Letters to Earthlings

“This is not the future we sought. A return to 1.5°C is not assured. But limiting the magnitude, duration and consequences of overshoot, while preserving the possibility of bringing temperatures back down, is the best remaining option to protect vulnerable people, reduce losses and secure a livable future for all.”

~ Inger Andersen, Executive Director, UNEP

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Over a year ago, the Trump administration announced the intention to repeal the “Roadless Rule” — a policy which has protected some of the Forest Service’s wildest lands from logging, mining, and road-building since 2001. They recently made good on that promise, announcing a proposal to rescind the policy in its entirety. The public has only a few weeks to submit a comment. The deadline is midnight on Monday, September 21.

Last winter I talked to Ben Goldfarb, author of Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet, on Threshold Conversations. I’m re-posting that interview here, because I think Ben’s overview of the history of the Roadless Rule, and the ecological impact of roads more generally, is a great way to get a quick education on these issues.

How to comment on the Roadless Rule

Deadline: midnight on Monday, September 21

Comments can be submitted digitally through the federal government Public Comment Portal Link, or mailed in.

Digital comments:

* Submit through the regulations.gov portal

* Character count is 5,000 characters is using their form, or you can upload a PDF.

* You can also upload photos and supporting documents.

Mailed comments:

* Mail a letter to Director, Ecosystem Management Coordination, 201 14th Street SW, Mailstop 1108, Washington, DC 20250-1124

* Letters must be received by the deadline – not just postmarked.

* Include the Docket # FS-2025-0001 and/or RIN 0596-AD66 at the top of the letter

Helpful resources:

* Comment writing toolkit from Oregon Wild

* Roadless Rule comment-writing nights sponsored by the Glacier Two-Medicine Alliance (Kalispell and East Glacier, MT)

* “Postcards for Public Lands” events sponsored by the Greater Yellowstone Coalition (scheduled in MT, ID, WY)

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I made this audio postcard earlier this week on a warm, quiet evening here in northern Sweden. As will likely be evident if you listen, I didn’t go out that night with a plan to make something. I just brought my mic and recorder along on a little hike with our dog, Sigge, because it was a calm night in a beautiful world, and I was in the mood to pause and listen to it. Hope you enjoy joining me in that experience for a few minutes.

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In the last few weeks several people have reached out to tell me that listening to Hark is causing them to pay more attention to the sounds of the more-than-human voices around us. To me, this feedback is true nourishment. Downloads, donations, press and prizes and all that sort of thing: necessary, valuable, appreciated. But knowing the work is actually impacting how people relate to the living world? That’s the end-all, be-all for me. That’s why I make the show; to help myself and hopefully other people open up to and feel and think about and delight in and grieve over and just connect to our beautiful, powerful home planet. If you’re one of those people who has reached out recently—or ever—thank you. I have zero expectations of hearing from listeners, but when I do, it really means something.

One of things that was important to me in making Hark was to avoid a “nature good / people bad” dichotomy. First of all, because people are nature and nature is people. But also because with all the ugly, aggressive, thoughtless noise our species is making right now, it’s easy to fall into an overly simplistic, finger-waggy narrative, and forget all the ways that humans add lovely and interesting sounds to this world too.

One of those sounds rolled past my door a few minutes ago, so I decided to share it here. This is 30-ish seconds of me pausing to listen to a fellow human, unknown to me but appreciated from afar. Well, not too far, really. She passes through my neighborhood, and I look up from doing dishes in my kitchen, writing on my front stoop, or pulling weeds in my yard. And I smile.

Thanks, Ice Cream Lady.

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Next week, Threshold will be releasing The Corridor, a new series about a stretch of land between Baton Rouge and New Orleans that is often referred to as Cancer Alley. Over seven episodes, The Corridor examines how this part of Louisiana became a center of industry and an epicenter of disease, with some communities facing cancer risks among the highest in the nation.

Hosted by Jaha Nailah Avery and written and produced by Erika Janik and Sam Moore, this series connects the dots between current battles for environmental justice and the history of slavery and segregation. It’s the story of a place, and the people who live there and love it. It’s also the story of products all of us use every day, and the industries that depend on the rest of us to not get interested in the question of who and what gets sacrificed in the process of making them.

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I’ve been recording the voices of a lot of big, dramatic, eye-and-ear-catching creatures lately — cranes, geese, swans. But on one recent night, when I wandered down to the water’s edge in the darkness, someone a bit more mysterious and shy was making itself heard. Tentatively.

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Whoop!

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Related links:

* Threshold Conversations: Feminism in the Wild, with Ambika Kamath and Melina Packer. Listen here.

* One of Michelle Hall’s most important papers: Female song is widespread and ancestral in songbirds, Odom, K., Hall, M., Riebel, K. Nature Communications (2014).

* A more recent paper Michelle was involved in: Global incidence of female birdsong is predicted by territoriality and biparental care in songbirds, Odom, K.J., Araya-Salas, M., Benedict, L. et al. Nature Communications (2025).

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The sounds, images, and stories from Minnesota are crushing. Enraging. Disorienting, heartbreaking, and all of the other descriptors you don’t need me to name because you’re feeling them too. I don’t know what to do, what to say, how to respond, how to be of use, how to even take in that this is reality.

I still don’t. This is not a post in which I walk myself or anyone else from despair and confusion into any sort of clarity.

All I know is this: I went to bed feeling overwhelmed with feelings about ICE. And I woke up with a clear, simple urge to meditate for a moment on fire.

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For every minute that makes it into a Threshold episode, there are so many minutes that end up getting cut. Some of them, like this clip I’m sharing today, make it all the way to nearly-final draft. Some get half-developed and then cast aside. And many, many never get past the sketching stage.