Nature Revisited

Michael Carter, Jr. is an agricultural innovator and educator in Unionville, Virginia. He has dedicated his career to advancing sustainable farming practices and promoting African heritage in agriculture. Michael’s international experiences, including work in Ghana, Israel, and Kenya, have shaped his holistic approach to farming. He works on his family’s farm, Carter Farms, and founded Africulture, a nonprofit organization that teaches the principles, plants, and practices of African-descended agriculture while fostering cultural and racial identity.

On this episode of Nature Revisited, Carter presents an eclectic brew of history, culture, African-centered perspectives, and African American farm realities. He recalls inspiring stories of African innovators as well as sobering facts tracking the severe decline in the number of Black farmers in the United States over the last century. Drawing on the lifecycle of a plant as a metaphor for both individual growth and the larger story of African American farming, Carter evokes the relationship between soil health (metaphorically, society and community) and plant health (i.e., the ability of Black farmers and families to thrive). When the civil rights gains and progress toward economic parity for Black Americans of the past fifty years may be slipping away, Carter envisions a better future through several foundational principles of Africulture.

Africulture Book: https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/africulture/?srsltid=AU7gw4V_Y3MTborR3SCm70RcdrPV2gUF5aoLcelWuGj85RBGejGts7Gi

https://learnafriculture.com/

https://thecarterfarms.com/

https://blackfarmersindex.com/

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Nature Revisited is produced by Stefan van Norden and Charles Geoghegan. We welcome your comments, questions and suggestions - contact us at https://noordenproductions.com/contact

David James Duncan is an American novelist and essayist, known for his two cult bestselling novels, The River Why and The Brothers K, among others. On this episode of Nature Revisited, farmer and author Scott Chaskey (Soil and Spirit) interviews David about his latest acclaimed work Sun House, an "epic comedy about the quest for transcendence in an anything-but-transcendent America, set amid the gorgeous landscapes of the American west". Guided by Chaskey's deft observations, Duncan describes how a lifetime of experiences - many drawn from nature itself - served as inspiration for Sun House's sweeping, lyrical vision of a more open-hearted world. [Originally published April 14, 2025. Ep 144]

David's website: https://www.davidjamesduncan.com/

Sun House book: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/david-james-duncan/sun-house/9780316129374/

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Nature Revisited is produced by Stefan van Norden and Charles Geoghegan. We welcome your comments, questions and suggestions - contact us at https://noordenproductions.com/contact

David George Haskell is a British and American biologist, writer, and a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist in General Nonfiction. Haskell holds degrees from the University of Oxford (BA), Cornell University (PhD) and is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Emory University in Atlanta.

On this episode of Nature Revisited, Haskell examines the role flowers played in creating the world we know today. When they evolved, they remade the natural world: Gorgeous petals and alluring aromas transformed former enemies into cooperative partners. The radical genetic flexibility of flowers allowed them to build and sustain rainforests, savannahs, prairies, and even ocean shores. Flowers catalyzed human evolution, and we now depend on them for food and a healthy planet.

https://dghaskell.com

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/775876/how-flowers-made-our-world-by-david-george-haskell/

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Nature Revisited is produced by Stefan van Norden and Charles Geoghegan. We welcome your comments, questions and suggestions - contact us at https://noordenproductions.com/contact

Dorn Cox is a farmer-technologist, the research director for the Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture and the Environment in Freeport, Maine, and farms with his family on 250 acres in Lee, New Hampshire. He is a founder of the farmOS software platform and Farm Hack, and is active in the soil health movement.

On this episode of Nature Revisited, Dorn breaks down his radical vision of hope for the future of healthy regenerative agriculture. By employing the same data-sharing and networking tools used to visualize and identify the global instability in our climate and our communities, there is potential to revolutionize how we manage food production around the world, decentralizing and deindustrializing the structures and governance that have long dominated the agricultural landscape. [Originally published March 11, 2025. Ep 143]

The Great Regeneration book: https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/the-great-regeneration/

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Nature Revisited is produced by Stefan van Norden and Charles Geoghegan. We welcome your comments, questions and suggestions - contact us at https://noordenproductions.com/contact

Marina Richie is an award-winning nature writer. With degrees in Journalism and Biology, she has led conservation initiatives as a communications director, authored two children’s nature books, penned award-winning wayside exhibits, and now dedicates her time to writing books, poetry, and advocating for wildlands and wildlife.

On this episode of Nature Revisited, Richie takes us into the ancient forests of Cascadia, a bioregion which rivals the Amazonian rainforest in significance for climate and biodiversity. These 'feathered forests' are a hidden vertical world of wild trees that are home to an incredible array of bird species. These birds are guides to intricate and imperiled communities thriving at every level, from understory to midstory to overstory. They steer us to cool havens within multilayered, centuries-old groves that are critical refugia in a time of climate crisis. Their songs and flights show us what we must protect for the future of threatened birds, forests, and humankind.

https://www.marinarichie.com

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/827850/feathered-forest-by-marina-richie/

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Nature Revisited is produced by Stefan van Norden and Charles Geoghegan. We welcome your comments, questions and suggestions - contact us at https://noordenproductions.com/contact

Jon Waterman is a former park ranger, wilderness guide, and a prolific author of books on adventure, exploration, and the environment.

On this episode of Nature Revisited, Jon recounts his decades-long history of explorations of the Alaskan Arctic. Having returned to the Noatak headwaters after 30 years in 2021, Waterman was shocked by the environmental and cultural changes wrought by the climate crisis. As in his book 'Into the Thaw', Waterman paints for our listeners an intimate portrait of both the villages and the little-visited landscape, suggesting actions we can all take to slow the thaw and preserve what is left of the remarkable, vast Arctic frontier. [Originally published Mar 4th, 2025. Ep 142]

Into the Thaw book: https://jonathanwaterman.com/books/into-the-thaw/

Jon's website: https://jonathanwaterman.com/

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Nature Revisited is produced by Stefan van Norden and Charles Geoghegan. We welcome your comments, questions and suggestions - contact us at https://noordenproductions.com/contact

Giulio Boccaletti, PhD is a British-Italian author, water expert, and climate scientist. His work has been at the intersection of geophysical and ecological science, public policy, and business strategy. Water security and our relationship with Earth's climate are particular interests of his as are the institutions that we need to govern our environment. Boccaletti is the Scientific Director of the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change, where he directs the largest Italian research institution devoted to the science and economics of climate change.

On this episode of Nature Revisited, Boccaletti proposes a bold new conception of an environmental republic for our planet in crisis. Balancing individual liberty with collective responsibility, he presents a path to sustaining our life together on a changing planet, reframing our relationship to the environment not as a constraint on liberty but as its republican foundation. Reflecting upon the deep failure of our political institutions, Boccaletti challenges the false choice between environmental protection and human freedom, showing how place-based institutions can deliver both sustainability and human development through true self-governance.

https://www.giulioboccaletti.com/

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691262000/the-environmental-republic

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Nature Revisited is produced by Stefan van Norden and Charles Geoghegan. We welcome your comments, questions and suggestions - contact us at https://noordenproductions.com/contact

Ellen Zachos is a Harvard graduate, former Broadway actor, professional gardener and the author of eleven books including, most recently, Mythic Plants: Potions and Poisons from the Gardens of the Gods.

On this episode of Nature Revisited, Ellen shares her varied personal background and takes us back to revisit the Greek myths anew by focusing on the fascinating roles plants play in the stories. Many of the mythic plants were real and still exist today, and Ellen colorfully describes how the ancient Greeks used these plants in their lives and loves and conquests. [Originally published Feb 18th, 2025. Ep 141]

Mythic Plants book: https://www.amazon.com/Mythic-Plants-Potions-Poisons-Gardens/dp/1523524391

Ellen's website: https://backyardforager.com

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Nature Revisited is produced by Stefan van Norden and Charles Geoghegan. We welcome your comments, questions and suggestions - contact us at https://noordenproductions.com/contact

Cal Flyn is an award-winning writer from the Highlands of Scotland. She writes creative nonfiction, literary criticism, and long-form journalism. Cal’s journalistic writing has been published in Granta, National Geographic, The Wall Street Journal, The Sunday Times, The Economist, and others.

On this episode of Nature Revisited, Flyn poses the question "What is Wilderness"? For thousands of years, people have sought out uncontrolled, unknown, or uncharted nature in search of religious epiphany, self-actualization, and an escape from modern life. But having traversed the most forbidding, untamed and inhospitable wild lands—the supposedly uninhabited wilds of the world—she found that such truly untouched lands don't exist: Nearly every wilderness has been or is actively inhabited by humans. By viewing the notion of wilderness as a human construct, Flyn reveals how much we can still discover in wilderness, both as an idea and a vital part of the living world.

www.calflyn.com/

www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/761751/the-savage-landscape-by-cal-flyn/

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Nature Revisited is produced by Stefan van Norden and Charles Geoghegan. We welcome your comments, questions and suggestions - contact us at https://noordenproductions.com/contact

The author of more than 20 books, Dr. Vandana Shiva is an Indian scholar, environmental activist, food sovereignty advocate, ecofeminist and anti-globalization writer.

On this episode of Nature Revisited, Dr. Shiva lays out the emergency we all face: extinction, climate havoc and the global food crisis. Our future, Shiva argues, lies in following the ecological laws of the earth by de-colonising, decreasing food miles, de-industrialising and de-globalizing food systems. A future sustained by biodiversity, local foods, and end to deforestation and an ethical and organic farming system in which degenerative cycles are transformed into regenerative cycles. [Originally published Feb 4th, 2025. Ep 140]

The Nature of Nature book: https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/the-nature-of-nature/?srsltid=AfmBOopoMS7HWvhvhgL3CXNdWorE9CYdN82f3eIB6cNEv2Y9aEy91Nwc

https://navdanyainternational.org/

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Nature Revisited is produced by Stefan van Norden and Charles Geoghegan. We welcome your comments, questions and suggestions - contact us at https://noordenproductions.com/contact