Threshold is a Peabody Award-winning documentary podcast about our place in the natural world. Each season, we take listeners on a journey into the heart of a complex environmental story, asking how we got here and where we might be headed. In our latest season, Hark, we hand the mic over to our planet-mates and investigate what it means to truly listen to nonhuman voices—and the cost if we don't. With mounting social and ecological crises, what happens when we tune into the life all around ...
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Birds, frogs, dolphins, and humans—we’re all big talkers. Turtles, on the other hand, are considered to be silent. Or are they? In this episode, we challenge what we know about some of our quieter planet mates. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sig…
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Living together in a group is a strategy many animals use to survive and thrive. And a big part of what makes that living situation successful is listening. In this episode, we explore the collaborative world of the naked mole-rat. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. T…
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A name is essential to your identity. It’s what people call you and what you respond to—it’s part of what you understand about yourself. But do other living things call each other by names? In this episode, we look at how names work in some non-human worlds. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Thr…
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Listening and looking for loons. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter. We want to hear from you! Send us your questions about the new season, the content or how it’s made, for an upcoming behind-the-scenes episode. You can s…
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We answer listener questions about the making of Season 5: Hark and of Threshold more broadly in this special AMA episode with host Amy Martin, managing editor Erika Janik, and producer Sam Moore. Thanks to Kraftkabel for the use of his music. You can find the whole track here. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced.…
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Sometimes a place we consider quiet is just a place we haven’t taken the time to listen. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter. We want to hear from you! Send us your questions about the new season, the content or how it’s ma…
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If a being doesn’t have ears, can it hear? And if it doesn’t have a mouth, can it talk? In this episode, we spend a golden afternoon conversing with the flowers, plants, and trees. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter. We wa…
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Listening to Threshold is free. Creating it is not. We’ve always been committed to making the best show we can—and making it available for free. This is only possible with your financial support. Our year-end fundraising campaign is happening now through December 31st, and each gift will be matched by our partners at Newsmatch. That means if you ca…
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Insects invented song. They’ve developed a multitude of ways to listen. But insects couldn’t have evolved these complex skills without plants. In this episode, we explore the interconnected acoustic lives of insects and plants. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To st…
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Sometimes we have to be loud when we want to be quiet. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter. We want to hear from you! Send us your questions about the new season, the content or how it’s made, for an upcoming behind-the-sce…
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What is sound? And what does it mean to listen? In this episode, we take a closer look at sound: what it is, how it works, and how what you hear may not be the same as your neighbor. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter. We …
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Coral reefs are some of our planet’s most beautiful and biodiverse habitats. They’re also rich with sound, a bustling marine metropolis whose future is severely threatened by climate change. In this episode, we discover the important role of listening in coral communities. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You …
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The planet is filled with unexpected and magical sounds… all you have to do is listen. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter. We want to hear from you! Send us your questions about the new season, the content or how it’s made…
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Beneath the water lies a whole world of sound: snorts, boops, croaks, grunts. Fish, it turns out, have a lot to say, and they’ve been communicating for a long time. In this episode, we take a dive with some of the planet’s oldest vertebrates Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donatin…
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For most of our planet’s existence, the Earth was quiet. The boisterous sounds of life we know today are a recent development, one that the growing field of bioacoustics is helping us understand and interpret. In this episode, we travel to Australia to listen to dolphins and meet the microbes that helped usher in life on the planet. Threshold is no…
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Humans are born into a wondrous planetary chorus. But today, many of us rarely hear anything other than ourselves. In this season of Threshold, we explore a world teeming with sound and ask what happens when we tune into the life all around us. Season 5 of Threshold, Hark, is coming Tuesday, November 19th. Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported…
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Time to 1.5 | Extra 1 | A Conversation with Rebecca Solnit
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34:10In June 2024, the planet hit a terrifying milestone: 12 straight months of global temperatures at or above 1.5 degrees over pre-industrial levels. But even as the impact of climate change becomes more visible and far-reaching, the opportunity to change the trajectory of this global crisis remains possible. Hope is possible. Today, we’re sharing a c…
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In Season 1 of Threshold, we reported on the decades-long fight to get the federal government to transfer the National Bison Range, and the bison, back to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. In 2020, it finally happened. Stewardship of the herd was returned to the people who had helped to save these animals from extinction more than a cent…
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A few weeks ago, Yellowstone National Park released a draft plan for managing bison in the park. In this dispatch, we answer your questions about the plan and what it means for the future of the herd. Read the NPS plan here Submit a comment here or mail your comment to this address: Superintendent, Attn: Bison Management Plan, PO Box 168, Yellowsto…
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Yellowstone National Park recently released a new plan for managing the bison herd. It’s in draft form, and maps out three alternatives for how to manage the herd in the future. Before it gets finalized, the public has a chance to read it and weigh in on which path is best. We talked with Morgan Warthin, chief of public affairs at Yellowstone Natio…
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A lyrical ode to our atmosphere: the invisible, underappreciated substance that makes all life on Earth possible. There are quite a few things working against us when it comes to acting on climate change—not least of them, the simple fact that we literally can’t see the atmosphere, or how we’re changing it. In this episode, we take a guided tour of…
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A few weeks ago, the Biden administration approved the Willow project. It’s a plan to extract 600 million barrels of oil from northern Alaska. There’s a lot of history and politics behind this story, things that tie to issues we’ve reported on in past seasons of Threshold. Amy Martin wrestles with this project and what it means for our netzero futu…
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Representatives from nearly every country in the world are in Egypt right now for COP27, the annual climate conference hosted by the United Nations. The overall goal of each COP is to make progress on climate; to get all countries moving in the same direction, toward a decarbonized world, in an equitable way, based on the best scientific informatio…
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In many ways, the climate crisis is an identity crisis. As we reckon with the damage we’ve done, we’re being forced into a massive confrontation with the powers, limitations, and essential nature of our species. How do we even process the notion that we can do—that we are doing—so much harm to ourselves and to all life on Earth? What is it about us…
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The climate crisis is not just a problem of carbon emissions: it's one of inequality. In fact, global warming and global inequality are the same problem manifesting in different ways. And one of the places we see this connection clearly is at COP26. This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we follow the conflict over loss and dam…
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