Explore every episode of the podcast The Creative Process · Arts, Culture & Society: Books, Film, Music, TV, Art, Writing, Creativity, Education, Environment, Th
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wetlands, Methane & Restoring Earth’s Garden of Eden with EUAN NISBET | 02 Sep 2024 | 00:45:47 | |
Have we entered what Earth scientists call a “termination event,” and what can we do to avoid the worst outcomes? How can a spiritual connection to nature guide us toward better environmental stewardship? What can ancient wisdom teach us about living harmoniously with the Earth? How have wetlands become both crucial carbon sinks and colossal methane emitters in a warming world? Euan Nisbet is an Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences at the Royal Holloway University of London. Specializing in methane and its impact on climate change, his research spans Arctic and Tropical Atmospheric Methane budgets. Nisbet led the MOYA project, focusing on global methane emissions using aircraft and ground-based field campaigns in Africa and South America. Born in Germany and raised in Africa, his field work has taken him around the world. He is the author of The Young Earth and Leaving Eden: To Protect and Manage the Earth. “I am a Christian and I have strong Muslim and Jewish friends as well as great respect for Hindu beliefs. I grew up in Southern Africa and I am well aware of the depth of some Indigenous beliefs. I think that having belief systems does give you a very different perspective sometimes. Now, in Christianity, the concept of the shepherd, human beings are here and this is our garden, our garden of Eden, but we have a responsibility. And if we choose to kick ourselves out of the garden, there are consequences. And that's precisely what we are doing. The garden is there, it's lovely, and we can manage it, and it's our job to manage it. We can manage it properly. We can respect it. It's for all creation, and it's very explicit that it involves all Creation. And that's a very fundamental biblical law that you have to respect all Creation. And if you don't do that, then the consequences—you’re basically throwing yourself out of the garden of Eden." https://pure.royalholloway.ac.uk/en/persons/euan-nisbet www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| How can journalism make people care about crises & create solutions? - Highlights - NICHOLAS KRISTOF | 26 Aug 2024 | 00:16:26 | |
"I'm trying to get people to care about a crisis in ways that may bring solutions to it. And that's also how I deal with the terror and the fear to find a sense of purpose in what I do. It's incredibly heartbreaking to see some of the things and hear some of the stories, but at the end of the day, it feels like–inconsistently here and there–you can shine a light on problems, and by shining that light, you actually make a difference." Nicholas D. Kristof is a two-time Pulitzer-winning journalist and Op-ed columnist for The New York Times, where he was previously bureau chief in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Tokyo. Kristof is a regular CNN contributor and has covered, among many other events and crises, the Tiananmen Square protests, the Darfur genocide, the Yemeni civil war, and the U.S. opioid crisis. He is the author of the memoir Chasing Hope, A Reporter's Life, and coauthor, with his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, of five previous books: Tightrope, A Path Appears, Half the Sky, Thunder from the East, and China Wakes. Family vineyard & apple orchard in Yamhill, Oregon: www.kristoffarms.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Climate Change, Mental Health & Fighting for a Better Future - Highlights - CHARLIE HERTZOG YOUNG | 19 Jul 2024 | 00:17:28 | |
“I've been a climate activist since I was about 12 years old. It began with a deep passion for wildlife. I started taking up litter and telling off my schoolmates, eventually I set up a green council when I was about 13 or 14. As I learned more and more about the climate crisis and how sprawling and interconnected it was, not just with nature, but with the oppression that exists within human society, I started getting more involved and impassioned, getting involved in protests, marches. When I was about 15 years old, I helped shut down an airport for a night. I eventually started going to the UN climate talks. I went to Davos and it started to become my everything. I felt like I was doing something meaningful about the crisis, but also felt a sense of deep despair and loss, both from the perspective of the impending collapse of the biosphere and also a deep dislocation from the dominant culture and the consensus reality. I felt like no one else was feeling the sense of urgency and emergency that I felt. I started to get incredibly anxious. In 2019, when I was 27, I jumped off a six storey building. My memory has blacked it out, but I spent a month in a coma and woke up having lost both of my legs. The five years since have been one of not just physical and mental recovery, but also trying to untangle the messy web of causality as to how and why it was that I lost my mind in the way I did. I try to find some of the gifts in that madness, what it was pointing towards in terms of the unbalance of the ecosphere and how human civilization has begun to operate completely out of step with the ecosphere.” Charlie Hertzog Young is a researcher, writer and award-winning activist. He identifies as a “proudly mad bipolar double amputee” and has worked for the New Economics Foundation, the Royal Society of Arts, the Good Law Project, the Four Day Week Campaign and the Centre for Progressive Change, as well as the UK Labour Party under three consecutive leaders. Charlie has spoken at the LSE, the UN and the World Economic Forum. He studied at Harvard, SOAS and Schumacher College and has written for The Ecologist, The Independent, Novara Media, Open Democracy and The Guardian. He is the author of Spinning Out: Climate Change, Mental Health and Fighting for a Better Future. https://charliehertzogyoung.me www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| How can we improve animal-human relationships? - Highlights - POORVA JOSHIPURA | 07 Feb 2024 | 00:10:14 | |
"I wrote Survival at Stake because I've been working in animal rights for nearly the past 25 years. Throughout that time, one common question has been asked: Well, shouldn't we deal with human issues first. But animal rights are human rights. Animal rights is environmentalism. These things are not distinct. And that's the point I was really trying to make in my book. I was inspired to write it because of the COVID-19 crisis. It just brings us back to the point of why it is so important to teach people, young people, and young men the importance of being kind to everyone, animals included. If you teach them that, I think the other lessons start to much more automatically transfer over." Poorva Joshipura is PETA U.K. Senior Vice President. She is the Author of Survival at Stake: How Our Treatment of Animals is Key to Human Existence and For a Moment of Taste: How What You Eat Impacts Animals, the Planet and Your Health. www.harpercollins.com/products/for-a-moment-of-taste-poorva-joshipura?variant=39399505592354 www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| POORVA JOSHIPURA - Senior VP, PETA UK - Author of Survival at Stake: How Our Treatment of Animals is Key to Human Existence | 07 Feb 2024 | 00:36:01 | |
How can we improve animal-human relationships? How can we increase our sensitivity to the other animals who share this planet with us? Poorva Joshipura is PETA U.K. Senior Vice President. She is the Author of Survival at Stake: How Our Treatment of Animals is Key to Human Existence and For a Moment of Taste: How What You Eat Impacts Animals, the Planet and Your Health. "I wrote Survival at Stake because I've been working in animal rights for nearly the past 25 years. Throughout that time, one common question has been asked: Well, shouldn't we deal with human issues first. But animal rights are human rights. Animal rights is environmentalism. These things are not distinct. And that's the point I was really trying to make in my book. I was inspired to write it because of the COVID-19 crisis. It just brings us back to the point of why it is so important to teach people, young people, and young men the importance of being kind to everyone, animals included. If you teach them that, I think the other lessons start to much more automatically transfer over." www.harpercollins.com/products/for-a-moment-of-taste-poorva-joshipura?variant=39399505592354 www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| How can the arts help cultivate our intuitive intelligence? - Highlights - JONATHAN YEO | 05 Feb 2024 | 00:12:19 | |
"What are you trying to do with the portrait? On a basic level, you're trying to communicate something about the essence of who someone is. You're trying to figure out who they are, not necessarily who they present themselves as. The two things can quite often be different. And then, you're trying to find ways of showing that through their face, their posture, or any other context. My instinct is always to try to reduce down to the essential elements. We read faces. It's obviously very, very deep in our DNA, really our survival instinct. We are programmed to read faces in a very fine-tuned way. Painting is a two-dimensional thing. You're basically taking real, three-dimensional things and making them into fake, two-dimensional ones. When you get into the 3D space, some of those distinctions aren't there anymore. I remember when I showed David Hockney the VR project I'd been working on a few years ago, and he put his finger on this quite well. Most art is about perspective. Certainly, for what he is interested in. As soon as you see something in 3D, whether it's a physical sculpture or a virtual object, that's not there anymore because you're in the space with whatever's being shown, so you're in a very different place." Jonathan Yeo is one of the world’s leading figurative artists and portrait painters. From celebrated figures such as Sir David Attenborough, peace activist Malala Yousafzai, the Duke of Edinburgh, Nicole Kidman, and Tony Blair, sitting for a portrait with Yeo is a provisional necessity for any 21st century icon. His work, which has been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world, is the subject of several major mid-career retrospectives in the UK and internationally. Yeo’s course on portrait painting is available now on BBC Maestro. www.jonathanyeo.com www.creativeprocess.info Images courtesy of Jonathan Yeo | |||
| JONATHAN YEO - Celebrated Portrait Artist on the Importance of Connection & Intuitive Intelligence | 05 Feb 2024 | 00:47:28 | |
How can the arts help cultivate our intuitive intelligence? What does visual art teach us about consciousness and the human condition? Jonathan Yeo is one of the world’s leading figurative artists and portrait painters. From celebrated figures such as Sir David Attenborough, peace activist Malala Yousafzai, the Duke of Edinburgh, Nicole Kidman, and Tony Blair, sitting for a portrait with Yeo is a provisional necessity for any 21st century icon. His work, which has been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world, is the subject of several major mid-career retrospectives in the UK and internationally. Yeo’s course on portrait painting is available now on BBC Maestro. "What are you trying to do with the portrait? On a basic level, you're trying to communicate something about the essence of who someone is. You're trying to figure out who they are, not necessarily who they present themselves as. The two things can quite often be different. And then, you're trying to find ways of showing that through their face, their posture, or any other context. My instinct is always to try to reduce down to the essential elements. We read faces. It's obviously very, very deep in our DNA, really our survival instinct. We are programmed to read faces in a very fine-tuned way. Painting is a two-dimensional thing. You're basically taking real, three-dimensional things and making them into fake, two-dimensional ones. When you get into the 3D space, some of those distinctions aren't there anymore. I remember when I showed David Hockney the VR project I'd been working on a few years ago, and he put his finger on this quite well. Most art is about perspective. Certainly, for what he is interested in. As soon as you see something in 3D, whether it's a physical sculpture or a virtual object, that's not there anymore because you're in the space with whatever's being shown, so you're in a very different place." www.jonathanyeo.com www.creativeprocess.info Images courtesy of Jonathan Yeo | |||
| How has our biology shaped world history? - Highlights - LEWIS DARTNELL | 03 Feb 2024 | 00:13:13 | |
"The challenges facing our society at the moment effectively are the unintended consequence of a solution we found in the late 1700s when society was running out of energy, we had no more timber, and we realized we could dig underground for ancient fossilized woodland, which is basically what coal is from about 300 million years ago. The consequence of burning all that coal and then oil was a release of carbon dioxide, changing our atmosphere and warming the planet. So, it's a problem born out of our ingenuity and resourcefulness, but I'm confident that we will find the solution out of our ingenuity and resourcefulness." How have our psychology and cognitive biases altered the course of human history? What would you do if you had to rebuild our world from scratch? Lewis Dartnell is an author, researcher, and holds the Professorship in Science Communication at the University of Westminster. He researches astrobiology and the search for microbial life on Mars. He also works as a scientific consultant for the media and has appeared in numerous TV documentaries and radio shows. Dr. Dartnell has won several awards for his science writing and outreach work. He has published five books, including The Knowledge: How to Rebuild our World from Scratch; Origins: How the Earth Made Us; and Being Human: How Our Biology Shaped World History. http://www.lewisdartnell.com www.creativeprocess.info Photo credit: Shortlist/Paul Stuart | |||
| LEWIS DARTNELL - Author of Origins: How the Earth Made Us & Being Human: How Our Biology Shaped World History | 03 Feb 2024 | 00:46:09 | |
How have our psychology and cognitive biases altered the course of human history? What would you do if you had to rebuild our world from scratch? Lewis Dartnell is an author, researcher, and holds the Professorship in Science Communication at the University of Westminster. He researches astrobiology and the search for microbial life on Mars. He also works as a scientific consultant for the media and has appeared in numerous TV documentaries and radio shows. Dr. Dartnell has won several awards for his science writing and outreach work. He has published five books, including The Knowledge: How to Rebuild our World from Scratch; Origins: How the Earth Made Us; and Being Human: How Our Biology Shaped World History. "The challenges facing our society at the moment effectively are the unintended consequence of a solution we found in the late 1700s when society was running out of energy, we had no more timber, and we realized we could dig underground for ancient fossilized woodland, which is basically what coal is from about 300 million years ago. The consequence of burning all that coal and then oil was a release of carbon dioxide, changing our atmosphere and warming the planet. So, it's a problem born out of our ingenuity and resourcefulness, but I'm confident that we will find the solution out of our ingenuity and resourcefulness." http://www.lewisdartnell.com www.creativeprocess.info Photo credit: Shortlist/Paul Stuart | |||
| How can we develop AI systems that are more respectful, ethical, and sustainable? - Highlights - DR. SASHA LUCCIONI | 31 Jan 2024 | 00:12:25 | |
"The way I got into this field was working on the environmentally beneficial applications of AI, and I do believe that that's an impactful way of using AI techniques because there's so much data about the climate, satellite data, and sensor data, and the way to go about this is to work with domain experts. AI is never going to solve the problem on its own, but it can be a tool. So I think that there's a lot of promise there." What are the pros and cons of AI’s integration into our institutions, political systems, culture, and society? How can we develop AI systems that are more respectful, ethical, and sustainable? Dr. Sasha Luccioni is a leading scientist at the nexus of artificial intelligence, ethics, and sustainability, with a Ph.D. in AI and a decade of research and industry expertise. She spearheads research, consults, and utilizes capacity-building to elevate the sustainability of AI systems. As a founding member of Climate Change AI (CCAI) and a board member of Women in Machine Learning (WiML), Sasha is passionate about catalyzing impactful change, organizing events, and serving as a mentor to under-represented minorities within the AI community. She is an AI Researcher & Climate Lead at Hugging Face, an open-source hub for machine learning and natural language processing. https://www.sashaluccioni.com | |||
| DR. SASHA LUCCIONI - Founding Member Climate Change AI - AI Researcher & Climate Lead - Hugging Face | 31 Jan 2024 | 00:31:25 | |
What are the pros and cons of AI’s integration into our institutions, political systems, culture, and society? How can we develop AI systems that are more respectful, ethical, and sustainable? Dr. Sasha Luccioni is a leading scientist at the nexus of artificial intelligence, ethics, and sustainability, with a Ph.D. in AI and a decade of research and industry expertise. She spearheads research, consults, and utilizes capacity-building to elevate the sustainability of AI systems. As a founding member of Climate Change AI (CCAI) and a board member of Women in Machine Learning (WiML), Sasha is passionate about catalyzing impactful change, organizing events, and serving as a mentor to under-represented minorities within the AI community. She is an AI Researcher & Climate Lead at Hugging Face, an open-source hub for machine learning and natural language processing. "The way I got into this field was working on the environmentally beneficial applications of AI, and I do believe that that's an impactful way of using AI techniques because there's so much data about the climate, satellite data, and sensor data, and the way to go about this is to work with domain experts. AI is never going to solve the problem on its own, but it can be a tool. So I think that there's a lot of promise there." https://www.sashaluccioni.com | |||
| How can enlightened self-interest advance social equity & climate action? - Highlights - DR. SHIV SOMESHWAR | 30 Jan 2024 | 00:13:14 | |
"My area of work is sustainable development with a focus on climate. And you can ask what does sustainable development mean? To put it very simply, it means how do you have economic growth that is socially equitable and environmentally sustainable? It's not just that you have ecological sustainability; hence, that is sustainable development. Because lots of examples of economic, ecological, and ecologically sensitive growth need not be socially equitable. That's why this whole emphasis on just transition is not just about climate, but it's also about justice. It's about social equity in economic growth. Unlike in Europe, where there is now the call for degrowth or a circular economy, most parts of the world would look at you blankly if you talked about degrowth because they are hungry for growth. And so sustainable development is about managing these trade-offs, which is what I've been working on. My work is really focused on institutions, and how do you bring the best of science into development. And for me, development is also spatially informed. It's not just the statistical averages, but it's spatially informed because you have people living in cities, villages, and homesteads. So, how do you become geographically sensitive in your policymaking? And that comes from my own background in planning and architecture." Dr. Shiv Someshwar is a Development Clinician, diagnosing development of cities and nation states. A Visiting Professor at Columbia University, New York and at Sciences Po, Paris, he was the founder chair-holder of the European Chair for Sustainable Development and Climate Transition at Sciences Po. He helped set up the initial national and regional networks of the global Sustainable Development Solutions Network. His publications cover a range of issues: planning, institutions and governance of sustainable development; climate change mitigation, adaptation, risks and offsets; and ecosystem management. He edited Re-living the Memories of an Indian Forester: Memoirs of S. Shyam Sunder and is presently writing The Fallacy of Evidence-Based Policy Making. He convened and chaired the Independent Task Force on Creative Climate Action. Dr. Someshwar received a Ph.D. in urban planning from the University of California, Los Angeles, and he was a Bell-MacArthur fellow at Harvard University. He has two masters’ degrees, on housing and on environmental planning, and is also trained as a professional architect. He has previously worked at the Earth Institute, Columbia University, the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, and the World Bank in Washington D.C. https://www.sciencespo.fr/psia/sites/sciencespo.fr.psia/files/ITFClimateReport_Web.pdf www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| DR. SHIV SOMESHWAR - Fmr. European Chair for Sustainable Development & Climate Transition - Sciences Po | 30 Jan 2024 | 00:41:15 | |
How do urbanization and rural development impact communities differently? How can we make public policy and enlightened self-interest advance climate action? Dr. Shiv Someshwar is a Development Clinician, diagnosing development of cities and nation states. A Visiting Professor at Columbia University, New York and at Sciences Po, Paris, he was the founder chair-holder of the European Chair for Sustainable Development and Climate Transition at Sciences Po. He helped set up the initial national and regional networks of the global Sustainable Development Solutions Network. His publications cover a range of issues: planning, institutions and governance of sustainable development; climate change mitigation, adaptation, risks and offsets; and ecosystem management. He edited Re-living the Memories of an Indian Forester: Memoirs of S. Shyam Sunder and is presently writing The Fallacy of Evidence-Based Policy Making. He convened and chaired the Independent Task Force on Creative Climate Action. Dr. Someshwar received a Ph.D. in urban planning from the University of California, Los Angeles, and he was a Bell-MacArthur fellow at Harvard University. He has two masters’ degrees, on housing and on environmental planning, and is also trained as a professional architect. He has previously worked at the Earth Institute, Columbia University, the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, and the World Bank in Washington D.C. "My area of work is sustainable development with a focus on climate. And you can ask what does sustainable development mean? To put it very simply, it means how do you have economic growth that is socially equitable and environmentally sustainable? It's not just that you have ecological sustainability; hence, that is sustainable development. Because lots of examples of economic, ecological, and ecologically sensitive growth need not be socially equitable. That's why this whole emphasis on just transition is not just about climate, but it's also about justice. It's about social equity in economic growth. Unlike in Europe, where there is now the call for degrowth or a circular economy, most parts of the world would look at you blankly if you talked about degrowth because they are hungry for growth. And so sustainable development is about managing these trade-offs, which is what I've been working on. My work is really focused on institutions, and how do you bring the best of science into development. And for me, development is also spatially informed. It's not just the statistical averages, but it's spatially informed because you have people living in cities, villages, and homesteads. So, how do you become geographically sensitive in your policymaking? And that comes from my own background in planning and architecture." https://www.sciencespo.fr/psia/sites/sciencespo.fr.psia/files/ITFClimateReport_Web.pdf www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| The Mind, Climate Change & Community Resilience with CHARLIE HERTZOG YOUNG | 19 Jul 2024 | 00:58:38 | |
The planet’s well-being unites us all, from ecosystems to societies, global systems to individual health. How is planetary health linked to mental health? Charlie Hertzog Young is a researcher, writer and award-winning activist. He identifies as a “proudly mad bipolar double amputee” and has worked for the New Economics Foundation, the Royal Society of Arts, the Good Law Project, the Four Day Week Campaign and the Centre for Progressive Change, as well as the UK Labour Party under three consecutive leaders. Charlie has spoken at the LSE, the UN and the World Economic Forum. He studied at Harvard, SOAS and Schumacher College and has written for The Ecologist, The Independent, Novara Media, Open Democracy and The Guardian. He is the author of Spinning Out: Climate Change, Mental Health and Fighting for a Better Future. “I've been a climate activist since I was about 12 years old. It began with a deep passion for wildlife. I started taking up litter and telling off my schoolmates, eventually I set up a green council when I was about 13 or 14. As I learned more and more about the climate crisis and how sprawling and interconnected it was, not just with nature, but with the oppression that exists within human society, I started getting more involved and impassioned, getting involved in protests, marches. When I was about 15 years old, I helped shut down an airport for a night. I eventually started going to the UN climate talks. I went to Davos and it started to become my everything. I felt like I was doing something meaningful about the crisis, but also felt a sense of deep despair and loss, both from the perspective of the impending collapse of the biosphere and also a deep dislocation from the dominant culture and the consensus reality. I felt like no one else was feeling the sense of urgency and emergency that I felt. I started to get incredibly anxious. In 2019, when I was 27, I jumped off a six storey building. My memory has blacked it out, but I spent a month in a coma and woke up having lost both of my legs. The five years since have been one of not just physical and mental recovery, but also trying to untangle the messy web of causality as to how and why it was that I lost my mind in the way I did. I try to find some of the gifts in that madness, what it was pointing towards in terms of the unbalance of the ecosphere and how human civilization has begun to operate completely out of step with the ecosphere.” https://charliehertzogyoung.me www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| From Ancient Wisdom to the Language of the Earth | 25 Jan 2024 | 00:10:45 | |
Scientists, artists, psychologists, conservationists, and spiritual leaders share their stories and insights on the importance of connecting with nature, preserving the environment, embracing diversity, and finding harmony in the world. Music courtesy of composer Max Richter. All voices in this episode are from our interviews for The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast. 00:05 Adapting to Earth: Indigenous Perspectives 01:06 The Beauty and Fragility of the Natural World 02:01 The Importance of Whales in Ecosystems 03:27 The Importance of Community and Collective Well-being 04:19 The Power of Love, Respect, and Unity 05:05 The Importance of Cultural and Scientific Knowledge 0:6:18 Mastering Confidence & Human Potential 07:01 The Magic of Coral Reefs 08:06 Lessons from Ancient Trees and Tundra 09:36 Understanding the Flow of Life Max Richter’s music featured in this episode are “On the Nature of Daylight” from The Blue Notebooks, “Path 19: Yet Frailest” from Sleep. www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Artists, Activists & Anarchists Seize Wetlands from the French Republic: We Learn How | 23 Jan 2024 | 01:22:01 | |
In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu and Azeezah Kanji talk with artists and activists Isabella Frémaux and Jay Jordan about their book, We are ‘Nature’ Defending Itself: Entangling Art, Activism and Autonomous Zones Vagabonds/Pluto/Journal of Aesthetics & Protest, 2021. They tell the story of a 40-year struggle to preserve 4,000 acres of wetlands from being destroyed to make way for an airport, but the book is also a profound and beautiful meditation on what it means to live together and struggle together outside the logic of capitalist extraction and violence. Jay (formerly John) Jordan (they/them) is labelled a "Domestic Extremist" by the police, and “a magician of rebellion” by the press. Part-time author, sex worker and full time trouble maker, Jay is a lover of edges, especially between art and activism. They co-founded Reclaim the streets and the clown army. Isabelle Fremeaux (she/her) is a popular educator, facilitator, action researcher and deserter of the neoliberal academy where for a decade she was Senior Lecturer at Birkbeck College London. Co-author (with Jay) of the film/book Les Sentiers de L’utopie (2011, La Découverte), together they coordinate The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination, bringing artists and activists together to co-design and deploy tools of disobedience. They live on the zad of Notre-dame-des-landes, a territory “lost to the Republic,” according to the French government. https://labo.zone/index.php/we-are-nature-defending-itself-entangling-art-activism-autonomous-zones/?lang=en www.palumbo-liu.com | |||
| How can we reverse biodiversity loss and restore our ecosystems? - Highlights - THOMAS CROWTHER | 17 Jan 2024 | 00:13:18 | |
“We're just a moving ecosystem and we've got this weird thing called consciousness that gives us this impression that we're somehow separate, but we are just part of the ecosystem. We're a bag of microbes that's interacting with all the microbes around us. And I think there's a real need for us to appreciate our harmony with nature and our interrelatedness with nature.” Although they comprise less than 5% of the world population, Indigenous peoples protect 80% of the Earth’s biodiversity. How can we support farmers, reverse biodiversity loss, and restore our ecosystems? Thomas Crowther is an ecologist studying the connections between biodiversity and climate change. He is a professor in the Department of Environmental Systems Science at ETH Zurich, chair of the advisory council for the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, and founder of Restor, an online platform for the global restoration movement, which was a finalist for the Royal Foundation’s Earthshot Prize. In 2021, the World Economic Forum named him a Young Global Leader for his work on the protection and restoration of biodiversity. Crowther’s post-doctoral research transformed the understanding of the world’s tree cover, and the study also inspired the World Economic Forum to announce its Trillion Trees initiative, which aims to conserve and restore one trillion trees globally within the decade. https://crowtherlab.com/about-tom-crowther www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| THOMAS CROWTHER - Ecologist - Co-chair of the Board for UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration - Founder of Restor | 17 Jan 2024 | 00:43:33 | |
Although they comprise less than 5% of the world population, Indigenous peoples protect 80% of the Earth’s biodiversity. How can we support farmers, reverse biodiversity loss, and restore our ecosystems? Thomas Crowther is an ecologist studying the connections between biodiversity and climate change. He is a professor in the Department of Environmental Systems Science at ETH Zurich, chair of the advisory council for the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, and founder of Restor, an online platform for the global restoration movement, which was a finalist for the Royal Foundation’s Earthshot Prize. In 2021, the World Economic Forum named him a Young Global Leader for his work on the protection and restoration of biodiversity. Crowther’s post-doctoral research transformed the understanding of the world’s tree cover, and the study also inspired the World Economic Forum to announce its Trillion Trees initiative, which aims to conserve and restore one trillion trees globally within the decade. “We're just a moving ecosystem and we've got this weird thing called consciousness that gives us this impression that we're somehow separate, but we are just part of the ecosystem. We're a bag of microbes that's interacting with all the microbes around us. And I think there's a real need for us to appreciate our harmony with nature and our interrelatedness with nature.” https://crowtherlab.com/about-tom-crowther www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| PETER DITLEVSEN - Professor of Physics, Ice, Climate & Earth at the Niels Bohr Institute | 16 Jan 2024 | 00:37:09 | |
As we reach the tipping points of climate change, how will our world change? Greenland has already lost 4,700 billion metric tons of ice, an amount that is enough to flood the entire United States in 1.5 feet of water. Peter D. Ditlevsen is an Associate Professor at the Niels Bohr Institute at Copenhagen University. The institute was founded in 1921 as the Institute for Theoretical Physics. Ditlevsen is a Professor in Physics of Ice, Climate, and Earth. His fields of interest include climate research, turbulence, meteorology, complex systems, time series analysis, and statistical physics. What happens if we lose the Greenland ice sheet and pass the tipping points and Earth systems shut down? If that shuts down, roughly speaking, the climate of Northern Europe would be like the climate of Alaska. So, climate models that actually simulate what happens when it's shut down, would say that England becomes like Northern Norway, which means that food security and things like that will be threatened because you cannot grow many crops in Northern Norway. And other models say precipitation changes, so places that are wet might become dry, and so on. So, these are of course severe consequences for Europe, but in some sense, this is going in the opposite direction of global warming. We're all talking about we're getting into a warmer world, but I'm talking about a cooling here. But the warm water that does not then flow from the tropics into the North Atlantic will stay in the tropics. And there, you're not contra-balancing global warming. There you will have the heating on top of the global warming. And that I see as maybe the largest problem we have is that the tropics become even warmer. And we have to realize if you live in a place where mean temperatures are maybe late thirties Celsius and or rise to the forties livelihood becomes very difficult. www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| What can thousand-year-old trees teach us about living sustainably on this planet? - Highlights - DOUG LARSON | 16 Jan 2024 | 00:07:56 | |
“I think one thing I learned from looking at the ancient trees is that there is no great benefit to anything of growing quickly and accumulating vast resources. Growing slowly and patiently and with fewer demands on the environment in which you live is just as healthy and perhaps more healthy than the endless hunger for more and more and more, which we see as a characteristic of our species.” What can thousand-year-old trees teach us about living sustainably? If we want to be sustained by this planet indefinitely, we need to stop trying to suck it dry. Doug Larson is an award winning scientist, author, and Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University of Guelph. He is an expert on deforestation and regularly contributes to The Guardian and other publications. His books include Cliff Ecology: Pattern and Process in Cliff Ecosystems, The Urban Cliff Revolution: New Findings on the Origins and Evolution of Human Habitats, Storyteller Guitar, and The Dogma At My Homework. https://experts.uoguelph.ca/doug-larson https://www.amazon.com/Urban-Cliff-Revolution-Evolution-Habitats/dp/1550419927 www.creativeprocess.info Image courtesy of Doug Larson | |||
| DOUG LARSON - Biologist - Expert on Deforestation - Author of Cliff Ecology - The The Dogma Ate My Homework | 16 Jan 2024 | 00:42:04 | |
What can thousand-year-old trees teach us about living sustainably? If we want to be sustained by this planet indefinitely, we need to stop trying to suck it dry. Doug Larson is an award winning scientist, author, and Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University of Guelph. He is an expert on deforestation and regularly contributes to The Guardian and other publications. His books include Cliff Ecology: Pattern and Process in Cliff Ecosystems, The Urban Cliff Revolution: New Findings on the Origins and Evolution of Human Habitats, Storyteller Guitar, and The Dogma At My Homework. “I think one thing I learned from looking at the ancient trees is that there is no great benefit to anything of growing quickly and accumulating vast resources. Growing slowly and patiently and with fewer demands on the environment in which you live is just as healthy and perhaps more healthy than the endless hunger for more and more and more, which we see as a characteristic of our species.” https://experts.uoguelph.ca/doug-larson https://www.amazon.com/Urban-Cliff-Revolution-Evolution-Habitats/dp/1550419927 www.creativeprocess.info Image courtesy of Doug Larson | |||
| Does having too many choices make us unhappy? - Highlights - DR. BARRY SCHWARTZ | 12 Jan 2024 | 00:12:26 | |
"The original edition of The Paradox of Choice came out in 2004, and the internet was just getting started in a major league way, and already the choice overload was a problem. I would say that from the modern perspective, 2004 seems like the 18th century, and as near as I can tell, all of these changes, every single one of them has made the problem substantially worse. The idea that you can get information to help guide you through - well, yeah, but what information do you believe? What's trustworthy? What's being motivated by an opportunity to sell you something? So there is a haze, there is this fog that we're operating in. And I think we just sort of give up in resignation and look at recommendations and hope that they're legitimate because how else do you get through the day?" Does having too many choices make us unhappy? How can we learn practical wisdom? Dr. Barry Schwartz is the Dorwin P. Cartwright Professor Emeritus of Social Theory and Social Action in the psychology department at Swarthmore College. He is the author of many books, including Why We Work, The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, and co-author of Practical Wisdom: The Right Way to Do the Right Thing. www.swarthmore.edu/profile/barry-schwartz www.creativeprocess.info Photo credit: Bill Holsinger-Robinson - CC BY 2.0 | |||
| DR. BARRY SCHWARTZ - Author of The Paradox of Choice & Why We Work | 12 Jan 2024 | 00:45:36 | |
Does having too many choices make us unhappy? How can we learn practical wisdom? Dr. Barry Schwartz is the Dorwin P. Cartwright Professor Emeritus of Social Theory and Social Action in the psychology department at Swarthmore College. He is the author of many books, including Why We Work, The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, and co-author of Practical Wisdom: The Right Way to Do the Right Thing. "The original edition of The Paradox of Choice came out in 2004, and the internet was just getting started in a major league way, and already the choice overload was a problem. I would say that from the modern perspective, 2004 seems like the 18th century, and as near as I can tell, all of these changes, every single one of them has made the problem substantially worse. The idea that you can get information to help guide you through - well, yeah, but what information do you believe? What's trustworthy? What's being motivated by an opportunity to sell you something? So there is a haze, there is this fog that we're operating in. And I think we just sort of give up in resignation and look at recommendations and hope that they're legitimate because how else do you get through the day?" www.swarthmore.edu/profile/barry-schwartz www.creativeprocess.info Photo credit: Bill Holsinger-Robinson - CC BY 2.0 | |||
| KOHEI SAITO on Degrowth Communism & the Need for Radical Democracy | 11 Jan 2024 | 00:43:46 | |
Can we stop talking about growth and mediate an environmental crisis through the structures of capitalism? In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu speaks with Japanese scholar Kohei Saito, whose book, Marx in the Anthropocene sold over half a million copies. In it, Saito shows how late in life Marx came to a richer sense of production when he released that there was a law above the economic as he had conceived it—it was the law of Nature. Marx saw how disturbing Nature’s metabolism could bring about a “rift” that sent destructive ripples across human life. Today we make the connection between that scholarly book and Kohei’s new book, Slow Down!!, which has just come out in English translation. Here he offers a sharp critique of liberal and socialist attempts to “sustain”—like the Green New Deal, and argues for a radical form of degrowth communism that de-celerates our compulsion to add more stuff into the world, in whatever form, and derails our compulsion to sustain, rather than revolutionize. Saito argues that we can lead much happier, and more healthy lives, if we emphasize use value, and revitalize democracy so we all have a hand in deciding what is valuable. “The Green New Deal presents itself as a kind of radical policy. If you look at the content, it's just simply the continuation of what capitalism wants to do. It's a massive investment in new, allegedly green industries, with the creation of more jobs with higher wages, but these are not the things that socialists or any environmentalists should be actually seeking because we recognize that capitalism is basically the root cause of the climate crisis and the misery of the workers. If so, I think it is high time to imagine something radically very different from business-as-usual capitalism.” Kohei Saito as an Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo. He completed his doctorate at the Humboldt University in Berlin. In 2018 he won the prestigious Deutscher Memorial Prize for Marxist research—becoming the first Japanese, and the youngest person, ever to win that prize. His books include: Slow Down! How Degrowth Communism Can Save the World (2023); Marx in the Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism (2022), Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism: Capital, Nature, and the Unfinished Critique of Political Economy (2017). https://researchmap.jp/7000022985?lang=en https://www.hachette.com.au/kohei-saito/slow-down-how-degrowth-communism-can-save-the-earth www.palumbo-liu.com | |||
| How and when will we transition to a clean energy future? - Highlights - RICHARD BLACK | 13 Jul 2024 | 00:13:02 | |
“The fact is you've got a lot of industrial and political muscle now coming behind clean energy, especially from China, which is the leading country deploying wind energy, the leading country deploying solar, and the leading manufacturer and user of electric vehicles by miles. As one recent report put it, ‘We have petrostates in the world. China is the first electrostate.’ And China is on its way to becoming the world's most powerful country. So, where China leads, the rest of the world is almost certain to follow. Yes, there are massive air pollution problems in China, of course, but I think it's more than that. It's also about seeing that this is the future that the world is going to have. And if these goods are going to be made anywhere, well, the Chinese government clearly would like them to be made in China. And they've set out, you know, industrial policies and all kinds of other policies for, well, at least a decade now, in pursuit of that aim. It's interesting now to see other countries, India, for example, and the United States now sort of deploying muscle to try and carve out a slice of the pie themselves as well.” The Five-pronged Clean Energy Future Richard Black spent 15 years as a science and environment correspondent for the BBC World Service and BBC News, before setting up the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit. He now lives in Berlin and is the Director of Policy and Strategy at the global clean energy think tank Ember, which aims to accelerate the clean energy transition with data and policy. He is the author of The Future of Energy; Denied:The Rise and Fall of Climate Contrarianism, and is an Honorary Research Fellow at Imperial College London. https://mhpbooks.com/books/the-future-of-energy www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| SPEAKING OUT OF PLACE: BEN FRANTA on Weaponizing Economics - Big Oil, Economic Consultants & Climate Policy Delay | 09 Jan 2024 | 00:32:29 | |
In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu speaks with noted researcher and scholar Ben Franta about two new articles he has written that add to his growing archive of seminal work on climate change. Ben tells us now the fossil fuel industry paid economists to join scientists in denying the true nature of the fossil fuel industry’s destruction of the environment. Economists argued that even if some science were correct, implementing change would be too costly. This became a powerful tool to stall and kill climate change legislation. Ben also talks about how communities have tried to sue fossil fuel companies for damages incurred by such misinformation and disinformation. In sum, we learn about what the industry has done, and how ordinary people and municipalities can fight back. Benjamin Franta is the founding head of the Climate Litigation Lab and a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford Sustainable Law Programme. The Climate Litigation Lab is a multidisciplinary research initiative to inform, enable, and accelerate climate change litigation globally. Ben is also an Associate at the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School and an Associate Member of Nuffield College, Oxford, and a former research fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He is the recipient of numerous academic and research fellowships including the Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowship and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. His research and writing have appeared in 10 languages, been featured in the Paramount+ documentary Black Gold, been cited in the U.S. Congressional Record, and been published in numerous scholarly and popular venues including Nature Climate Change, Global Environmental Change, The Guardian, Project Syndicate, and more. “For 40 years, the American Petroleum Institute has hired economists to argue it would be too expensive to try and control fossil fuels and that climate change wasn't that bad. The same go-to consultancy firm has been involved in every major climate policy fight from the very beginning and hired by the fossil fuel industry, but what are the courts going to do? It's not just the historical deception. It's an ongoing deception.” www.palumbo-liu.com | |||
| How do we navigate ambiguity, uncertainty & move beyond linear thinking? - RUPERT SHELDRAKE - Highlights | 05 Jan 2024 | 00:15:35 | |
"The idea that the laws of nature are fixed is taken for granted by almost all scientists and within physics, within cosmology, it leads to an enormous realm of speculation, which I think is totally unnecessary. We're assuming the laws of nature are fixed. Most of science assumes this, but is it really so in an evolving universe? Why shouldn't the laws evolve? And if we think about that, then we realize that actually, the whole idea of a law of nature is a metaphor. It's based on human laws. I mean, after all, dogs and cats don't obey laws. And in tribes, they don't even have laws. They have customs. So it's only in civilized societies that you have laws. And then if we think through that metaphor, then actually the laws do change. All artists are influenced by other artists and by things in the collective culture, and I think that morphic resonance as collective memory would say that all of us draw unconsciously as well as consciously on a collective memory and all animals draw on a collective memory of their kind as well. We don't know where it comes from, but there's true creativity involved in evolution, both human and natural." How do we navigate ambiguity and uncertainty? Moving beyond linear thinking into instinct and intuition, we might discover other sources within ourselves that lie beyond the boundaries of science and reason. Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author best known for his hypothesis of morphic resonance. His many books include The Science Delusion, The Presence of the Past, and Ways to Go Beyond and Why They Work. At Cambridge University, Dr. Sheldrake worked in developmental biology as a fellow of Clare College. From 2005 to 2010, he was director of the Perrott Warrick Project for research on unexplained human and animal abilities, funded by Trinity College Cambridge. He was among the top 100 global thought leaders for 2013, as ranked by the Duttweiler Institute. www.amazon.com/Science-Delusion/dp/1529393221/?tag=sheldrake-20 www.amazon.com/Science-Set-Free-Paths-Discovery/dp/0770436722/?tag=sheldrake-20 | |||
| RUPERT SHELDRAKE - Biologist & Author of The Science Delusion, The Presence of the Past | 05 Jan 2024 | 00:49:30 | |
How do we navigate ambiguity and uncertainty? Moving beyond linear thinking into instinct and intuition, we might discover other sources within ourselves that lie beyond the boundaries of science and reason. Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author best known for his hypothesis of morphic resonance. His many books include The Science Delusion, The Presence of the Past, and Ways to Go Beyond and Why They Work. At Cambridge University, Dr. Sheldrake worked in developmental biology as a fellow of Clare College. From 2005 to 2010, he was director of the Perrott Warrick Project for research on unexplained human and animal abilities, funded by Trinity College Cambridge. He was among the top 100 global thought leaders for 2013, as ranked by the Duttweiler Institute. "The idea that the laws of nature are fixed is taken for granted by almost all scientists and within physics, within cosmology, it leads to an enormous realm of speculation, which I think is totally unnecessary. We're assuming the laws of nature are fixed. Most of science assumes this, but is it really so in an evolving universe? Why shouldn't the laws evolve? And if we think about that, then we realize that actually, the whole idea of a law of nature is a metaphor. It's based on human laws. I mean, after all, dogs and cats don't obey laws. And in tribes, they don't even have laws. They have customs. So it's only in civilized societies that you have laws. And then if we think through that metaphor, then actually the laws do change. All artists are influenced by other artists and by things in the collective culture, and I think that morphic resonance as collective memory would say that all of us draw unconsciously as well as consciously on a collective memory and all animals draw on a collective memory of their kind as well. We don't know where it comes from, but there's true creativity involved in evolution, both human and natural." www.amazon.com/Science-Delusion/dp/1529393221/?tag=sheldrake-20 www.amazon.com/Science-Set-Free-Paths-Discovery/dp/0770436722/?tag=sheldrake-20 | |||
| What’s it like to film a supernatural thriller in darkness at minus 17 degrees? - Highlights - FLORIAN HOFFMEISTER | 04 Jan 2024 | 00:15:35 | |
“I drove for like a half an hour into absolute nothingness, and I left the car. It was three o'clock in the morning. It was minus 17 degrees and it was absolutely still. I've never experienced stillness such as that. I mean, it's like you feel like you can feel your atoms move or not move because it's so cold. And the sky is full of the Northern Lights. So you are already in a remote place, but you want to go further. And I think maybe those themes of going out into the wilderness are motivated by the urge to connect. And I think Issa López has really incorporated it beautifully into the script. And the show tells of this great disconnect between people. So not only are we disconnected from our environment, but we are disconnected from each other. How does the place we’re born influence our beliefs? What would it be like to live in a world run by women, where it’s perpetually night, and the dead can speak to the living? In this episode, we discuss the new season of HBO’s True Detective: Night Country with award-winning cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister. Known for his work on Tár, Pachinko, Great Expectations, and most recently, the new season of True Detective, he's also known for his collaboration with director Terence Davies on the films The Deep Blue Sea and A Quiet Passion. His work on Great Expectations earned him an Primetime Emmy and a BAFTA in cinematography, and in 2022, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on Tár. http://florianhoffmeister.de/ www.creativeprocess.info Photo: Jodie Foster, Kali Reis · Photograph by Michele K. Short/HBO | |||
| FLORIAN HOFFMEISTER - Cinematographer - True Detective: Night Country starring Jodie Foster & Kali Reis | 04 Jan 2024 | 00:43:57 | |
How does the place we’re born influence our beliefs? What would it be like to live in a world run by women, where it’s perpetually night, and the dead can speak to the living? In this episode, we discuss the new season of HBO’s True Detective: Night Country with award-winning cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister. Known for his work on Tár, Pachinko, Great Expectations, and most recently, the new season of True Detective, he's also known for his collaboration with director Terence Davies on the films The Deep Blue Sea and A Quiet Passion. His work on Great Expectations earned him an Primetime Emmy and a BAFTA in cinematography, and in 2022, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on Tár. “I drove for like a half an hour into absolute nothingness, and I left the car. It was three o'clock in the morning. It was minus 17 degrees and it was absolutely still. I've never experienced stillness such as that. I mean, it's like you feel like you can feel your atoms move or not move because it's so cold. And the sky is full of the Northern Lights. So you are already in a remote place, but you want to go further. And I think maybe those themes of going out into the wilderness are motivated by the urge to connect. And I think Issa López has really incorporated it beautifully into the script. And the show tells of this great disconnect between people. So not only are we disconnected from our environment, but we are disconnected from each other. http://florianhoffmeister.de/ www.creativeprocess.info Photo credits: Michele K. Short / HBO | |||
| How can we learn to speak the language of the Earth? - Highlights - TIOKASIN GHOSTHORSE | 29 Dec 2023 | 00:13:51 | |
“If we say Mitakuye Oyasin, we don't really mean all my relations. It's like, no, we're talking about what you can formulate into E = mc2 and beyond. It's beyond what you see. And that energy you don't see with these eyes, which only see a certain range of color and light refraction is what we are also understanding. Our body is, people would say the brain is...there is no disconnection. And so are we fully understanding or do we have a full spectrum perspective of what tools of the Earth really mean? Like a bird we think has no intelligence. It just flies here and flies there, right? But we also understand that that bird is also using the tools as the tools of the Earth correctly or properly when...what does that mean? Now, if you go deeper into Indigenous peoples, you can see the modernity and then so-called primitive people. You don't need to be in contact, in relationship, and in communication, have a language with all other life-technology taking us away from Earth because we feel like we're elite to anything having to do with Earth. That's why we want to go to a dead planet called Mars. So they're about controlling, getting you and all of us away from being magic...is how to use tools of the Earth properly. Not, you know, we should not abuse water, the air, the land, the food, anything. So when it comes to animacy, I think it's a Western term also, and so we get away from the Western terms. We start seeing that, oh, we are becoming Earth as we're born into this physical dimension. We are becoming Earth. And then as we are living during this time, we're alive. We are becoming Earth. And when we are finished with this body, we are becoming Earth.” Tiokasin Ghosthorse is a member of the Cheyenne River Lakota Nation of South Dakota and has a long history with Indigenous activism and advocacy. Tiokasin is the Founder, Host and Executive Producer of “First Voices Radio” (formerly “First Voices Indigenous Radio”) for the last 31 years in New York City and Seattle/Olympia, Washington. In 2016, he received a Nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize from the International Institute of Peace Studies and Global Philosophy. Other recent recognitions include: Native Arts and Cultures Foundation National Fellowship in Music (2016), National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship Nominee (2017), Indigenous Music Award Nominee for Best Instrumental Album (2019) and National Native American Hall of Fame Nominee (2018, 2019). He also was recently nominated for “Nominee for the 2020 Americans for the Arts Johnson Fellowship for Artists Transforming Communities”. He is the Founder of Akantu Intelligence. https://firstvoicesindigenousradio.org/ www.creativeprocess.info Songs featured on this episode are “Butterfly Against the Wind” | |||
| TIOKASIN GHOSTHORSE - Founder/Host of First Voices Radio - Founder of Akantu Intelligence | 29 Dec 2023 | 00:51:19 | |
How can we learn to speak the language of the Earth and cultivate our intuitive intelligence? Tiokasin Ghosthorse is a member of the Cheyenne River Lakota Nation of South Dakota and has a long history with Indigenous activism and advocacy. Tiokasin is the Founder, Host and Executive Producer of “First Voices Radio” (formerly “First Voices Indigenous Radio”) for the last 31 years in New York City and Seattle/Olympia, Washington. In 2016, he received a Nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize from the International Institute of Peace Studies and Global Philosophy. Other recent recognitions include: Native Arts and Cultures Foundation National Fellowship in Music (2016), National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship Nominee (2017), Indigenous Music Award Nominee for Best Instrumental Album (2019) and National Native American Hall of Fame Nominee (2018, 2019). He also was recently nominated for “Nominee for the 2020 Americans for the Arts Johnson Fellowship for Artists Transforming Communities”. He is the Founder of Akantu Intelligence. “If we say Mitakuye Oyasin, we don't really mean all my relations. It's like, no, we're talking about what you can formulate into E = mc2 and beyond. It's beyond what you see. And that energy you don't see with these eyes, which only see a certain range of color and light refraction is what we are also understanding. Our body is, people would say the brain is...there is no disconnection. And so are we fully understanding or do we have a full spectrum perspective of what tools of the Earth really mean? Like a bird we think has no intelligence. It just flies here and flies there, right? But we also understand that that bird is also using the tools as the tools of the Earth correctly or properly when...what does that mean? Now, if you go deeper into Indigenous peoples, you can see the modernity and then so-called primitive people. You don't need to be in contact, in relationship, and in communication, have a language with all other life-technology taking us away from Earth because we feel like we're elite to anything having to do with Earth. That's why we want to go to a dead planet called Mars. So they're about controlling, getting you and all of us away from being magic...is how to use tools of the Earth properly. Not, you know, we should not abuse water, the air, the land, the food, anything. So when it comes to animacy, I think it's a Western term also, and so we get away from the Western terms. We start seeing that, oh, we are becoming Earth as we're born into this physical dimension. We are becoming Earth. And then as we are living during this time, we're alive. We are becoming Earth. And when we are finished with this body, we are becoming Earth.” https://firstvoicesindigenousradio.org/ www.creativeprocess.info Songs featured on this episode are “Butterfly Against the Wind” | |||
| Are we living in a Simulated Universe? - Highlights - MELVIN VOPSON | 27 Dec 2023 | 00:09:19 | |
"These ideas go as far back as Ancient Greece, which basically gave birth to two lines of thinking, two ideologies, materialism and idealism. And the idealist thinkers like Plato regarded reality as a projection of our minds, as something that is not real. And the only thing that is real is our consciousness and our minds and everything else around us is just constructs of our proception and projections. And that was a philosophy that was opposed to materialism, which regards the world as in a materialistic way, made up of atoms and matter and our minds are a product of these chemical reactions and the matter is coming together and forming our minds and consciousness. And everything in the world exists regardless of our consciousness or our minds and the universe is there and it's a materialistic view of the world. So these are two competing ideologies, and this is actually how we see the world today in a materialistic way. What the simulated universe philosophical idea belongs to is this idealistic view of the world. And the idealism philosophy morphs into something else in this simulation hypothesis where not only everything is a simulated construct, but our minds and our consciousness are part of it. So for example, Plato saw our minds and, if you want, our spirit as a fundamental central piece and the only real thing, and everything emerged from this. The simulated hypothesis assumes that everything, including our minds and consciousness, is part of a simulation. So it's a bit of a modern iteration of idealism which has been triggered by these recent developments in advancing technologies and computing science that began in the 1940s with the development of silicon technologies, early microchips, and digital computers creating digital memories. This highly accelerated rate of development, in terms of our technological progress, in less than a hundred years going from analog technologies means we are entering a new era of quantum computers, like generative AI, and artificial intelligence, and all these VRs are a reality today. So this development has helped in some ways to lead to the emergence of this simulated universe concept because we are now reaching a new technological level where we see that we are beginning to simulate virtual realities and they are becoming more and more immersive and sophisticated." Dr. Melvin M. Vopson is Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Portsmouth, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Chartered Physicist and Fellow of the Institute of Physics. He is the co-founder and CEO of the Information Physics Institute, editor-in-chief of the IPI Letters and Emerging Minds Journal for Student Research. He is the author of Reality Reloaded: The Scientific Case for a Simulated Universe. Dr. Vopson has a wide-ranging scientific expertise in experimental, applied and theoretical physics that is internationally recognized. He has published over 100 research articles, achieving over 2500 citations. https://www.port.ac.uk/about-us/structure-and-governance/our-people/our-staff/melvin-vopson https://ipipublishing.org/index.php/ipil/RR www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| MELVIN VOPSON - Physicist - Author of Reality Reloaded: The Scientific Case for a Simulated Universe | 27 Dec 2023 | 00:42:24 | |
Are we living in a Simulated Universe? How will AI impact the future of work, society & education? Dr. Melvin M. Vopson is Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Portsmouth, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Chartered Physicist and Fellow of the Institute of Physics. He is the co-founder and CEO of the Information Physics Institute, editor-in-chief of the IPI Letters and Emerging Minds Journal for Student Research. He is the author of Reality Reloaded: The Scientific Case for a Simulated Universe. Dr. Vopson has a wide-ranging scientific expertise in experimental, applied and theoretical physics that is internationally recognized. He has published over 100 research articles, achieving over 2500 citations. "These ideas go as far back as Ancient Greece, which basically gave birth to two lines of thinking, two ideologies, materialism and idealism. And the idealist thinkers like Plato regarded reality as a projection of our minds, as something that is not real. And the only thing that is real is our consciousness and our minds and everything else around us is just constructs of our proception and projections. And that was a philosophy that was opposed to materialism, which regards the world as in a materialistic way, made up of atoms and matter and our minds are a product of these chemical reactions and the matter is coming together and forming our minds and consciousness. And everything in the world exists regardless of our consciousness or our minds and the universe is there and it's a materialistic view of the world. So these are two competing ideologies, and this is actually how we see the world today in a materialistic way. What the simulated universe philosophical idea belongs to is this idealistic view of the world. And the idealism philosophy morphs into something else in this simulation hypothesis where not only everything is a simulated construct, but our minds and our consciousness are part of it. So for example, Plato saw our minds and, if you want, our spirit as a fundamental central piece and the only real thing, and everything emerged from this. The simulated hypothesis assumes that everything, including our minds and consciousness, is part of a simulation. So it's a bit of a modern iteration of idealism which has been triggered by these recent developments in advancing technologies and computing science that began in the 1940s with the development of silicon technologies, early microchips, and digital computers creating digital memories. This highly accelerated rate of development, in terms of our technological progress, in less than a hundred years going from analog technologies means we are entering a new era of quantum computers, like generative AI, and artificial intelligence, and all these VRs are a reality today. So this development has helped in some ways to lead to the emergence of this simulated universe concept because we are now reaching a new technological level where we see that we are beginning to simulate virtual realities and they are becoming more and more immersive and sophisticated." https://www.port.ac.uk/about-us/structure-and-governance/our-people/our-staff/melvin-vopson https://ipipublishing.org/index.php/ipil/RR www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| The Future of Energy - RICHARD BLACK - Director, Policy & Strategy, Ember - Fmr. BBC Environment Correspondent | 12 Jul 2024 | 00:56:02 | |
How and when will we transition to a clean energy future? How will the transition empower individuals and transform global power dynamics? How did China become the world’s first electrostate, leading the drive for renewable energy, and what can we learn from this? Richard Black spent 15 years as a science and environment correspondent for the BBC World Service and BBC News, before setting up the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit. He now lives in Berlin and is the Director of Policy and Strategy at the global clean energy think tank Ember, which aims to accelerate the clean energy transition with data and policy. He is the author of The Future of Energy; Denied:The Rise and Fall of Climate Contrarianism, and is an Honorary Research Fellow at Imperial College London. “The fact is you've got a lot of industrial and political muscle now coming behind clean energy, especially from China, which is the leading country deploying wind energy, the leading country deploying solar, and the leading manufacturer and user of electric vehicles by miles. As one recent report put it, ‘We have petrostates in the world. China is the first electrostate.’ And China is on its way to becoming the world's most powerful country. So, where China leads, the rest of the world is almost certain to follow. Yes, there are massive air pollution problems in China, of course, but I think it's more than that. It's also about seeing that this is the future that the world is going to have. And if these goods are going to be made anywhere, well, the Chinese government clearly would like them to be made in China. And they've set out, you know, industrial policies and all kinds of other policies for, well, at least a decade now, in pursuit of that aim. It's interesting now to see other countries, India, for example, and the United States now sort of deploying muscle to try and carve out a slice of the pie themselves as well.” The Five-pronged Clean Energy Future https://mhpbooks.com/books/the-future-of-energy www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| What makes a good life? - Highlights - ROBERT WALDINGER, Psychiatrist, Author, Zen Priest | 22 Dec 2023 | 00:10:35 | |
"It's a study of adult lifespan development and when it was started in 1938, it was actually radical to study normal development for two reasons. One is that most of what had been studied was about what goes wrong in development, which we still do because we want to try to help people who are having developmental problems. So that makes a lot of sense, but to study what goes right in development, that was unheard of. The other thing is that for a long time, we certainly thought about children as developing because you can watch children change every day. That change happens so fast, but many people thought that once you got to be in your 20s, you were kind of done with development. You found a partner, you found a line of work, you were set with regard to your personality, and that was it, then you just lived your life. And of course, now we understand that there's so much that changes and develops through the course of adult life, but my predecessors (I'm the fourth director) were really, insightful in their understanding of how much there was to learn about all the changes that happen across the adult lifespan." What makes a good life? How important are relationships in helping us lead happy and meaningful lives? Dr. Robert Waldinger is a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development at Massachusetts General Hospital, and cofounder of the Lifespan Research Foundation. Dr. Waldinger received his AB from Harvard College and his MD from Harvard Medical School. He is a practicing psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and he directs a psychotherapy teaching program for Harvard psychiatry residents. He is also a Zen master (Roshi) and teaches meditation in New England and around the world. His TED Talk about the Harvard study “What makes a good life?” has been viewed more than 42 million times and is one of the 10 most watched TED Talks ever. He is co-author of The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness. https://www.robertwaldinger.com/ www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| ROBERT WALDINGER - Co-Author of The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness | 22 Dec 2023 | 00:38:22 | |
What makes a good life? How important are relationships in helping us lead happy and meaningful lives? Dr. Robert Waldinger is a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development at Massachusetts General Hospital, and cofounder of the Lifespan Research Foundation. Dr. Waldinger received his AB from Harvard College and his MD from Harvard Medical School. He is a practicing psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and he directs a psychotherapy teaching program for Harvard psychiatry residents. He is also a Zen master (Roshi) and teaches meditation in New England and around the world. His TED Talk about the Harvard study “What makes a good life?” has been viewed more than 42 million times and is one of the 10 most watched TED Talks ever. He is co-author of The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness. "It's a study of adult lifespan development and when it was started in 1938, it was actually radical to study normal development for two reasons. One is that most of what had been studied was about what goes wrong in development, which we still do because we want to try to help people who are having developmental problems. So that makes a lot of sense, but to study what goes right in development, that was unheard of. The other thing is that for a long time, we certainly thought about children as developing because you can watch children change every day. That change happens so fast, but many people thought that once you got to be in your 20s, you were kind of done with development. You found a partner, you found a line of work, you were set with regard to your personality, and that was it, then you just lived your life. And of course, now we understand that there's so much that changes and develops through the course of adult life, but my predecessors (I'm the fourth director) were really, insightful in their understanding of how much there was to learn about all the changes that happen across the adult lifespan." https://www.robertwaldinger.com/ www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| How has jazz been interpreted around the world? Highlights - BERNARDO MOREIRA | 20 Dec 2023 | 00:10:16 | |
“I play the double bass as a professional musician. I don't consider myself a piano player, but I play a little bit of piano, of course. Every musician should play a little bit of piano to understand harmony. And if you want to compose or to arrange music, you need to know basic piano. So I play a little bit of piano. Actually, I started to play guitar before the double bass, because it was not so easy to get a double bass 40 years ago. My father was a bass player, but he never had a bass at home. So I started to play guitar first, and I was really into Bossa Nova and those chords from João Gilberto, and it was a big influence in my early years. But then I found a double bass when I was sixteen or seventeen– it was a terrible double bass, but it was enough to start with. Today, that sounds kind of late to start learning an instrument, but back then it wasn’t so terrible. Now you have small double basses that kids of nine, ten years old can start playing. In the eighties, if you were small, you could not play double bass, basically.” Bernardo Moreira is one of the most active Portuguese double bassists. He has performed as a guest soloist with Gulbenkian, Metropolitan de Lisboa, and Nacional do Porto orchestras, and gained prominence for his collaborations with international artists, including the legendary Benny Colson, Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, Art Farmer, and Kenny Wheeler. He is a regular collaborator with many jazz musicians in Portugal, participating in formations such as the Maria João/Mário Laginha quartet, the Mário Laginha trio, and singer Cristina Branco. In 2021, he released Enter Paredes, and in 2022, he led Cantina’s de Main and SUL. www.clavenamao.org www.creativeprocess.info António Marinheiro, Bernardo Moreira Sextet, from the album Entre Paredes PROMESSAS MIX V3 ULT from SUL | |||
| BERNARDO MOREIRA - Portuguese Jazz Musician | 20 Dec 2023 | 00:36:37 | |
Bernardo Moreira is one of the most active Portuguese double bassists. He has performed as a guest soloist with Gulbenkian, Metropolitan de Lisboa, and Nacional do Porto orchestras, and gained prominence for his collaborations with international artists, including the legendary Benny Colson, Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, Art Farmer, and Kenny Wheeler. He is a regular collaborator with many jazz musicians in Portugal, participating in formations such as the Maria João/Mário Laginha quartet, the Mário Laginha trio, and singer Cristina Branco. In 2021, he released Enter Paredes, and in 2022, he led Cantina’s de Main and SUL. “I play the double bass as a professional musician. I don't consider myself a piano player, but I play a little bit of piano, of course. Every musician should play a little bit of piano to understand harmony. And if you want to compose or to arrange music, you need to know basic piano. So I play a little bit of piano. Actually, I started to play guitar before the double bass, because it was not so easy to get a double bass 40 years ago. My father was a bass player, but he never had a bass at home. So I started to play guitar first, and I was really into Bossa Nova and those chords from João Gilberto, and it was a big influence in my early years. But then I found a double bass when I was sixteen or seventeen– it was a terrible double bass, but it was enough to start with. Today, that sounds kind of late to start learning an instrument, but back then it wasn’t so terrible. Now you have small double basses that kids of nine, ten years old can start playing. In the eighties, if you were small, you could not play double bass, basically.” www.clavenamao.org www.creativeprocess.info António Marinheiro, Bernardo Moreira Sextet, from the album Entre Paredes PROMESSAS MIX V3 ULT from SUL | |||
| Does privacy exist anymore? Or are humans just sets of data to be traded and sold? - Highlights - WENDY WONG | 15 Dec 2023 | 00:11:43 | |
"One of the things that we need to remember is that we are data stakeholders and not data subjects. We're often called data subjects if you look at the way legislation is written and tech companies talk about the users of their technology as data subjects. Being a subject casts this sort of 'you can't help but have this happen to you' effect. But we're actually data stakeholders for the reason that data cannot be created without us. If companies were incentivized to follow data minimization for example, where they only collect the data they need, that would change the way we interact with digital technologies." Does privacy exist anymore? Or are humans just sets of data to be traded and sold? Wendy H. Wong is Professor of Political Science and Principal's Research Chair at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. She is the author of two award-winning books: Internal Affairs: How the Structure of NGOs Transforms Human Rights and (with Sarah S. Stroup) The Authority Trap: Strategic Choices of International NGOs. Her latest book is We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age. www.wendyhwong.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| WENDY WONG - Author of We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age | 15 Dec 2023 | 00:53:44 | |
Does privacy exist anymore? Or are humans just sets of data to be traded and sold? Wendy H. Wong is Professor of Political Science and Principal's Research Chair at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. She is the author of two award-winning books: Internal Affairs: How the Structure of NGOs Transforms Human Rights and (with Sarah S. Stroup) The Authority Trap: Strategic Choices of International NGOs. Her latest book is We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age. "One of the things that we need to remember is that we are data stakeholders and not data subjects. We're often called data subjects if you look at the way legislation is written and tech companies talk about the users of their technology as data subjects. Being a subject casts this sort of 'you can't help but have this happen to you' effect. But we're actually data stakeholders for the reason that data cannot be created without us. If companies were incentivized to follow data minimization for example, where they only collect the data they need, that would change the way we interact with digital technologies." www.wendyhwong.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| MAX BENNETT - Author of A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains - CEO of Alby | 12 Dec 2023 | 00:55:39 | |
The more the science of intelligence (both human and artificial) advances, the more it holds the potential for great benefits and dangers to society. Max Bennett is the cofounder and CEO of Alby, a start-up that helps companies integrate large language models into their websites to create guided shopping and search experiences. Previously, Bennett was the cofounder and chief product officer of Bluecore, one of the fastest growing companies in the U.S., providing AI technologies to some of the largest companies in the world. Bluecore has been featured in the annual Inc. 500 fastest growing companies, as well as Glassdoor’s 50 best places to work in the U.S. Bluecore was recently valued at over $1 billion. Bennett holds several patents for AI technologies and has published numerous scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals on the topics of evolutionary neuroscience and the neocortex. He has been featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list as well as the Built In NYC’s 30 Tech Leaders Under 30. He is the author of A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains. "So, modern neuroscientists are questioning if there really is one consistent limbic system. But usually when we're looking at the limbic system, we're thinking about things like emotion, volition, and goals. And those types of things, I would argue reinforcement learning algorithms, at least on a primitive level, we already have because the way that we get them to achieve goals like play a game of go and win is we give them a reward signal or a reward function. And then we let them self-play and teach themselves based on maximizing that reward. But that doesn't mean that they're self-aware, doesn't mean that they're experiencing anything at all. There's a fascinating set of questions in the AI community around what's called the reward hypothesis, which is how much of intelligent behavior can be understood through the lens of just trying to optimize a reward signal. We are more than just trying to optimize reward signals. We do things to try and reinforce our own identities. We do things to try and understand ourselves. These are attributes that are hard to explain from a simple reward signal, but do make sense. And other conceptions of intelligence like Karl Friston's active inference where we build a model of ourselves and try and reinforce that model." www.abriefhistoryofintelligence.com/ | |||
| How Can We Heal the Earth? - Highlights - JULIAN LENNON - Singer-songwriter, Photographer, Doc Filmmaker | 08 Dec 2023 | 00:17:11 | |
"I thought, wow, how are they going to bring this across in a way that isn't shoving things down people's throats? It's presenting information in a way that is creative, but also in a way that drives your curiosity into understanding, number one, why are we in the position that we're in? And number two, how can we fix this? What can we do to change all of this? And so, I initially got involved as an executive producer on Kiss the Ground, and I was blown away by how that film came out at the end. How well rounded it was, the flow of the film, the storytelling, and really feeding me information that I didn't even know previously. And so also watching that become a platform around the world was jaw-dropping. I mean, the fact that the belief and the understanding and the wisdom that came out of that project has touched so many hearts, minds, and souls around the world, that people are really single-handedly almost making change for the better around the world. Now, when Common Ground was presented, I did love that concept because Kiss the Ground had been very much a broad approach and about America, for the majority, really, and Common Ground was a much more...I mean, we're still dealing with the same subject matter obviously, but I think it felt great to come from a more personal aspect." How can the arts inspire us to lead lives of greater meaning and connection? What kind of world are we leaving for future generations? Julian Lennon is a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter, photographer, documentary filmmaker, and NYTimes bestselling author of children's books. Executive Producer of Common Ground and its predecessor Kiss the Ground, which reached over 1 billion people and inspired the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to put $20 billion toward soil health. The natural world and indigenous people are also the focus of Lennon’s other documentaries Whaledreamers, and Women of the White Buffalo. In 2007, Julian founded the global environmental and humanitarian organization The White Feather Foundation, whose key initiatives are education, health, conservation, and the protection of indigenous culture, causes he also advances through his photography, exhibited across the US and Europe. His latest album Jude spans a body of work created over the last 30 years. Julian was named a Peace Laureate by UNESCO in 2020. https://julianlennon.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| JULIAN LENNON - Singer-songwriter, Photographer, Doc Filmmaker, Exec. Producer of Common Ground | 08 Dec 2023 | 00:41:31 | |
How can the arts inspire us to lead lives of greater meaning and connection? What kind of world are we leaving for future generations? Julian Lennon is a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter, photographer, documentary filmmaker, and NYTimes bestselling author of children's books. Executive Producer of Common Ground and its predecessor Kiss the Ground, which reached over 1 billion people and inspired the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to put $20 billion toward soil health. The natural world and indigenous people are also the focus of Lennon’s other documentaries Whaledreamers, and Women of the White Buffalo. In 2007, Julian founded the global environmental and humanitarian organization The White Feather Foundation, whose key initiatives are education, health, conservation, and the protection of indigenous culture, causes he also advances through his photography, exhibited across the US and Europe. His latest album Jude spans a body of work created over the last 30 years. Julian was named a Peace Laureate by UNESCO in 2020. "I thought, wow, how are they going to bring this across in a way that isn't shoving things down people's throats? It's presenting information in a way that is creative, but also in a way that drives your curiosity into understanding, number one, why are we in the position that we're in? And number two, how can we fix this? What can we do to change all of this? And so, I initially got involved as an executive producer on Kiss the Ground, and I was blown away by how that film came out at the end. How well rounded it was, the flow of the film, the storytelling, and really feeding me information that I didn't even know previously. And so also watching that become a platform around the world was jaw-dropping. I mean, the fact that the belief and the understanding and the wisdom that came out of that project has touched so many hearts, minds, and souls around the world, that people are really single-handedly almost making change for the better around the world. Now, when Common Ground was presented, I did love that concept because Kiss the Ground had been very much a broad approach and about America, for the majority, really, and Common Ground was a much more...I mean, we're still dealing with the same subject matter obviously, but I think it felt great to come from a more personal aspect." https://julianlennon.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| DUANE L. CADY - Philosopher, Author of Moral Vision: How Everyday Life Shapes Ethical Thinking & From Warism to Pacifism | 05 Dec 2023 | 00:47:32 | |
How can we resolve conflicts without compromising our ethics and moral vision? Each year, wars are being fought in our name or with our support that citizens never get an opportunity to vote on. How can we make our voices heard? “Warism, taking war for granted as morally acceptable, even morally required, is the primary obstacle to peace.” Duane L. Cady is a philosopher and Professor Emeritus at Hamline University. He was nominated for the 1991 Grawemeyer World Order Award, was named Outstanding Educator of the Year by the United Methodist Foundation for Higher Education, and a festschiff in his honor was published in 2012. Cady is best known for his works on pacifism, including Moral Vision: How Everyday Life Shapes Ethical Thinking, and From Warism to Pacifism: A Moral Continuum. "The task for us is to understand how we can get moral visions and then consider the ethics of negotiating between and among them, including collisions between moral visions. So my interest is in the extent to which various forms of reason take part in these different projects. I argue that contemporary technical philosophers tend to avoid this kind of problem. They tend to think of reason as much more narrow, whereas I want to include things like ordinary experience, the arts, theater, and reading a book. All those things can have an effect. Or as the case, we can consider now with current events experiencing moral horror, even if it's at a bit of a distance, even on TV or reading about it in the newspaper, have an effect on helping shape our moral vision. And so it's not necessarily a matter of neuro-technical reasoning. That probably is enough to get an idea of what I might do." www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| VILHELM HAMMERSHØI: Silence | 05 Jul 2024 | 00:06:43 | |
Can silence be painted? How can artists capture interior states, solitude, and the passing of time? How are the homes we live in a reflection of the people who inhabit them? How can we read a painting to piece together the life of the artist? From 1 June to 13 July 2024, Hauser & Wirth presents Vilhelm Hammershøi: Silence in its new gallery location in Basel. This exhibition celebrates the renowned Danish artist, Vilhelm Hammershøi, for its first solo exhibition, and presents 16 works from private collections curated by art historian Felix Krämer. Art historian and writer Florian Illies commented on Hammershøi's work: “One often forgets that Hammershøi, despite this self-restraint, was an artist who had traveled a lot…who knew the artists of his time. But its effect was completely different…He does the exact opposite to everyone else. And it is precisely this difference that makes him so special. This mystery is what makes him so compelling to us today.” Hammershøi’s works defy genre or movements, utilizing elements inspired by the Old Master in combination with his present, private sphere, and speak to contemporary viewers with timeless motifs, yet communicate profound meanings between themselves. https://www.hauserwirth.com/hauser-wirth-exhibitions/vilhelm-hammershoi-silence www.creativeprocess.info Interior with the Artist’s Wife, Seen from Behind 1901 | |||
| JULIE ANDREWS - PAUL SCHRADER - JULIAN SCHNABEL on Filmmaking & Creative Process | 01 Dec 2023 | 00:03:39 | |
What gave Taxi Driver its edge? What was Mary Poppins secret life? If filmmaking is all about “creating lies”, when does the lie become more real than the truth? Featured film discussions from screenings at Sag Harbor Cinema, following on our interview with April Gornik, community activist/organizer and artist. She is a director of Sag Harbor Cinema and was Campaign Chair for the restoration of the Cinema after a fire nearly destroyed it in 2016. Today the SHG screens a variety of contemporary and classic films, hosting events and public screenings in the presence of filmmakers and actors. You can hear our full interview with Gornik and other artists brought to the stages of Sag Harbor Cinema and The Church Arts & Creativity Center on The Creative Process podcast. Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center is dedicated to presenting the past, present and future of the movies and to preserving and educating about films, filmmaking, and the film-going experience in its three state-of-the-art theaters and in the surrounding community. The Cinema engages its audiences and the community year-round through dialogue, discovery, and appreciation of the moving image – from blockbusters to student shorts and everything in between. Revitalized and reimagined through unprecedented community efforts to rebuild the iconic Main Street structure after a fire nearly destroyed it in 2016, SHC continues a tradition of entertainment, education, and enrichment in the heart of Sag Harbor Village. https://sagharborcinema.org/ www.creativeprocess.info Audio courtesy of Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center. | |||
| HOWARD GARDNER - Author of A Synthesizing Mind & Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences - Co-director of The Good Project | 29 Nov 2023 | 00:50:09 | |
How do we define intelligence? What is the point of creativity and intelligence if we are not creating good in the world? In this age of AI, what is the importance of a synthesizing mind? Howard Gardner, Research Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, an author of over 30 books, translated into 32 languages, and several hundred articles, is best known for his theory of multiple intelligences, a critique of the notion that there exists but a single human intelligence that can be assessed by standard psychometric instruments. He has twice been selected by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines as one of the 100 most influential public intellectuals in the world. In the last few years, Gardner has been studying the nature of human synthesizing, a topic introduced in his 2020 memoir, A Synthesizing Mind. For 28 years, with David Perkins, he was Co-Director of Harvard Project Zero, and in more recent years has served in a variety of leadership positions. Since the middle 1990s, Gardner has directed The Good Project, a group of initiatives, founded in collaboration with psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and William Damon. The project promotes excellence, engagement, and ethics in education, preparing students to become good workers and good citizens who contribute to the overall well-being of society. Through research-based concepts, frameworks, and resources, The Good Project seeks to help students reflect upon the ethical dilemmas that arise in everyday life and give them the tools to make thoughtful decisions. "I had two close colleagues, both psychologists: William Damon, a student of moral development, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, recently deceased, probably known to many of your audience because he developed the notion of flow, which is that psychological state where anxiety and boredom are mediated by something that really involves and engrosses you. And the three of us were able to spend a year together at a research center, and the question we came up with was: Can you be creative and humane at the same time? Creative means having your mind go free, think about all sorts of things, try them out. Nothing is taboo, nothing is off limits. But at the same time, can you do it in a way that's humane and ethical and avoids, for example, creating the Einstein equation, which was a brilliant physics explanation, but also led to nuclear weapons. And similarly with cracking genetic code in any way. And we thought this was a good question, but we weren't wise enough to come up with an answer. So that's why we spent 10 years, roughly from 1995 to 2005, interviewing about 1, 500 people from nine different professions. And it was from that very intensive and extensive study that we came up with the three E's of good work. Excellence, engagement, and ethics. Since then, my research group at Harvard has called this The Good Project. And The Good Project is looking at the development of a moral and ethical stance as young as the age of three or four, preschool, all the way to professions and middle life. And we have a website thegoodproject.org where you can read dozens of blogs and various papers on this topic. And, as Mia indicated, there were also our books in which there's one book called Good Work, and another book called Truth, Beauty, Goodness, Refrain, where we describe our current thinking. And, you know, I think the study would have been different if we had done it in the age of ChatGPT." www.howardgardner.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Reimagining Our Future: Co-Founder of 350.org BILL McKIBBEN & Author of The Activist Humanist CAROLINE LEVINE on Climate Action - Highlights | 28 Nov 2023 | 00:10:55 | |
"Viewed one way, we live in a very hopeful moment. Thanks to in large part the work of university scientists and engineers, we now live on a planet where the cheapest way to produce power is to point a sheet of glass at the sun. That is to say, we could run our Earth on energy from heaven instead of hell, and we could do it fast. The fast is the hard part here. The only difference between all the examples of the long victories of social justice activism that we're in now is that this one is a time-limited problem. If we don't solve it fast, then no one's got a plan for how you refreeze the Arctic once you've melted it. And so we have to move very quickly. Our systems are not designed to move quickly. It's the easiest thing in the world to slow down and delay change, which is all that the fossil fuel industry at this point is trying to do, and that means that it's time for maximum effort from all of us. The story to tell is that the planet is outside its comfort zone, so we need to be outside ours." In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu talks with legendary climate activist Bill McKibben and scholar Caroline Levine. McKibben relates his long struggle to get companies to divest from fossil fuels and for the world in general to act immediately to seriously and substantially address this existential crisis. Levine tells of her efforts to get the giant pension fund, TIAA-CREF, to divest. She also talks about her new book, The Activist Humanist, and its relation to both her teaching and her activism. Bill McKibben is founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 for action on climate and justice. His 1989 book The End of Nature is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change, and has appeared in 24 languages. He’s gone on to write 20 books, and his work appears regularly in periodicals from the New Yorker to Rolling Stone. He serves as the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has won the Gandhi Peace Prize as well as honorary degrees from 20 colleges and universities. He was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, sometimes called the alternative Nobel, in the Swedish Parliament. Foreign Policy named him to its inaugural list of the world’s 100 most important global thinkers. McKibben helped found 350.org, the first global grassroots climate campaign, which has organized protests on every continent, including Antarctica, for climate action. He played a leading role in launching the opposition to big oil pipeline projects like Keystone XL, and the fossil fuel divestment campaign, which has become the biggest anti-corporate campaign in history, with endowments worth more than $40 trillion stepping back from oil, gas and coal. He stepped down as board chair of 350 in 2015, and left the board and stepped down from his volunteer role as senior adviser in 2020, accepting emeritus status. He lives in the mountains above Lake Champlain with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern, where he spends as much time as possible outdoors. In 2014, biologists credited his career by naming a new species of woodland gnat—Megophthalmidia mckibbeni–in his honor. Caroline Levine has spent her career asking how and why the humanities and the arts matter, especially in democratic societies. She argues for an understanding of forms and structures as essential both to understanding links between art and society and to the challenge of taking meaningful political action. She is the author of four books. The most recent, The Activist Humanist: Form and Method in the Climate Crisis (Princeton University Press 2023), grows out of the theoretical work of Forms: Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network (2015, winner of the James Russell Lowell Prize from the MLA, and named one of Flavorwire’s “10 Must-Read Academic Books of 2015”). Levine has also published The Serious Pleasures of Suspense: Victorian Realism and Narrative Doubt (2003, winner of the Perkins Prize for the best book in narrative studies) and Provoking Democracy: Why We Need the Arts (2007). https://billmckibben.com https://english.cornell.edu/caroline-levine www.palumbo-liu.com | |||
| BILL McKIBBEN, Co-Founder of 350.org, Founder Third Act & CAROLINE LEVINE, Author of The Activist Humanist | 27 Nov 2023 | 00:36:06 | |
In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu talks with legendary climate activist Bill McKibben and scholar Caroline Levine. McKibben relates his long struggle to get companies to divest from fossil fuels and for the world in general to act immediately to seriously and substantially address this existential crisis. Levine tells of her efforts to get the giant pension fund, TIAA-CREF, to divest. She also talks about her new book, The Activist Humanist, and its relation to both her teaching and her activism. Bill McKibben is founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 for action on climate and justice. His 1989 book The End of Nature is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change, and has appeared in 24 languages. He’s gone on to write 20 books, and his work appears regularly in periodicals from the New Yorker to Rolling Stone. He serves as the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has won the Gandhi Peace Prize as well as honorary degrees from 20 colleges and universities. He was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, sometimes called the alternative Nobel, in the Swedish Parliament. Foreign Policy named him to its inaugural list of the world’s 100 most important global thinkers. McKibben helped found 350.org, the first global grassroots climate campaign, which has organized protests on every continent, including Antarctica, for climate action. He played a leading role in launching the opposition to big oil pipeline projects like Keystone XL, and the fossil fuel divestment campaign, which has become the biggest anti-corporate campaign in history, with endowments worth more than $40 trillion stepping back from oil, gas and coal. He stepped down as board chair of 350 in 2015, and left the board and stepped down from his volunteer role as senior adviser in 2020, accepting emeritus status. He lives in the mountains above Lake Champlain with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern, where he spends as much time as possible outdoors. In 2014, biologists credited his career by naming a new species of woodland gnat—Megophthalmidia mckibbeni–in his honor. Caroline Levine has spent her career asking how and why the humanities and the arts matter, especially in democratic societies. She argues for an understanding of forms and structures as essential both to understanding links between art and society and to the challenge of taking meaningful political action. She is the author of four books. The most recent, The Activist Humanist: Form and Method in the Climate Crisis (Princeton University Press 2023), grows out of the theoretical work of Forms: Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network (2015, winner of the James Russell Lowell Prize from the MLA, and named one of Flavorwire’s “10 Must-Read Academic Books of 2015”). Levine has also published The Serious Pleasures of Suspense: Victorian Realism and Narrative Doubt (2003, winner of the Perkins Prize for the best book in narrative studies) and Provoking Democracy: Why We Need the Arts (2007). "Viewed one way, we live in a very hopeful moment. Thanks to in large part the work of university scientists and engineers, we now live on a planet where the cheapest way to produce power is to point a sheet of glass at the sun. That is to say, we could run our Earth on energy from heaven instead of hell, and we could do it fast. The fast is the hard part here. The only difference between all the examples of the long victories of social justice activism that we're in now is that this one is a time-limited problem. If we don't solve it fast, then no one's got a plan for how you refreeze the Arctic once you've melted it. And so we have to move very quickly. Our systems are not designed to move quickly. It's the easiest thing in the world to slow down and delay change, which is all that the fossil fuel industry at this point is trying to do, and that means that it's time for maximum effort from all of us. The story to tell is that the planet is outside its comfort zone, so we need to be outside ours." https://billmckibben.com https://english.cornell.edu/caroline-levine www.palumbo-liu.com | |||