Threshold
Threshold is a Peabody Award-winning documentary podcast about our place in the natural world. Each season, we take listeners on a journey into the heart of a complex environmental story, asking how we got here and where we might be headed. In our latest season, Hark, we hand the mic over to our planet-mates and investigate what it means to truly listen to nonhuman voices—and the cost if we don't. With mounting social and ecological crises, what happens when we tune into the life all around us? Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced.
Episodes
Thirty-four years ago, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) established the annual “conferences of the parties,” known as COPs, where almost every nation on earth comes together to negotiate a solution to climate change. But this past November, for the first time ever, the United States did not send a delegation to COP, and this month, the Trump Administration announced its intention to withdraw from t...
All over the world, small groups of complete strangers are getting together to share their feelings about climate. These gatherings are called Climate Cafes, and they’re carving out space for some big emotions we might prefer to avoid. But what if talking about our feelings can also help us address the climate crisis?
Audrey Martin is a Bay Area psychotherapist and one of the leaders of the Climate Psychology Alliance of North Ame...
Last June, the U.S. the Secretary of Agriculture announced that the Trump administration intends to repeal something called the “Roadless Rule”—a policy implemented in 2001, which protected some of the Forest Service’s wildest lands from logging, mining, and road-building.
Author Ben Goldfarb examined the impacts of road and roadless areas in his 2023 book, Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet. We talk wi...
Something new is coming to your feed next week.
Threshold is made possible by our listeners. To keep making our show, we need to raise $75,000 by the end of the year — and we’re already 15% of the way there! Support real journalism, powered by real listeners.
Make a donation today and your gift up to $1,000 will be doubled.
In this final episode of Hark, we think about listening with Indigenous storytellers on three different continents—and we have one more encounter with those magical Shark Bay dolphins.
Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.
New technologies like artificial intelligence have helped to accelerate and open up the entire world of bioacoustics, launching us into a new era of communication with the more-than-human world. In this episode, we explore the promise and perils of using AI in bioacoustics.
Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newslette...
Humans have filled the world with so much noise that the only sounds many of us often hear on a daily basis are our own. But all this sound isn’t great for our planet mates and it isn’t great for us either. In this episode, we look at how human-made sound makes it hard for other creatures to listen and communicate.
Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donati...
Homo sapiens joined the story of life on Earth just 300,00 years ago. So when and how did we start making music and creating languages? In this episode, we explore these signature sounds and discover how they just might be rooted in listening.
Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.
Elephants communicate through a variety of calls, trumpets, and rumbles. But despite being some of the largest land animals on Earth, elephants can also be incredibly quiet. In this episode, we open our ears to elephants and discover how listening may play a key role in saving them.
Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign...
Modern humans emerged into a world filled with and shaped by elephants. But for elephants, living with humans isn’t always easy. Elephants have survived by adapting to all the changes we’re making to their world. But there’s only so much they can do. In this episode, we look at how we can learn to live with—and listen to—elephants.
Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by d...
More than 60 million years ago, an asteroid hit the Earth, wiping out almost all the dinosaurs. But one group made it through—the ancestors of birds. In this episode, we look at how these ancient creatures learned to listen and communicate, and how listening to birds has changed us.
Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our ...
Birds, frogs, dolphins, and humans—we're all big talkers. Turtles, on the other hand, are considered to be silent. But are they? In this episode, we challenge what we know about some of our quieter planet-mates.
Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.
Operation frog sound! Send us your frog sounds for an upcomin...
Living together in a group is a strategy many animals use to survive and thrive. And a big part of what makes that living situation successful is listening. In this episode, we explore the collaborative world of the naked mole-rat.
Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.
Operation frog sound! Send us your ...
A name is essential to your identity. It’s what people call you and what you respond to—it’s part of what you understand about yourself. But do other living things call each other by names? In this episode, we look at how names work in some non-human worlds.
Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.
Listening and looking for loons.
Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.
We want to hear from you! Send us your questions about the new season, the content or how it’s made, for an upcoming behind-the-scenes episode. You can submit your questions to outreach@thresholdpodcast.org
We answer listener questions about the making of Season 5: Hark and of Threshold more broadly in this special AMA episode with host Amy Martin, managing editor Erika Janik, and producer Sam Moore.
Thanks to Kraftkabel for the use of his music. You can find the whole track here.
Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our ...
Sometimes a place we consider quiet is just a place we haven’t taken the time to listen.
Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.
We want to hear from you! Send us your questions about the new season, the content or how it’s made, for an upcoming behind-the-scenes episode. You can submit your questions to outreac...
If a being doesn’t have ears, can it hear? And if it doesn’t have a mouth, can it talk? In this episode, we spend a golden afternoon conversing with the flowers, plants, and trees.
Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.
We want to hear from you! Send us your questions about the new season, the conte...
Listening to Threshold is free. Creating it is not.
We’ve always been committed to making the best show we can—and making it available for free. This is only possible with your financial support.
Our year-end fundraising campaign is happening now through December 31st, and each gift will be matched by our partners at Newsmatch. That means if you can give $25, we'll receive $50. It’s easy to make a tax-deductible donation at threshold...
Insects invented song. They’ve developed a multitude of ways to listen. But insects couldn’t have evolved these complex skills without plants. In this episode, we explore the interconnected acoustic lives of insects and plants.
Threshold is nonprofit, listener-supported, and independently produced. You can support Threshold by donating today. To stay connected, sign up for our newsletter.
Popular Podcasts
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com