Discern Earth – Details, episodes & analysis

In this episode of Discern Earth, I speak with my good friend and forest carbon scientist, Elias Ayrey, about how scientific values shape his ethics, his fascination with paleobotany, how examining forests using remote sensing colors his view of the natural world, why carbon markets suck, whether voluntary action can tangibly mitigate climate change, and how he ended up starting his YouTube channel.

In this episode of Discern Earth I speak with my good friend and CDR enthusiast, Ross Kenyon, about Leo Tolstoy’s religious philosophy, how appreciating the concept of sin would help the climate community be more effective, whether Christianity caused the ecological crisis we faced today, the future of geopolitics under radical climate change scenarios, and how to be a family man while also trying to save the world.

In this episode of Discern Earth I speak with my good friend and product wizard, Roman Gonzalez, about his materialist ecological spirituality, what is was like growing up in Corpus Christi, how existentialist philosophy informs his personal metaphysics, his experience founding a home gardening startup, his passion for supporting underrepresented startup founders, and his recent obsession with alien cosmology. This was a fun one! You can check out the full transcript of the episode here.

[02:10] Roman's spiritual journey

[04:35] Growing up in Corpus Christi

[10:50] Getting interested in philosophy

[20:26] Moving into marketing and product design

[28:56] The joy of growing plants

[32:01] Supporting underrepresented founders in startups

[39:11] Career reflections

[46:29] Extraterrestrial phenomena

[54:49] Aliens in volcanoes

In this episode of Discern Earth, I speak with my good friend and materials scientist Caleb Meredith about his concept of energy stewardship. We explore his fascination for the micro-scale properties of materials, how new materials are born commercially, whether there is a distinction between “natural” and “unnatural” materials, the viability of a circular material economy, and the mystical nature of complexity science. The audio of this episode is choppy unfortunately, but the conversation is high quality so I recommend you listen anyways. You can find the full transcript of this episode here.

In this episode of Discern Earth, I speak with my good friend and philosopher Bryan Kam about what nature is. We discuss the etymology of nature and related terms, whether there is a hard distinction between man and nature, hypostatization and reification, the Christian roots of theories about the inherent value of nature, and the role of embodied experience in facilitating ecological regeneration. You can find the full transcript of this episode here.

In this episode of Discern Earth, I describe my childhood fascination with nature, reflect on how I ended up working in nature and climate, and explain my spiritual motivations for striving to regenerate the Earth. You can find the full transcript of this episode here.

In which I introduce Discern Earth, the podcast where I seek to understand why nature and climate professionals do what they do. You can find the full transcript of this episode here.