This week’s guest is Dr. Alex Metcalf, associate professor at the University of Montana’s Franke College of Forestry and Conservation. Alex is a social scientist who studies how people make decisions in a wide variety of conservation domains. Alex and Justin collaborate on a variety of projects, including a just released study on the interaction between politics and our attitudes towards wolves.

In this conversation, Alex and Justin talk about how political identity can contribute to the polarization around people’s attitudes towards wolves and discuss how identity-based assumptions can drive division, but also how that can be corrected to bring people back together.

This week we're bringing you a recording of a live discussion hosted by Climate Smart Missoula called Not the Dark Ages: Climate Science Continues Despite the Attacks. Justin hosts a conversation between Amy Martin, a journalist and creator of the award-winning podcast Threshold, and Dr. Christopher Preston, a philosophy professor at the University of Montana and author of several books, including his latest Tenacious Beasts.

In this conversation, Amy and Christopher talk about some of their favorite scientists, consider new technologies like AI and carbon capture to address environmental challenges and talk about how animals communicate with each other.

This week’s guests are Andy Kemmis and Chris Bacon. Together, these two made a beautiful new book about skateboarding in Montana titled Grit to Grind. The book is an amazing visual and narrative history of how skateboarding shaped Montana communities in ways that might surprise you.

In this episode, Andy and Chris talk about their skateboarding origins and how they came to be the writers of this book about Montana’s skateboarding scene. They talk about some of the skate parks they helped create, the inclusivity of skateboarding and remind us of the life lessons that can be found in one’s passions.