Bugs are foundational to life on Earth, and their numbers are plummeting due to human activity. In this conversation with Vicki Hird, author of Rebugging the Planet, we explore the wonders of bugs and how we can restore our relationship with them. You can find more information about rebugging, and purchase the book, at . Here's the two papers refer…

"Water begets water, soil is the womb, and vegetation is the midwife." -Prof. Millan M. Millan This last episode, for now, in the Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization series, was a great panel conversation with 6 people from 3 different organizations, each working from distinct approaches to restore weather and climate through restoring natural p…

The understanding that we can restore weather and climate systems by protecting and restoring the living surface of the Earth is an idea whose time has come. In these final two episodes in this Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization series, we'll hear discussions of how this understanding is beginning to guide our response to climate change, from g…

This episode is a diverse panel discussion on the implications of renewable energy supply chains on life, water, and local communities, and how we might address them. Saad Youssefi has a background in finance and economics and works in the renewable energy sector, consulting governments and international corporations on energy production projects. …

In this episode in the Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization series, we hear diverse voices from the resistance to the proposed lithium mine at Thacker Pass in northern Nevada, on Paiute and Shoshone ancestral lands. To learn more about and support the blockade camp at Thacker Pass, you can go to . To follow the legal process, you can visit the Gr…

In this conversation with author Judith Schwartz and scientist Walter Jehne, we discuss the importance of the shift from seeing the Earth as a resource base to seeing ourselves as enmeshed in a web of life that both manages and depends on natural processes. In particular, we focus on how this perspective shift affects how we understand and are empo…

In this conversation with Paul Cereghino, we discuss some of the challenges of collaborating in groups and groups of groups to protect and restore the Earth, including such topics as the role of online interactions, the importance of place-based reality, benefits and pitfalls of systems like sociocracy, Covid complications, and much more. You can c…

In this episode in the Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization series, we explore one of the great challenges on our way back to harmony: humans. Through the lens of his Ecosystem Guild and Restoration Camping project in western Washington State, Paul Cereghino and I discuss some of the interhuman and intergroup complexities of grassroots ecological…

In this episode we continue the Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization series with Alfredo Quarto, co-founder and international program director of the Mangrove Action Project. In our conversation with Alfredo, we discuss the importance of mangrove ecologies, their devastation by the shrimp farming industry, and how the mangrove action project uses…

In this episode, we continue the Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization series with Neal Spackman, ecological restoration designer, regenerative entrepreneur, and bold visionary. In previous episodes in this series, we’ve heard how agriculture and development having long been destroying ecology and hydrology, directly causing desertification and di…

Since millennia before the early states of Mesopotamia, farming has been a complexity-destroying process. In this episode, we'll hear from Felipe Pasini about an agricultural approach called Syntropic Farming that reverses this process, facilitating greater ecological complexity while providing for human needs. Here is a lovely video called Life In…

In this second episode in the Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization Series, I'm grateful to be able to share this inspiring conversation with Li An Phoa, creator of the Drinkable Rivers movement. Li An is a scientist, activist, and river walker, working to mobilize watersheds to engage in citizen science and work together towards the return of dri…

"Water begets water, soil is the womb, and vegetation is the midwife." -Professor Millan Millan In this episode we learn about what Professor Millan Millan calls "the second leg of human-induced climate change": how our land use changes lead to major disruptions of weather and climate patterns, independently of changes due to warming from carbon em…

In this prelude to the upcoming series dealing with the interrelated processes of Water, Life, Climate, and Civilization, we take a look at the historical and mythological roots of civilization's discord, and set the tone for the series with a new song and some poignant clips from the next three episodes that remind us of the dynamic complexity we …

In this episode, we visit Quail Springs in the Cuyama Valley of Southern California, a place and community dear to my heart. We'll hear useful knowledge about building with natural materials, and learn of exciting recent developments in the international legalization of cob construction. This episode also contains alot of folk music, including quit…

In this episode, we hear the voice of Grandmother Agnes Baker Pilgrim. She passed on, but her light lives on in so many of us water babies. These recordings of Grandma Aggie are from this past year: a panel at the Global Earth Repair Conference in Washington state, a prescribed fire training exchange in Ashland, Oregon, and finally at her 95th birt…

In spring 2018 I visited the headquarters of the Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap Company in Vista, California, where the Bronner family carries on the legacy of 5 generations of traditional soapmaking and the quirky and passionate All-One vision of Emmanuel Bronner (Dr. Bronner). You are probably familiar with their colorful liquid soap bottles covered wi…

While later this year there will be an in depth Muse Ecology series on the beaver, in this episode we hear one one the more inspiring beaver stories I've come across: the tale of the Martinez Beaver. When the beaver moved in to downtown Martinez, CA, the city originally intended to exterminate them, but thanks to community involvement, the Martinez…

In this inspiring episode of Muse Ecology, we hear songs and conversation from my visit early spring of this year with musical artist Peia. While many restoration ecologists and regenerative agriculturalists are working to restore harmony at the ecosystem level, Peia is one of the bards doing important work at the level of human emotion and narrati…

In this fifth and final episode in this series on the bison in the Great Plains, we visit the Savory Institute Headquarters in Colorado and speak with Daniela Howell, Director of the Savory Institute, and Allan Savory, inventor of the Holistic Management framework. We also hear some collaborative discussion about how regenerative cattle ranchers mi…

Wild Idea Buffalo Company is a bison ranching business that exists to conserve and restore the prairie ecosystem of the northern Great Plains. With no roundup, and an innovative field harvesting method, they care for the well-being of the bison, and as much as possible allow them to express their co-evolved behaviours. You can follow their blog and…

In this episode, we continue our investigation of the Great Plains Bison with a visit to 777 Bison Ranch near Rapid City, South Dakota. Owner Mimi Hilenbrandt and fellow operations manager Moritz Espy gave us a tour of the pastures and corrals. Along the way, we discussed differences and similarities between bison and cattle, the possibility of a b…

In our visit with Mark Tilsen in the Black Hills for Episode 5 about Tanka Bar, our interview happened to take place right before a prayer walk to a proposed gold mining site up the creek from Mark's place. As I began to include this synchronous content in the Tanka Bar episode, I realized that it lit up a section of the rabbit hole that needed it'…

In this episode, the second of four in this series on the bison in the Great Plains, we visit the lands of the Oglala Lakota in the Black Hills of Western South Dakota, where we met with Mark Tilsen, cofounder of Tanka Bar. Tanka Bar, a company owned and operated by the Oglala Lakota of the Pine Ridge Reservation, created the first commercial bison…

This episode of Muse Ecology is the first in this four part series beginning to explore humankind's relation to the bison in the Great Plains of North America. This buffalo series features diverse voices of folks involved in the bison's return that Alison and I met on our buffalo investigation journey in February 2018. While the next three episodes…

Episode 3 closes out Muse Ecology's inaugural series recorded in December 2017, about ecosystem restoration and the work of John D. Liu. In this episode, John and I have a conversation on the way to the airport that weaves through many topics currently affecting our global situation, and we discuss how a large scale shift to focusing on ecosystem r…

This is the fifth and final part of episode 2 at the Global Landscapes Forum in Bonn, Germany with John D. Liu. In this part we hear two conversations about the important but historically ignored voices from indigenous nations, including their long history of oppression by globalizing civilization, the distinct worldviews inherent in the global eco…

While largely unfamiliar to many, peatlands perform crucial funcions in Earth's carbon and water cycles. For many centuries we have been draining peatlands to free up land for commodity agriculture, destroying these important living systems. We now are growing aware of the effects of draining peatlands, and some folks are exploring ways to preserve…

In Part 3 of this episode at the Global Landscapes Forum in Bonn, Germany, we will hear conversations between John Liu and folks who are working to restore degraded forest lands around the world through research, international business, and volunteer initiatives. John D. Liu is Ecosystem Ambassador for Commonland Foundation and Visiting Research Fe…

In Part 2 of Episode 2, we hear some voices of folks who are working to bridge the world of global finance with the preservation and restoration of ecological function. Caroline van Leenders is the Senior Policy Advisor of Greening Finance at the Netherlands Enterprise Agency. She facilttes community of practice groups for investors to help them mo…

Episode 2 consists of some fascinating interviews conducted by John Liu at the Global Landscapes Forum in Bonn, Germany. I've arranged them into five parts. Part 1 focuses on Commonland Foundation, an organization that catalyzes regenerative projects around the word. We heard of Commonland in Episode 1 at the ecosystem restoration camp in Spain, an…

The Ecosystem Restoration Camps movement has begun with the pilot camp in the Altiplano of southern Spain. In this episode I visit the camp to hear from the resident restoration volunteers and the land owner, Alfonso Chico de Guzman, cofounder of the Alvelal initiative. Links: Find out more and become a supporting member of the Ecosystem Restoratio…