The aviation industry has gotten twice as fuel-efficient since 1990, and emissions have still quadrupled. In this episode, we reckon with the guilt of flying, tracing it from economy class all the way up to private jets, where a handful of ultra-wealthy passengers emit up to 500 times more carbon than the average person annually. Plus, we dig into sustainable aviation fuel with Alyssa Norris from Aether Fuels and what it would actually take to make flying something we don't have to feel guilty about.

Episode rundown:

• (00:35) - Should we feel guilty about flying?
• (03:12) - Our flying footprint
• (05:17) - Reckoning with guilty consciences
• (09:52) - What is SAF and why aren’t all planes using it?
• (27:19) - Following the money from private jets to economy
• (37:08) - Individual actions for systemic change

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🌎 Find citations and further reading in the full show notes.

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Episode Credits

• Listener contributions: Lorena, Morgan Gallagher, Bruno Olmedo Quiroga, Darice Chang, Jessica Tucker, Kayla Joy , Lena, Dom Altomari
• Research: Makenna McBrierty
• Editing and engineering: Evan Goodchild‍
• Hosting and production: Katelan Cunningham

Lawns cover more American soil than any other irrigated crop — but who decided they should look this way, and at what cost? In this episode, we trace the centuries-old aristocratic tradition behind the modern lawn, expose the billion-dollar industry profiting from invasive grasses and toxic chemicals, and with the help of nature educator Jason Wise (aka Journeyman), we’ll explore how your patch of green could become something far more prosperous. If you've ever questioned the monoculture outside your front door, this one's for you.

Episode rundown:

• (00:00) - Chapter 1
• (00:49) - Why are lawns a climate issue?
• (02:38) - How did lawns become popular?
• (06:05) - How is our community adapting their lawns?
• (12:34) - Tips to rewind your lawn from Jason Wise (aka Journeyman)
• (34:02) - Who’s profiting off the lawn industry?
• (43:07) - Imagining a lawn-free future

📱 Want to make your money count? Download the Commons app .

🌎 Find citations and further reading in the full show notes.

📞 Want to submit to the show? We'd love to hear from you!

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Episode Credits

• Listener contributions: Craig Brown, Nick Blocha, Lena, Grace Kinney-Broderick, Haley Murphy
• Research: Makenna McBrierty
• Editing and engineering: Evan Goodchild‍
• Hosting and production: Katelan Cunningham

Season 5 is coming very soon and this season, we're talking about the thing that's on everyone's mind (whether we like or not) — money.

Maybe you've heard that Native American proverb, “Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish been caught, and the last stream poisoned, will we realize we cannot eat money.”

But, the way we spend our money matters, and as a mindful consumer, financial decisions can feel like a burden — especially when we don’t have much control over them. We can often choose where to spend our money, but we can’t choose what companies do with that money.

Our society doesn’t run on money, it runs on the earth— water, soil, plants, air. As of late — we’ll call it the past 300 years — we’ve had a pretty one-sided relationship with these essentials we need to live and that largely has to do with the fact that what we value and the way we value it is measured in dolla dolla bills.

This season we’re talking about —

• How the rising cost of groceries is threatening food security in ways you might not expect
• If giving our money to offsets is actually worth it
• The companies that are lobbying for fossil fuels
• How everyday people are footing the bill for data centers
• Decades of war propping up the fossil fuel industry, and how that extends to our front lawns.
• What it’s going to take to get proper investment in sustainable aviation fuel

Subscribe so you don't miss an episode!

📱 Want to make your money count? Download the Commons app .

📞 Want to submit to the show? We'd love to hear from you!

📷 Follow Second Nature on Instagram.

Episode Credits

• Editing and engineering: Evan Goodchild‍
• Hosting and production: Katelan Cunningham

Have you always wanted to be one of the worldwide community of voices you hear on Second Nature? Now's the time! We're accepting submissions for season 5 and we can't wait to hear from you. For the best shot at getting on season 5, please send in your submissions by April 3. But feel free to continue submitting through April as well.

Submitting to the show is easy!

1. Fill out this form to start your submission to Second Nature.
2. After you fill out the form, you'll receive questions based on the topics you chose, with details about how to submit your audio.
3. Record your audio and send it our way!

• (00:00) - We want to hear from you on season 5!
• (00:40) - How to submit

All season, we’ve rooted ourselves in community. Inspired by vast, underground webs of mycellium we’ve shared ways to create local networks of support, information, and resilience. We’ve talked about how we can use our collective power to prep for climate disasters, protect the water, and use our dollars to resist consumption and combat greenwashing.

On this episode, we're ending the season by reminding ourselves that we’re part of nature and that we can look to our fellow animals, as well as plants and fungi, at any time for lessons in community, resilience, and patience.

📱 Download the Commons app.

🌎 Find citations and further reading in the full show notes.

📞 Want to submit your Community Classified? We'd love to hear from you!

📷 Follow Second Nature on Instagram.

Episode Credits

• Listener contributions: Amber Sit, Ashley Walker, Grace Hebert, Justina, Leena Joshi, Kasia Hertz, Inanna McCarty, Gabrielle Gustilo, Janna, Hockenjos, Mary Klene
• Editing and engineering: Evan Goodchild‍
• Hosting and production: Katelan Cunningham

• (00:00) - Introduction
• (01:41) - We’re all connected
• (03:40) - What our community has learned from nature
• (09:17) - Tracing back the thread of life with Robin Wall Kimmerer
• (29:14) - Looking back at season 4 and what’s to come

Humans have a way of abstracting nature so far from its source that we take something as huge and powerful as water and isolate it, viewing it only as a resource for ourselves rather than an integral part of something much, much bigger than our sinks, showers, and dishwashers.

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On this episode, we’re going to try to shrink the distance between ourselves and the water that keeps us alive, we’re going to hear how you’re connecting with water, and we're going to take stock of the ecological and financial impacts of trying to control water. Plus, we’re going to talk to journalist Erica Gies about how we need to change our relationship with water for our safety, our health, and the health of the ecosystems we’re a part of.

📱 Download the Commons app.

🌎 Find citations and further reading in the full show notes.

📞 Want to submit your Community Classified? We'd love to hear from you!

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Episode Credits

• Listener contributions: Ally, Braden Marazzo-Nowicki, Leïla Six, Louka, Markos Delaportas, Nick Blocha, Sunseed Desert Technology, Tavia, Danielle Bird
• Editing and engineering: Evan Goodchild‍
• Hosting and production: Katelan Cunningham

• (00:20) - Where does our water come from?
• (01:45) - What is water bankruptcy?
• (04:35) - Our relationship with water
• (09:37) - How did we get here?
• (31:48) - How much is our water neglect costing us?
• (34:19) - Community classifieds

The chemical industry is a cornerstone of modern American farming. It helps grow the food billions of people eat. It’s also causing vast environmental damage. In this episode of REAP/SOW, produced in collaboration with WWNO’s Sea Change podcast, you’re going to hear the story of synthetic fertilizer, and how this powerful concoction of chemicals has radically reshaped how we farm and what we eat – and how it’s poisoning communities, upending livelihoods, and choking the life out of a huge swath of the ocean. Reported by Garrett Hazelwood and Eric Schmid, hosted by WWNO’s Carlyle Calhoun and FERN’s Teresa Cotsirilos.

With the price of everything on the rise, can you live sustainably without spending more money? In fact, frugal living has always been sustainable. Clothes drying on the line, a cookie tin reused as a sewing kit, a Cool Whip tub filled with leftovers.

Choosing stuff that lasts over stuff that's designed to be trashed, choosing to reuse before buying new, and choosing to skip stuff that doesn't serve us — these money-saving tips are also tips to live sustainably. Not only that, they liberate us to exist outside a world centered on consumption. In this episode, you'll get all kinds of tips from our community on how to save on everything from groceries to electricity.

🌎 Find citations and further reading in the full show notes.

📞 Want to submit your Community Classified? We'd love to hear from you!

📱 Want to be a part of the Commons community? Download the app.

📷 Follow Second Nature on Instagram.

Episode Credits

• Listener contributions: Amandine Thomas, Amber Sit, Anna, Brian Stancheski, Grace Hebert, Justina, Madeline, Melissa Tan, Nicole Collins, Robbie Ahmed
• Editing and engineering: Evan Goodchild‍
• Hosting and production: Katelan Cunningham

• (00:27) - Sustainable living has always been rooted in frugality.
• (03:30) - One razor is saving me hundreds.
• (05:19) - Our community’s favorite sustainable savings tips
• (23:49) - There’s more where that came fom
• (00:25) - 48 Community Classifieds