This week’s guests are Marcus Welnel and Parker Fleming. Marcus played football for the Griz and now serves as chief revenue officer for Grizzly Athletics. Parker has a PhD in economics and works with the universities on how to set player salaries.

In this conversation, the three talk about the changing landscape of collegiate athletics, particularly the impact of name, image and likeness on the ability for student-athletes to earn income. They also discuss the changing landscape of playing sports for the value of camaraderie and institutional pride or for more lucrative offers.

This week’s guest is Dr. Alex Metcalf, associate professor at the University of Montana’s Franke College of Forestry and Conservation. Alex is a social scientist who studies how people make decisions in a wide variety of conservation domains. Alex and Justin collaborate on a variety of projects, including a just released study on the interaction between politics and our attitudes towards wolves.

In this conversation, Alex and Justin talk about how political identity can contribute to the polarization around people’s attitudes towards wolves and discuss how identity-based assumptions can drive division, but also how that can be corrected to bring people back together.

This week we're bringing you a recording of a live discussion hosted by Climate Smart Missoula called Not the Dark Ages: Climate Science Continues Despite the Attacks. Justin hosts a conversation between Amy Martin, a journalist and creator of the award-winning podcast Threshold, and Dr. Christopher Preston, a philosophy professor at the University of Montana and author of several books, including his latest Tenacious Beasts.

In this conversation, Amy and Christopher talk about some of their favorite scientists, consider new technologies like AI and carbon capture to address environmental challenges and talk about how animals communicate with each other.