David Farrier - Author of “Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils” - Prof. U of Edinburgh

David Farrier - Author of “Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils” - Prof. U of Edinburgh

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Author of Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils · Anthropocene Poetics
Professor of Literature & the Environment · University of Edinburgh.

Just thinking about how our actions play out over multiple generations who will have to live with the consequences of these decisions. I think we need to stretch our sense of time, and within that stretch our sense of empathy. The philosopher Roman Krznaric talks about that in his book The Good Ancestor, that we need a more elastic sense of empathy that can encompass not just those close to us or living alongside us, but those who have yet to be born will have to inherit the world that we passed down to them. But I think in stretching that sense of empathy and stretching that sense of the times that we touch, if you like, because all of us are engaged in activities that will lead long legacies, long tails, in terms of the fossil fuels we're consuming. And so, alongside that, I think we need to accept that the time we live in is a strange one, and time itself is doing strange things in the anthropocene.

Highlights - John Beaton - Founder, Director & Co-Visionary of Fairhaven Farm

Highlights - John Beaton - Founder, Director & Co-Visionary of Fairhaven Farm

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Founder, Director & Co-Visionary of Fairhaven Farm

What's trending now with beginning farmers is that it is creating this kind of community connection. It's bringing people to the farm. It's connecting them to their food source. That creates community. It helps cultivate culture and connectivity, and so I think overall, it's like the landscape and agriculture as a whole is shifting towards a different direction.

John Beaton - Founder, Director & Co-Visionary of Fairhaven Farm

John Beaton - Founder, Director & Co-Visionary of Fairhaven Farm

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Founder, Director & Co-Visionary of Fairhaven Farm

What's trending now with beginning farmers is that it is creating this kind of community connection. It's bringing people to the farm. It's connecting them to their food source. That creates community. It helps cultivate culture and connectivity, and so I think overall, it's like the landscape and agriculture as a whole is shifting towards a different direction.

Highlights - Donald Hoffman - Author of “The case against reality: Why evolution hid the truth from our eyes”

Highlights - Donald Hoffman - Author of “The case against reality: Why evolution hid the truth from our eyes”

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Professor of Cognitive Sciences, UC Irvine
Author of The case against reality: Why evolution hid the truth from our eyes

This is really what life, I think, is about - learning to not believe your thoughts. Watch your thoughts, see their patterns and learn that you are not at the whim and beck and call of your thoughts. You can watch your thoughts, and you can choose to let go of thoughts and just be present and let go of the complaints. And that then opens up a level of creativity that's surprising. It could be in dance, science, it could be in music, or art. Wherever you have creative expression, letting go of thought and having this balance between thinking and no thinking, going into complete silence and then pulling ideas back for your art, your science, your dance, whatever it might be, is really the dance of life.

Donald Hoffman - Prof. of Cognitive Sciences, UC Irvine - Author of “The case against reality”

Donald Hoffman - Prof. of Cognitive Sciences, UC Irvine - Author of “The case against reality”

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Professor of Cognitive Sciences, UC Irvine
Author of The case against reality: Why evolution hid the truth from our eyes

This is really what life, I think, is about - learning to not believe your thoughts. Watch your thoughts, see their patterns and learn that you are not at the whim and beck and call of your thoughts. You can watch your thoughts, and you can choose to let go of thoughts and just be present and let go of the complaints. And that then opens up a level of creativity that's surprising. It could be in dance, science, it could be in music, or art. Wherever you have creative expression, letting go of thought and having this balance between thinking and no thinking, going into complete silence and then pulling ideas back for your art, your science, your dance, whatever it might be, is really the dance of life.

Highlights - Kevin Trenberth - Nobel Prize Winner - Author of “The Changing Flow of Energy Through the Climate System”

Highlights - Kevin Trenberth - Nobel Prize Winner - Author of “The Changing Flow of Energy Through the Climate System”

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Nobel Prize-winning Climate Scientist · Lead Author of IPCC Assessment Reports
Author of The Changing Flow of Energy Through the Climate System

This is an intergenerational problem. The response to climate change relates very much to value systems. And one of the questions people ask, or should ask is: How much do you value the future generations? How much do you value the world that you're leaving your children and your grandchildren? And what kind of a climate you're leaving them with? And some people don't care, and some people don't have children. And they say, "Eh, it's not an issue for me. It's not one of my values." And so this is part of the problem, but if you're thinking about peoples as a whole, all of the community that you're leaving behind, this is a collective problem.

Kevin Trenberth - Nobel Prize-winning Climate Scientist - Author of “The Changing Flow of Energy Through the Climate System”

Kevin Trenberth - Nobel Prize-winning Climate Scientist - Author of “The Changing Flow of Energy Through the Climate System”

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Nobel Prize-winning Climate Scientist · Lead Author of IPCC Assessment Reports
Author of The Changing Flow of Energy Through the Climate System

This is an intergenerational problem. The response to climate change relates very much to value systems. And one of the questions people ask, or should ask is: How much do you value the future generations? How much do you value the world that you're leaving your children and your grandchildren? And what kind of a climate you're leaving them with? And some people don't care, and some people don't have children. And they say, "Eh, it's not an issue for me. It's not one of my values." And so this is part of the problem, but if you're thinking about peoples as a whole, all of the community that you're leaving behind, this is a collective problem.

Highlights - Bertrand Piccard - Explorer, Founder, Solar Impulse Foundation: 1000+ Profitable Climate Solutions

Highlights - Bertrand Piccard - Explorer, Founder, Solar Impulse Foundation: 1000+ Profitable Climate Solutions

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Psychiatrist, Explorer, Aviator of the First Round-the-World Solar-powered Flight
Founder and Chairman of Solar Impulse Foundation: 1000+ Profitable Climate Solutions
United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Environment

So this is why I prefer to speak with a really down to earth language. So maybe the people who love nature are going to say, “Oh, Bertrand Piccard, now he is too down to earth. He's speaking about profitable solutions. He's speaking to the industries that are polluting,” but we have to speak to the industries that are polluting and bring them profitable solutions, otherwise the world will never change, or humankind will never change. And don't forget one thing, what we are damaging is not the beauty of nature. What is being damaged is the quality of life of human beings on Earth because we can still have beautiful things to see, but if we have climate change, if we have tropical disease in Europe, if we have heat waves, floods, droughts, millions of climate refugees, life will be miserable, even if nature is still beautiful.

Bertrand Piccard - Explorer, Founder, Solar Impulse Foundation: 1000+ Profitable Climate Solutions

Bertrand Piccard - Explorer, Founder, Solar Impulse Foundation: 1000+ Profitable Climate Solutions

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Psychiatrist, Explorer, Aviator of the First Round-the-World Solar-powered Flight
Founder and Chairman of Solar Impulse Foundation: 1000+ Profitable Climate Solutions
United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Environment

So this is why I prefer to speak with a really down to earth language. So maybe the people who love nature are going to say, “Oh, Bertrand Piccard, now he is too down to earth. He's speaking about profitable solutions. He's speaking to the industries that are polluting,” but we have to speak to the industries that are polluting and bring them profitable solutions, otherwise the world will never change, or humankind will never change. And don't forget one thing, what we are damaging is not the beauty of nature. What is being damaged is the quality of life of human beings on Earth because we can still have beautiful things to see, but if we have climate change, if we have tropical disease in Europe, if we have heat waves, floods, droughts, millions of climate refugees, life will be miserable, even if nature is still beautiful.

Highlights - Dr. Charles D. Koven - Lead Author - IPCC Report - Earth System Scientist

Highlights - Dr. Charles D. Koven - Lead Author - IPCC Report - Earth System Scientist

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Earth System Scientist, Climate Sciences Department, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Lead Author on the IPCC Report

Looking into the future, as a scientist, what I've learned how to do is hold multiple futures in my head at the same time because we just don't know. We don't know what the future holds. We need to fight for the futures that we want, and against the futures that we don't want. All I can really say is that it's up to us. It's up to us to fight and advocate for the future we want, and what does that look like, and how do we get there?

Dr. Charles D. Koven - Earth System Scientist - Lead Author on the IPCC Report

Dr. Charles D. Koven - Earth System Scientist - Lead Author on the IPCC Report

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Earth System Scientist, Climate Sciences Department, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Lead Author on the IPCC Report

Looking into the future, as a scientist, what I've learned how to do is hold multiple futures in my head at the same time because we just don't know. We don't know what the future holds. We need to fight for the futures that we want, and against the futures that we don't want. All I can really say is that it's up to us. It's up to us to fight and advocate for the future we want, and what does that look like, and how do we get there?

Highlights - Jonathan Newman - VP, Research, Wilfrid Laurier University

Highlights - Jonathan Newman - VP, Research, Wilfrid Laurier University

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Lead Author of Climate Change Biology, and Defending Biodiversity: Environmental Science and Ethics
Vice President of Research, Wilfrid Laurier University

Climate change is certainly going to affect biodiversity. Some species will benefit from climate change, but others will not, and we'll have different ecosystems, different biotic communities as a result of this. I think the impacts that are likely are pretty clear, and I think that's a pretty good reason to do all those things we can do without completely destroying our economies and our communities because those things have moral value as well. It's not just the environment that we think is important. We also think humans are important, then doing the things we can do now, do the less painful things first. We should have done them already, and we should be now thinking about how to do the harder things.

Jonathan Newman - Lead Author, “Defending Biodiversity: Environmental Science and Ethics”

Jonathan Newman - Lead Author, “Defending Biodiversity: Environmental Science and Ethics”

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Lead Author of Climate Change Biology, and Defending Biodiversity: Environmental Science and Ethics
Vice President of Research, Wilfrid Laurier University

Climate change is certainly going to affect biodiversity. Some species will benefit from climate change, but others will not, and we'll have different ecosystems, different biotic communities as a result of this. I think the impacts that are likely are pretty clear, and I think that's a pretty good reason to do all those things we can do without completely destroying our economies and our communities because those things have moral value as well. It's not just the environment that we think is important. We also think humans are important, then doing the things we can do now, do the less painful things first. We should have done them already, and we should be now thinking about how to do the harder things.

Highlights - Roy Scranton - Author of “Learning to Die in the Anthropocene”

Highlights - Roy Scranton - Author of “Learning to Die in the Anthropocene”

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Author of Learning to Die in the Anthropocene & We’re Doomed, Now What?
Director of the Notre Dame Environmental Humanities Initiative

It seems irresponsible to me to downplay the possible consequences of climate change. It seems irresponsible to assume that we're going to fix it. And so I think it's absolutely a responsibility for the people who are talking about it and thinking about it, to look at the worst-case scenario and to look at the current trajectories, absent technologies for carbon scrubbers, to look at where we're actually headed, the worst-case scenarios, and address that and bring that to each other and to our children and to our students. When you really look at the situation, it's scary and terrifying, and it upends everything that we've been told to make sense of life.

Roy Scranton - Author of “Learning to Die in the Anthropocene” - “We’re Doomed, Now What?”

Roy Scranton - Author of “Learning to Die in the Anthropocene” - “We’re Doomed, Now What?”

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Author of Learning to Die in the Anthropocene & We’re Doomed, Now What?
Director of the Notre Dame Environmental Humanities Initiative

It seems irresponsible to me to downplay the possible consequences of climate change. It seems irresponsible to assume that we're going to fix it. And so I think it's absolutely a responsibility for the people who are talking about it and thinking about it, to look at the worst-case scenario and to look at the current trajectories, absent technologies for carbon scrubbers, to look at where we're actually headed, the worst-case scenarios, and address that and bring that to each other and to our children and to our students. When you really look at the situation, it's scary and terrifying, and it upends everything that we've been told to make sense of life.

Highlights - David A. Banks - Dir. of Globalization Studies - SUNY Albany

Highlights - David A. Banks - Dir. of Globalization Studies - SUNY Albany

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Director of Globalization Studies University of Albany at SUNY
Author of The City Authentic: How the Attention Economy Builds Urban America (forthcoming)

I think that is often what tourism is starting to move towards. Is this existential authentic? And what that means is that you're not even really looking to meet expectations or validate that the thing in front of you is what it says it is. You are trying to recreate who you think you should be in a time that is disconnected from your usual life. Because we're a pretty jaded and suspicious society now. “Is it a deep fake?”We live in this world of make-believe and fakeness, and you want to get to something that's real. And what's more real than yourself and the story that you tell to yourself about yourself. And if you can really connect to that, you'll feel really good.

David A. Banks - Dir. of Globalization Studies - SUNY Albany - Author of “The City Authentic”

David A. Banks - Dir. of Globalization Studies - SUNY Albany - Author of “The City Authentic”

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Director of Globalization Studies University of Albany at SUNY
Author of The City Authentic: How the Attention Economy Builds Urban America (forthcoming)

Author of “The City Authentic”I think that is often what tourism is starting to move towards. Is this existential authentic? And what that means is that you're not even really looking to meet expectations or validate that the thing in front of you is what it says it is. You are trying to recreate who you think you should be in a time that is disconnected from your usual life. Because we're a pretty jaded and suspicious society now. “Is it a deep fake?” We live in this world of make-believe and fakeness, and you want to get to something that's real. And what's more real than yourself and the story that you tell to yourself about yourself. And if you can really connect to that, you'll feel really good.

Highlights - KC Legacion on Degrowth, Technology and Social Media

Highlights - KC Legacion on Degrowth, Technology and Social Media

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Member of Web Collective degrowth.info
Master of Environmental Studies candidate, University of Pennsylvania

Degrowth as an idea has intellectual roots in the environmental critiques of the sixties and seventies found in landmark works like Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, the Club of Rome's Limits to Growth report, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen's The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, which was a seminal piece of economic theory that applied the laws of thermodynamics to the economy and was very influential for ecological economics, which is intertwined with degrowth. Degrowth was first formulated in 1972 by French philosopher André Gorz in a public debate where he used the term décroissance to question whether planetary stability was compatible with capitalism.

KC Legacion on Degrowth, Technology and Social Media

KC Legacion on Degrowth, Technology and Social Media

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Member of Web Collective degrowth.info
Master of Environmental Studies candidate, University of Pennsylvania

Degrowth as an idea has intellectual roots in the environmental critiques of the sixties and seventies found in landmark works like Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, the Club of Rome's Limits to Growth report, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen's The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, which was a seminal piece of economic theory that applied the laws of thermodynamics to the economy and was very influential for ecological economics, which is intertwined with degrowth. Degrowth was first formulated in 1972 by French philosopher André Gorz in a public debate where he used the term décroissance to question whether planetary stability was compatible with capitalism.

Highlights - Chris Funk - Dir., Climate Hazards Center - Author of “Drought, Flood, Fire…”

Highlights - Chris Funk - Dir., Climate Hazards Center - Author of “Drought, Flood, Fire…”

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Director of the Climate Hazards Center at UC Santa Barbara
Author of Drought, Flood, Fire: How Climate Change Contributes to Recent Catastrophes

The work that we're doing here at the Climate Hazards Center is trying to build out the science to cope with a two-degree world. And I think that we can do that. It's not going to be easy, but I think that's definitely within our capabilities, and it is already making human beings be smarter together in very empowering ways. And these are examples of people in Boulder, Colorado getting ready for the next big flood event and having conversations between the National Weather Service and local communities, or me on a zoom call at seven in the morning with my friends in East Africa as they're getting ready to cope with the next extreme. There are great examples of radio clubs in Niger who are working with their meteorological agencies and local farming communities that are pulling data that we're producing here in Santa Barbara, precipitation estimates, but then using them to decide whether they should fertilize their millet crops or not. And so there are ways that we can counter climate hazards and weather hazards by being smarter.