In Tune to Nature Podcast

In honor of National Park Week and Earthday 2025, we are supporting OUR national parks by sharing stories about what we love about the parks that we all collectively own (the most beautiful and ecologically significant wild places/habitats in the nation...and in the world, as some earned UNESCO World Heritage Site designations), to help encourage Americans to ask for political support to stop trum...

We reframe the “egg crisis” (high prices and low supply of commercial hen’s eggs in a bird flu outbreak) as a crisis of mass farming of animals , proposing sustainable alternative food solutions that can replace eggs and reduce the spread of zoonotic diseases, pollution, and the killing and harm of millions of wild and domesticated animals. Jennifer and Carrie discuss this in the context of the bi...

Our National Park Service staff are under seige, as so many federal employees are, from trump and Elon Musk’s unfair attacks on our federal government agencies with haphazard and frankly cruel mass firings of public servants (not truly based on inefficiency or poor performance) along with spending and hiring freezes that are traumatizing and debilitating park employees and surrounding communities,...

We gotta start eating plants not other animals. A 2025 article published in the journal “Oxford Open Climate Change” titled “Solving climate change requires changing our food systems” outlines the need for human societies globally to transition to plant-based food systems and phase out factory farming, offering pathways to make that vision a reality to reach climate mitigation goals and spare the...

We discuss the concept of animal dignity – two words that don’t often get put together; we typically only hear of human dignity, as if it means we are dignified precisely because we aren’t animals, yet we humans are part of the animal kingdom and not the only animal species who possesses a dignity that should be respected. In this special 55-minute podcast, host Carrie Freeman explores this novel...

Carrie and Melody discuss how to incorporate animal and eco protection into your life in meaningful ways to meet your own life goals, priorities, and interests in big and small ways, syncing up with actions and virtues the world needs from us humans.  Since the beginning of each new year is a time to reassess our own goals and priorities, it seemed a good time to have an In Tune to Nature show tha...

This Christmas, I thought it would be fun to analyze 6 popular Christmas songs referencing animals-other-than-humans (mostly mammals who are forced to pull people around the snow in sleds, and then some birds, mainly birds that humans kill and eat but sometimes birds humans admire for their beauty). The songs are  Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Run Run Rudolph, Sleigh Ride, Jingle Bells, The 12 D...

To have a greener holiday season (and beyond) and avoid buying a bunch of cluttering stuff your friends and family don't need (and probably don't want), this annual holiday show focuses not on eco-friendly products/items but more on eco-friendly experiences and services in order to avoid cluttering up our lives (and planet) with more items that land in our homes permanently and ultimately weigh us...

I decided animals needed an election postmortem after being erased from the political and media agenda by self-centered anthropocentrism; so I wanted to use this media platform with my friend from Oregon, Dr. Debra Merskin, to collectively grieve, vent, and discuss how we really feel this week as animal rights activists, vegans, environmentalists, social justice advocates, human animal earthlings,...

This election season is the ultimate time to consider that this decade is our last best chance to transition to a liveable planet instead of continuing to further recklessly degrade the sustainability of our own species’ future, and that of fellow earthlings, and our one Oasis Earth. Marine conservationist, former U of Alaska professor, and clean energy and wildlife consultant, Dr. Rick Steiner sp...

We voters really do care about eco issues (it's aligned with our health and economy and love for other animals...and future generations), so I wanted to get us prepared, motivated, and confident for early voting in Georgia Oct 15 - Nov 1st, with resources and tips shared by Brionte McCorkle, Executive Director of the nonpartisan Georgia Conservation Voters (GCV) at  https://www.gcvoters.org/vote/...

Elections are about more than just the current economy. We citizens must consider longterm effects of policies on our climate stability, wild animal livelihoods, community wellbeing, ecosystem health, and sustainable economic opportunities for future generations. But "Project 2025," the Heritage Foundation's extreme right-wing policy plan for a trump presidency forecasts a grim future of handing o...

The Marine Protection Atlas maps the global conservation of ocean areas that are supposed to legally protect aquatic animals and plant life from industrial activities like commercial fishing, mining, and drilling, but they have varying levels of protection and effectiveness so far. In this 33-minute podcast, we discuss the status of legally protected marine ocean areas worldwide, some of which are...

Water is essential to life, yet factory animal farms have polluted freshwater and river and wetland ecosystems and rural neighborhoods for decades. But we can work to protect water, wildlife, animals, and community health. To tell us how, is our guest Larry Baldwin. He’s with the nonprofit group Waterkeeper Alliance    https://waterkeeper.org/   and serves as their Campaign Coordinator for the “Pu...

I love hearing about "wildlife equity" for the wild animals who are often an integral focus of tourists. As ecotourists, we long to see amazing wild animals, but how can we ensure we aren’t endangering or harming them and putting ourselves or tourism profit before the lives and wellbeing of local humans and other animals in these tourism hotspots? To tell us about her (and co-authors') concept of...

We talk with Catherine Ridley, VP of One Hundred Miles , about wildlife protection efforts in coastal Georgia, focusing on the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale and Loggerhead Sea Turtles who breed here and are at risk due to fatal ship strikes, fishing gear entanglements, dredging, and noise and light pollution, as well as discussing ancient Horseshoe Crabs, who are especially under threat la...

Conservation Journalist Ben Goldfarb explains stories and lessons from his fantastic book "Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet" It examines how our vast system of roads and all our car and truck traffic is dissecting landscapes and making life dangerous and often lethal for other animal species (to bypass the "moving fence" of traffic) – and what we can do about it to s...

A decade after the release of the 2014 award-winning documentary Cowspiracy , filmmakers Kip Anderson and Keegan Kuhn come together with Atlanta animal activists and scholars in a webinar on May 21st 2024 to discuss the impact of the film and the status/progress/strategies of the vegan movement today. Facilitated by host Dr. Natalie Khazaal, a critical animal studies scholar and Associate Professo...

Food justice activist and veganic farmer Eugene Cooke shares an aspirational vision for why he practices agro-ecology in urban ag at  Grow Where You Are farms around Atlanta and how (and why) this can be scaled up for widespread regenerative agricultural practices that the U.S. needs to stay viable and sustainable to feed our human population and nurture our soil naturally not chemically. In this...

To honor primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall's 90th birthday (April 3 2024) and her continuing conservation work, I am playing part of a recent Mongabay News interview with her, hosted by Rhett A. Butler, followed by a PBS News Hour interview from 2016 with the late biologist E.O. Wilson where he discussed his final book "Half Earth" which he wrote in his late eighties. He continued working until he pa...

Renowned animal ethologist Dr. Marc Bekoff shares insights from the newly revised edition of his classic book: “ The Emotional Lives of Animals: A leading scientist explores animal joy, sorrow, and empathy, -- and why they matter” with a foreword by famed primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall. In April 2024, with the release of the book near Dr. Goodall's 90th birthday, Dr. Bekoff spent 38 minutes with h...

We discuss the latest in the 2024 fight against environmental racism and stream water degradation as part of the "Save The Atlanta Forest" movement also knowns as the "Stop Cop City" movement, in Southeast Atlanta, comprised of many allied groups of citizens who over the last several years are working to stop/discontinue the building of a multi-million dollar mega law enforcement training center i...

In this double-show we explore problems and solutions for transforming America’s flawed model of wildlife management that is oddly human-centric (hunter-centric), undemocratic, and often cruel, by speaking with wildlife advocate and author Anja Heister, PhD, about her recent book “Beyond the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation: From Lethal to Compassionate Conservation,” published by the...

Today it's one of my favorite topics -- the benefits of humans starting to embrace our animality and kinship with other animals, instead of falsely repressing our animality and continuing to think of ourselves as exceptional and above all animal life. We’ll talk about how we human animals can productively change our self narrative to be more honest with author and environmental philosopher Melanie...

We focus on the creative process of several artists in the road ecology movement who have promoted safe passageways for wildlife to cross over and under human highways, via song, children’s literature, and documentary film. Our guests are writer Frances Figart of Asheville, NC and filmmaker Ted Grudowski of Seattle, WA, interviewed in this 30-minute podcast by host Carrie Freeman. Our discussion e...