Sean Gerrity is the co-founder and former CEO of American Prairie—a giant wildlife refuge in the making in Montana, which I hiked and kayaked this past August. Sean is the host of The Answers Are Out There podcast in which he interviews leaders who’ve taken on bold conservation projects. He’s the author of Wild on Purpose: The American Prairie Story and the Art of Thinking Bigger.

• Some of Sean’s favorite things: musician Ry Cooder, Sapiens by Yoval Noah Hariri, Travels with Charley, East of Eden, A Short Walk In the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby, Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath, and…
• Sean’s podcast interview with Violet Sage Walker — a Northern Chumash Tribal Leader — celebrating America’s Newest Large-Scale Marine Sanctuary.
• Are we in a rewilding renaissance?
• How well known is American Prairie? Is it’s under-knownness due to the noise of the modern day information flow?
• Is today the best of times (lots of exciting conservation opportunities) and the worst of times (the overwhelming negativity funneled into our brains).
• 192 out of 196 countries signing up to achieve vision of 30% of the world saved for nature by 2030.
• The big four things for helping the environment:    
  • Stabilize global human population
  • Accelerate transition to green energy
  • Rewild
  • Redo how we do agriculture

   

• Fundraising: is it as unpleasant as it sounds?
• The art of risk-taking—analyze the risk so deeply the risk is no longer a risk?
• Do our schools need to teach “risk analysis” in their curriculums?
• MT. Gov. Greg Gianforte’s letter to the BLM opposing American Prairie’s use of bison.
• I pitch a book idea to Sean.
• American Prairie’s “Wild Sky” program, which involves paying landowners for photographic evidence of wildlife on their property, plus some wildlife friendly fencing.
• How there could be 30-40 more American Prairie-like projects, just across the American West.
• Chumash National Marine Sanctuary—4500 square miles of protecting marine habitat.
• Klamath River Dam Removal—over 400 miles of river protected.
• On how originality is overrated.
• Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing:
• George Catlin proposing a park way back in the 1830s.
• The Tarras Valley Nature Reserve project. Here’s Sean’s podcast interview with them.
• Will American Prairie need to evolve into more like a multi-entity committee in the future?
• I get Sean’s thoughts on de-extinction.

Melanie Kaplan’s work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and National Parks magazine. She’s a former Knight Science Journalism fellow at MIT. Her new book, Lab Dog, tells the story of Hammy — a beagle rescued from a research lab — and follows Melanie’s journey to uncover what really happens to the thousands of dogs used in biomedical and consumer testing in the United States.

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We discuss…

• The first non-humans we fell in love with.
• What have we gotten from testing lab animals?

• Trump admin. moving us away from animal research?
• What products are still being used on lab dogs? (Bug spray)
• How to write a book about hard things (animal torture) and make it readable.

• What’s so special about beagles?
• I share my own non-human love stories.
• How my parents didn’t curate my boyhood media consumption, leading to scenes like this one being forever burned into my memory:

• Should there be a memorial for all the lab animals?
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• Ken wonders if Melanie has a long roster of correspondents, thereby possibly rendering their penpalship insignificant.
• Who would Melanie be penpals with, living or dead, if she had the choice?
• Who is the grand-mommy of book blurbers?
• What is the real America (grocery stores vs. newsfeeds)?
• Marc Maron’s final podcast with Barack Obama.
• What’s in a “Canadiano?”

Louis Dalton Hall is the author of In Green: Two Horses, Two Strangers, a Journey to an end of the Land. He is also the founder of Big Hoof, an organization that organizes horseback rides and raises money for charity. We discuss:

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• The Great Plains Trail. (Here’s my old Backpacker article on the GPT.)
• What sets Fifers apart from the rest of the Scottish?

• Louis’s travel writing inspirations: Black Spring by Henry Miller; As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee; Sophy Roberts; Jan Brokken; Bruce Chatwin.
• Is Don Quixote still readable?
• What is our relationship with the horse? Masters/parents/friends?
• I ask Louis some intrusive questions like: What do you think about the shape your life is taking? Do you have a rich uncle?
• The difficulty of writing about a romantic experience.
• Guilt as a motivational force.
• Louis’s next adventure. (Mules and possibly America.)

Paul Robbins is America’s foremost authority on the lawn. He is the author of Lawn People: How Grasses, Weeds, and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are. He is the dean of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

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We discuss:

• Is Paul the Cary Elwes of academia?

• Julie Guthman’s work on pathogens, chemicals, and strawberries.
• What is a “lawn person?”
• Is the American lawn care industry taking advantage of us (and taking our money) because of our lawn guilt?
• Are suburban American lawns… communal?
• Penn Jillette (of “Penn and Teller”) and his show “Bullshit!” Here’s the episode about the lawn.
• Should environmentalists and libertarians unite to regain control over their lawns?
• Should “weed” be the next problematic word that becomes outmoded and ostracized (such as “retarded”) from the English language?
• “A weed is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Are we on the verge of reinventing the American lawn? Or will it be more of the same?
• Redddot Phase 1
• What would it take to build a biobank for all living animals?

• Paul’s article on biobanks and indigenous data sovereignty.
• Is the American chestnut tree resurrection… dead?
• Paul’s co-written essay on John Muir’s Tormented Landscape.
• Is our urge to conserve nature tied to North Americans’ complicity in removing Native Americans?
• I ask Paul, should I think of myself as a “settler?”
• I talk about rolling my eyes at land acknowledgements and Paul makes the case for them.

Daniel Oppenheimer is a cultural and political critic, the author of Exit Right: The People Who Left the Left and Reshaped the American Century, and the host of the Eminent Americans Podcast.

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We discuss…

• Dan’s terrific NYT Magazine story, “How I Learned That The Problem In My Marriage Was Me.”
• Why some people expose themselves in front of a therapy audience (exhibitionism + desperation + wanting a really good therapist?)
• How epiphanies are a dime a dozen
• Terry Real’s I Don’t Want to Talk About It
• On raging near golf courses and roundabouts
• David Eddings, fantasy writer
• A Mitt Romney favorite and a good sci-fi book (not so much a good movie):
• The gravitational pull of a good series. Dan’s latest obsession—Dungeon Crawler Carl.

• Peggy McIntosh’s “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”
• Patriarchy—a term suffering from “concept creep?”
• How the Left needs to get comfortable with asserting power again
• It’s Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics
• I have a dream: a left wing made up of normies. But also, get me some of that rhydonium:
• The “Are Monkeys Inherently Racist?” episode that made me unfollow the Blocked and Reported podcast.
• What needs to be said to a lot of podcasters beating dead horses and triggering our outrage:
• Dan talking about the legacy of Rush Limbaugh
• Dan chatting withBlake Smith.

Adam Weymouth is a British author of Kings of the Yukon, about his 2,000-mile voyage down the Yukon River, and, now, Lone Wolf: Walking the Faultlines of Europe, about his 1,000-mile hike following the path of a wolf. We discuss…

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• Are we better humans when we’re on journeys?
• Why have there been so many more deaths (wolves killing humans) in Europe than in North America?
• Ken has a bone to pick with Disney: Why would a nature-loving production company depict wolves in such a retrograde way—in 2013?

• Are old tales of rabid wolves the reason why Europeans are so anxious about the wolf?
• What can farmers do to protect their herd/flock from wolves?
• Should wolves be re-introduced to the U.K.?
• Can a wolf swim the English Channel?
• What is a lone wolf looking for?

Some of Adam’s favorite travel books:

• Adam recommends The Rheingan Sisters:

Adam Weymouth is a British author of Kings of the Yukon, about his 2,000-mile voyage down the Yukon River, and, now, Lone Wolf: Walking the Faultlines of Europe, about his 1,000-mile hike following the path of a wolf. We discuss…

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• Are we better humans when we’re on journeys?
• Why have there been so many more deaths (wolves killing humans) in Europe than in North America?
• Ken has a bone to pick with Disney: Why would a nature-loving production company depict wolves in such a retrograde way—in 2013?

• Are old tales of rabid wolves the reason why Europeans are so anxious about the wolf?
• What can farmers do to protect their herd/flock from wolves?
• Should wolves be re-introduced to the U.K.?
• Can a wolf swim the English Channel?
• What is a lone wolf looking for?

Some of Adam’s favorite travel books:

• Adam recommends The Rheingan Sisters:

Sam Graham-Felsen is the historian at the Philip Roth Personal Library in Newark, New Jersey, and he’s the author of the acclaimed coming-of-age novel Green. We discuss…

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• Sam’s article with New York Times Magazine, “Where Have All My Deep Male Friendships Gone?”
• Sam’s favorite boyhood comedy, Weird Al’s, UHF.
• When did American men stop being physically close? And do we need to go back to this:
• Should we take our best friends to our honeymoons?
• Was Albert Kinsey’s studies of sexuality, which popularized the prevalence of homosexuality, responsible for causing homohysteria?
• Is Dan Campbell making it okay for guys to display emotion, or is his “high masculinity” the only thing that gives him license to be vulnerable?
• Examples of healthy masculinity:
• David Goggins on JRE:
• Does the manosphere need to adopt friendship, community, and rootedness as its next message of wellness?
• Sam and I discuss our mid-life career pivots into typically female-dominated career fields.
• Sam explores the question, What makes a man?
• Sam recommends:

Bill Deresiewicz is a writer and cultural critic. He’s written popular essays such as “Solitude and Leadership,” and books including Excellent Sheep, a critique of elite education; the The Death of the Artist, which explores the precarious lives of creative workers; and The End of Solitude—a collection of Bill’s greatest essays. We discuss…

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• Is Portland still the Portland of Portlandia?
• Is Boston the angriest town in the U.S.?
• Bill’s essay in Salmagundi about the “Not Left.”
• Is Bernie Sanders’s movement over or dormant? Are the woke responsible for knee-capping Sanders’s movement?
• Who’s more prudish—the left or the right?
• Bill’s essay, “Chuck Your Privilege.”
• Ken imagines a “Cambrian Explosion” on the left with hypothetical political species such as Neo-Guildists, “ProPats” (Progressive Patriarchs), and Neo-Hedonists (my enlightened sensuality movement). Perhaps I’ll do a whole post on these ideas someday…
• Is Ezra Klein’s Abundanomics Movement… sexy?
• Ezra Klein’s interview with Democratic rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (my patron saint for the Neo-Guildists)
• Is 2025 TV “mid?”
• Ken’s post about when did prestige TV peak?
• Bill’s essay about incels.
• Bill’s favorite Substack Writers:Blake Smith Sam Kahn’s Republic of Letters Justin Smith-Ruiu’s The Hinternet Eminent Americans Podcast 

Bill’s website

Bill’s substack

Mike Finkel is the author of True Story, about a killer who stole Mike’s identity. His second book The Stranger in the Woods is about a hermit in Maine who didn’t talk to anyone for decades. And The Art Thief, about history’s greatest art thief. We talk about:

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• Why are we, as a culture, so drawn to true crime?
• I ask Mike why women are attracted to criminals. He gives an impressive answer.
• What’s better: soaking in a bath tub or sitting on a toilet to avoid family?
• Mike’s early influences: I Robot, Ray Bradbury, Arthur Clarke, and The Catcher in the Rye.
• Mike’s stylistic principles: make it read as if you “dashed it out”; eliminate show-offy words; apply the “bar room test.”
• Ken tries out some of his psychotherapy skills on Mike.
• Mike gives me advice on how to make a connection with criminals.
• Is there going to be a The Stranger in the Woods movie? And who should play Christopher Knight? (I make the case for Eric Lange from Escape from Dannemora.)
• On how ending a book with an ellipsis is okay.
• Ken gives the North Pond Hermit an open invitation to come on the podcast.
• What kind of kleptomaniac would you be? Mike:

• If Mike was incarcerated, would he ever let someone else write his story?
• Ken shares his jail fantasies (not what you think).
• Mike expresses admiration for David Grann.