IAN SEABROOK
/Award-Winning Underwater Director of Photography
ROWIN SNIJDER
/Founder of Le Compostier, Creator of “Worm Hotels” for Community Composting
Know first of all that we are not separate from nature, but that we are part of it. To not even think of what is the benefit for me from it. I find it a very beautiful the concept of the food forest. Like you're actually building soil, and then the surplus is that you get some food back. To focus more on giving than on taking, especially for children.
What I like to teach my children–really look at what is your talent, what drives you and how you think you can use that to improve and to create more harmony. I think is very important. Do not think so much about what others expect from you, but what is really driving you? I think that's very important to find out and go for it.
JOHANNES STRIPPLE & HARRIET BULKELEY
/Carbon Ruins · Climate Futures · Climaginaries · Earth Systems Governance Project
Our starting point was that a lot of the stories we tell about future worlds are quite poor. It’s not stories that are meeting the world as it is now. It’s difficult for people to inhabit the kinds of worlds that we imagine through scenarios or modelling, so there is a kind of distance between where we are now and the life worlds of a decarbonized or a post-fossil world.
JASON W. MOORE
/Environmental Historian, Historical Geographer & Professor of Sociology · Binghamton University
We’re not waiting for the disasters to happen. They have happened. They are happening, and the disasters aren’t natural. They involve climate, but the disasters are very much made by the conditions of capitalist accumulation. We are not going to be able to grapple with the challenges of planetary crisis with the thinking that created planetary crisis.
EARTHLIFE AFRICA
/Earthlife Africa is a non-profit organisation, founded in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1988, that seeks a better life for all people without exploiting other people or degrading their environment. We want to encourage and support individuals, businesses and industries to reduce pollution, minimise waste and protect our natural resources.
CRAIG KAUFFMAN
/Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Oregon
Member of the United Nations Knowledge Network on Harmony with Nature
The term Rights of Nature tends to be applied to two different things. One is this underlying legal philosophy that is actually broader than just Rights of Nature, that’s probably better understood as ecological jurisprudence that may or may not be expressed in terms of rights, but because Rights of Nature is getting a lot of attention that term tends to be applied to represent this broader underlying philosophy. Of course, the other way it’s used it to refer to the legal provisions that explicitly recognize Rights for ecosystems.
PETER SUTORIS
/Anthropologist, Educator, Writer & Filmmaker
As a culture, how do we approach the environment? How do we approach the planet? Within our education systems are we emphasizing our arrogance? Or are we emphasizing our humility in the face of planetary-scale challenges? I think at the moment, from what I’ve seen in a number of countries, this huge focus on the natural sciences, hard science as a way of mastering nature. And perhaps less of a focus on social sciences, humanities that allow us to reflect a bit more deeply on our relationship more fundamentally with the planet.
ANDERS LEVERMANN
/Professor at Physics Institute of Potsdam University
Senior Research Scientist at Earth Institute, Columbia University
A lot of people think climate change is about avoiding the extinction of mankind. In my opinion, climate change is about putting pressure on society and disrupting society to an extent that it can't function properly anymore. So my greatest fear is that if we don't combat climate change, the weather extremes will hit us with a frequency and intensity that we will not be able to recover after each impact. And then we will start to fight with each other.
JON GERTNER
/Jon Gertner is a journalist and historian whose stories on science, technology, and nature have appeared in a host of national magazines. Since 2003 he has worked mainly as a feature writer for The New York Times Magazine. He is the author of The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation and The Ice at the End of the World. A frequent lecturer on technology and science history, Gertner lives with his family in New Jersey.
This interview was conducted by Mia Funk & Lila Muscosky with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producers on this podcast were Panisara Jaijongkit & Lila Muscosky. Digital Media Coordinator is Hannah Story Brown.
Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process.
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MELISSA CRISTINA MARQUEZ
/Shark Scientist, Science Communicator, TV Presenter & Author
A lot of people when you think of sharks, you think of hammerheads, great white sharks, tiger sharks, but there’s so much more diversity than just that. There’s over 500 different species and on average we’re discovering new species every two weeks, not just of sharks, but also their cousins, the stingrays, skates and sometimes the chimeras as well. And so knowing that diversity exists, for me it’s really important to get that message out there.
ALAN JACOBSEN
/Director of Photography
Emmy & Sundance Special Jury Award-Winning & Oscar Nominated Documentaries
I hope that film and the story can help people get their heads around these huge ideas that are pretty terrifying and almost hopeless to think about. What can we do? Are we on this track? What have we done to the earth? I think scientists are very much starting to agree that it’s getting to the point where it’s almost too late. So can humans see that far ahead? Can we understand the track we’re on in time? I don’t know, but I’m willing to use whatever tools possible to try to help that conversation happen.
CARLOS SOUZA, JR.
/Senior Research Associate at Imazon
Technical & Scientific Coordinator at MapBiomas
Find a balance. Use technology. And connect with nature. I think that’s really critical. There is big hope for your generation because you have better environmental education. I can see this. You are more aware of these issues. In terms of the environmental issues that we face now, we need to connect more with nature, to open up your heart for that. You have this amazing opportunity to reach out information to explore technologies through the Internet. What you choose now what we’re going to focus on, it’s really critical.
PETER SINGER & ANANTHA DURAIAPPAH
/Human & Animal Rights Activists
“74 billion animals, according to the United National Food & Agriculture Organization, that we raise and kill each year on this planet. If we can’t make inroads into that and change attitudes to that, then I still have fears for where we are going.” – Peter Singer