The Young Ike Project

A Wilderness Worth Fighting For: The BWCA “One Year In” Revisited ft. Becky Rom

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

From Extraction to Conservation: The Ever-Changing Story of America’s Public Lands ft. Mike Dombeck

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

Who Owns Our Public Lands? Privatization, Power, and the American Commons ft. Hal Herring

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 an

Public Lands Under Threat — Season Premiere

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 gen

Future Makers: Biochar & Turning Waste Into Climate Solutions ft. Jason Dodier

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 do

Future Makers: Fixing Farming’s Fertilizer Problem ft. Bill Brady

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 th

AI, Hype, and the History of Tech Bubbles: What Past Manias Can Teach Us About the Data Center Buildout ft. Dr. Andrew Odlyzko

Andrew Odlyzko is a mathematician, technology historian, and professor at the University of Minnesota who has spent decades studying the relationship between innovation,

A “Small City” of Water Demand: Why Data Centers Are a Water Governance Stress Test ft. Carrie Jennings

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 wate

Who Decides What Gets Built? Data Centers, Democracy, and Environmental Law ft. Kathryn Hoffman

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 natu

One Year In: The Boundary Waters under Trump 2.0 ft. Becky Rom

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 Boun

The Politics of Data Centers—and Whether Minnesota’s Landmark 2040 Clean Energy Law Will Hold ft. Nick Frentz

Minnesota State Senator Nick Frentz chairs the Senate Energy, Utilities, Environment, and Climate Committee and authored Minnesota’s landmark 2023 law requiring 100% carb

Introducing: Data Centers, AI, and the Environment

Artificial intelligence is reshaping how we live, work, and communicate—but the digital world runs on physical infrastructure. This season of The Young Ike explores the r

Carrie Jennings: From Glaciers to Farm Fields—the Story of the Minnesota River Basin

Carrie Jennings has spent her career piecing together how our landscapes came to be—and what’s happening to them now. A geologist by training and now Research and Policy

Kathy Zeman: Building the Local Foodshed and Supporting Actual Food Farmers

Kathy Zeman has seen agriculture from every angle: growing up on a dairy farm, working in animal genetics and feed, and now running Simple Harvest Farm, her 20-acre certi

Will Harris: Taking on Big Ag and Rebuilding Food Systems to Work With Nature

Will Harris is a fourth-generation cattleman from Bluffton, Georgia, and the force behind White Oak Pastures—a farm his family has run since 1866. For decades, Will manag

Becky Rom: The Battle Over Mining & the Fight to Save the Boundary Waters

The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) is one of the most pristine natural landscapes in the United States—but its future is at risk. Becky Rom, national chair

Aimee Boulanger: The Future of Responsible Mining & Mineral Extraction

As demand for lithium, cobalt, and other rare earth minerals skyrockets, the question isn’t if we mine—it’s how. Aimee Boulanger, Executive Director of the Initiative for

Ernest Scheyder: The War Below & the Global Battle Over Critical Minerals

In order to transition to green energy, we need to build infrastructure—but to build that infrastructure, we must mine for critical minerals. Journalist and author Ernest

Roopali Phadke: The Green Metals Dilemma & the Trade-Offs of Clean Energy

The push for green energy requires a massive increase in rare earth minerals like lithium, cobalt, and nickel—but sourcing these materials comes with environmental and et

Q1 2025: Mining, Critical Minerals, and the Quest for a Greener Economy

🎤 TYI Live Event in March 2025! The Young IKE is bringing these conversations into the real world with live quarterly community dialogues. Stay tuned… Follow us on In