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Blue Dot: California's landscapes: human and natural history with artist and author Obi Kaufmann

Artist and writer Obi Kaufmann
Obi Kaufmann
Artist and writer Obi Kaufmann

Artist and writer Obi Kaufmann joins host Dave Schlom to discuss his documentation of California's wild and scenic places. Kaufmann is an award winning author and illustrator of six best selling books on the golden state's ecology, biodiversity and geography.

His California Field Atlas and the California Lands Trilogy (The Forests of California, The Coasts of California, and The Deserts of California) are must-reads for those who love the diverse landscapes of the state.

They discuss his latest book, State of Fire: Why California Burns, in depth as Obi offers his own personal intellectual evolution when considering how fire, used by humans for thousands of years as a tool and now the cause of mega fires after the cessation of those practices, has shaped and reshaped the California landscape.

Dave Schlom is the longtime host and creator of Blue Dot. From surfing to Voyager in interstellar space, rock guitar to orcas in our imperiled oceans, the topics on Blue Dot are as varied as the host’s interests and connections -- which are pretty limitless! An internationally respected space history journalist, Dave is also deeply fascinated by all aspects of the grand workings of nature’s awesome machinery on scales ranging from galactic to subatomic. And topics take in all aspects of the arts and sciences.
Matt Fidler is a producer and sound designer with over 15 years’ experience producing nationally distributed public radio programs. He has worked for shows such as Freakonomics Radio, Selected Shorts, Studio 360, The New Yorker Radio Hour and The Takeaway. In 2017, Matt launched the language podcast Very Bad Words, hitting the #28 spot in the iTunes podcast charts.