Our Common Nature: West Virginia Coal
Radiolab21 Nov 2025

Our Common Nature: West Virginia Coal

Today on the show, we’re bringing you an episode from Our Common Nature (https://link.podtrac.com/v7mx144d), a new podcast series where cellist Yo-Yo Ma and host Ana González travel around the United States to meet people, make music and better understand how culture binds us to nature. The series features a few familiar voices, including Ana González (host) and Alan Goffinski (producer), from our kids podcast, Terrestrials (https://link.podtrac.com/vysacqn1).

About the episode:
West Virginia is defined by its beauty and its coal, two things that can work against each other. Yo-Yo Ma felt this as soon as stepped foot in its hills.This episode explores how music and poetry help process the emotions of a community besieged with disaster and held together by pride and duty. We travel down the Coal River with third-generation coal miner Chris Saunders, who tells us how coal has saved and threatened his life. Poet Crystal Good shares her poetry, which channels her rage and love. And musician and granddaughter of West Virginia coal miners, Kathy Mattea, explains the beauty of belting out your home state in a chorus. The end of the episode finds host Ana floating down the New River with help from a group of high schoolers and Yo-Yo Ma.

Listen to the full series Our Common Nature (https://link.podtrac.com/v7mx144d).

Featuring music by Yo-Yo Ma, Dom Flemons, and Kathy Mattea and poetry by Crystal Good.

EPISODE CREDITS:
Radiolab Bits Produced - Anisa Vietze (Radiolab bits)

Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!

Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.

Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.
Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(662)

Neither Confirm Nor Deny

Neither Confirm Nor Deny

In an episode we first ran back in 2014, we explore how a sunken nuclear submarine, a crazy billionaire, and a mechanical claw gave birth to a phrase that has hounded journalists and lawyers for 40 ye...

17 Jul 0s

The Holy Shiver

The Holy Shiver

Lauren Brown gets goosebumps. A lot. Sometimes several times a day. When her partner, writer Carmen Maria Machado, noticed it...she couldn't stop thinking about it. Why does she get them in so many di...

10 Jul 0s

Atomic Artifacts

Atomic Artifacts

Back in the 1950s, facing the threat of nuclear annihilation, federal officials sat down and pondered what American life would actually look like after an atomic attack. They faced a slew of practical...

3 Jul 40min

The Gondolier

The Gondolier

Back in 2017, reporters Kristen Clark and David Conrad came to us with a story that dug into the difficult and often dark places discrimination creates. We start in Venice, Italy, where they meet gond...

26 Jun 1h 13min

This is Your Brain on Hormones

This is Your Brain on Hormones

After reading something that said her menstrual cycle changes her brain each month, Senior Correspondent Molly Webster goes on a reporting mission to see if that’s true, and, if so, how. This journey ...

19 Jun 39min

Bonus: Wild Animal Dads from Terrestrials

Bonus: Wild Animal Dads from Terrestrials

In honor of Father's Day, here is a family friendly bonus episode from our kids' podcast Terrestrials.  What does it really mean to be a dad? In the animal world, fathers have long been painted as ag...

18 Jun 35min

On the Media: American Emergency

On the Media: American Emergency

A little while back, our friends over at On the Media released a gripping and immersive reporting series about FEMA, the agency that is supposed to be there for all of us in the wake of disaster. In A...

12 Jun 55min

Oliver Sipple

Oliver Sipple

One morning, Oliver Sipple went out for a walk. A couple hours later, to his own surprise, he saved the life of the President of the United States. In a story we reported back in 2017, we explain how ...

5 Jun 1h 3min

Populært innen Vitenskap

fastlegen
abels-tarn
tingenes-tilstand
forskningno
liberal-halvtime
rekommandert
sinnsyn
dekodet-2
fjellsportpodden
villmarksliv
jss
tomprat-med-gunnar-tjomlid
rss-inn-til-kjernen-med-sunniva-rose
hva-er-greia-med
rss-kunstig-intelligens-med-elisabeth-maren-og-morten
vett-og-vitenskap-med-gaute-einevoll
rss-paradigmepodden
rss-lundqvist-podden
rss-rekommandert
rss-nysgjerrige-norge