The Young Ike Project

Becky Rom has spent decades fighting to protect the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. A lifelong Ely resident and longtime conservation advocate, she has been at the center of one of the country’s most consequential debates over mining, public lands, and the future of an iconic wilderness.This conversation was originally recorded in January, as Congress was considering a resolution to overturn federal protections that had blocked mining on more than 225,000 acres near the Boundary Waters. Since then, Congress has overturned those protections, while Minnesota Governor Tim Walz signed an executive order halting state permitting and environmental review for proposed nonferrous mining projects in the Boundary Waters watershed.In this episode, we dig into the decades-long fight over mining near the Boundary Waters, how protections for public lands can be created—and undone—and the complicated balance of power between federal and state governments. Becky walks us through the history behind the mining debate, what is at stake for the Boundary Waters, and why she believes protecting the wilderness will require thinking beyond any single election, administration, or political victory.We also zoom out. What does it take to build durable support for conservation in a politically divided country? Becky reflects on growing up and living in Ely, maintaining relationships across deep disagreements over mining, and why protecting places like the Boundary Waters ultimately begins not with policy or science, but with something much simpler: a love of place.This episode is part of The Young Ike’s Public Lands Under Threat season.To find a Podclub event near you or start your own, visit: theyoungike.org/podclub

Mike Dombeck is a conservationist, scientist, and longtime public lands leader who is the only person to have served as both Director of the Bureau of Land Management and Chief of the U.S. Forest Service. Raised in rural Wisconsin and trained as a fisheries biologist, Dombeck spent much of his career working inside the federal agencies responsible for managing America’s public lands.In this episode, we explore how the way America manages its public lands has changed—and what happens when the pendulum begins to swing back. Dombeck traces a decades-long shift away from a focus on extraction and toward conservation, science, and greater public involvement, drawing on his own experience leading two of the country’s largest land-management agencies.We dig into some of the defining debates of his tenure, including the creation of the Roadless Rule, the enormous network of roads across the national forests, and his push to measure success not simply by what came off the land, but by the long-term health of the land itself. We also examine the pressures facing the Forest Service today and what is at stake when the institutions responsible for managing public lands are weakened.And we look ahead: what does responsible stewardship require in a time of political upheaval? For Dombeck, the answer comes back to long-term thinking, listening to the public, and remembering that these lands belong to all of us. To you and me. This episode is part of The Young Ike’s Public Lands Under Threat season.To find a Podclub event near you or start your own, visit: theyoungike.org/podclubFollow us on Social Media:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theyoungike/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/p/The-Young-IKE-61579184976598/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-young-ike/

Hal Herring is a journalist, outdoorsman, and longtime conservation writer who has spent decades exploring America’s public lands and telling the stories of the people and places that shape them. Raised in Alabama and now based in Montana, Herring is currently finishing a book about journeys through America’s public lands and how they came to be.In this episode, we ask what America’s public lands really mean—and why we’ve taken them for granted. Herring argues that these lands are an extraordinary American inheritance: millions of acres where anyone can hunt, fish, hike, camp, and explore, regardless of how much land or money they own.We trace the history of the public estate, the push to transfer federal lands to states or private ownership, and what could be lost in the process. For Herring, the stakes go beyond conservation. Public lands are tied to questions of freedom, inequality, water rights, and who gets access to the American landscape.We also look ahead: can today’s threats build a broader conservation movement across political divides—and remind Americans what they stand to lose?This episode is part of The Young Ike’s Public Lands Under Threat season.To find a Podclub event near you or start your own, visit: theyoungike.org/podclubFollow us on Social Media:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theyoungike/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/p/The-Young-IKE-61579184976598/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-young-ike/

America holds more than 600 million acres of public land—forests, canoe country, deserts, and backcountry that belong to all of us. Right now, for the first time in a generation, their future is genuinely up for debate.‍ ‍In this opening episode, host Griffith Pugh lays out the roadmap for the season: the sell-off proposals, agency shake-ups, and battles like the Boundary Waters mining ban—and the deeper questions beneath them. Most importantly, he explains why these issues matter to anyone who's ever fished, hunted, paddled, or walked a trail they didn't have to pay to use.‍ ‍Throughout this season, we'll hear from the people who have spent decades managing, defending, and studying America's public lands—not to tell you what to think, but to help you understand what's changing and what's at stake.‍ ‍Featured Voices This SeasonHal Herring — journalist and author, on why public lands remain one of America's greatest democratic ideas—and the economic forces reshaping them.Mike Dombeck — the only person to have led both the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, on the long pendulum of conservation history and what real stewardship requires.Dave Zentner — lifelong Minnesota conservationist and past national Izaak Walton League president, on sixty years of building coalitions across the aisle.Becky Rom — national chair of the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters, from the front lines of one of the country's defining public-lands fights.How This Season WorksEpisodes release weekly over the coming weeks. Follow along, then take the conversation off the algorithm and into the real world through Podclubs—community-led discussion groups modeled after book clubs.‍ ‍Ready to keep the conversation going? Find a Podclub near you—or start your own—at theyoungike.org/podclub.‍ ‍Sources & Further ReadingFederal Public LandsFederal land ownership overview — Congressional Research ServiceMike Lee's public-lands sell-off proposal — Utah News DispatchIdaho's study on taking over federal lands — Boise State Public RadioFederal AgenciesForest Service headquarters moving to Salt Lake City — USDAClosure of 57 research stations — PEERRepeal of the 2001 Roadless Rule — USDA · PewProposed U.S. Wildland Fire Service — Department of the InteriorBoundary WatersPublic Land Order 7917 (20-year mining ban) — Save the Boundary WatersH.J.Res.140 challenge — Congress.gov · Center for Western Priorities‍ ‍Background‍ ‍Where the West's water comes from — U.S. Forest Service‍

Climate Future Makers is a monthly series from The Young Ike Project spotlighting people actively building real-world climate solutions. The goal is to move beyond the doom-and-denial cycle that often defines environmental discourse and instead tell the stories of builders, innovators, and leaders shaping a more sustainable future right now.Our second guest is Jason Dodier, co-founder of Grain Ecosystem, a company working at the intersection of carbon removal, waste management, and regenerative agriculture. After spending more than a decade in the global energy and infrastructure sector, Dodier turned his attention to one of climate's most overlooked opportunities: transforming waste streams into valuable environmental and economic assets.In this episode, we explore Dodier's journey from international business and energy infrastructure to climate entrepreneurship. Along the way, he shares how experiences working across the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and the United States shaped his understanding of energy systems, economic development, and the growing need for scalable climate solutions.We also dive into the emerging world of biochar—a carbon-rich material created from agricultural and forestry waste that can improve soil health, reduce pollution, generate renewable energy, and permanently remove carbon from the atmosphere. Dodier explains how Grain Ecosystem helps connect project developers, investors, waste producers, and carbon markets to accelerate the deployment of these technologies across communities around the world.Finally, we discuss the challenges of building a climate startup, the importance of storytelling in driving innovation, and why Dodier believes many of the most important climate solutions will emerge from local communities willing to rethink their relationship with waste, energy, and land.

Climate Future Makers is a new monthly series from The Young Ike Project spotlighting people actively building real-world climate solutions. The goal is to move beyond the doom-and-denial cycle that often defines environmental discourse and instead tell the stories of builders, innovators, and leaders shaping a more sustainable future right now.Our first guest is Bill Brady, a veteran industrial executive turned climate entrepreneur. After decades leading global chemical businesses, Brady shifted his career toward solving large-scale environmental problems and has since helped launch ventures in clean fuels, low-carbon cement, and sustainable agriculture.In this episode, we explore Brady’s latest venture, Kula Bio, which is developing biologically based nitrogen fertilizer as an alternative to the century-old Haber-Bosch process. We discuss how synthetic fertilizer helped feed the modern world, but also contributes heavily to greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution, and soil degradation. Brady explains how Kula’s technology uses naturally occurring microbes to deliver nitrogen in a cleaner, more regenerative way.We also dive into the realities of climate entrepreneurship—breaking into markets long controlled by established industry players. Brady closes with a broader vision for the future: that the nexus between energy and technology will define the next century and beyond.

Andrew Odlyzko is a mathematician, technology historian, and professor at the University of Minnesota who has spent decades studying the relationship between innovation, finance, and technological manias. His research spans everything from the railway booms of the 19th century to the dot-com bubble—and what those earlier episodes can teach us about the AI buildout happening today.In this episode, we zoom out from the day-to-day politics of data centers to ask a bigger historical question: what happens when a transformative technology collides with hype, speculation, and the promise of world-changing progress? Odlyzko explains why AI fits into a much longer story of technological booms, why bubbles often form around real breakthroughs, and how past manias sometimes left society with useful infrastructure even when investors got burned.We also talk about why he believes the current AI moment is becoming more dangerous. As improvements in large language models begin to look more incremental, the scale of spending on chips, data centers, and infrastructure keeps rising. Odlyzko argues that the real warning sign is financial: once the buildout moves beyond hyperscalers spending their own profits and starts drawing in outside investors through increasingly creative financing, the broader risks grow.This is apart of The Young Ike’s Live Series. To find a Podclub event near you or start your own, visit: theyoungike.org/podclubThis is apart of The Young Ike’s Live Series. To find a Podclub event near you or start your own, visit: theyoungike.org/podclubFollow us on Social Media:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theyoungike/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/p/The-Young-IKE-61579184976598/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-young-ike/

Carrie Jennings is the Research and Policy Director at the Freshwater Society and a geologist by training. She’s one of Minnesota’s leading voices on groundwater and water policy. A past guest from last season, we’re thrilled to have her back on the podcast.In this episode, we talk about the rise of hyperscale data centers and what they could mean for water in Minnesota and across the Great Lakes region. Jennings explains why groundwater is often misunderstood as “infinite,” how data centers can function like adding a new small city’s worth of demand to the edge of a metro-center.We also dig into the governance problem: non-disclosure agreements, limited public data on actual water use, and how municipal hookups can effectively let data centers “jump the line” during scarcity—despite statutory water-use priorities. Jennings closes by outlining where Minnesota’s system is breaking down and what it would take to build clearer rules before the next wave of high-volume water users arrives.This is apart of The Young Ike’s Live Series. To find a Podclub event near you or start your own, visit: theyoungike.org/podclubThis is apart of The Young Ike’s Live Series. To find a Podclub event near you or start your own, visit: theyoungike.org/podclubFollow us on Social Media:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theyoungike/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/p/The-Young-IKE-61579184976598/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-young-ike/

Kathryn Hoffman is the CEO of the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA), where she leads legal and policy efforts to protect Minnesota’s water, air, and natural resources.In this episode, we talk about the rapid expansion of data centers and AI infrastructure — and the growing tension between economic development, environmental protection, and democratic transparency. Hoffman explains how data centers are currently reviewed and approved in Minnesota, why MCEA is challenging opaque environmental reviews and non-disclosure agreements, and what stronger guardrails could look like to ensure communities understand the water, energy, and environmental tradeoffs before these projects move forward.This is apart of The Young Ike’s Live Series. To find a Podclub event near you or start your own, visit: theyoungike.org/podclubThis is apart of The Young Ike’s Live Series. To find a Podclub event near you or start your own, visit: theyoungike.org/podclubFollow us on Social Media:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theyoungike/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/p/The-Young-IKE-61579184976598/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-young-ike/

This episode is a special break from our current season on data centers and the environmental trade-offs of the AI infrastructure buildout. Instead, we return to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness for a clear-eyed, one-year-in assessment of what has actually changed under the second Trump administration. When I first spoke with Becky Rom just before the 2024 election, much of the conversation was shaped by uncertainty. A year later, a lot has changed. Or has it?Recorded on January 21st—the morning the House voted on H.J. Res. 140—this conversation walks through the concrete policy mechanics behind the fight to undo federal protections for the Boundary Waters: the 20-year mining withdrawal, the Congressional Review Act, and what’s at stake if Congress succeeds. Rom, National Chair of the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters, explains what change is tangible versus symbolic, how federal and state protections intersect, and why this moment feels both like a culmination of the past year—and another critical chapter in the decades-long battle over America’s most visited wilderness.Articles Mentioned: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2025/02/11/an-ely-group-agrees-on-the-value-of-the-boundary-waters-but-they-cant-agree-on-mining?utm_source=chatgpt.comhttps://www.themeateater.com/conservation/public-lands-and-waters/protecting-the-boundary-waters-is-a-test-of-leadership-for-americas-publicLearn more about SAVE at: savetheboundarywaters.orgFollow us on Social Media:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theyoungike/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/p/The-Young-IKE-61579184976598/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-young-ike/