Tempests, Toil&Triage

When people are dying and you can only save some, how do you choose? Maybe you save the youngest. Or the sickest. Maybe you even just put all the names in a hat and pick at random. Would your answer c...Show More

In this episode of Invisibilia, we explore our relationship with uncertainty through the eyes of a chief meteorologist. We wonder: what do you do when you don't know what to do? And how do we handle i...Show More

When a flash flood ripped through Old Ellicott City in Maryland, residents thought it was a freak occurrence. Instead, it was a sign of the future. And adapting to that future has been painful. To see...Show More

The deadliest part of Hurricane Maria was not the storm, but its aftermath. The story behind one family's struggle to keep their son alive, and the danger that remains.

Hurricane Maria pummeled Puerto Rico with great fury, but the government there said that just 64 people had been killed by the storm. The hundreds of bodies showing up at morgues across the island tol...Show More

Part VII: People try to come home. But does home want them anymore? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A preview of the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Part VI: How could the levees have failed? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Part VIII: Water, like history, repeats itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Part V: A hero arrives. But not the one everyone expected. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Part IV: Rumor becomes tragedy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Part III: A universe of rumor and misinformation plays out on television. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Part II: In New Orleans, the disaster wasn’t the hurricane. The disaster was what happened after. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Part I: It all started long before a hurricane named Katrina. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are moments when the world we take for granted changes instantaneously — when reality is upended and replaced with the unimaginable. Though we try not to think about it, instability is always lu...Show More

Black Lives Matter is the largest movement in U.S. history, and it’s had environmental justice as part of its policy platform from the start. In today’s show, Alex and Ayana talk about why the fight f...Show More

When loggers headed into the forest on Easter Sunday in 1989, they found a line of protesters blocking the road. The ensuing battle would help catapult old-growth forests into a national issue, and be...Show More

For most of America’s history, trees were seen as crops, and the plan was to log the country’s last virgin forests and make them de facto tree farms. We see forests very differently today. How did thi...Show More

Depending on who you are, the northern spotted owl is either the hero of this story, or the villain. And the Endangered Species Act is either an incredible conservation tool, or a hammer that smashes ...Show More

Mill City was one of dozens of flourishing timber towns, where a job in the woods or at the local sawmill could support a good life. But protests and court cases upended that, leaving locals to ask: a...Show More

The Timber Wars grew so hot that one of President Clinton’s first acts in office was to fly half his cabinet to Portland to resolve the conflict. The result was the Northwest Forest Plan, the most swe...Show More

Before the Northwest Forest Plan had a chance to succeed, Congress seized upon the threat of wildfires to create a loophole and throw the plan out the window. With old growth once again being logged, ...Show More

Is the Northwest fatally divided, or can we overcome our differences and work together? We tell the story of one group of loggers and environmentalists who have found some semblance of common ground. ...Show More