Whisky and Conservation

When I need to get away from people (either because of a global pandemic or just because humans can be really awful and exhausting(, I grab my dog, load up my car, and head to the woods. Usually, I venture into a federally designated Wilderness area. These remote and wild places allow me to unplug and reconnect with nature.

I love Wilderness areas, but I can’t stand some of the Wilderness debates happening among the conservation community. Wilderness offers a lot of solutions to our many conservation problems. Too many of us, though, have gotten lost by debating “purity standards” and access rules.

Fortunately, my friend Zack, who is a big Wilderness advocate, has a fresh take on what Wilderness is and how it can be used to conserve species and fight climate change. We’re not just talking about far off wild places and rugged mountains! It’s all about humility and finding the wildness around you.

Cheers!

Friends, as many of you know, I’ve been getting a lot more into gardening this last year, which means I’m constantly thinking about plants now, which I’m not upset about. But one thing I am upset about is climate change! That’s right friends, on top of the COVID-19, economic, and racial injustice crises, we still have the climate crisis, which is also fueling the extinction crisis. So many crises! 

With climate change, we know we’re kinda fucked. Because baby boomers decided it was more important to crack down on weed to arrest brown and black people, we just ignored the early scientific consensus that the earth was getting warmer because of fossil fuels. And thanks to the fossil fuel industry, meaningful action was delayed. Now even with all of the great work that’s being done, we’re still going to have to deal with the effects of climate change (thanks, boomers). 

And while that’s bad enough, you and I have legs and means of moving out of disaster areas. Plants don’t have that same luxury. They’re rooted in place. So how are plants responding to the climate crisis? Can they respond to it? They’re getting caught up in more extreme weather events, and it takes longer for plants to shift their ranges. Like so many other species, many plants are threatened with extinction from climate change. So what are we going to do about it? 

Fortunately, my friend Tracy thinks about plants a lot more than I do and had some answers to my questions. Tracy lives in Minneapolis, which has been at the forefront of defunding the police and dismantling racist systems. I’m also proud that Tracy was quick and early to join her fellow Minneapolitans in demanding justice and reform. We chatted months before George Floyd’s murder, which is why you won’t hear us talk about it.

Instead, we talk all things plants, climate change, and if there’s anything humans can do to help (or if we’ll just fuck it all up again).So pour yourself a drink, maybe go sit out in your garden or under a tree, and enjoy the conversation. 

Cheers!

Hey friends. Before we get to the episode, I wanted to take a moment to talk about the protests happening the last few weeks. Black lives matter. The protests happening all over the world right now are about so much more than George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmed Aubry, Manny Ellis, and any of the other black, brown, and indigenous people who have been killed by police and empowered racists. These tragic deaths are not new, and there is nothing we can do to bring back the lives lost. This moment is, however, forcing a much needed conversation in this country about our racist institutions and systemic inequities. 

This podcast started to have conversations with the conservation community to talk about some of the most pressing issues we face as a community. That includes confronting and undoing white supremacy within our movement. We need to recognize that many of the people we celebrate as environmental heroes were racists (like John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt). We also need to recognize the enormous contributions of black and brown environmentalists and scientists, like Dr. Roger Arliner Young, the first African American woman to receive her doctorate degree in zoology, and who contributed to countless published papers though she wasn’t credited. Or Hazel M. Johnson, mother of the environmental justice movement who exposed how toxic pollution was concentrated in black and brown communities.

We also need to recognize that white supremacists rely on fear and intimidation to exclude people of color from the outdoors. This happened to Christian Cooper, a black birders who was threatened by a white woman attempting to weaponize the police. It happened this week not far from my home in Tacoma when an interracial family, who was on a camping trip on the Olympic Peninsula, was harassed by several armed men who accused the family of being ANTI-FA. The family was followed by these men before the turned off a logging road to go to their campsite, but after hearing gun shots and chainsaws, they decided to leave and found a felled tree blocking the road. The family fortunately got help from local high school students to clear the log, but it is terrifying to think about what could have happened if the family couldn’t get out.

I often travel to the peninsula, and because of my white and male privilege, I have never been harassed or felt unsafe out there. As a conservationist and outdoor recreationalist, I think it is incumbent on me and all of us to call out and denounce racist harassment like this. Racism like this excludes people of color from the outdoors and denies them from experiencing the wildlife and wild places that inspire so many of us to do the work we do.If we cannot dismantle racism in this country, then the outdoors will never be safe for people of color, and the more that they are excluded from the outdoors, the less welcome they will feel in the conservation movement/community as a whole. We also know that Americans of color are not only more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and pollution, but they are also much more likely than white Americans to support strong environmental and public health programs. And of course, we know that our movement is only made stronger as it becomes more diverse. We need people from all different backgrounds, cultures, races, and life experiences if we hope to both build a broad constituency for wildlife and advance innovative solutions to conserve biodiversity.

Like I said, this conversation about racism isn’t new. The third episode of this podcast was all about racism in the environmental movement and what we need to do to be better. Instead of posting a new episode this week, I’m choosing to re-share that episode to do what I can to contribute to this conversation within our community. Because this was recorded over a year ago,

Friends, things continue to be strange and stressful for a lot of us. The pandemic has impacted almost every aspect of “normal” life, including conservation work. Events and field projects have been canceled, and a lot of policy work has been put on hold as politicians deal with the COVID-19 response and recovery efforts. For me, it’s been a really frustrated few months, and I just haven’t felt like I’ve had any control over what’s happening.

That’s why I thought now was the perfect time to get some perspective and talk to my friend, Kiel, who has recently started practicing mindfulness meditation. Now, I’m a pretty type-A person, so the idea of just sitting and breathing makes me anxious. I typically feel like I need to be doing something. But, as Kiel and I talk about, mindfulness is just like exercise (which I also don’t make enough time for, but that’s a different topic) and training your brain to let go of the things you can’t control, focus your efforts on what you can control, and recognize that you are one piece of a much bigger puzzle.

And while I wanted to talk to Kiel because I was personally needing some tips for how to chill out, Kiel also reminded me that mindfulness can help the environmental movement. Not only can those of us who work in conservation learn how and where to focus our energies, but it also encourages people to rethink their sense of self. Mindfulness really encourages you to be aware of all that is around you and how it all fits together. It’s a shift in perspective that may help conservationists be more effective at their jobs and help others feel more connected to the natural world.

So pour yourself a glass of whisky, take a nice, deep breath, and enjoy this conversation about mindfulness.

Cheers!

Like all good Midwestern kids, I grew up hunting and fishing. These were activities my dad grew up doing and his dad before him. These outdoor activities were part of the American character (well…the white male American character) that stemmed out of cocktail that combined Manifest Destiny with divine dominion. And it became ingrained in the way we conserve and manage wildlife today.

I don’t hunt or fish any more (I’m just bad at it), and I don’t have any issues with people who do that, but I do have a problem with how hunting and fishing a often the primary goals of most of our state fish and wildlife agencies. Because hunters and anglers wanted to manage wild populations into the future (so they could keep hunting and fishing them), they developed the North American Model for Wildlife Conservation. Essentially, through regulated hunting and fishing, animal populations would be managed to maximize harvest without causing extinction. It would also be a way to raise funds through hunting license fees and taxes and gear and equipment. And in many ways, this model works. But in many ways, it doesn’t.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to look far to find someone to talk to about my concerns and vast opinions on the matter. My friend (and fellow Tacoman) Erin joined me to dive into the philosophy and economics that underpin how state fish and wildlife agencies are funded and what they focus on. Pour a drink (ideally while in your home and six feet away from everyone else) and enjoy the conversation.

Cheers!

Few things in life terrify me as much as plastic. It’s a material that popped up just a few decades ago, and now it’s everywhere. Almost everything in our lives is made out of plastic, and so much of that plastic is meant to just be thrown away. As we consume more stuff, we consume more plastic. And even if you recycle it, that’s not fixing the problem. So much of our plastic isn’t recyclable; either because it’s a hard to recycle grade of plastic or because we can’t rinse peanut butter out of our damn peanut butter jars. Today, there’s more plastic in the ocean than there are fish. As fish and other animals eat plastic, they either choke or contaminate themselves with toxics. The entire marine food web is full of plastic.

This stuff literally keeps me up at night. I’m thinking about this as I’m typing this blog post on my plastic key board (which one day will be derelict and awash in the ocean to be eaten by some poor whale). My friend Chrissy also has this plastic guilt. And despite our best efforts to make lifestyle changes to use more reusable items, we’re still surrounded by plastic! At times, overcoming this issue feels daunting. We didn’t come to any major solutions to deal with this problem, but together, we drowned our sorrows about drowning in plastic. Cheers!

It won’t come as a big surprise that I’m not the biggest fan of corporate America. Like a lot of folks who work in conservation, I’m a big angry liberal who things corporations should be regulated before they’re to be trusted. A lot of that is rooted in the long and contentious history of the environmental movement in the United States. Some of the earliest examples of conservation fights were nature vs. industry (John Muir and the Hetch Hetchy Dam, Rachel Carson fighting chemical companies over DDT, the ‘timber wars’ in the Pacific Northwest of the 1990’s, etc.).

Recently, more companies are trying to “do the right thing,” and corporate conservation has been taking off. My instinct is to look on these efforts with suspicion, but my friend Joyce sees it differently. Joyce is one of my few friends who used to work in the private sector (she’s now a poor nonprofit employee like me!). She still engages corporations though, helping to direct their charitable giving and sustainability projects.

So Joyce and I had a drink to talk about this growing trend in corporate conservation. Is it all a big PR scheme, or is it possibly the key to saving the world?

One of the most important pieces of legislation in the United States is the Endangered Species Act. For people who work in conservation, the ESA is the foundation of a lot of the political and legal work we do. It has been extremely successful in halting extinctions and has reversed the decline of many species. All of that being said, I can’t help think that there are things we can do to make the ESA better.

The science around species and ecosystems has progressed significantly since the 1970’s, when the ESA was passed. We now know about keystone and umbrella species; there’s growing evidence to suggest that single species conservation isn’t working; and without appropriate resources, we’re forced to make hard decisions about which species get help and which ones don’t. The ESA, by and large, doesn’t address these issues.

And instead of reforming the ESA for the better, conservation groups have to defend the ESA from “reforms” that are meant to weaken the act and give more concessions to corporations and developers. Reforming the ESA has become a Republican talking point, and the current administration has been systematically weakening the ESA by changing the rules and regulations of how the act is implemented.

All of this can be disheartening: we have a good law on the books that needs some updating, but it is constantly being attacked, preventing us from making progress. Fortunately, I’m friends with one of the biggest ESA nerds on the planet: Meg! We chatted about the current attacks on the ESA, ways species conservation in the US could be improved, and what the future holds for this bedrock of environmental policy.

I never considered myself a “city kid.” I grew up in a rural part of the country, but today, I live in a city. More people across America are doing the exact same thing: leaving their rural communities to pack into ever growing and expanding cities and suburbs. While there’s a lot of great reasons to live in the city and to encourage urban density, it comes with a ton of problems, including impacting wildlife.

There’s the obvious: they pave paradise and put up a parking lot. But then there’s the less obvious: stormwater runoff, noise and light pollution, city engineering projects that alter ecological processes. Essentially, are cities were built as if they were completely separate from the ecosystem they were in and the wildlife they live near. Sadly for these urban planners, climate and ecology and wildlife don’t play by our rules. With both a changing climate and a growing urban footprint, many cities are finally feeling the impact of poor ecological planning, and are starting to turn to nature for solutions.

My friend Patrick thinks a lot about cities, and he’s one of the few people who is excited to talk to me at length about stormwater runoff and green infrastructure. We poured ourselves some bourbon (maybe a little too much bourbon…) and talked about what cities and a growing urban population mean for wildlife.

Cheers!

The human population is huge, and it just keeps growing. For a lot of environmental problems, it’s the elephant in the room that’s always in the background. More people require more resources and more space and that puts an even greater strain on endangered wildlife and habitats. I mean, the biggest way to increase your carbon footprint is to make a kid. And while a lot of conservationists know that the human population is a growing issue, very few organizations are actually talking about it.

Liz (of Alaska trip fame) and I have been ranting about making babies (or rather, not doing that) for a long time. I convinced her to have some whiskey with me to talk about the growing human population and our unsustainable consumption. Really, though, when it comes to fixing a lot of these problems, the solutions are more about investing in people and empowering women (something conservationists don’t do a ton of work on). It’s a reminder that we need to be looking outside of the sciences for long-term solutions to these big problems.