Join SYNI, your hostess who only does above replacement-value content, for today’s pod is titled “The Land Is the Flag.” America is 250 years old today, and one of its finest inheritances is the way a young, restless, expanding republic learned to love its land. The story runs through mountains, forests, rivers, prairies, deserts, wetlands, seashores, wildlife refuges, national parks and local trails. It is a story of public land held for public life, and it gives American patriotism some of its deepest colour. The flag means more when it is tied to the land beneath it. SYNI takes you through a national history of American conservation achievements. Yet modern truths must also be told. The US has this extraordinary conservation inheritance, and yet current federal energy policy is treating major sustainable energy projects as targets in a political war. Some $2.7 billion of US taxpayer money is being paid to companies not to build sustainable projects. Where are the goons for DOGE on this one? The country that created the national park idea is now paying to cancel clean energy projects off its own coasts, while calling the exercise energy strength. It is a strange form of patriotism that celebrates the land and then weakens the tools needed to protect it from a hotter, more volatile climate.