Birds chirping in the background of an interview might sound like a small detail, but a listener voicemail reminds us it can be the difference between a nice conversation and a felt sense of real regeneration. We’re back in the mailbag sharing the messages that have come in from subscribers, land workers, authors, career changers and long-time listeners, and what those reflections reveal about storytelling, trust, and hope in a complicated time.

We also sit with a sharp question raised by a listener after my conversation with holistic management founder Allan Savory: what happens when intuition gets dismissed as “a waste of time”? That tension between scientific legitimacy and other ways of knowing runs through regenerative agriculture, systemic change, and climate work, so it’s well worth exploring more. Along the way, we hear messages of praise for crystal-clear explanations of water cycle and climate dynamics, and musing why radiative forcing and water’s role in climate often fail to reach the wider public conversation.

Then I share special news: a first-time live online podcast audience event for paid subscribers on Patreon or Substack, featuring legendary behavioural ecologist Fred Provenza and his evolving Cosmic Dreaming talk, followed by conversation. If you’ve been looking for a deeper way to participate, this is it, and you can also send your own voicemail or text via the link in the show notes.

If the podcast has helped you think differently or act differently, please subscribe, share a favourite episode, and leave a rating and review so these stories travel further.

Chapter markers & transcript.

Recorded 1 June 2026.

Title slide: chasing fish with an old friend, Flat Top, back home (by Anthony James).

Music:

We’re Just Getting Started, by The Lonely Ramblers (from Artlist).

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Support the show

The RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber, gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits, and help keep the show going - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find writing too).

You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal.

I hope to see you at an event soon, even the shop. Thanks for your support!

The Colorado River is treated much like plumbing on a map, but out on the ground it’s a living system with thresholds, memories, and consequences. I’m joined by award-winning photographer, filmmaker and adventurer, Pete McBride, whose latest book Witness to Water: One Photographer's Mission to Defend the Colorado River traces two decades of unexpected reporting and personal reckonings on the river he grew up with. We talk about the alarming reality of collapsing Rocky Mountain snowpack, rising heat, and a basin-wide standoff that pushes reservoirs like Lake Powell and Lake Mead toward 'power pool' and 'dead pool' levels right now.

From there, the story gets visceral. Pete describes walking into Glen Canyon as the water recedes, finding ghost forests, vanished rock art, and signs of life returning fast as habitat reappears. We dig into why dams create ecological surprises, including endangered fish dynamics and invasive species risks, and why water policy can’t be solved only in fluorescent-lit rooms. One of Pete’s simplest proposals lands hard: get the negotiators in a boat and have them be with the river together.

We also hear of Pete's extraordinary rare hike through the Grand Canyon, heartbreak on the Colorado River Delta, and later the healing legacy of Delta Dawn, where a pulse flow briefly had Pete and friends become the last people to paddle to the sea, and where ongoing targeted releases now rebuild pockets of riparian forest and bird habitat. Along the way we explore 'earned hope', Indigenous leadership and successes, uranium mining and the uncertainty around amazing groundwater dynamics, along with the quieter lesson running underneath it all: how silence and soundscapes shape what we notice, what we protect, and even what we become.

Pete's recent op-ed in Time Magazine, How to Save the Colorado River, might even have been called How to Save All Rivers. It certainly had us also talking about the parallels here in Australia with the Murray/Dungala River, along with our recent journey there.

Pete's short video update from the Delta.

Chapter markers & transcript.

Recorded 22 May 2026.

With thanks to Ed Roberson on the Mountain and Prairie podcast.

Music by Pete McBride.

Katie Ross and I talk about the Murray/Dungala River journey for ep302. And Katie talks a bigger water story in ep304.

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Support the show

The RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber, gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits, and help keep the show going - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find writing too).

You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal.

I hope to see you at an event soon, even the shop. Thanks for your support!

Clouds, soil moisture, and plant life are doing more climate work than most of us were ever taught and ignoring them leaves a huge gap in how we respond to warming. Here's the keynote from Dr. Katie Ross, at the recent Australian Water Association conference, that connects climate science to the living landscape, making the case that the climate “stands on two legs”: the familiar atmospheric story of greenhouse gases and a bottom-up ecological story driven by water, biology, and energy flows.

We dig into radiative forcing using a simple Earth energy budget, then follow what happens when solar energy meets healthy country: diverse plants photosynthesise and transpire, shifting heat into latent form, while microbes and plant compounds act as cloud condensation nuclei that help water vapor form thicker, lower, more reflective clouds. That cloud cover matters for cooling, for gentle local rain, and for clearer nighttime re-radiation windows that let heat escape. We also zoom out to the blue planet, where phytoplankton and ocean processes support cloud formation and climate balance.

Then the hard part: what changes when we clear forests, drain wetlands, straighten waterways, and degrade soils. Katie explains how altered land surfaces generate more heat, keep skies hazier, push storms toward extremes, and lock landscapes into runoff, erosion, drought, and fire. She closes with why carbon became the dominant climate narrative and what a more complete approach looks like: emissions cuts paired with regenerative agriculture, living soils, restored wetlands, and rebuilt small water cycles for real water security and local cooling.

Subscribe, share this with someone working on land or water, and leave a review so more people can find the missing half of the climate story.

Katie Ross PhD is a writer, Adjunct Fellow at UTS, and former CEO of Soils for Life.

Chapter markers & transcript.

You can watch Katie's slides attached to chapter markers as she speaks.

Recorded 25 February 2026.

Katie talks about our recent running of the Confluence river journey on the Murray/Dungala, in episode 302.

The keynote before Katie's by Walbanga woman Sheryl Hedges is episode 303.

Music:

Southern Roots Boogie, by Falconer (from Artlist).

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.

Send a message

Support the show

The RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber, gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits, and help keep the show going - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find writing too).

You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal.

I hope to see you at an event soon, even the shop. Thanks for your support!