In Tune to Nature Podcast

If you like eco-therapy and/or Australian accents, you'll get both in this episode, as Carrie interviews John Seed, Deep Ecology father, founder/activist of the Rainforest Information Centre and co-author of the open-access book "Thinking Like a Mountain: Toward a Council of All Beings," and Dr. Tema Milstein (American turned Australian), Fulbright Scholar, and environmental communication Professor at Univ of New South Wales in Sydney. Both are co-facilitators of Deep Ecology workshops, that help reconnect us with each other and nature and heal our separation, like the compelling workshop I attended with them in Hobart Tasmania this June...

Insect photographer/advocate Danae Wolfe (of ChasingBugs.com) talks with me about amazing insects (like the spiders, butterflies, moths, and fireflies that I saw in the Appalachia mountains) and why they and their habitats are deserving of our protection, instead of our disdain, zappers, and poisons. We discuss cool tips in her new book "Grass Isn't Greener" to be wildlife-friendly in our greenspaces/ yards (as insect populations are declining and need our help), like by: passing on the pesticides, lessening our lawn, leaving the leaves, planting native plants, flipping the switch on lighting, and avoiding fake Halloween spiderweb mesh...

I was excited to have longtime food and animal activist (and local Atlantan) Leah Garces, CEO of Mercy for Animals, join me in the WRFG studio to share interesting stories from her latest book “TransFARMation: The Movement to Free Us From Factory Farming.” In this 49-minute podcast (recorded July 2025), we discuss all kinds of animals, including many humans, who are affected by industrial animal agribusiness -- from animal farmers, to rural communities, to slaughterhouse workers (many of whom are immigrants), to pigs, chickens, and cows -- everyone fighting exploitation in this broken system. Since we all are part...

Join me on the second segment of my ecotourism trip to Tasmania, Australia (my unscientific, amateur, American, vegan, wombat-obsessed perspective) with all my own audio recordings from my June 2025 trip. This 58-minute (part 2) segment of the trip takes you along with me to my favorite part -- Maria Island National Park and its wombats, kangaroos and wallabies, stingrays, and ruby red anemones, and the culling issue of marsupial "overpopulation" -- through to Port Arthur Historic Convict Site, then on to the city of Hobart, with insights from my Conference on Communication and Environment #COCE2025 (at Univ of Tasmania), including...

I’m so excited to share my three-week ecotourism trip through Tasmania, Australia. This 50-minute podcast is the first of a multi-part podcast series I created from the audio that I took along my June 2025 trip (and you can pair that with the gorgeous photos I posted on https://www.facebook.com/InTunetoNature ) to get a feel for this extraordinary place, and its animals, like wombats, kangaroos, wallabies, seals, whales, sheep, cows, and birds like cockatoos, forest ravens, magpies, wrens, and kookaburras. Often I’m adding in my own audio commentary and context as an American traveler and animal and...

Environmental communication scholar Dr. Hanna Morris shared her insights from "Apocalyptic Authoritarianism: Climate Crisis, Media, and Power," her 2025 book with Oxford Univ Press. This book meets the political moment in analyzing the way most mainstream news media actually lean moderate to right in climate coverage that "others" and villianizes the New Left activists and progressive politicians as too 'radical' or 'woke' (like A.O.C. and often other women of color or those proposing the Green New Deal) in favor of older American narratives of "order" and quick solutions via white male authorities and American exceptionalism, rather than exploring...

When you hear the term "animal welfare" you probably think cats, dogs, horses, maybe pet parakeets. But there is an organization called Wild Animal Initiative that is expanding the notion of animal welfare to include wild/free-living animal individuals. For my 100th podcast episode, my guest Cat Kerr with Wild Animal Initiative was here to talk about how scientists try to measure wellbeing in wild animals (you can guess some of the criteria) and why we have not often done that in scientific research on a regular basis (it's different from veterinary research and conservation research). Cat and host...

In this mass extinction era, can we save the Endangered Species Act? We discuss how engaged citizens can speak out against the trump regime's recent proposal to weaken the notion of what “harm” legally means (so the Endangered Species Act would essentially no longer protect animals’ habitats from exploitation, even though habitat destruction is the largest threat to species). Here's a link to a public comment opportunity for engaged citizens to post their thoughts to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Services (by May 19 ,2025). But the fight will be ongoing and end up in court, so continue to keep tabs on wha...

In honor of National Park Week and Earthday 2025, we are supporting OUR national parks by sharing stories about what we love about the parks that we all collectively own (the most beautiful and ecologically significant wild places/habitats in the nation...and in the world, as some earned UNESCO World Heritage Site designations), to help encourage Americans to ask for political support to stop trump and musk/DOGE from defunding OUR parks and to stop firing our hard-working park rangers and staff who are our park defenders. In this 28 minute episode I talk about an Atlanta group of women...

We reframe the “egg crisis” (high prices and low supply of commercial hen’s eggs in a bird flu outbreak) as a crisis of mass farming of animals, proposing sustainable alternative food solutions that can replace eggs and reduce the spread of zoonotic diseases, pollution, and the killing and harm of millions of wild and domesticated animals. Jennifer and Carrie discuss this in the context of the bird flu outbreak, as avian influenza is spreading and mutating in a variety of animal species (including cows used for dairy and human farm workers) – this infectious pathogen is an increasingly alarming issue fo...

Our National Park Service staff are under seige, as so many federal employees are, from trump and Elon Musk’s unfair attacks on our federal government agencies with haphazard and frankly cruel mass firings of public servants (not truly based on inefficiency or poor performance) along with spending and hiring freezes that are traumatizing and debilitating park employees and surrounding communities, creating a culture of fear and demoralization (the rhetoric not only lacks appreciation but is insulting). What little we gain in $ savings are outweighed by the massive long-term costs for everyone. I turned to a career pu...

We gotta start eating plants not other animals. A 2025 article published in the journal “Oxford Open Climate Change” titled “Solving climate change requires changing our food systems” outlines the need for human societies globally to transition to plant-based food systems and phase out factory farming, offering pathways to make that vision a reality to reach climate mitigation goals and spare the worst warming and deforestation impacts. (the article is open-access and available to share, with a wealth of sources in the bibliography https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/5/1/kgae024/7942019?l ) "In Tune to Nature" host Carrie Freeman is one o...

We discuss the concept of animal dignity – two words that don’t often get put together; we typically only hear of human dignity, as if it means we are dignified precisely because we aren’t animals, yet we humans are part of the animal kingdom and not the only animal species who possesses a dignity that should be respected. In this special 55-minute podcast, host Carrie Freeman explores this novel ethical and legal concept with our guest, award-winning British author, philosopher, and animal advocate Melanie Challenger who has a new edited book out on Animal Dignity and just w...

Carrie and Melody discuss how to incorporate animal and eco protection into your life in meaningful ways to meet your own life goals, priorities, and interests in big and small ways, syncing up with actions and virtues the world needs from us humans.  Since the beginning of each new year is a time to reassess our own goals and priorities, it seemed a good time to have an In Tune to Nature show that focused on our own personal growth resolutions and how that can synergize with efforts to help other species. This is also a special s...

This Christmas, I thought it would be fun to analyze 6 popular Christmas songs referencing animals-other-than-humans (mostly mammals who are forced to pull people around the snow in sleds, and then some birds, mainly birds that humans kill and eat but sometimes birds humans admire for their beauty). The songs are  Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Run Run Rudolph, Sleigh Ride, Jingle Bells, The 12 Days of Christmas, and Nat King Cole’s The Christmas Song. I’m going to deconstruct these Christmas songs from a Critical Animal Studies perspective. In other words, as an animal rights activist who is sympathetic to th...

To have a greener holiday season (and beyond) and avoid buying a bunch of cluttering stuff your friends and family don't need (and probably don't want), this annual holiday show focuses not on eco-friendly products/items but more on eco-friendly experiences and services in order to avoid cluttering up our lives (and planet) with more items that land in our homes permanently and ultimately weigh us and our descendants down (or just end up in a landfill down the line). So my emphasis here is on sharing gift-giving ideas for vegan-friendly foods/restaurants or experiences (airbnbs/cabins, p...

I decided animals needed an election postmortem after being erased from the political and media agenda by self-centered anthropocentrism; so I wanted to use this media platform with my friend from Oregon, Dr. Debra Merskin, to collectively grieve, vent, and discuss how we really feel this week as animal rights activists, vegans, environmentalists, social justice advocates, human animal earthlings, and feminists who were excited to have America's first women president after 200+ years! While the show is hopeful and uplifting in parts, that was not actually my aim. I just wanted to get real in explaining my despair and my...

This election season is the ultimate time to consider that this decade is our last best chance to transition to a liveable planet instead of continuing to further recklessly degrade the sustainability of our own species’ future, and that of fellow earthlings, and our one Oasis Earth. Marine conservationist, former U of Alaska professor, and clean energy and wildlife consultant, Dr. Rick Steiner speaks with In Tune to Nature radio host Carrie Freeman about his book Oasis Earth: Planet in Peril – Our Last Best Chance to Save Our World. Anyone can download, read, and share this open-access/free digital book...

We voters really do care about eco issues (it's aligned with our health and economy and love for other animals...and future generations), so I wanted to get us prepared, motivated, and confident for early voting in Georgia Oct 15 - Nov 1st, with resources and tips shared by Brionte McCorkle, Executive Director of the nonpartisan Georgia Conservation Voters (GCV) at  https://www.gcvoters.org/vote/ That GCV voter resource website includes a link to this nonpartisan tool  https://gcv.branch.vote/summary  where you can see your ballot ahead of time and check out the candidates' views on...

Elections are about more than just the current economy. We citizens must consider longterm effects of policies on our climate stability, wild animal livelihoods, community wellbeing, ecosystem health, and sustainable economic opportunities for future generations. But "Project 2025," the Heritage Foundation's extreme right-wing policy plan for a trump presidency forecasts a grim future of handing over more power to industries for oil and gas exploitation in ocean habitats, increasing not decreasing the deadly climate crisis, with less government scientific oversight and fewer protections and preservations of aquatic communities, more noise and toxic disruptions and killing/fishing of animals who live...