Everything is Connected -- PBS podcast, TED video

Roy Taylor of Quaker Earthcare Witness tells us that this PBS/TED series is excellent. Available either as podcast with eco-music, or TED video, Everything is Connected has four 12 minute  segments:

1. "Can 'Rewilding' Restore Vanishing Ecosystems?" George Monbiot summarizes his new book Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea and Human Life (2013). See his video below.
2. "What Lessons Came Out Of Biosphere 2?" Jane Poynter tells her story of living for two years in Biosphere 2, a hermetically sealed environment in Arizona. Is this where climate change will take us?
3. "How Does Listening To Nature Teach Us About Changing Habitats?"Bernie Krause talks to us about the sounds of nature and loss of those sounds mostly because of human activity and encroachment into habitat. (This is a fascinating story, similar to Jim Kessler's comparison of the sounds that he hears in his restored savannah and the GMO corn field across the street. He and Roy are working on their own podcast, to be posted to the QEW website.)
4. "Why Are Bees Disappearing?" University of Minnesota professor of entomology Marla Spivak explains that bees pollinate a third of our food supply, but colonies have been disappearing at alarming rates due to a combination of parasites, infections, and exposure to pesticides and herbicides. How will the world eat if bees disappear? She has some solutions.

Roy writes, "Montbiot's story is about the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone Park after they had been missing for 70 years and how that one act changed everything. It changed the habits of the deer and they moved to different areas of the park to graze. This set off a chain of events, the regrowing of trees, beavers eating trees and building dams that created ponds where other wildlife flourished."

"What a great metaphor for the work of QEW. Everything is connected. Find that one thing that is ours and make that change. What if we could be the wolves? What if our behavior, our actions, our presence, could set off a chain of events that would create cascading change in our world? Instead of thinking only about our individual lives, what might we be working together, for changes of behavior that would open the way to restorative happenings?"

Further comments: Carol Barta heard Peter Brown, co-author of Right Relationship, at The Land Institute's Prairie Fest (CD's are available). Bill Holcombe praises Katy Tippet's podcasts with  environmental acoustics biologists and artists. Mary Gilbert cites Teaching the Trees: Lessons from the Forest and the Japanese eco-practice of forest bathing. Jim Kessler writes, "Experiences in nature, in my personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and with my faith community fill and enrich my days...  help me to grow in my love of God, His Creation, and others.... I need to always have the attitude and humility of a child to really appreciate God's blessings." Bill Cahalan tells us to look at the EcoTipping Points project.