Terra Informa

To help celebrate the end of a brutal coldsnap here on the Canadian prairies, this week's episode features an archive that is all about green and growing things! We'll hear Terra Informer Amanda Rooney speak with Dr. Natasha Meyers, a professor of anthropology at York University, about our relationships with plants and how we might be able to re-conceptualize them.After reading an article entitled “How to grow livable worlds: Ten not-so-easy steps“, Terra Informer Amanda Rooney wanted to share the idea of the Planthropocene with listeners! Amanda got to speak with the author of the paper, Natasha Myers, about her relationship with plants, planthropology and how you might reconceptualize your relationship with plants.We will also hear from Terra Informers Sonak Patel, Hannah Cunningham, and new recruit Curtis Blandy about some of their most memorable chlorophyll-ed relationships. ★ Support this podcast ★

This episode originally aired on May 24, 2021: It's spring, which means you may have started your own garden, or maybe you know someone who started bringing up little seedlings months ago. Seeds are where all home gardens and farmers' fields begin - but there are some key differences between the seeds that large agro-corporations sell and the ones that you can choose to plant in your backyard or balcony.This week, we speak with Denise O'Reilly, the head of operations at A'Bunadh Seeds and get down to the root of questions like, what does it mean to save seeds, and why is it important? What's an heirloom variety? Is that different than a hybrid?Program Log ★ Support this podcast ★

This week on Terra Informa, we revisit a beloved episode from our archives that originally aired on March 18, 2019. This episode's format is a round-table discussion, in which the each member of the team brought something different to the table- something related to The Unseen Environment. Mysterious. Charlotte Thomasson and Amanda Rooney brought together a handful of Terra Informer's for a discussion about mysterious natural events, Nematodes, paleoburrows, and so much more.Additionally, Ben Hollihan talks about a news story for this week: how grocery stores are struggling to adapt to COVID-19. Program Log.  ★ Support this podcast ★

In a 2012 piece, Annie Banks speaks with Erin Konsmo of the Native Youth Sexual Health Network, an organization by and for Indigenous youth that works within the full spectrum of sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice across the United States and Canada. Oftentimes pollution is thought of as impacting the land and the water but what about the impacts that pollution, industry, contaminants and environmental degradation have on nearby communities and individuals and their sexual and reproductive health? And why is this critical for environmentalists to learn more about? What is environmental violence and how are communities defining, responding to and resisting environmental violence?Chris Chang-Yen Phillips spoke with Sierra Jamerson during a live taping at the St. John’s Institute of Edmonton in 2013. Sierra Jamerson was born into a family of talented leaders and gifted musicians, and she’s been performing professionally since the tender age of eleven, singing traditional Black Gospel, jazz, soul

In this archive episode from October 2020, Terra Informer Elizabeth Dowdell interviews alumnus Sofia Osborne about the popular video game The Sims and a newly released environmental-ish expansion pack.For more information about this archive episode, links to resources, and a link to the program log, visit the original episode page here. ★ Support this podcast ★

This episode originally aired on October 26, 2020: This week on Terra Informa, Elizabeth Dowdell, Charlotte Thomasson, and Hannah Cunningham discuss the 1984 Hayao Miyazaki film Nausicä of the Valley of the Wind.  ★ Support this podcast ★

This episode originally aired on December 16, 2019: This week we talk about energy transitions strategies and what young people are doing to push the movement. Terra Informers Sonak and Elizabeth give a background on energiewende, ABBY-Net, and student-researcher Janina Fuchs shares her work on renewable energy perspectives between German and Albertan students.Program Log ★ Support this podcast ★

This episode originally aired on December 28, 2020: This week we explore the meaning and significance of the winter solstice, reflecting on both the dark and the light so prominent at this time of year. The Terra Informa team shares what has made them thankful in the past year, and for inspiration we share "Praise Song for the Unloved Animals" by Margaret Renkl. Program log ★ Support this podcast ★

This episode originally aired on December 21, 2020: This week on Terra Informa, Sonak Patel and Hannah Cunningham talk all about Christmas trees. When and where did this tradition begin? What was used to decorate the trees before electricity? And, to bring it all home, Elizabeth Dowdell regales us with a childhood tale of making the harrowing journey to harvest the family Christmas treeDownload program log here.  ★ Support this podcast ★

This episode originally aired on July 11, 2022: In this week's episode, Terra Informer Sara Chitsaz takes us along as she swoops into the world of birdwatching! We also hear from bird enthusiast Kitty Rogers, who shares some insight on purple martins and tips for birdwatching.Program Log. ★ Support this podcast ★

This episode originally aired on May 17, 2020: Part 2 of Dylan and Amanda's series on the Anthropocene deals with our expression (and suppression) of emotions surrounding climate change and the Epoch we are living in. How do we cope in a time of loss and grief? Tune in and hear all about the Epocholytic Emotions we are experiencing.Download the program log.  ★ Support this podcast ★

This episode originally aired on May 11, 2020: What's in a name? This week, Amanda and Dylan dive in and explore the term being used to describe our current geological era - the Anthropocene. Why was this term chosen for our epoch, and why do some people contest this idea? Tune in to find out!Download program log ★ Support this podcast ★

This episode originally aired on October 3, 2022: It's been 60 years since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring explored the dangers of pesticides and how humans are destroying our environment. This week, the Terra Informers discuss this classic book - why was this book so important? How relevant is Silent Spring to the modern ecological crises of the 20th century?Program log. ★ Support this podcast ★

This episode originally aired on September 19, 2023: In this week's episode, Sonak Patel and Hannah Cunningham discuss some of the current theories around the possibility of finding a Earth 2.0, some of the current contenders, and reflect on why Earth 1.0 is worth fighting for.Program log.  ★ Support this podcast ★

This episode originally aired October 10, 2022:Who do you think of when you think about environmentalism and music? This week, Jasinta Rweyongeza is joined by Rasheena Fountain, a poet and essayist, to talk about the lack of mainstream recognition of Black musicians in the world of environmentalism in music, as well how specific genres of music that are underrecognized in their ability to tell stories about environmental relationships, environmental vulnerability, and environmental justice.Rasheenafountain.com ☆ TreeSong Workshop: Decolonizing Senses ☆ Program Log★ Support this podcast ★ ★ Support this podcast ★

This episode originally aired on March 21, 2022: Have you ever come face to face with the majestic beaver? Have you ever thought about just how impactful the little dam-builders are to the ecosystems they inhabit? This week, Sara Chitsaz, Hannah Cunningham, and Dylan Hall (a Terra Informa alum!) discuss Glynnis Hood's book The Beaver Manifesto, as well as our general thoughts about the popular, and sometimes not-so-popular, rodent. At the end of the episode, Sara also gives us a run-down on what beavers have been up to in the Alaskan tundra.Link to the University of Alberta's free online Indigenous Canada course, as mentioned in the introduction of the episode.Program log. ★ Support this podcast ★

This episode originally aired on June 15, 2020: This week the Terra Informa crew discuss the 2019 film, The Whale and the Raven, directed by German filmmaker Mirjam Leuze. In the heart of British Columbia's coastal Great Bear Rainforest, whale researchers and Gitga’at Nation community members share the screen with their non-human kin, orcas and humpback whales, whose homewaters are also a proposed liquefied natural gas tanker route. Terra Informers Elizabeth Dowdell, Curtis Blandy, Skylar Lipman, and Andrea Miller discuss resistance, the integration of Indigenous knowledge with scientific knowledge and technology, respect in our relationships with the natural world, and the cinematic beauty of kelp forests. Watch the film’s trailer here, and stream the full movie on Amazon Prime Video.Download the program log here. ★ Support this podcast ★

The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins by Anna Tsing is about mushrooms. Matsutake mushrooms, to be exact. But it's about a lot of other things too, including capitalism and hope for how we might live in a future marked by human destruction.This week, Hannah Cunningham and Sara Chitsaz discuss this book, some of the concepts in it, and how it made them feel.Link to the book.Here is the article referencing pericapitalist spaces that Hannah mentioned in the episode.Program log. ★ Support this podcast ★

This episode originally aired on October 11, 2021: If you're a follower of the annual Fat Bear Week put on by Katmai National Park, you're probably just as excited as we are about this week's episode!This week, we're joined by Lian Law, Visual Information Specialist at Katmai National Park, who tells us all about this very unique park and the stars of Fat Bear Week. What makes these bears so dang BIG? Let's find out!Fat Bear Week website (2023 voting runs October 4 - 10)Explore.org bear live camsProgram log ★ Support this podcast ★

Tune in as Elizabeth Barron, Lauren Spielmann, and Jasinta Rweyongeza recap environmental news headlines from the past few months! In this episode, we cover Canada's worst wildfire season on record, a recent study on the benefits of urban green spaces, the City of Edmonton's new waste reduction bylaw, an ongoing shortage of Huy Fong Foods' Sriracha hot sauce, extreme heat during the 2023 U.S. Open, and a new report published on the significant threat posed by invasive species. Program Log is here.P.S. Don't forget to listen to Terra Informa's Fat Bear Week 2021 episode and participate in Fat Bear Week 2023 voting in October! ★ Support this podcast ★