communities to thrive alongside one another. And these questions are not just fundamental to us as individuals—they are essential to how we view our cultur...

Lichen is a strange presence on this planet. Traditionally, scientists have understood lichen as a new organism formed through symbiosis between a fungus and an algae. But the science is evolving. It seems that there may be more than one species of fungus involved in this symbiosis, and some scientists have suggested that lichen could be described as both an ecosystem and an organism. Lichen may e...

Our love for the world around us and our passion for protecting that world can come from many different places. It can come from a connection to the land, or a magical experience we had with other people in a particular place, or our sense of awe from the beauty of the living creatures that inhabit these ecosystems. But that love and passion can also come from seeing or experiencing the destructio...

When we’re gone from this Earth, what will we leave behind? What will we pass down to those who come after us? Plastic. If nothing else, lots of plastic. A plastic bag might take 20 years to break down, but harder, thicker plastics, like toothbrushes, might take 500 years or more to break down. Listen on Apple Podcasts Elizabeth Bradfield is a poet and naturalist who sees first hand, in her work a...

Art can show us the pain and trauma and suffering of the world, and often it does. But art can also go the other direction. It can reveal the beauty, harmony, and unity of the world. The canvasses in Salma Arastu’s series of paintings, We Are All One , are full of soft colors, continuous lines, immersive habitats that flow into one another, and—sometimes—two-dimensional representations of humans a...

I’m continually amazed by the immensity of the world that a small poem can conjure. In just a few lines or words, or even just a line break, a poem can travel across time and space. It can jump from the minuscule to the incomprehensible vastness of the universe. And in these inventive leaps, it can create, in our minds, new ideas and images. It can help us see connections that were, before, invisi...

Official camarones ban season poster in Lunahuana, Peru. Photograph by V. Constanza Ocampo-Raeder © 2021. Modern society has removed many of us from an intimate connection to the land, the water, and the elements. Air conditioning in cars and artificial light in our homes allow us to carry on without paying much attention at all to the forces of nature around us. These relationships to ecological...