Nerdy About Nature

Undercurrents is a podcast series from Nerdy About Nature where we discuss recent studies, reports and news from the world of environment, ecology and climate which all impact our understanding of the world and the way we relate to it. In other words, it’s all the unseen things that happen without much notice that impact the direction or flow of our society and the world we all share.

This episodes topics:

Shifting Heatwaves:

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adl1598

The Cost of Bad Winters:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13683500.2024.2314700

Droughts and Fire:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168192324001059

Nitrogen Impeding Nocturnal Pollinators:

https://www.science.org/content/article/night-pollution-keeps-pollinating-insects-smelling-flowers

Better Variable Retention Management:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112723000816

Produced by Ross Reid

Hosted by Ross Reid & Julia Huggins

Nerdy About Nature is a passion project whose primary goal is to provide free access for all to education about this world so that people can enjoy it more, build connection and fall in love with it, and ultimately work in ways to steward it for future generations to enjoy. We do this through short and long form videos all over social media @NerdyAboutNature, as well as this podcast you’re listening to now, and it’s all made possible thanks to support from folks like yourself. If you’re enjoying the content we’re creating, you can help keep it going by supporting us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/nerdyaboutnature⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠nerdyaboutnature.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Natures pretty neat, ya know - let’s keep it that way!

Have you ever stopped for a moment to think about where all our food comes from, and how it came to be? Well, if you know anything about ecology and life on this planet, you’d know that a vast majority of all that food either directly or indirectly comes from the work of pollinators. Without them, there would be no fruit, no squash or pumpkins, no berries and jam, no cattle or turkey feed so no meat...they literally are the reason we’re able to eat so much of this deliciousness. So today I’m sitting down with Emilie Usher, an urban bee-keeper and flower fanatic to chat all about our most beloved pollinators, bees. We tend to immediately think of honey bees here, but it turns out our native wild bees all around North America play massive roles not only in the health of our agriculture industries, but the functional ecology of the lands we all live amongst, and are incredibly important to biodiversity and our future on this planet.

So why are bees so important? Do they like certain flowers more than others? How long do they live? Do they all live in hives? Do they all sting? Whats going on with those flashy green bees I see from time to time? Let’s dive into this tiny, fascinating world with Emily here and learn all about these awesome little critters.

Learn more about Alveole

Each episode of Nerdy About Nature makes a donation to a non-profit of the guests choosing using funds from ⁠Patreon⁠ supporters, and in this episode Emilie opted to support The Xerces Society!

Nerdy About Nature is an independent passion project that relies on support from folks like you. If you’re enjoying this podcast and videos, help me keep making them by joining the ⁠Patreon⁠ family for 1$ a month or more!

Wanna ask a question? Want community? Wanna engage? Do it all as a Patreon member, it’s easy!

You can also make a one-time donation, get NAN merch, resources and more information at ⁠www.NerdyAboutNature.com⁠

Learn more about this episodes sponsor, ⁠Hoka & their Anacapa 2's

After a serious of events that left me in need of a new car and long, arduous process of deliberation, I ended up getting a used PHEV, and decided to talk about my thought process here. Instead of going over the details, features, performance of the Rav4 Prime I ended up getting, I wanted to address the larger, more ethical issues associated with getting a car that still uses fossil fuels as gas, in addition to lithium in a battery, in this world we live in plagued by climate change driven impacts like extreme wildfire and drought.

I start by breaking down the choice between a car & public transportation in todays world, the differences between gas and electric cars ethically, affordability of the change, and the cultural shift of having to think of things differently in order to support technology that aims to create a better future. Lot's to cover here, so buckle up, and let's go for a ride!

Nerdy About Nature is an independent passion project that relies on support from folks like you. If you’re enjoying this podcast and videos, help me keep making them by joining the Patreon family for 1$ a month or more!

Wanna ask a question? Want community? Wanna engage? Do it all as a Patreon member, it’s easy!

You can also make a one-time donation, get NAN merch, resources and more information at www.NerdyAboutNature.com

I'm going to start releasing some of my slightly longer video here in a new series I'm tentatively calling 'Thought Snacks', because that's what they are...not quite a full meal, but just enough to get those wheels turning and reflecting about the world we live in.

When it comes to impacts of climate change, wildfire is one of the hottest topics there is days - pun intended! A majority of our forests across Turtle Island have become prone to very violent, catastrophic fires, whether as a result of fire suppression that has allowed stands to become thick and overgrown, or excessive commercial logging that has replaced stand diversity with an even-aged secondgrowth forest.
As a means of addressing these issues, forest thinning has become popular, where trees are felled to increase spacing so that fire, when it does occur, doesn’t have the fuel connectivity to spread and escalate.
In many commercial thinning operations, companies are granted access to previously off-limits oldgrowth forests in order to thin them for ‘fire-proofing’, which in theory would consist of removing the smaller, immature trees to create the necessary spacing and reduce fuel load while leaving the older, more mature and naturally fire resistant trees that would have existed on those landscapes prior to colonization...but unfortunately that’s not often what happens.
This is expensive, skilled work and those little trees fetch very little market value, so instead this thinning is often done by ‘high grading’ these forests, which is a term that means they only take the biggest, most monetarily valuable old growth trees, and instead leave the smaller trees spaced out. This unfortunately does very little to increase the fire resilience and overall ecological function of these ecosystems, meaning that it’s no effective thinning for fire management.
Commercial operations hopping through loopholes and taking advantage of the situation by using either thinning or salvage as a justification to continue logging old growth forest for their own monetary gain, and doing so in a way that actually jeopardizes the health of these lands and our collective future amongst them is just unethical, irresponsible, and shouldn’t be allowed. We need proper thinning efforts done to restore the health, vitality and resilience of these ecosystems first and foremost to create a better, safer future for our communities.

Indra Hayre & I took a drizzly day to sit down and chat about diversity, equity & inclusion in the outdoor world, and all that she's learned through her experiences growing up as a brown girl in a world often dominated by white men.

Learn more about Indra's project, Inclu-SKI-vity, at https://www.instagram.com/incluskivity

Nerdy About Nature is an independent passion project that relies on support from folks like you! If you’re enjoying this podcast and videos, please don’t hesitate to support their production at my Patreon page for as little as 1$ per month! -> https://www.patreon.com/nerdyaboutnature​

You can also get NAN merch, stickers, resources and more information at www.NerdyAboutNature.com