Human Nature: Roots
The Story Collider
Story Collider, Inc.
4.4 • 824 Ratings
🗓️ 27 August 2021
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For the final episode of our Human Nature series, we, appropriately, go back to our roots.
Part 1: After a dangerous incident, Kalā Holiday begins to question his work as a tour guide in his ancestral land of Hawai’i.
Part 2: Jeremy Richardson must reconcile his roots in coal country with his identity as a climate scientist.
Kalā Holiday is a lineal descendant of the original native inhabitants and caretakers of Pu'uhonua o Honaunau, a temple that was (and still is) a place of refuge. He actively participates in ceremonies and rituals involving the ancient religious sites of his ancestors in hopes of maintaining and preserving the practice for future generations. As a guide, Kalā has shared his home and heritage with hundreds of visitors from around the world using tourism as a platform to demonstrate to outsiders that his home is far more than just pineapples, Elvis Presley, and coconut bras.
Hailing from a third-generation coal mining family in West Virginia, and with more than ten years of experience in climate and energy issues, Jeremy Richardson focuses on federal climate and energy policy development, specializing in the economics of energy—particularly coal and nuclear power—and writes and speaks passionately about the need for a just transition for the coalfields.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | A science story, huh? |
| 0:04.0 | Is NYU a scientist? |
| 0:06.0 | I felt it right. |
| 0:08.0 | And I just thought, well. |
| 0:10.0 | It was that golden moment. |
| 0:12.0 | Because science was on my side. |
| 0:15.0 | Hi. Hi everyone. Welcome to the Story Collider, where we bring you true personal stories about science. |
| 0:30.6 | I'm your host, Aaron Barker, and this is our last installment of our eight-part human nature series that we've been airing this summer, about our |
| 0:38.5 | experiences with the natural world and how they shape us. And appropriately, at the end, we're |
| 0:44.4 | going back to our roots. The two stories we're sharing with you today, see our storytellers |
| 0:49.4 | conflicted about the lands they're from, each in a very different way. Our first story today is from Kula Holiday. |
| 0:56.6 | It was recorded at his home in Hawaii last July. |
| 1:08.9 | It's April 3, 2018, and I'm guiding a twilight volcano tour as I have done countless times over the last several years. |
| 1:19.6 | Representing my home and culture, I'm proudly sharing with my visitors' stories of our people's past and the legends of our gods whilst traveling |
| 1:27.7 | through black and barren lava fields of Kilauea. |
| 1:32.3 | The weather is wet and cold, and I can tell it's weighing on the experience of my visitors, |
| 1:38.4 | but I'm determined to make the most of the day for them and show them as much as I possibly |
| 1:42.7 | can. |
| 1:45.8 | I noticed as we began climbing an elevation towards the volcano's summit the clouds begin |
| 1:50.0 | to lift and the rain stops just as we are approaching Pauahi Crater. |
| 1:55.7 | I pull into the parking lot to find barely any other vehicles and a beautiful view all the way down. Despite this, |
| 2:04.8 | most of my visitors in the van were showing signs of disinterest, aside from the youngest in our group, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Story Collider, Inc., and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Story Collider, Inc. and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.