Sustainability, Climate Change, Renewable Energy, Politics, Activism, Biodiversity, Carbon Footprint, Wildlife, Regenerative The Creative Process

“The creation of roads is this process that's sort of innate to all beings. You know, we're all sort of inclined to create and follow trails. We just do it at a much vaster and more permanent and destructive scale. I think we need to reconceive how we think about roads in some ways, right? I mean, we think about roads, certainly here in the U. S., as these symbols of movement and mobility and freedom, right? There's so much about the romance of the open road and so much of our popular culture going back to the mid-20th century when the interstate highway systems were built and writers like Jack Kerouac were singing the praises of the open highway. And certainly, roads play that role. I like driving. The iconic Western American road trip is kind of this wonderful experience, but you know, I think the purpose of this book is to say: Yes, roads are a source of human mobility and freedom, but they're doing precisely the opposite for basically all other forms of life, right? They're curtailing animal movement and mobility and freedom, both by killing them directly in the form of roadkill, but also by creating these kinds of impenetrable walls of traffic that prevent animals from moving around the landscape and accessing big swaths of their habitat. Right? So, that's kind of the mental reconfiguration we have to go through, which is to recognize that, hey, roads aren't just forms of mobility and freedom for us. They're also preventing that mobility in basically all other life forms.”

What is road ecology? How are our roads driving certain species towards extinction? And what can we do about it?

Ben Goldfarb is a conservation journalist. He is the author of Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping The Future of Our Planet, named one of the best books of 2023 by the New York Times, and Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, winner of the 2019 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award.

“We know we're facing the extermination of life on the planet. And we've not stopped doing it. Why can't we fix it? I don't really sense, except among a certain level of educated elites in the West, a really deep understanding of our commitment to economic prosperity as a superordinate value. Climate change restrictions so that we can have an end to the catastrophic effects of climate change don't often take into account inequalities it would require for the third world when the livelihood of so many of their citizens depend on the only energy resource they have. And I'm speaking to you now from upstate New York where we have a country home, a farm with 50 acres. We're very much in nature all around us. I had always been an urbanite. Kant said our ability to appreciate beauty means that we are not merely sensible creatures of pleasure. We don't treat the beauty of nature as something we want to own to amuse ourselves. The beauty of nature is an indication of a kind of purposiveness in nature that fits us at a level beyond our mere senses. Something about the significance of the beautiful in nature reassures us that we have a higher vocation than mere entertainment and enjoyment. Some solemnity, sublimity, in our ability to appreciate the beauty of nature is encouraging about our species.”

“I wrote a book, Ecological Intelligence, on how the environment and human psychology interact in a rather sad way, which is this: Everything that we buy and use has a negative impact on the systems that support life on this planet. That’s a sad fact. Our material world is destroying our natural material world, and we deny it. But I have a strategy, which I'm putting forward everywhere I can. I don't think we're going to change the system of capitalism, at least not in time to save the planet. So the question is: Can we use economic incentives? Can we use the leverage in our economic system for better rather than worse ends? What I argue is that younger people will see the impacts on the planet of what they buy and use as an imperative—not as something they don't want to think about, but as an essential. If that's the case, then a smart business strategy in the next 10 or 20 years would be to apply a believable, objective assessment methodology, like Life Cycle Assessment, to products and services in order to show that we are lessening their negative impact.”

How can we enhance our emotional intelligence and avoid burnout in a changing world? How can we regain focus and perform in an optimal state? What do we mean by ecological intelligence?

Daniel Goleman is an American psychologist, author, and science journalist. Before becoming an author, Goleman was a science reporter for the New York Times for 12 years, covering psychology and the human brain. In 1995, Goleman published Emotional Intelligence, a New York Times bestseller. In his newly published book Optimal, Daniel Goleman discusses how people can enter an optimal state of high performance without facing symptoms of burnout in the workplace.

“Some travel writers have shared a sense of responsibility in creating narratives around travel in relation to the climate crisis. But at the same time, I think we also need to first, raise critical awareness around the media productions that glamorize travel. What I learned from the feminist framework in climate justice is that climate change affects societies in uneven ways. So we also need to raise questions around the wealthy countries that take advantage of cheap labor or relocate production and emission in the Global South, and then they blame people in the Global South for being the contributors of the climate crisis. We really need to ask questions around the structures of people in power rather than focusing on individual responsibility. Whenever I encounter beauty, it's immediately disrupted. For instance, whenever I go to Bali, going to the beach and looking at the sunset, I'm reminded of the structures of global inequalities that make tourism possible. It's the same here in Sydney where I'm reminded this is a settler colonial country. But maybe it's important to appreciate the beauty of nature around you, but then be constantly disrupted by all these thoughts and questions.”