To the Best of Our Knowledge: Sacred Nature

In this hour, Bill McKibben sounded the alarm about global warming over twenty years ago in his book, The End of Nature. His new book is Eaarth (yes, spelled with 2 "a"s) and lays out a model of how to survive on our changed planet: think small and local. He talks with Anne Strainchamps about the changes to come and what we can do about them.

Next, Kurt Hoelting is commercial fisherman and wilderness guide in the Pacific Northwest. He was shocked to discover how large his carbon footprint was, so set out to spend a year living within a 60 mile radius of his home. He describes it in his book The Circumference of Home: One man's Yearlong Quest for a Radically Local Life and in this conversation with Jim Fleming.

Then, Gordon Hempton is one of the world's leading audio ecologists. For twenty years, he's traveled the planet recording natural soundscapes. He tells Anne Strainchamps Silence is disappearing in our world, but he brought lots of interesting sonic examples for us to hear. Hempton is the author of One Square Inch of Silence: One Man's Search for Silence in A Noisy World.

After that, Brenda Peterson is an environmental writer and editor. She talks with Steve Paulson about her memoir, I Want To Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth. Peterson is the child of fundamentalist Christians but her father was a forest ranger and she grew up in a remote wilderness cabin.

And finally, sociologist Bron Taylor tells Steve Paulson that we're witnessing the birth of a new "dark green religion." His book is Dark Green Religion - Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future. [Broadcast Date: May 19, 2011]