Great Stories: The Overstory
This week I want to share a podcast I just recently discovered, The Overstory by the Sierra Club.
I am someone who cares about the environment yet in 2017 and 2018 I was feeling overwhelmed by the bad news I read each time I opened the Sierra Club Insider newsletter.
In fact, I almost unsubscribed but wasn’t quite able to do so. Instead, I mostly just deleted them without opening.
Then, in January, one subject line caught my attention. “New National Outings.”
Let me put that in context. One of my New Year intentions is to get out in nature more. I now live in Berlin, Germany, far away from the US, but I really miss the wilderness of the US. So reading the subject line about outings made me nostalgic for bike camping in California and I thought I might get some inspiration for things I can do in Europe.
When I opened the newsletter I was surprised by two things.
The articles focused on action. They told stories of positive actions being taken to address climate issues.
The Sierra Club now has a podcast, The Overstory
STORY ELEMENTS
Why I chose The Overstory.
Like the newsletter, The Overstory Podcast is full of stories about people taking action for the environment.
Episode 9, which I listened to, included stories of Jason Wald, a birder from Atlanta who is inspiring more young people to get into birding, and stories from a young activist and young poet along with Q&A style advice from the Sierra Club’s Ms. Green, think of her as an advice columnist for all things environment.
It was refreshing to hear from people I would not hear about otherwise, and hear the diverse actions they are taking in their everyday life. Including birding!
From a story production standpoint, I enjoyed their mix of styles.
STORY STRUCTURE: THE OPENING
The episode opening immediately draws us into the story that is about to unfold.
The feature story is about Jason Ward, a young, African American birder. The first audio we hear is the sound of birds “in the wild.” We join Jason and the reporter on a bird walk in Atlanta as he leads a tour in search of birds. We hear a summary of what we are going to hear including the challenges of birding while black.
Additionally, we hear snippets from the other interviewees that we’ll hear from later in the episode. The narration style is similar in style to many This American Life stories.
The intro includes layers of location sound, documentary audio, interview clips and the introductory script which leaves us curious to learn more.
MORE GREAT STORIES
If you like birding, I would recommend checking out Jason Ward’s YouTube series, Birds of North America.
I will leave you with words from poet Haviland N.G. Whiting of Nashville, quoted from her interview on The Overstory. "Really, only hope comes from action. I truly do believe that if people do come together and announce this as an international emergency, and really work to fix it, then yes there's a lot of hope."
Check out Whiting’s new collection of poems, And What Would You Say if You Could?