An Acoustic Ecologist Who's Losing His Hearing Wants To Help Us All Be Better Listeners

The art of truly listening to nature gets schooled out of most of us from an early age. But after acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton started losing his hearing, he decided he wanted to help us relearn the skill. As journalist Ashley Ahearn (@aahearn) reports, Hempton and a small team put together a special series of his favorite recordings — from the grasslands of Canada to the rain forests of Hawaii — in order to preserve those sounds. His new podcast, produced in partnership with BirdNote, is called "Sound Escapes."