Storytelling Animals

Guardian environment reporter Oliver Milman, author of The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires That Run the World, joins us to explain why we should be worried about insect declines and how we can help out both as individuals and through larger scale political action. Plus, we explore why insects are worth appreciating for their own sake.

Learn more about the book here

Oliver Milman on little-known facts about insects

Tips to make your yard more insect-friendly

The April 26 Storytelling Animals book club will be about Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, which was important in raising the alarm about pesticides' threat to wildlife (a threat that has not gone away, as Oliver and I discuss). Typically the book club is for Patreon subscribers at the Lorax tier and higher, but if you would like to try it out before committing please sign up for my free weekly email list and reach out to me about attending one free meeting. The March 29 meeting is about Deb Olin Unferth's Barn 8, if you'd rather come to that one.

Contact me on Twitter with any questions or comments about the show!

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I talk with philosopher Jeff Sebo about his new book Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves: Why Animals Matter for Pandemics, Climate Change, and Other Catastrophes. We discuss both moral and pragmatic reasons to care about other animals, then get into how we could include their interests in public health and environmental decision-making. Later, we explore tough questions like how to act when we are not sure about the consequences, whether insects are conscious, and how to include nonhumans in the democratic process.

Also, a brief word on methane and nitrous oxide (both of which are emitted by animal agriculture)--Jeff rightly points out that these cause significantly more warming per ton than carbon dioxide. The exact number one uses depends on what time period you measure the impact over, because different gases remain in the atmosphere for different lengths of time. The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) website uses a 100-year time period, and puts methane at 28-36 times more impactful than carbon dioxide (even higher than what Sebo says on the podcast), and nitrous oxide at a whopping 265-298 times.

Learn more about the book here

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Support this podcast on Patreon

Make a one-time donation

And to follow up on some of the issues raised in our discussion:

Read about minks and the coronavirus here

Read about the French citizen's climate assembly

For more ideas on including nonhuman animals in democratic processes

For Patreon supporters at $7/month or more, our next monthly book club meeting is March 29 to discuss the animal-rights novel Barn 8. Then on April 26 we will discuss Silent Spring.

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Mark Bittman is the author of more than 30 books and nearly 200 New York Times op-eds, known both for his cooking tips and his searing critiques of industrial agriculture. This episode we talk about his book Animal, Vegetable, Junk, which traces centuries of cruelty and exploitation to show how our food system got to where it is today. We only cover a fraction of this history in the podcast, but a consistent theme emerges: when food is grown with the primary goal of making money, rather than nourishing people and the land, bad things tend to happen.

Learn more about the book here

Subscribe to my weekly email list

Support this podcast on Patreon

Make a one-time donation to this podcast

Subscribers at the Lorax tier and above can join our next two book club meetings, both of which will confront industrial ag: on the novel Barn 8 (about factory farming of chickens) and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (which addresses pesticide use).

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Matt Bell's novel Appleseed has no shortage of urgent themes, and on this episode we talk about whether democracy is suited to the task of rapidly confronting climate change, the perilously seductive allure of techno-optimism, and how fiction can help us imagine a future less estranged from the nonhuman world. Should we take geoengineering seriously? How should those in high-emissions countries think about our own complicity, even as we take action against the governments and corporations who bear greater responsibility? What if Johnny Appleseed were a faun? All this and more explored in the episode.

Learn more about the book here

Lincoln Michel on the "speculative epic"

A case against geoengineering

A case for taking it seriously

Subscribe on Patreon at the Lorax Tier or above to join our March 29 book club discussion of Barn 8 by Deb Olin Unferth.

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Thea Riofrancos, the author of Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador, talks about the challenges posed by resource extraction to indigenous sovereignty, the rights of nature, and our conceptions of democracy. We also think about what a less extractive economy might look like, and whether a green transition reliant on minerals for batteries and solar panels risks re-creating some of the harms of the fossil fuel economy.

Learn more about Resource Radicals here

Read Riofrancos' recent article on lithium extraction

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How do stories set in a post-apocalyptic future look back at our present world: are characters nostalgic for the affluence and convenience? Or do they look back in disgust, understanding that many of these luxuries were built on exploitation and environmental destruction? Or a little of both? I look at Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven (the 2014 novel and the 2021/2022 TV show), Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (the 2014 movie) and Kim Stanley Robinson's The Wild Shore (a 1984 novel) as three differing approaches to this question, and argue that while we can appreciate civilization's comforts, we shouldn't lose track of its costs.

Sign up for the weekly Storytelling Animals newsletter here.

Read my essay on The Wild Shore here.

Read Chas Walker's essay on Moby-Dick here.

Read Kim Stanley Robinson on the coronavirus pandemic here.

Support the podcast on Patreon here.

Follow me on Twitter here.

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I talk with author Laura Jean McKay about her Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning novel The Animals in That Country, using fiction to give voice to other animals, and how literature can help us recognize that humans are not the center of the universe--that instead we are part of a larger, in some ways scary and humbling but also more wondrous world.

Buy the book here: https://scribepublications.com/books-authors/books/the-animals-in-that-country-9781950354375

Read about Laura Jean McKay's experience visiting a great ape sanctuary here: https://www.academia.edu/37308424/You_Are_Here_creative_non_fiction

Support us on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/storytellingpod

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On this episode we talk with Sarah Lazare, who finished writing the novel Testimony after the passing of her father Peter Lazare, who had written the first draft. We discuss how the novel continues political conversations she had held with her father in life, and how to turn wonky topics like utility regulation into a thrilling narrative. We also discuss her recent journalism on global vaccine inequity, and why leftists should consider writing more fiction. If you like this episode please share, follow, rate us, and/or subscribe on Patreon.

Check out the novel here.

Read Sarah's latest article on lack of vaccine access here.

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In this episode, Georgetown philosophy professor Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò talks to us about his new book, Reconsidering Reparations, which makes the case that reparations must be a forward-looking project aiming to remake the political, economic, and cultural structures built by colonialism and the trans-Atlantic slave trade. He also argues that such a project must necessarily address the climate crisis, and that it will help if we can see ourselves in a lineage of fighters and revolutionaries that will continue long after we are gone. If you enjoy this episode feel free to like, subscribe, tell a friend, or support us on Patreon.

Buy the book here.

Read an excerpt here.

We briefly mention the IMF (International Monetary Fund) -- read an article Táíwò co-wrote about how that institution could play a role in reparations here.

P.S. If you like our logo, check out its wonderful designer, The Real Dancing Eagle.

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For the very first episode I talk with environmental writer Emma Marris about her new book, Wild Souls: Freedom and Flourishing in the Nonhuman World. We discuss why animals matter, whether species and ecosystems do, how to think about non-native creatures, and how to make our way forward in a messy but wondrous world. If you enjoy this episode feel free to like, subscribe, tell a friend, or support us on Patreon.

Buy Emma's book here

Read an excerpt on zoos here

Two articles discussed in the podcast:

Emma Marris' review of When the Killing's Done

Marina Bolotnikova on "invasive" species

And two more relevant articles:

Emma Marris on killing for conservation

Robinson Meyer on the restoration of the Santa Cruz Island Fox, which involved trapping and relocating golden eagles (who preyed on the foxes) and the controversial killing of non-native pigs (who were also eaten by the golden eagles)

P.S. If you like our logo, check out its wonderful designer, The Real Dancing Eagle.

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