A Journey Through Nature and Science

The National Parks Foundation was founded in 1967 to support the unmet needs of our national parks.  Recently, an anonymous donor donated $40 million for employee housing at Yellowstone National Park.  This was the result of the tireless effort of Will Shafroth, president and CEO of the National Park Foundation and his team.

As President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Park Foundation, Will Shafroth leads the organization’s work to protect our national parks and connect people to these great places. Will oversees a staff of more than 125 that work to raise and deploy funds to support programs and projects in national parks. Will works closely with National Park Service leadership to ensure our missions remain aligned. He reports to a 30-member board of directors with whom Will remains closely connected to advance the organization’s mission.

On this episode we will have a conversation with Dr. Bron Taylor.  Bron has written a compelling book, Dark Green Religion: Nature, Spirituality, and The Planetary Future.  Bron Taylor's scholarly work engages the quest for environmentally sustainable societies.  We will explore a wide range of groups-radical environmental activists, lifestyle-focused bioregionalists, surfers, New Agers involved in "ecopsychology," and groups that hold scientific narratives as sacred.

Jon Jarvis, former director of the U.S. National Park Service and his brother Destry have written a compelling book, National Parks Forever: Fifty Years of Fighting and a Case for Independence.  In the book they argue the case for making the National Park Service an independent agency, similar to the Smithsonian Institution.  In this episode you will hear about their combined 90 years of working to protect national parks and secure the resources necessary to effectively manage the parks.  They will also share how the politicization of the National Parks threaten their future.

Jon Jarvis is currently the Chairman of the Board  UC Berkeley Institute for Parks, People, and Biodiversity.  Destry Jarvis currently serves as the vice president of US/ICOMOS, the US National Committee for the International Council on Monuments and Sites, better known as the World Heritage Program.

This episode continues our discussion on America's national parks.  Joining to talk about the work of the National Park Conservation Association(NPCA) is Emily Douce.

Emily is the NPCA Deputy Vice President for Government Affairs. Emily Douce helps manage the government affairs department and advocates for additional funding for national parks, both through appropriations and supplementary sources.

Park advocate, Audrey Peterman is back to discuss to continuing lack of adequate funding for America's national park and what can be done about it.  With inadequate funding spawning low morale, the NPS is ranked as one of the least favorable places to work according to a report in National Parks Traveler.  In this podcast we will discuss root causes and possible solutions.

With competing ideas of how to interpret the meaning of quantum mechanics, physics is in crisis. Can an ancient concept known as the One, rescue physics. From Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation to the Many Worlds theory put forward by Hugh Everett, to the seemingly intractable problem of quantum gravity the challenges facing physics threaten to tear down the very foundation of the science.

In an attempt to save physics from itself, Heinrich Päs has written a compelling book, The One, that offers a solution rooted in the concept that everything we see in the universe, including ourselves, emerges from the One and surprisingly the One itself is made up of everything that we see. How is this possible? Päs proposes that quantum mechanics can show us the way to the answer once we accept that the universe is one.

The revolution in science that is transforming our understanding of extinct life may also lead to Unravelling The Secret Of Life With Ancient Biomolecules.

We used to think of fossils as being composed of nothing but rock and minerals, all molecular traces of life having vanished long ago. We were wrong. Remnants of Ancient Life reveals how the new science of ancient biomolecules—pigments, proteins, and DNA that once functioned in living organisms tens of millions of years ago—is opening a new window onto the evolution of life on Earth.

Paleobiologists are now uncovering these ancient remnants in the fossil record with increasing frequency, shedding vital new light on long-extinct creatures and the lost world they inhabited. Dale Greenwalt is your guide to these astonishing breakthroughs. He explains how ancient biomolecules hold the secrets to how mammoths dealt with the bitter cold, what colors dinosaurs exhibited in mating displays, how ancient viruses evolved to become more dangerous, and much more. Each chapter discusses different types of biomolecules and the insights they provide about the physiology, behavior, and evolution of extinct organisms, many of which existed long before the age of dinosaurs.

A marvelous adventure of discovery, Remnants of Ancient Life offers an unparalleled look at an emerging science that is transforming our picture of the remote past. You will never think of fossils in the same way again. Join us on this episode of Life Is A Story We Tell Ourselves and learn how fossils of all kinds man lead to Unravelling The Secret Of Life With Ancient Biomolecules. You will hear from the first human being ever to see the fossil of a blood-engorged mosquito. This is real-life Jurassic Park.

California was on the world stage recently helping to save the earth's biodiversity at the international biodiversity summit in Montreal, Canada. The countries agreed to protect 30% of the earth's biodiversity by the year 2030. Leading the United States is the state of California, which has put forward an ambition plan called, Pathways to 30x30.

California Governor Newsom’s Executive Order N-82-20 establishes a goal of conserving 30% of California’s lands and coastal waters by 2030. The Governor tasked the California Natural Resources Agency (CRNA) to coordinate the implementation of 30x30 with other State agencies and stakeholders through a series of actions including the development of a framework document, called Pathways to 30x30. The final Pathways to 30x30 strategy document was released in April 2022 and identifies challenges, opportunities, and strategies to achieve 30x30. Pathways to 30x30: Accelerating Conservation of California's Nature will set us on the path to successful implementation through shared action.

Leading this effort is this episode's guest, the secretary of the Resources Agency, Wade Crowfoot. 

Secretary Crowfoot oversees an agency of 21,000 employees who protect and manage California’s natural environment. This includes stewarding the state’s forests and natural lands, rivers and waterways, and coast and ocean, protecting fish and wildlife, and overseeing energy development. As a member of the Governor’s cabinet, he advises Governor Newsom on natural resources and environmental issues.

Secretary Crowfoot firmly believes that good natural resources management helps natural places thrive and allows communities and our economy to prosper. His key priorities include: Building California’s resilience to climate change-driven threats, including wildfire, drought, extreme heat, flooding and sea-level rise. 

Expanding equitable access to parks, natural places and outdoor recreation for all Californians. 
Preserving California’s world-renowned biodiversity of plants and animals.

This past week Secretary Crowfoot attend the international summit on biodiversity in Montreal, Canada where he communicated that California is on the world stage saving the earth's biodiversity.

For decades environmental groups, Non Government Organizations and scores of government agencies have been managing the threats to biodiversity. We often hear of the projects to save the elephants or the pandas and now huge projects seek to clean the ocean from millions of tons of plastic pollution.

However there are many projects small and large that we don’t hear about. Work is quietly being done on the ground to save whole ecosystems or to protect one last remaining plant or animal. Here to talk about some of these project is our guest, who just happens to be my daughter, is Dr. Kina Murphy.

Dr. Murphy holds a Ph.D. in Biology/Ecology that focuses on mitigating the impacts of human land-use change on biodiversity and a Masters in Community and Regional Planning with a focus on natural resource management. She has over twenty-years of experience working throughout Africa, Asia and North America where she has focused on biodiversity monitoring, market-based approaches to conservation and community-based conservation planning and policy. Her other strengths include biodiversity offsets and mitigation planning for extractive industries and a detailed understanding of the Business and Biodiversity Offsets Program.

Currently, Dr. Murphy is the Africa Strategy Development Lead for the Campaign for Nature where she is responsible for helping the Campaign for Nature (CfN) to achieve it’s three overarching campaign goals of: 1) Increasing global targets for terrestrial and marine protected areas under the 2020-2030 strategic plan for the Convention on Biological Diversity to at least 30% by 2030, 2) Securing a minimum of an additional $1B/year in funding commitments for management of protected areas in developing countries to accompany increased protected area targets; and 3) Approaching biodiversity conservation in a way that fully integrates and respects Indigenous leadership and Indigenous rights.

Managing the threats to biodiversity is a formidable task, which Dr. Murphy has dedicated her life to achieving. 

Earth's biodiversity is in danger of collapse.  According to the campaign for nature, "The natural world is disappearing at an unprecedented rate. The loss of nature poses a grave threat to our clean air and drinking water, the survival of wildlife, the prosperity of communities, and nature’s ability to protect us from natural disasters, future pandemics, and other intensifying impacts of climate change.  The twin crises of climate change and the rapid loss of biodiversity threaten the very existence of humanity on Earth."

The Campaign for Nature is a partnership of the Wyss Campaign for Nature and the National Geographic Society. It works with partners worldwide to champion the ambitious, science-driven, global goal to protect at least 30% of the planet by 2030, a target to be agreed on at the 15th Conference on the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2022.

Specifically, the Campaign for Nature is calling on world leaders to:  help mobilize financial resources to ensure protected areas are properly managed and approach biodiversity conservation in a way that fully integrates and respects Indigenous leadership and Indigenous rights.

On this episode we are joined by Brian O’Donnell. Brian is the executive director of The Campaign For Nature. For more than two decades, Brian has been a leading land and wildlife conservationist.  He helped build international support for a global target of protecting at least 30% of the earth’s land and seas by 2030. Brian helped organize a High Ambition Coalition of more than 95 countries to support the campaign’s goals. 

On this episode we will be talking about this ambitious worldwide effort to protect 30% of the earth’s biodiversity by the year 2030. The Campaign For Nature is at the forefront of advocating for this ambitious effort because they recognize that the earth's biodiversity is in danger of collapse.