PBS’ “America Outdoors with Bartunde Thurston” spends an hour in Utah on Wednesday, sharing stories from the Beehive State with the nation. And more than a few spectacular bits of scenery.
The episode opens with the host paragliding at Point of the Mountain, and he’s very excited. “Oh, wow!” Thurston yells, laughing with joy. “Up here, you feel the wind. The exhilaration of floating on currents of air. What an amazing way to encounter Utah.” Although, he readily admits, it “pushed my comfort level. … I’m just not in the habit of walking off of cliffs.”
“We could have done a whole show just about leisure time and outdoors and lawn chairs and barbecue and all that,” Thurston said in a teleconference with journalists. “And that’s fun, but that’s not the whole story. What makes me the proudest of this show is that we are showcasing people who have a relationship with nature, who normally aren’t positioned as such.”
He meets Ben Abbott, professor of environmental science, who’s not identified as a member of the Brigham Young University faculty, although he does say he’s a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Thurston is startled when Abbott tells him that the lake has lost 75% of its water, exposing 800 square miles of former lakebed. “It’s eerie to be cycling on ground that used to be under water. But here’s something eerier — if the lake recedes further, exposing a lakebed filled with toxins like mercury and arsenic, the air around us could become dangerous to breathe.”
“Can nature help repair your mind and body? ... I’ve been wondering about this a lot since I got to Utah, Thurston said. “And that’s how I came to find myself in a beautiful garden with electrodes pasted all over my head.”
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