Episode 03: Arctic Rust

Something strange is happening in Arctic rivers — they’re turning the color of rust. And their waters are becoming acidic through a combination of mainly iron and sulfuric acid leaching into the waters.

Ultimately, the cause for these rusting rivers is climate change. Researchers are still pinning down the specifics, but there is already concern that this is happening across the Arctic, causing widespread ecosystem damage.

Our very own Alex Lee was part of a team who has researched this phenomenon on the ground in a remote part of the Brooks Range in Alaska. Through an essay, Alex will take us to the Arctic where we’ll explore the nature of change. We’ll also hear from one of the top researchers looking into the rusting rivers.

Our guest for this episode is Paddy Sullivan, ecologist and director of the Environment and Natural Resource Institute at the University of Alaska, Anchorage.

You can read the print version of Alex’s essay on Protect Our Winters' blog. And special thanks to musician M. Harlan Engelmann for letting us use some of his music to score this episode. Listen to his album on Bandcamp.

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Before we go, one quick programming note: As an indie podcast, you can imagine that it’s tough to keep up a regular publishing schedule! That said, please don’t expect that twice-a-week cadence that we’ve started to continue in the near future. We will, however, be making episodes for you as often as possible and will get them into the feed ASAP. We’re also exploring options for funding this podcast so we can keep it more regular. Ideas? Wanna collab? Drop us a line — ahostileclimate [at] gmail.com