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 that focused on our own personal growth resolutions and how that can synergize with efforts to help other species. This is also a special show because it airs on the radio on our birthday, January 8th, as my co-host and friend Melody Paris and I share the same birthday – just one of the many things we have in common.

The agenda for the 1 hour show today is that before we get to some personal growth exercises and self reflections that you our listeners can use to figure out your own best path (inspired by best selling personal growth authors), I thought Melody and I would start by sharing our own path toward incorporating animal and eco issues into our daily lives (over the decades) to see how our own stories and actions might resonate with listeners or spark ideas for you. So it would be good for you to have a way to take notes during this show, and you can pause at times to answer some questions and do some self reflection (on your inner priorities, and what excites you, what you're good at, and what the world needs to protect animals and nature) before we move on to each new topic.

My sign-off each show has been “Take care of yourself and others, including other species,” and I literally think that is the meaning of life. And in this anthropocentric (human-centered) culture, I want to make sure we don’t leave other species out of that care-taking effort -- with the goal of us shifting our identities and culture toward a biocentric (life-centered) orientation and beginning to see ourselves as part of a broader community as human animal earthlings. So our resolutions/goals can be in improving our mindset and identity as well as in formulating tangible task-oriented goals/achievements. Toward the end of the podcast, Melody and I review the top 20 virtues that humans could embody, from pg 207 in my "Human Animal Earthling Identity" book, so virtue ethics plays a role in this show.

The show draws upon books like "Essentialism" by G. McKeown, "Emotional Chaos to Clarity" by P. Moffit, and "Die with Zero" by B. Perkins, and "Oasis Earth" by R. Steiner.

"In Tune to Nature" is a weekly radio show airing Wednesdays at 6:30pm Eastern Time on 89.3FM-Atlanta radio and streaming worldwide on wrfg.org (Radio Free Georgia, a nonprofit indie station). Hosted by me, Carrie Freeman, or Melody Paris. The show's website and action items can be found at https://wrfg.org/in-tune-to-nature/  Please support nonprofit indie media like our Radio Free Georgia station at https://wrfg.org/  Thank you!

Take care of yourself and others, including other species. That's the meaning of life!

Photo Credit: Carrie Freeman. I took this photo of my hand petting a rescued goat at a sanctuary in Georgia, as part of a Georgia Animal Rights and Protection hands-on volunteer day that Melody helped organize.

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 Days of Christmas, and Nat King Cole’s The Christmas Song. I’m going to deconstruct these Christmas songs from a Critical Animal Studies perspective. In other words, as an animal rights activist who is sympathetic to the more-than-human-world and the perspectives and interests of other animal individuals and our shared habitats, I analyze these classic songs and what lessons they teach us about fellow animal species and how we could be more respectful, kind of like those Politically Correct Bedtime Story series that gives you a critical yet humorous perspective on classic tales in Western society.

My Radio Free Georgia version of this episode has the license to broadcast these popular songs, but for my podcast friends, I don’t have copyright permission to play the songs, so I linked to the youtube versions of the songs in the podcast notes here below. For the recording, I'll put a jingle bell sound in there when you can cue up the songs to play yourself if you want to. But I’ll speak the key lyrics dealing with animals that I discuss.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMletImQ_cs

Run Run Rudolph: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqVtqbzTdVs 

Sleigh Ride: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZTzai1H9DM

Jingle Bells: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP3RhTbq3Ds 

The Twelve Days of Christmas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QPQI5QUs74 

The Christmas Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKhRnZZ0cJI 

"In Tune to Nature" is a weekly radio show airing Wednesdays at 6:30pm Eastern Time on 89.3FM-Atlanta radio and streaming worldwide on wrfg.org (Radio Free Georgia, a nonprofit indie station). Hosted by me, Carrie Freeman, or Melody Paris. The show's website and action items can be found at https://www.facebook.com/InTunetoNature You can email me at my first name at wrfg.org.  Please support nonprofit indie media like our Radio Free Georgia station at https://wrfg.org/  Thank you!

Take care of yourself and others, including other species, like reindeer, partridges, French hens, turtle doves, bobtailed horses, etc.

Photo Credit: by Aleksei Zaitcev on Unsplash

Horse Neighing audio credit: From Duke the Palomino who has his own YouTube channel

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 and our descendants down (or just end up in a landfill down the line).

So my emphasis here is on sharing gift-giving ideas for vegan-friendly foods/restaurants or experiences (airbnbs/cabins, park passes, professional photography sessions and massages, etc. excluding animal entertainment venues) or lending a helping hand (dog-sitting, babysitting/tutoring, lawncare and home vegetable gardening, home organization), or media subscriptions (to streaming services like Ecoflix, PBS Passport, the Guardian, Vox, NYT, AJC, Sentient Media, Inside Climate News, Insight Timer app), or savings/investing ideas, and giving your holiday money to communities and small businesses in distress. Basically, don't head to the mall or Amazon.com and get sucked into traditional consumerism. Plan ahead and be thoughtful and you'll probably save money in the process.

I forgot to mention this gift idea on the show; you can also sponsor/"adopt" rescued animals or endangered species from nonprofit sanctuaries and wildlife organizations to give funds to those advocacy groups and educate kids about what we owe to these beautiful animal kin -- for example, Farm Sanctuary's Adopt a Turkey program https://www.farmsanctuary.org/adopt-a-turkey 

The radio show is focused more on gifting for the adults in our lives, as I know that kids often do need books, toys, and clothes as they grow (and you can buy used, eco-friendly, and vegan products there).

"In Tune to Nature" is a weekly radio show airing Wednesdays at 6:30pm Eastern Time on 89.3FM-Atlanta radio and streaming worldwide on wrfg.org (Radio Free Georgia, a nonprofit indie station). Hosted by Carrie Freeman or Melody Paris. The show's website and action items can be found at https://www.facebook.com/InTunetoNature  Please support indie media like Radio Free Georgia at https://wrfg.org/  

Take care of yourself and others, including other species.

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, and feminists who were excited to have America's first women president after 200+ years! While the show is hopeful and uplifting in parts, that was not actually my aim. I just wanted to get real in explaining my despair and my fears and to share in some communal grieving and exhaustion that I know so many of you are feeling.

In this 33- minute spirited discussion (it really gets going in the middle), we talk about how wild animals and domesticated animals (and all of us in a climate crisis) are likely to be negatively impacted (progress backtracked and undone) by this federal trump administration and all his (potentially unscientific and inappropriate) appointees, empowered by a conservative judiciary and legislative branch.

We try to re-affirm biocentric values and discuss how we can put other animals on the political and media agenda so they are not continually ignored and forgotten, especially as we humans are largely the source of their harm, extinction, and exploitation and thus are responsible for rehabilitation; reminding us that we are all interdependent beings in a shared vulnerable biosphere (the ultimate reality apart from the post-truth mediated realities).

We end with a “what to do now” variety of options on how to continue to be an activist for all marginalized communities of beings, if you even have the strength to be an activist at all anymore – local and community activism vs national or global solidarities -- collective resistance and non-compliance with authoritarian tactics and harmful policies. But maybe just for now, allow yourself to be sad and rest (and eat good vegan food).

In Tune to Nature is a weekly radio show airing on Wednesdays from 6:30-7pm EST on Atlanta indie station WRFG (Radio Free Georgia) 89.3FM hosted by Carrie Freeman or Melody Paris. Please consider donating to support this 50-plus-year old independent, progressive, non-commercial Atlanta radio station at www.wrfg.org 

PHOTO CREDIT: Photo by John Hyde. Female brown bear in Katmai National Park, Alaska.  Republican administrations tend to be harsher/deadlier toward omnivorous/ "predator" species like bears, even though these species are imperiled and we have decimated their populations and habitats.

Vote to take care of yourself and others, including other species -- who need us to be their voice!

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 speaks with In Tune to Nature radio host Carrie Freeman about his book Oasis Earth: Planet in Peril – Our Last Best Chance to Save Our World. Anyone can download, read, and share this open-access/free digital book at the website  https://www.oasis-earth.com/oasis-earth-planet-in-peril (or you can buy a hardcopy of this beautiful, full-color book, full of images from the UN Environmental Program’s photographic contest winners and NASA images of Earth from space).

In this special 52-minute radio show, we set the stage for outlining environmental solutions by first reviewing the four fundamental causes of ecological crisis and why this decade 2020-2030 is so crucial to everyone’s future viability (why we can’t keep going business as usual). Then we go through some of the main environmental problems we face, especially human population growth, unsustainable animal agriculture and fishing, and the climate and wildlife extinction crises.

In the latter half of the show, we focus on Rick’s many solutions and goals in Oasis Earth, including redefining progress to account for what we really care about (going from GDP to wellbeing), instituting more citizen advisory councils around all communities for bottom up democratic leadership, and funding/investing in ecological initiatives like wildlife conservation and a living planet emergency fund and no longer subsidizing destructive practices like fossil fuel energy and unsustainable ag. We focus a lot on needed government policies and legal means to ensuring our political leaders and us as citizens start to foster a liveable planet rather than a dying planet, and creating that political will to prioritize this transition to an ecocentric way of living and not a short-sighted/misguided anthropocentric way of living (living as only human lives matter is ultimately going to kill us, along with so many other species). Dr. Rick Steiner helps us understand his concept of “constructive engagement” toward a variety of Oasis Earth goals he outlines for Agenda 2030.

But in this decade, will we vote in the kind of political leaders who are brave and visionary enough to institute these needed, life-saving transitions to a liveable planet?  Can we make that our priority? Please share this podcast to see if we can make it a movement!

In Tune to Nature is a weekly radio show airing on Wednesdays from 6:30-7pm EST on Atlanta indie station WRFG (Radio Free Georgia) 89.3FM hosted by Carrie Freeman or Melody Paris. Please consider donating to support this 50-plus-year old independent, progressive, non-commercial Atlanta radio station at www.wrfg.org 

Photo Credit: The cover of the Oasis Earth book published by Cirque Press, Anchorage, Alaska

Vote not only to take care of yourself, but to take care of others, including other species who need us to be their voice!

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/

That GCV voter resource website includes a link to this nonpartisan tool  https://gcv.branch.vote/summary  where you can see your ballot ahead of time and check out the candidates' views on various issues and an explanation of referendums, so you can make your voting decisions before heading to the polls. Brionte suggested printing this out and bringing it with you to early vote. It's the latter half of the podcast that focuses on these tips on how, where, and when to vote in GA, finding your many early voting locations -- like libraries-- (most open 7am - 7pm) across your county Oct 15-Nov 1st (whereas if you wait until Nov 5th election day, you have to go to your one set polling location and will likely have a longer wait).  You can check out all of your voting options at the GA My Voter Page https://mvp.sos.ga.gov/s/   so you can making a voting plan!

This election is really high stakes, so plan to go early vote with a friend and offer neighbors rides to the polls or get a ride at rideshare2vote.com (or you can also volunteer to be a driver). It can be good to have the voter protection hotline number in your phone contacts in case you run into any issues or shenanigans at the polls: 866-OUR-VOTE. 

In the first half of this 47-minute In Tune to Nature podcast (hosted by Carrie Freeman), Brionte tells us how we care about eco issues in Georgia, and highlights the GCV "environmental scorecard" for legislators' voting records and why some elected officials rank higher or lower in environmental and voter protection policymaking. We did discuss my observation that most republicans ended up ranking lower and how we hope that will change in the future to make eco issues nonpartisan again, as we need that desperately in this era of climate and species extinction crises.

In Tune to Nature is a weekly show airing on Wednesdays from 6:30-7pm EST on Atlanta indie station WRFG (Radio Free Georgia) 89.3FM hosted by Carrie Freeman or Melody Paris. Please consider donating to support this 50plus-year old independent, progressive, noncommercial Atlanta radio station at www.wrfg.org 

Photo Credit: Edmond Dantes (got from GCV).

Vote not only to take care of yourself, but to take care of others, including other species who need us to be their voice!

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 over more power to industries for oil and gas exploitation in ocean habitats, increasing not decreasing the deadly climate crisis, with less government scientific oversight and fewer protections and preservations of aquatic communities, more noise and toxic disruptions and killing/fishing of animals who live in the sea, and less respect for local coastal and indigenous communities. Based on his article "Project 2025’s Plan To ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’ Threatens Ocean Health and Economic Stability," Angelo Villagomez, Senior Fellow on the Conservation Team at the Center for American Progress (a progressive policy institute) talks with host Carrie Freeman in this 32-minute radio show about the dangers of Project 2025 and what would be a healthier and fairer path forward for ocean life and coastal communities. It's up to the American voters. 

Angelo reminds us at the end (right before he closes the show with his not so "mediocre" ukulele solo) that voting Nov 5th is the least we should do, and we should also get civicly engaged in participating in our government as part of our life, such as sharing public input via checking the federal register frequently https://www.federalregister.gov/ 

Your vote matters! In preparation for everyone early voting, find out and share more about what a potential trump presidency under a Project 2025 plan would actually mean for America (and our precious planetary habitats) in terms of a power grab by the president and industries over the wellbeing of people and wildlife, weakening scientific governance and protections; see these series of reports https://www.americanprogress.org/series/project-2025-exposing-the-far-right-assault-on-america/  And to prep for voting, investigate what other Presidential candidates' (and state and local officials) plans are to protect our habitats and health,  and which candidates the League of Conservation Voters endorses as being environmentally responsible and why https://www.lcv.org/ 

In Tune to Nature is a weekly show airing on Wednesdays from 6:30-7pm EST on Atlanta indie station WRFG (Radio Free Georgia) 89.3FM hosted by Carrie Freeman or Melody Paris. Please consider donating to support this 50plus-year old independent, progressive, noncommercial Atlanta radio station at www.wrfg.org 

Vote not only to take care of yourself, but to take care of others, including other species who need us to be their voice!

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 called “blue parks,” based on a report titled “Ocean protection quality is lagging behind quantity: Applying a scientific framework to assess real marine protected area progress against the 30 by 30 target” this was published in the Conservation Letters journal in 2024. Host Carrie Freeman interviews our guest -- the lead author of that report -- Beth Pike, who is also a ship captain, whale researcher, and the current Director of Marine Protection Atlas at the Marine Conservation Institute. You can explore the maps at https://mpatlas.org/ 

This is in context of the monumental agreement from 188 countries at the COP15 UN Biodiversity Conference in 2022 to protect 30 percent of our planet's land and waters by the year 2030 (Hence "30 by 30"). Beth's co-authored report tells us how we are lagging behind on that 30 x 30 goal and what we need to do to meet it, including ensuring that nations hold themselves accountable for not just making a marine area a park on paper but actually taking the extra steps to fund and enforce protections to avoid oil drilling, mining, and commercial fishing/poaching in those areas --high protections well managed so they actually allow marine plants and animals to regenerate and flourish and stem the tide of mass extinction we humans have caused. 

Parks require policy, and they need political will to be funded and protected, so at the end we discuss the importance of voting for political leaders who care to do the right thing for biodiversity and our planetary health, and do so in an equitable/fair way that works with frontline and indigenous communities to use their knowledge in the process of developing policies that work for humans and nonhumans alike. In the context of US Politics, see articles like https://www.americanprogress.org/article/project-2025-would-be-a-disaster-for-national-marine-sanctuaries/ 

You can see a summary of Beth's report in this Inside Climate News article that alerted me to this issue. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/17062024/largest-marine-protected-areas-have-inadequate-protections/ 

In Tune to Nature is a weekly show airing on Wednesdays from 6:30-7pm EST on Atlanta indie station WRFG (Radio Free Georgia) 89.3FM hosted by Carrie Freeman or Melody Paris. Please consider donating to support this 50plus-year old independent, progressive, noncommercial Atlanta radio station at www.wrfg.org 

Take care of yourself and others, including other species, like those who live in our oceans.

Photo Credit: Stellar sea lions looking at us and depending on our marine protection efforts, by Jett Britnell/Coral Reef Image Bank.

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 “Pure Farms, Pure Waters” program in North Carolina. He works with the 15 licensed Waterkeeper Alliance groups in North Carolina in their efforts to reform the current polluting practices of the industrial meat producing facilities, known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs.

In this 36-minute interview, "In Tune to Nature" radio host Carrie Freeman asks Larry Baldwin about what these mass hog facilities and mass chicken warehouses look and smell like (horrible for the animals), how the growers/farmers are in debt while agribusiness corporate executives profit, what water and air pollution these animal factories produce, like the open manure pits surrounding pig factory farms -- feces that puts bacteria and sewage into creeks and also gets sprayed into the air, creating environmental injustices in the largely Black rural communities where these factory farms are ruining quality of life. Larry was featured in a documentary on fighting this injustice, called The Smell of Money, streaming now. 

Larry discusses programs and policies that can protect communities and water ecosystems from CAFO pollution, and helps us know how we can help move past factory animal farming. 

In Tune to Nature is a weekly show airing on Wednesdays from 6:30-7pm EST on Atlanta indie station WRFG (Radio Free Georgia) 89.3FM hosted by Carrie Freeman or Melody Paris. Please consider donating to support this 50plus-year old independent, progressive, noncommercial Atlanta radio station at www.wrfg.org 

Take care of yourself and others, including other species, like those who rely on healthy river ecosystems.

Photo Credit: Waterkeeper Alliance photo of hog CAFOs in NC next to open manure pits (those aren't lakes, people). We purposely can't see the pigs suffering behind closed doors.

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 wildlife equity and multispecies tourism justice is our guest Dr. Carol Kline, Appalachian State University Professor and Hospitality & Tourism Management Program Director, in the Department of Management. She recently edited two books about the ethics of eating animals within the context of tourism: called “Animals, Food & Tourism” and “Tourism Experiences & Animal Consumption: Contested Values, Morality, & Ethics.” An intersectional scholar, she is part of a network of researchers who focus on Race, Ethnicity, & Social Equity in Tourism.

In this 30-minute podcast with host Carrie Freeman, Dr. Kline tells us about the burgeoning scholarship and advocacy on wildlife equity in tourism, and how to reduce risks to wildlife, respect animals' will/agency/privacy, what would be responsible marketing and transparency from wildlife tourism operators, and issues related to responsible food consumption while on vacation, including maintaining your own value system when traveling while still trying to enjoy local culture (authentically). Plus we address what we can do to be responsible ecotourists when nonhuman animals are part of our trip plans, since so many of us love and appreciate the more-than-human world.

In Tune to Nature is a weekly show airing on Wednesdays from 6:30-7pm EST on Atlanta indie station WRFG (Radio Free Georgia) 89.3FM hosted by Carrie Freeman or Melody Paris. Please consider donating to support this 50plus-year old independent, progressive, noncommercial Atlanta radio station at www.wrfg.org 

Take care of yourself and others, including other species, like the wild animals we share the planet with.

Image Credit: Carrie Freeman took this image of a humpback near Juneau, Alaska on a whale watching tour in 2024. The small boat near the whale was not moving and the whale chose to get close to it, but boats are required to back off to a certain distance when near whales. I was on a whale watch tourboat that is a member of the Whale Sense program that I mention in this podcast and I zoomed in to get this image as the whales were feeding on herring, swimming around us.