Episode 1: From the Marginlands
Our new podcast drops, with two-time Pulitzer winner Paul Salopek as featured guest
Here goes, our debut episode of From the Marginlands, the fortnightly podcast on environment, climate change and all matters related, hosted by Arati Kumar-Rao and me. Featured guest on the show, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Paul Salopek.
Show Notes:
About us:
Arati Kumar-Rao, photojournalist and author of Marginlands: Instagram
Prem Panicker, journalist and editor: X and Substack
From The Marginlands on Substack
On why we are doing this podcast
Our email: marginlands@gmail.com
Headlines:
05:06: WWF helps facilitate trade in polar bear fur, investigation reveals
06:37: Ammonia level rises in Yamuna yet again, may hit water supply and related: Why Yamuna in Delhi has high ammonia levels
08:28: Is the Ganga self-cleaning? Here's what science says
09:28: Food-borne bugs and their links with climate change in focus
10:34: The Invisible Empire by Pranay Lal, a wonderfully evocative deep dive into the world of viruses
11:45: Fishing cat study exposes heavy metal presence in Sunderbans
Paul Salopek segment:
20:00: Out of Eden Walk home page
20:54: Paul Salopek's India walking partners share their memories
24:02: Archive of Paul Salopek's articles for The Chicago Tribune from when he was a foreign correspondent and, related, Paul Salopek's Pulitzer-winning work for Chicago Tribune, on the Human Genome Diversity Project, also for the Chicago Tribune
26:42: The war is bitter and nasty -- a 2009 Paul Salopek story, for The Atlantic, on the chaos in Somalia
28:42: A Paul Salopek story on an isolated archeological site in South Korea
28:50: Paul Salopek on the frog ecology in South Korea and his encounter with a frog whisperer
29:50: Related, Paul Salopek in conversation with Tyler Cowen on the Out of Eden Walk project
30:12: Don Belt recaps the three workshops, in Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata, led by Paul Salopek, and rounds up links to all the published articles created during the workshop
31:26: For National Geographic, Matt Norman on what slow journalism is, and a New Yorker piece by Evan Osnos, referencing Paul Salopek, on slow journalism
35:40: Related, Paul Salopek on witnessing climate change during his 13 years and counting walk around the world
36:42: By 2010, more than half of all people in the world lived in urban areas. By 2050, close to seven billion people are projected to live in urban areas; of these, 876 million people in India are projected to live in cities (the interactive graphic has year-by-year patterns of urbanisation)
38:09: Why Cain built a city, and why the Bible sees cities as bad and, related via Academia, the mixed economies of Cain and Abel
42:02: An archive of Paul Salopek's stories written during the India leg of his Out of Eden Walk
44:24: Paul Salopek talks to The World on his walk across northern India, where he encounters the disconnect between modern farming and the consequent cost to the environment, and to traditional ways of life
47:48: P Sainath, in PARI, on the corporate hijack of agriculture
Our book recommendations:
51:43: From Prem, The Madhouse Effect by Michael Mann and Tom Toles
53:35: From Arati, The Lorax by Dr Seuss
PostScript: It is our first time doing this, folks, so there are likely glitches, more apparent to your eyes than ours. Please write in with comments, suggestions. Also write to tell us of ]your experiences with climate change, your thoughts on the environment, your ideas about guests we should have on the show, links to interesting articles you have recently read, podcasts you have listened to, etc on these and related subjects. All inputs welcome — in fact, inputs eagerly awaited.
Mail us at marginlands@gmail.com