Highlights - David Farrier - Author of “Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils”

Highlights - David Farrier - Author of “Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils”

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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.

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) Stuart Pimm · Expert in Study of Present-Day Extinctions · Founder/Dir. Saving Nature

(Highlights) Stuart Pimm · Expert in Study of Present-Day Extinctions · Founder/Dir. Saving Nature

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Global Leader in the Study of Present-Day Extinctions & Biodiversity
Founder & Director of Saving Nature

It's a complicated issue. I think a lot of those bird disappearances come from the fact that we have massively intensified our agriculture. Large areas of North America and Europe are now under intense agriculture. They are sprayed with a whole variety of pesticides, which I think is also responsible for the fact that many insects have disappeared, so species that depend on farmland have clearly declined dramatically, but it isn't all birds and there is a piece of this complicated story that involves water birds. Herons and egrets and ducks. Those species both in North America and Europe, are now much more common than they were 30, or 40 years ago. That comes from active conservation of protecting wetlands, making sure we don't shoot our wetland birds. So it’s not all doom and gloom. There are some success stories. There are many things we can do. I think 50 years ago, there were only something like 300 bald eagles in the lower 48 states. Bald eagles are now nesting in every state apart from Hawaii. Our conservation efforts have done a great job.

Stuart Pimm · Expert in Study of Present-Day Extinctions · Founder/Dir. Saving Nature

Stuart Pimm · Expert in Study of Present-Day Extinctions · Founder/Dir. Saving Nature

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Global Leader in the Study of Present-Day Extinctions & Biodiversity
Founder & Director of Saving Nature

It's a complicated issue. I think a lot of those bird disappearances come from the fact that we have massively intensified our agriculture. Large areas of North America and Europe are now under intense agriculture. They are sprayed with a whole variety of pesticides, which I think is also responsible for the fact that many insects have disappeared, so species that depend on farmland have clearly declined dramatically, but it isn't all birds and there is a piece of this complicated story that involves water birds. Herons and egrets and ducks. Those species both in North America and Europe, are now much more common than they were 30, or 40 years ago. That comes from active conservation of protecting wetlands, making sure we don't shoot our wetland birds. So it’s not all doom and gloom. There are some success stories. There are many things we can do. I think 50 years ago, there were only something like 300 bald eagles in the lower 48 states. Bald eagles are now nesting in every state apart from Hawaii. Our conservation efforts have done a great job.

(Highlights) Candace Fujikane · Author of "Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future”

(Highlights) Candace Fujikane · Author of "Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future”

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Author of Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future
Professor of English at the University of the Hawaiʻi at Manoa

The struggle for a planetary future calls for a profound epistemological shift. Indigenous ancestral knowledges are now providing a foundation for our work against climate change, one based on what I refer to as Indigenous economies of abundance—as opposed to capitalist economies of scarcity. Rather than seeing climate change as apocalyptic, we can see that climate change is bringing about the demise of capital, making way for Indigenous lifeways that center familial relationships with the earth and elemental forms. Kānaka Maoli are restoring the worlds where their attunement to climatic change and their capacity for kilo adaptation, regeneration, and tranforma- tion will enable them to survive what capital cannot.

Candace Fujikane - Author of "Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future"

Candace Fujikane - Author of "Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future"

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Author of Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future
Professor of English at the University of the Hawaiʻi at Manoa

The struggle for a planetary future calls for a profound epistemological shift. Indigenous ancestral knowledges are now providing a foundation for our work against climate change, one based on what I refer to as Indigenous economies of abundance—as opposed to capitalist economies of scarcity. Rather than seeing climate change as apocalyptic, we can see that climate change is bringing about the demise of capital, making way for Indigenous lifeways that center familial relationships with the earth and elemental forms. Kānaka Maoli are restoring the worlds where their attunement to climatic change and their capacity for kilo adaptation, regeneration, and tranforma- tion will enable them to survive what capital cannot.

(Highlights) Ami Vitale · Award-winning Photographer, Filmmaker & Exec. Director of Vital Impacts

(Highlights) Ami Vitale · Award-winning Photographer, Filmmaker & Exec. Director of Vital Impacts

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Award-Winning Photographer & Filmmaker
Executive Director of Vital Impacts

When are we all going to start to care about one another? Because all of our individual choices do have impacts. And I just think the demands that we place on this planet, on the ecosystems, are what are driving conflict and human suffering. In some cases, it's really the scarcity of resources, just like water. In others, it's the changing climate and the loss of fertile lands to be able to grow food. But in the end, it's always the people living in these places that really suffer the most. All of my work today, it’s not really about wildlife, and it's not just about people either. It's about how deeply interconnected all of those things are. People and the human condition are the backdrop of every one of the stories on this planet.

Ami Vitale · Award-Winning Photographer, Filmmaker & Exec. Director of Vital Impacts

Ami Vitale · Award-Winning Photographer, Filmmaker & Exec. Director of Vital Impacts

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Award-Winning Photographer & Filmmaker
Executive Director of Vital Impacts

When are we all going to start to care about one another? Because all of our individual choices do have impacts. And I just think the demands that we place on this planet, on the ecosystems, are what are driving conflict and human suffering. In some cases, it's really the scarcity of resources, just like water. In others, it's the changing climate and the loss of fertile lands to be able to grow food. But in the end, it's always the people living in these places that really suffer the most. All of my work today, it’s not really about wildlife, and it's not just about people either. It's about how deeply interconnected all of those things are. People and the human condition are the backdrop of every one of the stories on this planet.

Daniel Sherrell · Author of "Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World”

Daniel Sherrell · Author of "Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World”

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Author of Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World
Organizer · Campaign Director Climate Jobs National Resource Center

It felt to me that if I wasn't able to figure out a way to orchestrate a genuine emotional encounter for myself with the enormity of this thing I was meant to be taking action on, then something in me was going to break, and I just wouldn't be able to keep doing the work. So, there was never a point where it's like, I'm going to write a book, but I did turn to the written word, almost little diary entries, to make psychological and spiritual sense of the crisis that I was dealing with in a thin way every day.

Dr. G. Samantha Rosenthal · Author of "Beyond Hawai'i" & “Living Queer History”
WILLIAM McDONOUGH

WILLIAM McDONOUGH

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Leader in Sustainable Design & Development
Architect, Co-author of Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things

I think believing in something is also part of the responsibility of the believer to sift through these things. So there are a lot of people saying I'm green because they do something less badly. So for me, it’s not green yet, it's just less bad. It's not really good yet. It's not really fabulous, but that just means there's an opportunity to keep going to share information and help each other because in the end, I think what we're dealing with now is the recognition that the world has a very serious issue with climate, that's very clear now. So how can we help each other? The question is no longer what is wrong with the way you're doing it. The real question now is how can I help you?

(Highlights) WILLIAM McDONOUGH

(Highlights) WILLIAM McDONOUGH

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Leader in Sustainable Design & Development
Architect, Co-author of Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things

I think believing in something is also part of the responsibility of the believer to sift through these things. So there are a lot of people saying I'm green because they do something less badly. So for me, it’s not green yet, it's just less bad. It's not really good yet. It's not really fabulous, but that just means there's an opportunity to keep going to share information and help each other because in the end, I think what we're dealing with now is the recognition that the world has a very serious issue with climate, that's very clear now. So how can we help each other? The question is no longer what is wrong with the way you're doing it. The real question now is how can I help you?

(Highlights) STEVE BIDDULPH

(Highlights) STEVE BIDDULPH

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Parent Educator & Bestselling Author of The Secret of Happy Children
Raising Boys, The New Manhood, and 10 Things Girls Need Most

We drastically misuse our mind and have neglected a very important part of the way our mind works in the modern world. I think preindustrial people and our ancestors used this very well. And that is that we have a whole right hemisphere of our brain which doesn't think in words, which takes in the holistic picture of everything around us. Anyone who is listening to this podcast will be aware that sometimes you have got feelings about things. They are signals that are sent from the right hemisphere of the brain, picking up things that we can't consciously interpret or read. It goes through our amygdala, which is our alarm system, and straight down the vagus nerve, and we feel it down in the middle of our body. What the books argue, if you want to be able to parent effectively, and live your life effectively, is to stay in touch with that. Include those signals as part of your mental checking out. Expand your awareness because you can read that every few seconds all the time. And your life will be very different. There are feelings below your feelings. They are not always right, but they're always worth listening to.

STEVE BIDDULPH

STEVE BIDDULPH

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Parent Educator & Bestselling Author of The Secret of Happy Children
Raising Boys, The New Manhood, and 10 Things Girls Need Most

We drastically misuse our mind and have neglected a very important part of the way our mind works in the modern world. I think preindustrial people and our ancestors used this very well. And that is that we have a whole right hemisphere of our brain which doesn't think in words, which takes in the holistic picture of everything around us. Anyone who is listening to this podcast will be aware that sometimes you have got feelings about things. They are signals that are sent from the right hemisphere of the brain, picking up things that we can't consciously interpret or read. It goes through our amygdala, which is our alarm system, and straight down the vagus nerve, and we feel it down in the middle of our body. What the books argue, if you want to be able to parent effectively, and live your life effectively, is to stay in touch with that. Include those signals as part of your mental checking out. Expand your awareness because you can read that every few seconds all the time. And your life will be very different. There are feelings below your feelings. They are not always right, but they're always worth listening to.

(Highlights) DAVID SIMON

(Highlights) DAVID SIMON

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Editor of Rethinking Sustainable Cities · Professor of Development Geography & Director for External Engagement, School of Life Sciences & Environment, Royal Holloway, University of London

That principle, what is now called by Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, and being popularized more widely by the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Network and others as the 15 or 20 Minute City. The idea underpinning it is that a higher proportion of the goods and services, the activities, the social interactions that we need are obtainable within a 1 1/2 to 2 km radius of one's home, which means a far higher proportion of one's individual trips or multiple purpose journeys can be done on foot and by bicycle, therefore, you use your vehicle if you have one more sparingly. You use the bus or minibusses to reach slightly more distant places, and then you have transport interchanges is where you connect with the metro system or the best rapid transit or the railway to reach other parts of large cities or indeed for inner-city journeys. And that is what is now becoming the new best practice in terms of urban planning redesign.

DAVID SIMON

DAVID SIMON

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David Simon is Professor of Development Geography and Director for External Engagement in the School of Life Sciences and the Environment, Royal Holloway, University of London. He was also Director of Mistra Urban Futures, Gothenburg, Sweden from 2014–2019. A former Rhodes Scholar, he specialises in cities, climate change and sustainability, and the relationships between theory, policy and practice, on all of which he has published extensively. At Mistra Urban Futures, he led the pioneering methodological research on comparative transdisciplinary co-production. His extensive experience includes sub-Saharan Africa, South and Southeast Asia, the UK, Sweden and USA. From 2020-21, served as a Commissioner on the international Commission on Sustainable Agricultural Intensification (CoSAI), 2020-21. His most recent books as author, editor or co-editor are Rethinking Sustainable Cities: Accessible, green and fair (Policy Press, 2016), Urban Planet (Cambridge Univ Press, 2018), Holocaust Escapees and Global Development: Hidden histories (Zed Books, 2019), Key Thinkers on Development (2nd edn, Routledge, 2019), Comparative Urban Research from Theory to Practice: Co-production for sustainability (Policy Press, 2020), and Transdisciplinary Knowledge Co-production for Sustainable Cities: a Guide (Practical Action Publishing, 2021).

David Simon · Editor of “Rethinking Sustainable Cities” · Professor of Development Geography & Direc
Future Cities · Climate Change & Environmental Solutions · One Planet Original Series

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk & Eric Rosin with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this podcast was Jacob A. Preisler & Eric Rosin. Digital Media Coordinators are Jacob A. Preisler and Megan Hegenbarth.  

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).

(Highlights) ROLAND GEYER

(Highlights) ROLAND GEYER

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Author of The Business of Less
Professor at Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, UC Santa Barbara

So, if we study transportation, then we need to study urban development and infrastructure. Suddenly, we need to think about housing. We need to think about the co-location of jobs and shops, and you realize it's all connected. That might be one of the challenges of urban sustainability. It's all connected. So the way we move around is connected to the way we built the city. And I think the intrinsic sustainability or non-sustainability in urban areas seems to be designed in. Especially in the United States where there are just so many places where, if you don't have a car, you're basically stranded. You can't go anywhere. The European model is to have co-located things, and I miss that. I think it has some intrinsic sustainability built-in.

ROLAND GEYER

ROLAND GEYER

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Roland Geyer is a Professor at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California at Santa Barbara, and the author of The Business of Less. Since 2000, he has worked with a wide range of governmental organizations, trade associations, and companies on environmental sustainability issues. His overarching goal is to help develop the knowledge, tools, and methods necessary to reduce the environmental impact from industrial production and consumption.

Roland Geyer · Professor at Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, UC Santa Barbara · Au

Future Cities · Climate Change & Environmental Solutions · One Planet Original Series

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk & Yansong Li with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this podcast was Yansong Li. Digital Media Coordinator is Phoebe Brous.

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).

(Highlights) AZBY BROWN

(Highlights) AZBY BROWN

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Author of Just Enough · Small Spaces · Lead Researcher for Safecast
Authority on Japanese Architecture, Design & Environmentalism

In Edo Japan, basically life was pretty good, and they recycled everything. Everything was reused, upcycled. Waste was considered taboo. A person who was wasting was considered an ugly person. So there’s a lot that we could talk about design, the layout, scale. Buildings were rarely taller than two storeys. Very good use of environmental features, microclimates, use of wind for cooling, passive solar heating. Good use of planting, gardens, etc. But regarding cities of the future, I think the main thing is it needs to be a place where people feel like they belong and want to take responsibility.


AZBY BROWN

AZBY BROWN

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Author of Just Enough · Small Spaces · Lead Researcher for Safecast
Authority on Japanese Architecture, Design & Environmentalism

In Edo Japan, basically life was pretty good, and they recycled everything. Everything was reused, upcycled. Waste was considered taboo. A person who was wasting was considered an ugly person. So there’s a lot that we could talk about design, the layout, scale. Buildings were rarely taller than two storeys. Very good use of environmental features, microclimates, use of wind for cooling, passive solar heating. Good use of planting, gardens, etc. But regarding cities of the future, I think the main thing is it needs to be a place where people feel like they belong and want to take responsibility.