Solve For Nature

Chris Lee co-hosts the Parks and Restoration podcast and runs a county conservation department in Iowa, with 20 years in parks and natural resource management. His whole thing is 'leadership through the lens of ecology' — he's built a framework called Organizational Ecology that takes lessons from how healthy natural systems function and applies them to building healthy teams and workplace cultures. He speaks and consults on ...

Peter Solomon is back — physicist, five-time entrepreneur, and author of the Survival & Singularity Chronicles, who's spent his career sounding the alarm on the technologies he believes could end us. His new novel, 12 Years to AI Singularity, imagines a near future where AI surpasses human control, robots develop something like emotions, and the dead return as avatars — and where the line between warning and prophec...

George Schaller may be the reason mountain gorillas, Bengal tigers, and giant pandas still exist in the wild. Considered the father of modern field biology, he trained Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey, worked in 32 countries, and sounded the alarm on the "great dying" of the natural world decades before anyone was listening. Yet almost no one knows his name.

Miriam Horn, author of Homesick for a World Unknown, has written the first-...

Danica Novgorodoff has spent her career turning complex ideas into visually stunning stories — and A Better World Is Possible may be her most personal yet. The New York Times bestselling illustrator and 2022 Yoto Kate Greenaway Medal recipient, whose work includes the graphic novel adaptation of Jason Reynolds' Long Way Down, spent nearly a decade developing this book after attending the 2019 Youth Climate Strike with her one...

Miist is a Billboard-charting artist and author whose life reads like it shouldn't be possible — abandoned at five, a terminal cancer survivor, and a self-taught songwriter who didn't pick up a pen until her 30s. That unlikely path produced over 100 compositions, a historic chart debut as the first native Chinese artist on Billboard's Pop/AC chart, and now a debut book, Make Me Smile with Miist — part memoir, part menta...

Meera Subramanian is an award-winning environmental journalist with over two decades of experience writing about the natural world and climate crisis. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Nature, and Orion, where she's a contributing editor. Her first book, A River Runs Again, about India's environmental collapse, was shortlisted for the 2016 Orion Book Award. She's also a National Geographic Explorer. Her l...

Scott Weidensaul is a writer and researcher specializing in birds and bird migration, and the author of nearly thirty books, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist Living on the Wind and the New York Times bestseller A World on the Wing. He joins us today to talk about his latest, The Return of the Oystercatcher — exploring where conservation has actually worked, from Indigenous-led efforts on the shores of Great Slave Lake to...

Hillary Rosner is an award-winning science journalist whose work has appeared in National Geographic, The New York Times, and The Atlantic. Her new book, ROAM: Wild Animals and the Race to Repair Our Fractured World, explores how roads, fences, and cities have fragmented the planet—and how reconnecting habitats could help heal both wildlife and humanity.

Find Hillary Rosner and ROAM: Wild Animals and the Race to Repair Our...

Jack Ratliff — retired Navy SEAL, lawyer, and law professor — and the author of Riding the White Bull: The Making of a Navy SEAL. Rather than focusing on the battlefield, Jack's memoir traces the formative years that shaped his character long before elite service began — from a West Texas upbringing to fighting forest fires, to the grueling world of the UDT, the direct precursor to today's SEALs. It's a book about...

Holly Latteman is an environmental scientist and conservation leader serving as Director of Science and Research at The Dawes Arboretum, where she oversees native seed collection, living collections, and the Advanced Training Program for emerging conservationists. With a background spanning zoology, anthropology, and environmental studies — and research ranging from black vulture behavior to avian ecology and habitat restorat...

What if the story we’ve been told about plastic is incomplete—or even backward?

In this episode, I sit down with Chris DeArmitt, an independent polymer and environmental scientist, keynote speaker, and founder of the Plastics Research Council. After reading thousands of peer-reviewed studies without funding, Chris has made it his mission to translate complex science into clear, practical guidance. Author of The Plas...

Pat Maher is the CEO of Atkins Ranch, the New Zealand-based collective of over 100 family farms producing 100% grass-fed, pasture-raised lamb for premium markets in the U.S. and Canada. Under his leadership, the company champions regenerative agriculture with third-party verification that promotes soil and ecosystem health while strengthening animal welfare and farm viability. Maher focuses on building high standards in regenerativ...

Ken Callison is an entrepreneur, researcher, and author of the new book The Way to World Peace: An Idea Whose Time Has Come. 

Written in a moment of rising geopolitical tension, nuclear risk, and environmental instability, the book reframes world peace not as a lofty ideal but as a practical and necessary step for human survival. Ken has spent decades studying humanity’s future, including conducting a nationally published...

Julie Bramsis an Earth-centered psychotherapist, meditation teacher, and author of The Nature Embedded Mind: How the Way We Think Can Heal Our Planet and Ourselves. Her work sits at the intersection of psychology, ecology, and social justice, exploring how our deep sense of separation from nature affects both personal well-being and collective health. Drawing from clinical practice, scientific research, and lived experience, Julie ...

In this solo episode, Eugene steps out from behind the interview mic to reflect on where Solve for Nature has been—and where it’s going next. He shares why sustainability often feels like “suffering,” why that framing misses the point, and how real, lasting change starts with values, not checklists. This episode marks the beginning of a more personal chapter for the podcast—one focused on mindset, mean...

Today I’m thrilled to welcome Matthieu Mehuys, Belgian-born landscape architect, regenerative garden designer, award-winning author, and an inspiring voice in practical ecological living.

Raised on a farm and trained in landscape design, Matthieu has spent years helping everyday people transform their yards into thriving, biodiverse ecosystems that save time, nurture health, and heal the planet, one backyard at a time. Fro...

Hillary Rosner is an award-winning science journalist whose work has appeared in National Geographic, The New York Times, and The Atlantic. Her new book, ROAM: Wild Animals and the Race to Repair Our Fractured World, explores how roads, fences, and cities have fragmented the planet—and how reconnecting habitats could help heal both wildlife and humanity.

Find Hillary Rosner and Roam: Wild Animals and the Race to Repair Our...

Author and essayist Tamara Dean rejoins us for a special follow-up to her first Solve for Nature episode. Last time, her reflections on resilience, the Driftless landscape, and her book Shelter and Storm led to a challenge centered on citizen science. Today, she shares how that challenge unfolded—from the frustrations, to the unexpected joy, to the renewed sense of purpose she found knee-deep in Wisconsin’s rivers. It&r...

What if Stephen Hawking was right—that humanity has less than 100 years left? Physicist and tech entrepreneur Peter Solomon, Ph.D., believes the clock is ticking. With five existential threats accelerating—AI, climate change, genetic engineering, nuclear risk, and social media manipulation—he’s using science and storytelling to wake us up. His new novel 100 Years to Extinction paints a future we must avoid&m...