Consider the Pupfish

High-speed car chases through the desert. Homemade alcohol. Stolen water. Power cuts. Catholic pilgrimages. 

This episode travels from Egypt to the Amazon, from Arizona to Portland, from France to Ethiopia — and it's all about one tiny blue fish. 

For full episode notes, visit: https://shows.acast.com/roundness/episodes

Roundness is a cross-disciplinary podcast produced by the Queen's Library at Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet. (https://www.qebarnet.co.uk)

Sources:

Description of the Sonoran desert was adapted from Rekha Warrier's article "A brief history of three desert survivors". Global average heights for men and women taken from Our World in Data. Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument reopens. Analysis of Quitobaquito's falling water levels in 2020 taken from "Sacred Arizona spring drying up as border wall construction continues" by Douglas Main; and "The Disappearance of Quitobaquito Springs: Tracking Hydrologic Change with Google Earth Engine" by Logan Williams.2050 water usage statistics taken from Seth Darling's TEDxNaperville talk. Details on disagreements between Ethiopia and Egypt adapted from “The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD)”, Geography Review, Hodder Education, September 2020 Volume 34 Number 1, pp. 7-9 (p. 9). Information on Pharaoh Menes's dam taken from the Young People's Trust For the Environment.  Trump says: "blow up that dam". The tragic pilgrimage of William X, Duke of Aquitane: details adapted from the BBC Radio 4 series "Eleanor Rising" and the book "Eleanor of Aquitane" by Marion Meade. Willamette fishing anecdote adapted from Rob Dietz's blog post published by the Centre for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy.  Hundreds of toxins in the Willamette River water, soil, and fish.

Further listening/reading: 

Mutant fish (and cows!) with green intestines... with Mark "The Hulk" Ruffalo. The failure of negative externalities.

Episode illustration: Steve the pupfish in mating season by Simba Baylon (Instagram: @simbalenciaga)

Additional music: Lee Rosevere and Doctor Turtle.

"What Happened in the Past Doesn't Stay There", "Curiousity", "Edge of the Woods", "Let's Start at the Beginning", "Quizitive", "More Questions than Answers", "Sad Marimba Planet", "Cloudloop", and "Let That Sink In" by Lee Rosevere licensed under CC BY 4.0.

"Reality Cartwheeled" and “Clusticus The Mistaken” by Doctor Turtle licensed under CC BY 4.0.

For full episode notes, visit: https://shows.acast.com/roundness/episodes

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