Outside/In

Show that you love Outside/In! (And stick it to the guy in the corner office) Click here to donate: https://goo.gl/ijzVaZ Mysteries are brewing in the sugar shack. Changes are coming to New England’s sugar bushes. And the very identity of a product that we’ve been crafting in basically the same way for centuries, could be on the verge of a radical shift. But a shift towards what?  Learn more about...

Storm chasing is a pursuit we love to hate in the comment section, but if you look at the TV ratings, or YouTube views, it’s clear that we can’t look away, either. So what motivates chasers to actively put themselves in front of a storm when everyone is else is taking shelter? And, ultimately, do we owe them an apology? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Curiosity abounds in the listener ranks and the Ask Sam Hotline (1-844-GO-OTTER) has been ringing off the hook! Sam and the gang tackle your questions about decorative fountains, land fish and the difference between dog hair and dog fur. Oh, and think you love wood stoves? Think again. It's time for another Sam Ruined It! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  If you ask John Forester, there’s a war being fought, between the forces that want to eject cyclists from the roads, and those that want to preserve their right to ride. According to him, it’s been underway for at least a century, and environmentalists and cycling advocates have all been co-opted by the car lobby.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Robert Person Sr. — Percy, as he’s known — has been shining shoes for 70 years. He started around age 10 and now, at 80, continues to work at Percy’s Shoe Shine Service in Nashville. He’s worn out, stressed out, but this veteran shoe shiner just can’t stop. This episode comes to us from Neighbors, a podcast by Jakob Lewis made with Nashville Public Radio.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit m...

The reality is, recycling doesn’t work because we believe in it. It works because it’s an industry.  You might be keeping that plastic bottle out of your trash bin, but the commodities market keeps it out of the landfill. That plastic bottle is cash in someone’s pocket. But what happens when the way we recycle no longer fits the rest of the equation? Where does our trash go when our partners aren’...

When you watch the Olympics, you think you’re watching the best in the world competing at the pinnacle of their fitness. And while that is often true when it comes to America’s very best, when you start to get farther down the list, choosing which athletes deserve a ticket to the Olympics gets much more difficult… much more subjective. And it’s often those margin calls, those athletes on the bubbl...

For thousands of years, natural spring waters have been associated with health. But recently something called the “raw water movement” has scientists and health officials reminding the public that drinking from untested springs can make you sick.  Today, we try to sort it all out: are springs a healing tonic, a source of unadulterated H20, or a passing fad and a dangerous throwback? Learn more abo...

There have been a couple of important developments on the subject of Canadian hydropower since we released our 4-part series, Powerline. Today, we bring in NHPR's environmental reporter, Annie Ropeik, and our executive producer, Erika Janik, to talk about Northern Pass and the future of energy projects in New England. Plus, we look back at a handful of older episodes to see what has changed since...

In 2010 a researcher found a clutch of hybrid American-European lobster eggs in a Norwegian fjord. This kicked off a decade of research attempting to determine if Scandinavia was in the midst of a foreign lobster invasion. This question is hard to answer, especially when the fate of a business worth $150 million dollars a year hangs in the balance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone...

You've left us lots of great questions on the Ask Sam hotline (1-844-GO-OTTER) so Sam and the team crammed into a studio to try and answer a few.  In this episode we'll tackle metamorphosis, animal sexuality, how to ride a bicycle when it's -18 degrees, and we'll introduce a new segment in which Sam is asked to ruin some of our favorite things. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/...

There’s a legend among energy nerds. According to this legend, California pot-growers — with their illicit capital and counter-cultural ideas — were instrumental in getting the solar industry off the ground, and without them, the industry as we know it would have withered on the vine. So we decided to find out: is it true? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This canine can be found all the way from Panama to Alaska, and shows no sign of going away anytime soon. But what are they? In this episode from Brave Little State, a podcast made next door in Vermont, we get some answers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the late sixties, a soap factory in suburban Illinois discovered one of its outflow pipes had been intentionally clogged by an industrial saboteur. Does environmental damage ever demand radical action? And when does environmental protest cross the line and become eco-terrorism? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Decades of legal and public relations battles with First Nations have changed the way that Hydro-Quebec approaches new projects. Today, the company hires specialists who consult with impacted communities, and modify the designs of their projects to take what they have heard into consideration. But is that enough? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Crees of Quebec signed a landmark agreement with their province and country. The Pessamit Innus now look to that playbook for help in their present-day fight against the provincial utility, but is it too late? On episode two of Powerline, we bring you the story of how one indigenous community got a seat at the table... and how another still struggles to be heard. Learn more about your ad choic...

Hydro-Quebec is the provincially-owned utility that helped French-Canadians stake a claim in Quebec politics and economy. As it forged ahead with two massive hydro projects, the company flooded land that had been used by indigenous people for thousands of years. On episode two of Powerline, we bring you the stories of two groups of First Nations people who grappled with Hydro-Quebec... two stories...

This is part one of our series about how a company, with all of the force of a colonial culture behind it, tried to use its power to push original occupants—its indigenous people—to one side. It’s also the story of how that effort led to something that has become its own kind of revolution in Canada: native people pushing to regain power over their own lives and culture. And it’s a story about the...

Hydro-Québec, the world’s fourth largest hydropower producer, pumps out low carbon electricity at the cheapest rates in North America. For some, it is the key to a greener, more prosperous, future, but that “clean energy” comes freighted with a complicated history and an uncertain future. This is the story of how a massive, state-owned utility company came to be a symbol of the French-Canadian peo...

The Bicknell's Thrush is a bird that can only live in a few very very restricted places. It spends its summers in dense alpine forests in the Northeast of the US. In the winter, perhaps as many as 90 percent of the birds fly to the Dominican Republic. It's a bird without many options, and that makes it a poster child for what's to come.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoic...

The Ask Sam hotline has been blowing up lately! Not like the Galaxy 7, no. In a good way! So Sam, along with a couple of producers from the Outside/In team, took a moment to answer your questions about tree killing, grass eating and the sound in the woods that scared the colonists away. And that's just to name a few. Somebody even gets a trail name out of this one. Learn more about your ad choices...

The story of Michael Proudfoot is everywhere, and the details are always more or less the same: a SCUBA diver exploring a shipwreck breaks his regulator, and surfaces in an air pocket deep in the belly of the ship. He finds a tea-kettle full of fresh water, and eats sea urchins to survive. But as producers of the Outside Podcast, Robbie Carver and Peter Frick-Wright, dig deeper and deeper into the...

In our long, evolutionary history, modernity is just a blip. The wiring of our brains took place over hundreds of thousands of years of hunting and gathering food out in the wilderness, and nothing proves that more vividly than the practice of mushroom hunting. It’s incredibly addictive, even to those who know all too well the associated dangers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.f...

Two young, starry-eyed conservation biologists take a college road trip through Mexico that transforms their outlook on the world. In so doing, they created the foundation for a strategy that would lead them to succeed where heavy-handed government policies had failed. But along the way, they had to get their hands dirty.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Looking for a relatively cheap way to spend a few weeks abroad? You might want to consider World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, or WWOOF. Have an aversion to mud, farm animals, and learning on the job? Maybe reconsider that first suggestion. But for those of you who are looking for an adventure, on a budget, Sam and Molly have composed a “guide” for would-be WWOOFers to think about before ta...