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A podcast about biodiversity and climate change, produced by youth from Louisiana and Mississippi, and from Essen and Munich in Germany. Two groups of students, one in Germany and one in the United States, worked together over four weeks in the fall of 2023 to tell the story of how climate change impacts the environment in different parts of the world.
Materials are in English and German.
POCACITO ClimateCast is a production of POCACITO and was made possible through the support of the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany.
00:00
Welcome to Climate Cast, a podcast on climate change and biodiversity by students from Mississippi in the United States and Essen in Munich in Germany, produced by Pocosito and sponsored by the German Foreign Office. Hi, my name is Annabel Jordan. I live in Paschischia, Mississippi. Hi, my name is Berzahn and I live in Bottraub, Germany. Hello, my name is Cem Ali Özbedak and I live in Essen, Germany. My name is Jacqueline and I live in a city called Essen in Germany.
00:30
Hey, I'm Lillian. I'm from Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Hi, my name is Matthias. I'm 19 years old and I'm living in the southern part of Germany, close to the city of Munich. Hi, my name is Melina. I'm from Gulfport, Mississippi. Hey, I'm Nora Skinner. I work for Mississippi State Extension Service. I helped run this camp. I'm originally from North Carolina.
00:55
but now I live in Biloxi, Mississippi. Hey there, I'm Oliver from Munich and me and Matthias are responsible together for the part that plays in Munich. Hello, my name is Ryan. I'm from Louisiana and I've been doing a bit of research lately on Neurolof and how they affect the sea life and just the world in general.
01:25
Hi, I am Serefna Elgun and I live in Essen, Germany.
01:32
Okay, so this is our team. Let's start our program in Essen, Germany. The Ruhr area can objectively be described as a collection of cities in North Rhine-Mustfälje, the federal state in the west of Germany, in which some of the biggest cities in Germany lay. For example, the cities Essen, Dortmund and Bochum. But this simple localization does in no way entail the history and social aspect of the Ruhr area.
02:02
Coal mining had its climax in 1957, when in the Ruhr area alone 500,000, half a million people worked in the hard coal mining industry. This vertiginous number of workers can be explained with immigrant workers. Immigrants who came to Germany to make more money than in their home countries, or recruited, they filled in the gaps in their job market during the post-war period, meaning the years following 1944.
02:28
Many of those people came from Poland, Turkey, Greece, Italy or Spain, but often their stay didn't remain temporary, making the Ru area a melting pot for several cultures. In the collaeries, a new culture, a brotherhood was formed, even creating an own dialect, sayings and plenty of other things that still make the Ru area what it is now.
02:54
the whole, coral reefs are the best negative example of the Ruhr area for biodiversity, since we robbed the animals of all their possible habitats, the air, water and the ground. Now it is tried to revive those places again, and ideally undoing what harm has been done to biodiversity, which is to thrive earth through renaturation and active regeneration of the environment, that is as natural as possible.
03:20
One of the ways this has been implemented is the industrial forest in Essen, which is a forest practically untouched by people, and a way for animals to regain their rightful status in the rural area. Overall, it can be said that the coal phase-out is to be seen as positive in regard to mankind and our environment. Critics of it may try to make valid arguments, but those can nowadays be easily refuted with innovation and willpower. The places that were reliant on mining also are unharmed.
03:50
by the face of that, as long as a new economical focus is facilitated by politics and the cultural standpoint isn't undermined.
04:01
Thank you Jacqueline. Let's hear some more about life in the Rugerbeet, the area around the river Ruhr. Hi, I'm Sedef and I have a question for you. So first of all, what's the first thing that comes to mind when you think about Ruhrpottler or Ruhrpott in general, both in the past and today? To be honest, I immediately thought of dialect.
04:29
soccer, hospitality, but also of an understanding of biodiversity. So you've probably already guessed it. Today, I want to take a closer look with you at the social statements on biodiversity in the Ruhr region in the past and today. And I can tell you one thing in advance. The social position of people in the Ruhr area has changed a lot over time.
04:56
But today we're going to look at a very specific example of how social status has ultimately changed and how people have become aware of climate protection and biodiversity. It's Duis The era of the seaworks in the Ruhr area, especially in Duis had a significant impact on the lives and social status of the
05:26
people in the region. As the heyday of the steel industry brought economic growth and jobs on the one hand, but also social challenges and complex environmental problems on the other. These include, for example, exhaust fumes, chemical residues, air pollution or
05:51
or the death of plants or water pollution. And this in turn affected the habitats of animals and plants, leading to decline in biodiversity and the destruction of natural ecosystems. Yeah, here are a few examples. For example, the Amsher conversion. The Amsher conversion is a large scale
06:19
re-naturation project in the Ruhr region. In the past, the Amsher was considered a heavily polluted sewer. Today, it is being systematically restored to actually create natural habitats for plants and animals. And this project not only has an ecological but also social impact.
06:46
citizens are actively involved in planning processes and can thus become part of the transformation of their living space. But also Green Capital Essen 2017, I actually live in Essen. Essen was the European Green Capital in 2017.
07:15
a lot of environmental projects were promoted and implemented. For example, green spaces were expanded, cyclops were created, and educational programs for sustainable development were introduced. And this showed clear a change in the population's awareness of environmental issues and led to a stronger commitment to the protection of
07:44
biodiversity. And there's one quote I like to read out. The future of the Ruhr region lies in a balanced relationship between economic development and environmental protection.
08:05
Hi everyone, I'm Jem Erzwudak and today we're diving into one of the most pressing environmental issues of our time, global change and biodiversity loss. This is why renaturation, the restoration of natural areas that have been impacted or destroyed by human activities, is becoming increasingly important.
08:34
or at least restore their ecological function. A spectacular example of renaturation measures is the Amtcha River in the heart of the Ruhr area, whose condition had deteriorated dramatically as a result of industrialization. In this context, the question arises as to what extent renaturation has contributed to the restoration of biodiversity in the Amtcha.
09:02
To get to the bottom of this and other exciting questions about the renaturation of the Amsha and its influences on biodiversity, I spoke to a renowned specialist in the field of aquatic ecosystem research, Professor Dr. Florian Nese. As the interview was conducted in German, I will now present its content in English. At the beginning of our conversation, we touched on the topic of renaturation of the Amsha.
09:31
Professor Dr. Lese explained that the Amstrad catchment area covers an enormous area of around 700 square kilometers or about 270.27 square miles, which includes the entire northern rural region. As the renaturation of the Amstrad is a project that has been ongoing for a lot of generations and one of the biggest nature preservation projects for ecological restoration.
10:00
It has already cost over 5 billion euros, which is about 5.5 billion US dollars. I then spoke to Professor Dr. Lese about the various techniques involved in renaturing the Amtrak. He explained that the first and most important step in this process is to reduce the material pollution of the ecosystem. For many years, untreated industrial and domestic wastewater flowed into the Amtrak.
10:31
causing significant pollution. One of the main measures was therefore to first channelize the wastewater, especially in the upper reaches, and to decentralize the wastewater treatment plants. Another important aspect of the re-nitrination was to free the river from its concrete channels. Although these constructions were practical for river regulation,
10:55
They did not provide a suitable habitat for many organisms, such as those that normally colonize the bottoms of rivers. The concrete was very dangerous for them, and most of them cannot survive in such an unnatural environment. This is the reason the concrete shells were removed in many places to give the river more natural space. Professor Dr. Leser also emphasized the importance of the so-called field of dreams approach in science.
11:25
This approach is based on giving the rivers space and hoping the renaturation will then happen by itself in large parts within a framework that is acceptable in terms of flood protection. In addition to these measures, specific interventions have also been carried out.
11:42
such as the reintroduction of fish species in clean areas of the river. Other techniques include measures such as planting riparian trees to shape the water coast, which helps to regulate the temperature. These diverse approaches show how complex the renaturation work on the Amsha is. When I spoke to Professor Dr. Lese about the concrete results of the renaturation of the Amsha,
12:09
it became clear how impressive those changes are. He explained that you can see the success of the renaturation particularly well once you compare the dirtiest parts of it in the past with how they look now. In the past, there was hardly any visible life there, apart from bacteria. Today, however, sampling reveals a multitude of small insects, larvae, and worms.
12:35
This increase in biodiversity at the bottom of the Amsha is a clear indicator of the success of the renaturation measures. Another particularly impressive example would be the Amsha estuary, which has moved more and more north up to Dienstlaken in the past few years. And while it was still a major building site not too long ago, a recent species counting done by Professor Dr. Lesel and his colleagues showed that
13:04
Nowadays, there are a lot of different species living there, such as different fish, amphibians, migratory birds, and so on. This shows that the renaturation has helped to create an environment in which plants and animals can recolonize and thrive in greater numbers than before. Another exciting part of our conversation with Professor Dr. Lese.
13:31
was about the chances of survival of the species that originally lived in the Amsha area, and the effects of climate change and the introduction of new species. He made it clear that we cannot accept the community of life in the Amsha to return to its original state. He emphasized that the goal of restoration should not be to achieve a like-before state, as this is not realistic.
13:59
due to multiple changes including climate change and the introduction of new species of course. One interesting example he mentioned was the spreading of organisms that were not originally native to the wine and have entered the wine through international trade and waterways such as the main Danube Canal. With the relocation of the Amtcha estuary and the improved access, new species have now also migrated into the Amtcha.
14:27
Professor Alieze specifically mentions black-mouthed gube from the Black Sea region as a species which will significantly change the biosynosis in the Amsha. He also emphasized that the effects of invasive species are likely to have a greater impact than climate change itself. However, he noted that while some of the newly introduced species still cause changes, this does not necessarily have to be negative.
14:58
At the same time, he pointed out that despite the successful restoration and positive developments, there are challenges particularly in relation to ongoing pressures from the surrounding urban areas, which may mean that not all of the original species can return. Overall, however, Professor Lese was positive about the future of the Amstrad.
15:20
In a rather interesting part of our conversation we discussed the additional challenge of renaturalizing the Amtra in the Ruhr region. In addition to the ecological aspects already mentioned, there are other significant challenges in this densely populated industrial area. Pollution from wine water, for example, is a constant challenge. This is a direct consequence of the long history of coal mining in the region.
15:48
The industrial past has led to a long-term problem that the Amstrad will have to contend with for a long time to come. Another issue is the high population density in the rural region. Despite modern wastewater treatment plants and the ability to purify wastewater, the challenge remains as to what to do with the treated water and the nutrients it contains.
16:14
These nutrients continue to represent a burden for the Amtrak. In conclusion, Professor Laser emphasized that we can never expect a completely clean river in the rural region, in the sense of a sandy lowland water course. Nevertheless, he expressed confidence that a functional and ecological, valuable body of water can be achieved, as it is already observed in a lot of places.
16:42
In addition to the ecological effects such as the creation of a fundamental river, renaturation suddenly has an impact on social life and also brings economic benefits, said Professor Dr. Deser. He uses his own life situation as an example for this. He lives in the northern rural area and enjoys running. In the past, the smell on his running route was strongly influenced by the Amtchao, which was very smelly.
17:10
That was also the reason why apartments right next to the Amtra were the cheapest at the time. This is no longer the case and apartments and houses in the area are increasing in value, which is why more and more families with children are moving to the area. But the Amtra Renaturation also has economic benefits, as there are many jobs in the whole area that are directly or indirectly linked to the Amtra.
17:35
In addition, although 5.5 billion euros were invested as input, scientific analysis shows that the output is over 10 billion euros, which is much higher and definitely worth the effort. In addition, an intact ecosystem can also take on tasks such as flood protection. These are just some of the reasons why the re-naturation of the Amtrak is important.
18:04
from an ecological point of view. As I am interested, and I am sure you are too, I also asked Professor Dr. Lese which aspects are currently the focus of his work. He and his team are currently concentrating on the effects of stress factors, for example, environmental influences that do not correspond to normal conditions on ecosystems. The focus is not only on the individual effects of these factors, but in particular,
18:33
on the combined effects. Professor Lese explained that in the past, research has often looked at individual stress factors in isolation, such as the effects of a particular substance on biodiversity. However, the current interest of his research group is what happens when several stress factors occur at the same time. It could be that a combination of these factors leads to much more serious effects.
19:02
than each vector on its own. The particular focus is on the concept of multiple stressors. The concept refers to how different stressors can interact and potentially reinforce each other. The aim is to find out how such combinations affect ecosystems. In some cases, two stressors may potentiate their negative effects, which poses major challenges for science. As an illustration, we can take medicine.
19:32
where the combination of certain medicines can cause undesirable side effects. It is similar in ecology, where the combination of stress factors such as nutrient, pollution and temperature increase can lead to unpredictable and potentially much more severe effects. At the end of our conversation, we talked about the overall importance of the Renaturation project. His message to the public emphasized
20:02
the immense importance of such projects, not only locally, but worldwide. He emphasized that while the nature can exist without us, we can't exist without most of the nature. He pointed out how much nature contributes to human well-being. A walk along the renaturalized section of the Amherst is, for example, a much better and more pleasant experience than along the polluted watercourses,
20:31
of the past. This change not only lifts the mood, but also has far-reaching positive consequences for the entire living environment, including soil formation. Professor Lieser emphasized that any investment in restoration projects is a worthwhile investment. However, he also emphasized that we should abandon the idea that restoration is a backward-looking process aimed at restoring past conditions. Instead, we should
21:00
have the courage to accept new ecosystems, even if they contain species that we may not have originally wanted to see in these particular ecosystems. He concluded with the advice that we should get out more often and experience our natural ecosystems firsthand to truly appreciate the joy and health benefits they provide.
21:26
I hope you enjoyed listening to the presentation of the contents of this interview and were able to take away useful insights and information. The work of Professor Lese and his team and the topics we have discussed today are of crucial importance for our environment and our society. It was a great pleasure to share these experiences and insights.
21:51
I hope the interview has piqued your interest and raised your awareness of the importance of restoration projects. Next, Berzan talks with Allie from Mississippi State University about local climate and biodiversity projects. Are there local projects that you know of about biodiversity and climate change? On local levels, there are some initiatives here and there.
22:20
fishing is a really big part of the culture down here. And on the pier, the fishing piers, you can see these little like pipes that people can put their fishing line in into those pipes. It's like kind of like little trash. So it doesn't end up into the waters. So that's like, that's cool. And then, you know, concurrently with that, Mississippi State Extension, we do a lot of
22:50
like marine debris work. We have two programs through our office, Mississippi Inland Cleanup and the Mississippi Coastal Cleanup. Coastal Cleanup, you know, they go up and down all of the beaches and then Inland Cleanup does, you know, more of like the terrestrial pollution prevention. Do you think that a lot of projects could be supported by voluntary work, for example, because I know that there are a lot of projects that wouldn't work in Germany?
23:20
without voluntary work and without volunteers that also put a lot of their free time into projects and preservation of nature and of biodiversity. Yeah, for sure. All of the coastal cleanup and the inland cleanup is completely volunteer run.
23:46
I spoke with Ryan and Nora about nurdles, small pieces of plastic, overwhelming beaches around the globe. And I learned something else. In Texas, they actually have Nurdle Patrol. Nurdle Patrol. So we do that. We do Nurdle Patrol through our office here. So what does the Nurdle Patrol do? So every, I think it's like every second Saturday or something in the month.
24:13
Elizabeth, she works in our office. She will take a group of like volunteers. It's usually like high school students and they'll just go to a local beach and they will literally just walk the entire shoreline hunched over like looking for these nurdles. And they're so tiny, like it's so hard to see them. But they find a lot, like they find way more than you would expect. And they're just, they wash up like in the rack line. So where a lot of like other pollution or like even like natural like seaweed will.
24:41
wash up at that high tide line and they're just kind of sitting there in their little little round dots.
24:49
My friends point out they kind of look similar to Orbeez. Yeah, they do. They do look like that. But they're a lot harder. What's an Orbee? So they're like these little tiny bees. You put them in water, they grow. But I don't think nurdles grow. Okay. So nurdles are just one size. They don't grow. They don't expand. So what's the problem with them?
25:19
I guess would be the main question. They're so pervasive. They're just everywhere in our world. How they're super small, how fish and other sea life eat them, and then that leads up to us eating them. And I don't know if you know what nurdles are used for, but so- I don't know what they're used for. Yeah, do you know? So they're used to make everything back to like, this water bottle. Yep, yep.
25:48
Christmas trees, all that. Yep. So they're just like building blocks. Yep. So where do they come from? Because if they're used to make something, like they don't grow on trees, right? So where do they come from? So I'm pretty sure when I was at the plant factories or something, and then they ship them across the oceans, but in like bad weather, sometimes it creates a wall and then gets into the water.
26:18
That's how they wind up on the beaches. Yeah. So okay, so that's something really interesting. So they're actually shipping the nurdles around, rather than, you know, having the nurdles making the plastic water bottles and then shipping the bottle. But they're just shipping the nurdles instead. Yeah. Why is that? There is that not why is that but has that is that a change? Is that something new?
26:45
I'm sure it's got to do with like how much it costs to ship them. It's probably, it weighs less. Like if you made all these big plastic items that would weigh a bunch and probably cost a bunch to ship. So I'm sure it's way cheaper to the ship. You know, a full container of tens of thousands of nurdles instead of like big bottles.
27:08
You said they're in everything, they make the plastic bottles, Christmas trees, everything. So what happens to them when they get sort of lost at sea or when they spill into the ocean? Like do they sink to the bottom? Do they float? How do they? I'm pretty sure they float, but fish get to them, they eat them, and then most of them wind back up on the ocean.
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beaches. Right. So then like the waves or whatever, the tide will bring them in. So why are they so bad? I mean, I assume that, you know, they can't, it's not real food, right? I mean, so there's, but they're eating them. So what happens to the fish when they eat them? They're getting full, but they're not. So they must just starve. Yeah. Yep.
28:07
depressing, but it is kind of depressing, like the slow, long death. How can people think of nurdles as something other than a danger to fish? Right? How do they how can they see this as relevant or potentially damaging to their own ways of life? I think that is the problem with them. Because I mean, literally like out of sight, out of mind.
28:35
I'm in this field and I didn't even know about nurdles until I started at Mississippi State. So I don't know, I think it's just number one, again, like raising awareness about plastic itself. Like everything we can recycle, we can, you know, do whatever, but like nothing is going to change until we just stop making more plastic.
28:59
So what did you get? I got a hermit crab. Okay. So that's alive, right? Yeah. And are there many of those here? Not that I saw, but this one has a pretty shell, so that's probably why I saw it. And what else have you found? I found a cannonball jellyfish, a dead fish, and a lot. What was a dead catfish?
29:28
That catfish? Yeah. Well, yeah. And like a lot of styrofoam stuff. I found a lot of like party sized bags of chips, but not like the big party size, like the small. Yeah. What else have you found a lot? Are you talking about like trash bags? Yeah. Styrofoam. There were some minnows down there.
29:55
and they were cute or styrofoam there was a lot of styrofoam um i found some styrofoam cups some like cups from like fast food restaurants and stuff a lot of plastic bottles yeah oh my gosh your shoes it's fine and what did you think about it? i thought okay the amount of trash out here was like really sad but there's that weird thing with all of the sticks have you seen it? it like makes
30:25
two blinds and there's nothing in there. It's weird, but I can tell there's still life out here, which that makes the other. So. So that's hope. Yeah. Yeah.
30:38
So what about microplastics in Germany? We asked Matthias. Yeah, thank you for your question, guys. I'm very glad for your interest in the topic and also for the situation here in Germany. So your first question was about is there microplastic in the environment? So personally, I was quite surprised when I first did some research because I thought microplastic
31:08
it's rather a problem that's like exclusive to the ocean. And as Germany doesn't have like a very long coastline and the place where I live, Bavaria is not located at the coast at all. I thought that it's not really a problem that's like of any importance for us. However, it turns out there is actually quite a lot of microplastic, for example, in lakes, in streams, in rivers.
31:38
As I said, the concentration is actually surprisingly high, although it's hard to find accurate ways of measuring the concentration. A recent study that was conducted on the issue also found some microplastic in fish and mussels that just kind of proves that it's also within the food chain. And for us, secondary microplastics are the main polluters.
32:06
So basically microplastics that came from bigger pieces of plastic that then broke down. So to make it short, yes, there are microplastics in the environment here in Germany, and actually quite a lot. And now a group conversation about how important marine life is for Mississippi's Gulf Coast.
32:35
Biloxi was once the seafood capital of the world, so why isn't it any longer? The world's largest seafood... Seafood what? Seafood capital. Seafood capital, okay. So what does it mean, seafood capital? It was just like the industry was so large here. And there's, I mean you can find pictures of Biloxi where it was just...
33:02
like oyster farms and they were farming for all the oysters and they had these seafood processing plants that was just, I mean, people didn't use gravel, they used oyster shells. Like just piles of it. It was huge. And the canning factories that were here that got shipped all over the United States and the world, massive. It was a massive production. But no longer anymore. Overfishing, pollution.
33:32
So by 1890, Biloxi's annual seafood processing was over two million pounds of oysters a year and 600,000 pounds of shrimp. So that was in 1890. By 1902, we were up to six million pounds of oysters and then 4.5 million pounds of shrimp. So that, we had more...
34:02
immigrants that came over started to work in these these processing then there was developments in you know canning there was developments in how you were how how you were fishing and then the decline of bluxy being the seafood capital of the world came from the great depression and then the world wars that started the decline
34:29
And then through the early 20th century hurricanes, natural disasters and climate change. And then that started the decline of the oyster population. What do oysters mean? And everybody who has like a thought on this, I'd love to hear what do oysters mean to the ecosystem here? Historically, currently, what do they do?
34:59
just for those of us who don't know.
35:05
I'd start out by saying that oysters, there's like a scientific in the community, we say they are standing for the three F's, so food, so like food that we eat, filtration, because they filter out pollution from the water, and then fish habitat. So they're making these habitats that all of our offshore fish and coastal inland fish need. So they spend their lives as babies growing up in these protected oyster reefs, and then once they get big enough, they can go back out.
35:33
into open water. So like the three F's are major. So okay, so you got the food, the filtration and the fish habitats. What do they do for a fish habitat? I mean, it's an oyster, how does it create a habitat?
35:55
Okay, so oysters like to like grow in like these really big like reefs and like clumps of oysters. So there's like little like nooks and like crannies and between like the oysters like, like stuck together and stuff. And yeah, I'd say that like provides a pretty like good habitat for like small like animals. Like a protection from other predators or from the elements. I mean, what do you
36:23
I'd like to say like a little bit of both. What about oyster reefs as coastal protection in terms of wave breaking?
36:35
Um, so like, I feel like if they get like large enough, then it can like, um, stop like waves from like crashing up against like the shore and yeah. Yeah.
36:49
I don't know if it's so prevalent here, but I talked about earlier, I don't know if it was on the podcast yet, that I'm from North Carolina. So in North Carolina, we do a lot of living shoreline work with oysters. So people will bring their old oyster shells, like they've eaten oysters, and they want to recycle them. So they'll bring them to certain areas, and then volunteers or different organizations will come and bag up the oysters in these really tough biodegradable bags.
37:18
And then you can literally just stack the bags on top of each other and make reefs and build a living shoreline that way as a way to protect against wind, waves, different just types of erosion. So they're really useful for that. Amazing. What is the, this is gonna sound weird, what is the life expectancy of an oyster shell? Do they deteriorate? Do they sort of, okay.
37:44
They do deteriorate, but what's cool about oyster shells is new oysters, they choose to grow on old oyster shells. So, I mean, they'll, they'll stick to other things, but they like to grow on oyster shells. So that's another thing that these bagged reefs are doing is they're creating new reefs and creating new oysters.
38:14
So far we've visited an industrial landscape, a coastline, and now we head for an ecosystem rich in biodiversity, climate protection, and cultural meaning. Annabelle tells us what marshes mean in Mississippi, and Mathias shares a poem by Annette Droste-Hülshof. One culturally significant story revolving around marshlands on the coast is Singing River in Pascagoula.
38:40
From what I've heard, the story states that the Pascagoula Indian tribe walked together into the river while chanting in order to avoid fighting with the Biloxi Indian tribe. It is said that you can still hear their souls singing the chant on quiet nights.
38:55
The little lad in the fen, how creepy it is to cross through the fen when it's blowing with haze. Mists whiff him like phantoms, buying weathing through bushes. Upscurts a springlet beneath every step when hissing and singing come from the gap. How eerie it is to cross through the fen when the reed bank rustles in the breeze. The shivering child holds onto his school book and runs as if being hunted.
39:25
The wind blossoms hollow across the flat land. What's rattling over there in the hedge? This is the ghostly peat cutter, who drinks away his master's best peat blocks. Ooh hoo sounds forth like an insane cow. The little boy ducks down fearfully. Gnardled, three stumps stare out from the bank, the pine trees nodding uncannily. The lad runs on, straining his ears on among giant stalks like spares, and how it trickles and whistles therein.
39:55
This is the Sunday spinters. It is spinning a Leonore, bound by a curse, winding her reel among the reeds. Ever at the run, onward as through the devils were after him. It is bubbling up in front of his feet, like squeaking under his soles, like a ghostly melody. This is the headless, untrustworthy, violent man. It is Knoth, the thieving fiddler who stole at the farthing at the wedding. Then-
40:23
The fen bus bursts open, a sigh comes forth, out of the gapping hollow. Ooh, ooh, Margaret, the lost soul calls out, oh, oh, my poor soul. The boy jumps like a wounded deer, where his guardian angel, not close by, in the smouldering fen a digger would later find his little bones bleaching there. Gradually now the groan becomes firm, and over there, next to the willow, some homely twinkles the lamb.
40:52
The boy stands at the edge, he draws a deep breath and takes one. More nervous look at the fen, in speed, in the reeds, it was dreadful. How creepy it was in the fen.
41:16
Thank you for joining us for this inaugural episode of the Climate Cast Podcast. Extended conversations and interviews in both German and English will follow, published on the Pocosito website at Pocosito.org. A heartfelt congratulations goes to our intrepid student reporters, and thank you to our partners at Mississippi State University Extension in Biloxi, and the German Consulate General in Atlanta.
41:45
for their generous support. Stay tuned, more to come, and happy New Year.