Episode Ten: The Pale Blue Dot (February 24, 2012)

The famous Pale Blue Dot photo

Today on the show Henry talked about how environmental Amazon.com really is, Ben discussed the hiking boot from a geographical perspective (naturally), and Jake reflected on the Pale Blue Dot Photo.

Amazon.com Shipping & Environmentalism
By: Henry Hawkins
Amazon ships millions of parcels around the world every year, but how damaging to the environment are they really? Henry talked about the move toward e-books, emission accounting, and how Amazon is one of the few companies who do not report their carbon emissions, or have any plan to do so.

The Hiking Boot
By: Ben Garlick
Ben looked at the ‘mundane geography’ of the Hiking boot, and how it represents our relationship with nature on a daily basis. The boot is one technology of many that mediate our relationships, and alter the link between the natural and the social.

The Pale Blue Dot
By: Jake Barber
On the Apollo 17 mission, the astronauts turned around to take a photo of the earth, which resulted in the famous Blue Marble photo – the very first photo of the entire Earth ever taken. It became a very significant photograph, for the environmentalism movement, as well as for how we view our planet as ‘Spaceship Earth’. When the Voyager probe left Earth in the 70s it turned around when in had left the solar system to take a photo of Earth at a distance, which became the photo of the ‘Pale Blue Dot’.

Listen [1:00:00]

Episode Two: Hidden Histories of Edinburgh (November 7, 2011)

Greyfriars Bobby, The South Bridge Vaults, The Meadows

Greyfriars Bobby: Human-Animal Relations
By: Ben Garlick
This morning on the show we heard about some of the hidden histories of Edinburgh. First, Ben looked at the story of Greyfriars Bobby, the dog who supposedly sat by his master’s grave for 18 years, and he deconstructed what this story represents to human-animal relations.

Green Spaces in Edinburgh: An Accidental History
By: Jake Barber
Jake talked about the evolving history of green spaces in the city, focusing on the Meadows and Princes Street Gardens from their beginnings as Lochs to treasured green spaces within a busy city.

The Edinburgh Vaults: Storage, Squalor & Serial Killers
By: Henry Hawkins
Henry discussed the Edinburgh vaults, located in the foundations of the South Bridge near Cowgate, and their varying uses over the years, from storage spaces, to cramped dwellings, the haunt for serial killers, and a modern-day tourist destination.

Jake also brought us three quick stories from the week’s environmental news, and we had another edition of our Environmental Song Analysis with Bruce Cockburn’s If A Tree Falls.

Listen [49:36]