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0:00:00 - (Alicia): It's time for 90 Miles from Needles, the Desert Protection Podcast, with your hosts Chris Clarke and Alicia Pike.

0:00:30 - (Chris) Hey, welcome to 90 miles from Needles. This is Chris. As we get towards the end of the year here in the last days of November, I can't help but think about what the next year is likely to bring for the deserts. And sadly, 2024 is likely to be an extremely challenging year for the deserts and for those of us who like them.

0:00:52 - (Chris): Federal government is figuring out how much more desert land to add to the roster of places available for utility scale development of renewable energy. The lithium mining gold rush is threatening places ranging from communities of color in Southern California to Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge to sacred lands in northern Nevada. The Biden administration is likely to continue much of the Trump administration's border policy, including waiving of environmental laws throughout hundreds of square miles of the desert in a futile attempt to build and bolster the wall.

0:01:30 - (Chris): And then, of course, there is the election in November 2024, which will give us a choice between continuing as usual or making everything much, much worse than it already is. And all this potential bad news means that desert activists need to be ready to step up to the plate and take a swing at all the bad ideas we're likely to face in the desert in 2024. In order to do that, we need to know what's going on.

0:01:58 - (Chris): We need an authoritative, accurate voice of advocacy for the deserts. We need to challenge the vision of the desert that corporate America holds dear. And we also need to be ready for some of our occasional allies in the environmental movement to repeat those misconceptions about the desert, about it being barren, or a broken version of something else, like a forest that didn't have the wherewithal to grow trees.

0:02:23 - (Chris): The desert is not a defective forest. The desert is not a defective meadow. But there are people, even in environmental circles, who insist on treating it that way. And we're going to have to challenge that in 2024 harder than we ever have before. We want to help. We want to be center stage in that fight. We want to be as useful to you as possible in bringing you accurate information, timely information about the deserts and what people are doing to protect them that you won't get anywhere else.

0:02:52 - (Chris): The Desert Advocacy Media Network, home to 90 miles from Needles, is the only media company that focuses entirely on environmental and cultural issues in the arid lands of North America. Now, as some of you know, I am taking a leap of faith in January, leaving my quite comfortable job with the National Parks Conservation Association to devote the time to developing the Desert Advocacy Media Network that the organization really needs.

0:03:16 - (Chris): Our aim is to grow the network from an organization with about a $12,000 annual budget for which we thank you very much to something more like 20 or 30 times that. Now, if you, like, 90 miles from Needles, this is an excellent time to contribute on giving Tuesday, or after for that matter. Whether you donate $5 or $50,000, every single bit of support makes us thoroughly grateful and utterly determined to make you proud of your role in keeping us going.

0:03:43 - (Chris): Now, I'm going to be frank. We are at a decision point in the next couple of months about whether the effort we put into the podcast is worth it. One of the things we're looking at to determine that is whether we have visible and growing support among potential listeners. The sad truth is we have plateaued at about 500 total listens per episode and about 120 financial supporters, more or less since the beginning of 2023.

0:04:06 - (Chris): We are completely and thoroughly grateful for both the number of listens and the number of financial supporters, but we'd like to think that there are more than 100 of you in the desert states that think that this is worthwhile, not to mention desert aficionados living far from the desert who wish they could get here more often. We have big ideas for the podcast. I'm going to be putting together a bunch of episodes from a road trip I'm taking after I leave NPCA in late January, early February that'll range from Death Valley to Big Bend National Park, with stops along the border in southern Arizona and in the Rio Grande Valley.

0:04:45 - (Chris): Santa Fe Taos the 90 miles from Needles website is being rebuilt, and the Desert Advocacy Media Network website, which is under development, is going to offer links to the podcast along with desert news articles, explainers about the desert, essays by notable pundits, and other good stuff. In the meantime, we already have 90 Miles from Needles episodes developing on desert big Horn Sheep that one's almost ready to go.

0:05:11 - (Chris): Fires in the Mojave Desert going to be traveling through the burned areas with my NPCA colleague Jennifer Eric, who hosts the organization's podcast, The Secret Life of Parks. We're going to be looking more at suaros and incorporating native people's perspectives on that wonderful plant. We're going to be looking at the horrible plans by Cadiz to drain an ancient desert aquifer for profit. In other words, we have no lack of work to do, and we just need to be able to do that work.

0:05:40 - (Chris): That's where you come in. Your support will make it possible to hire sound editors who actually know what they're doing to pay freelance reporters to create stories for us to promote the podcast through targeted advertising. And we've made it as easy as possible for you to donate. Check our show notes for all these links, but if your memory is better than mine, you can check out Nine 0 Mile From Needles.com

0:06:05 - (Chris): Patreon. If you've got an existing patreon account or you want swag if you're on Facebook, we've got a GivingTuesday campaign going through network for good on our podcast Facebook page 90 Miles from Needles. If you want to be a Rockstar supporter, you can set up your own fundraiser for us on Facebook. You can also donate to us by texting the word Needles to 5355. That will get you a donation page on our GiveButter site, where you can charge a donation to Apple, Pay, Google Pay, or whatever you've got on your phone.

0:06:40 - (Chris): You can make a one time donation or a recurring monthly donation, or recurring yearly donation, whatever you're comfortable with. Remember, people you know who like the desert are way likelier to donate if they hear from you about it, rather than just hoping that they manage to click on the right link to find out that we're doing this fundraiser, or that, for that matter, we exist at all. Please let your friends and family know that we are here.

0:07:07 - (Chris): We are doing what we hope is valuable work, and we could use your help and theirs on this Giving Tuesday. Please consider helping us make the Desert Advocacy Media Network the place people turn to when they want to learn more about the desert and how to protect it. We hope you have a very happy holiday. Please stay safe. We need you around. We appreciate you. Check out our show notes for more details on how you can donate.

0:07:33 - (Chris): And look for a Desert Bighorn Sheep episode coming up quite soon. Thanks, y'all. Chris out.

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S2E15: On Giving Tuesday, Make a Difference for the Desert