Everybody's talking about it. Money.
 
— voices from the community — 

I'm just baffled at the prices.

The rising prices of groceries. Buying meat is very expensive. And Ubers are very expensive.

— voices from the community — 

Add in the cost of the gasoline, the insurance, and the payment. Prices are going up, money is getting tight, and I feel like I'm constantly being reminded of 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. Still, the way we spend our money matters, and as a mindful consumer, financial decisions can feel like a burden these days, especially when we don't have much control over them.

We can choose how to spend our money on things like groceries or clothes, but we can't choose what companies do with our money. As individuals, we can choose to trade our resource-reliant lawns for native wild habitats, but we can't do things like opt for renewable fuels on a flight. We can share resources with our community, but we can't directly control how our city spends our dollars.

This season, we're following the money. From the cash we give to grocery stores and airlines, to the cash that we give to our cities, and even data centers. The world, well, let me correct myself.

Human society acts as if it runs on money, but I think that's a misleading, possibly even damaging connection. Our society doesn't run on money. It runs on the earth.

Water, soil, plants, air. And 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 dollar-dollar bills. So let's talk money.

This season, we're getting into how the rising cost of groceries is threatening food security in ways you might not expect. We're going to ask if giving our money to offsets is actually worth it. We're going to talk about the companies that are lobbying for fossil fuels behind closed doors, and how everyday people are footing the bill for data centers.

We're going to dig into decades of war propping up the fossil fuel industry, and how that extends to our front lawns. If you're not already following Second Nature on your podcast platform of choice, right now is the perfect time to do that. This show only exists because of you, so thank you so, so much for contributing, for listening.

Season 5 is coming very, very soon. Stay tuned.