Threshold Podcast: Season 5 Launches With Sonic Journey Around The Globe

 Threshold has officially launched its latest series, Season 5: Hark. The season premiered on November 19, and they're releasing episodes on Tuesdays through the end of the year. Then they'll take a mid-series break, returning in February with additional episodes.

Threshold is a Peabody Award-winning podcast and radio show that tackles one pressing environmental story each season. The podcast explores the intersections of environment, history, culture, science, politics, and social justice, focusing on the human relationships with the natural world.

Is it a climate change podcast? Yes, but more. Is it a nature podcast? Yes, but more. Is it an environmental podcast? Yes, but more. Is it a history podcast? Again, yes, but more. Is it a culture podcast? Yes, but, yet again, more.

Threshold is a serial, season-based show. Each season, Threshold tackles one pressing environmental issue, exploring it from several angles and perspectives.

Season five,"Hark" is a sonic journey around the globe, exploring how sound connects animals and plants, and knits together ecosystems. Threshold host, Amy Martin, spoke with scientists, bioacoustic engineers, musicians, activists, and other leading thinkers—the world over—who are learning more about what nature has to say through the science of sound. The hope is that tapping into the conversations of our planet-mates will shed light on the power and promise of listening for all of us.

 

In this season of Threshold, the show takes listeners into the heart of a quiet revolution—a listening renaissance. They journey back in time to investigate how sound evolved on our planet and connect that history to new frontiers of listening. You'll meet a global community of listeners—biologists, archaeologists, acousticians, musicians, writers, and activists— devoting their lives to paying attention to what other beings are saying.

Rapid developments in bioacoustics and advancements in technologies like Artificial Intelligence are helping us tap into nonhuman communication in ways we never thought possible. Emerging research reveals flowers that "hear" their pollinators. Coral larvae that use sound to find their reefs. Turtles, long considered silent, with rich acoustic lives.

In this season of Threshold, producers and host hand the mic over to our planet-mates and investigate what it means to truly listen to nonhuman voices—and the cost if we don't. In the face of mounting
social and ecological crises, what happens when we tune into the life all around us

"This is the idea at the center of Season 5 of Threshold," begins host Amy Martin. "When was the last time you listened—really listened—to another creature or the sounds of a place for more than a few minutes? When was the last time that was even possible—when were you in a situation where you could hear anything other than our human noise? Many of us spend the vast majority of our time hearing nothing but human-made sounds. While this has become normal, it’s actually quite strange. For tens of thousands of years, our species, like all species, evolved in a multi-voice context."

Martin continues: "We survived and thrived by listening to lots of sounds coming from lots of creatures, and to the processes of the Earth itself—wind, water, storms, and the occasional volcanic eruption or earthquake. Only recently have humans come to so heavily dominate the global conversation. As an audio storyteller, I also contribute to this never-ending supply of noise and sound."

Here are the four seasons of the show:

 

Season 1
Season one explores the history of the American bison, the United States' national mammal.
Season 2
Season two focuses on how the Arctic is changing due to climate change, and why that matters.
Season 3
Season three focuses on oil drilling in the Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Season 4
Season four focuses on the climate goal of 1.5 °C over pre-industrial levels. Will we be able to prevent warming beyond 1.5 °C is the question.

 

Threshold also releases Threshold Conversations, which is a spinoff show featuring interviews with environmental thought leaders on important issues impacting cultures, communities, and ecosystems in the United States and beyond. This series aims to create space for thoughtful, civil dialogue about the urgent environmental issues we're living with today.
 

Amy Martin is responsible for the show's lush sonic architecture and its thematic premise.

 
She created Threshold in 2016. Under her leadership, Threshold has received a Peabody Award, a national Edward R. Murrow Award as well as awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Overseas Press Club, and the Montana Broadcasters Association.

In addition to creating Threshold, Amy has produced stories for NPR’s All Things Considered, PRI’s The World, Reveal, Here & Now, and other national outlets. In 2016, she was selected for the Scripps Fellowship in Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Check out Threshold. Did you know that before Europeans came to North America, 50 million bison (buffalo) roamed the land? By 1903, there were 23 left. Did you know that, despite the climate deniers here in the lower 48, four million people in the Arctic are being affected by climate change right now? Did you know that The Arctic Refuge is an important carbon reserve, locking carbon in the frozen ground? Drilling for oil in the Arctic Refuge would release large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.

In season five, you could talk to a turtle. Do you know what turtles use to communicate? 

 

A shell-phone. Sorry, I couldn't resist.

 

Listen to Threshold. Your ears and your brain will thank you.

Technical Advisor: Pushpa Khanal