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

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

The story of our environment may well be the most important story this century. We focus on issues facing people and the planet. Leading environmentalists, organizations, activists, and conservationists discuss meaningful ways to create a better and more sustainable future. Participants include EARTHDAY.ORG, Greenpeace, UNESCO World Heritage Centre, PETA, European Environment Agency, Peter Singer, 350.org, UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development, Citizens’ Climate Lobby, Earth System Governance Project, Forest Stewardship Council, Global Witness, National Council for Climate Change, Sustainable Development and Public Leadership, Marine Stewardship Council, One Tree Planted, Polar Bears International, EarthLife Africa, Shimon Schwarzschild, and GAIA Centre, among others. Interviews conducted by artist, activist, and educator Mia Funk with the participation of students and universities around the world. One Planet Podcast Is part of The Creative Process’ environmental initiative. www.oneplanetpodcast.org www.creativeprocess.info INSTAGRAM @creativeprocesspodcast

  1. Curiosity, Cognition & Adapting to the Uncertainties Climate Change with Neuroscientist DR. JACQUELINE GOTTLIEB

    6 DAYS AGO

    Curiosity, Cognition & Adapting to the Uncertainties Climate Change with Neuroscientist DR. JACQUELINE GOTTLIEB

    “So we've all experienced this sense of awe at the vastness of things in nature, and I think that is a beautiful sense. You're in awe at the vastness things that go beyond your capabilities, also capabilities of understanding and capabilities of knowledge. So I look at it as kind of a form of extreme uncertainty that is not threatening. We can relax. It's pleasurable and inspiring. So, maybe if we can remember the sense of awe that we have with certain things, we can help ourselves when, when we have uncertainties (climate change) that are threatening, maybe that's something that we can use to calm us down. About dealing with climate change, people do adjust, and I think we should enable, so far as policy comes about, a lot of policy has to be geared towards allowing people to adapt. Let's say you think that sea level will rise in a particular area. Well, you can build a bigger dam, right? Or, you can build bigger walls. So, the more resources people have, the more efficient they will be in adapting to whatever comes their way.”

    20 min

  2. 30 AUG

    Wetlands, Methane & Restoring Earth’s Garden of Eden with EUAN NISBET

    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.

    46 min
  3. How can journalism make people care about environmental crises & create solutions? - Highlights - NICHOLAS KRISTOF

    26 AUG

    How can journalism make people care about environmental crises & create solutions? - Highlights - NICHOLAS KRISTOF

    “I think that the problem is a classic economic problem of tragedy of the commons—the fact that any one country is going to benefit if other countries reduce carbon emissions but is going to suffer when it itself does means there's always a tendency to want other countries to lead the way. Since the industrial revolution began, the US point of view is that we can't get anywhere unless India and China reduce carbon emissions, while India and China say if you look over the last one hundred years, the US is the one who put out all the carbon, and we're just finally getting a little bit richer and you want to cut us off at the knees. There are arguments to be made on both sides, but the fundamental impediment is that 10 years ago, it just seemed really hard to see how we were going to get out of climate change and disastrous consequences, but right now, if you squint a little bit, you can maybe see a path through this period where we reduce carbon emissions enough to figure out how to navigate our way to a future in which things work and we pay a price, but one that is manageable. Green energy is becoming much cheaper because of a revolution in battery technology, and now there are possibilities for a field-like energy generated by waves or fusion nuclear power to remove carbon from the air with direct air capture. We're not sure that these will work, but they may, and they would really be revolutionary. China is an interesting example of a country that has made remarkable progress on electrification and battery technology. It is still pushing out a ton of carbon, but it has done this for practical reasons—it understands that those are key technologies for the future and whoever figures out how to get electric vehicles done right, whoever figures out how to get battery technology right, the world is going to benefit from their progress in battery technology, just as the world has benefited by having solar panels made in China go up all over the world.” 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.

    17 min
  4. Chasing Hope: A Reporter's Life w/ Pulitzer Prize-winning Journalist NICHOLAS KRISTOF

    26 AUG

    Chasing Hope: A Reporter's Life w/ Pulitzer Prize-winning Journalist NICHOLAS KRISTOF

    How can journalism make people care and bring about solutions? What role does storytelling play in shining a light on injustice and crises and creating a catalyst for change? 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.

    44 min
  5. Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science with RENÉE BERGLAND

    20 AUG

    Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science with RENÉE BERGLAND

    How do the works of Emily Dickinson and Charles Darwin continue to influence our understanding of nature, ecological interdependence, and the human experience? How does understanding history help us address current social and environmental issues. How can dialogues between the arts and sciences foster holistic, sustainable solutions to global crises? Renée Bergland is a literary critic, historian of science, and educator. As a storyteller, Bergland connects the lives of historical figures to the problems of the present day. As an educator, she emphasizes the interdisciplinary connections between the sciences and humanities. A longtime professor at Simmons University, where she is the Program director of Literature and writing, Bergland has also researched and taught at institutions such as Dartmouth College, Harvard University, and MIT. Bergland’s past published titles include Maria Mitchell and the Sexing of Science: An Astronomer Among the American Romantics and The National Uncanny: Indian Ghosts and American Subjects. Her most recent book, Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science, was published in April of 2024. It explores Dickinson and Darwin’s shared enchanted view of the natural world in a time when poetry and natural philosophy, once freely intertwined, began to grow apart. “One of the poems of Dickinson's that I think explains Darwin the best starts out, ‘There is a flower that bees prefer / and butterflies desire.’ She's talking about the clover, and in that poem she describes the clover and the grass as kinsmen. They're related to each other, but they're contending, she says, for sod and sun. They are competing to see who can get the most soil, the most nutrients, but she calls them ‘sweet litigants for life.’ And that interpretation of Darwinism, where they're sweet and they're struggling, but they're both actually litigants for life, they're both arguing for the biosphere and advocates—that takes us back to the first lines of the poem. ‘There's a flower that bees prefer / and butterflies desire.' The way that the clover and the grass compete is by trying to see who can be more beautiful, who can be more brightly colored, who can smell better, who can lure  more pollinators, more insects and birds and collaborate better with them, and have a better chance of  surviving. That is certainly a version of survival of the fittest, but it's not a dog eat dog violent version. It's a version where the way you get a generational advantage, and perhaps have more little clovers following in your footsteps, is by collaborating better, by making yourself more beautiful, more alluring, and more inviting, inviting pollinators to work with you. That's straight from Darwin. Darwin's very clear in On the Origin of Species that when he talks about the struggle for life, he's primarily talking about co-adaptation and collaboration between species that can learn to work together. He's the one who actually, as he explains the struggle for life,  says it's nothing like two dogs fighting over a bone. That's not what it is. But unfortunately, a lot of that co-adaptation language got lost in the popular imagination. And that's one of the reasons that turning to Dickinson can help us understand—because she so beautifully depicts a Darwinian world where, yes, there's death, but there's more than anything, there's life.” www.reneebergland.comhttps://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691235288/natural-magic www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

    1h 1m
  6. Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers & Out of the Darkness: The Germans 1942 to 2022 w/ FRANK TRENTMANN

    15 AUG

    Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers & Out of the Darkness: The Germans 1942 to 2022 w/ FRANK TRENTMANN

    "Consumption is a tricky business. We've moved ourselves into a situation where on the one hand, we now recognize that possessions are an important source of identity. Most of us believe people should have the right to choose the kind of lifestyle they want to have; on the other hand, we have the environmental costs of that lifestyle, which is causing havoc with our planet and, ultimately, with our lives. And so we're caught in a social-political acceptance of the freedom to choose and a growing awareness that the world is heading towards environmental disaster and taking us down with it. We haven't found a way of resolving that ambivalence. Climate activists, economists, and so forth have come up with solutions from zero growth to simple living, but as a historian who's followed the rise of and transformation of consumption over 600 years, I can assure you that it's too simple to try and demonize consumption and hope that by just drawing attention to environmental problems, people will somehow reform themselves. I think we have to take seriously that in the course of modernity, consumption has become deeply embedded culturally, socially, politically in our lives.Just waving an alarmist poster will not shock us out of the kind of lifestyle that has become normal for us. People tend to equate consumption with individual choice and motivation or desire. But from an environmental point of view, a huge amount of our hyper-consumption lifestyle is not organized or conducted through individual choice. They're social habits. These days, people have a shower as a matter of habit. Some people have two or three showers a day. And then they get to their leisure activities or their work with a car if they have one. They're used to driving, and that's a habit. So lots of things that cause damage are habitual forms of consumption. Those are not driven by individual choice but because our cities have been planned in a particular way—state and other authorities have built highways, car manufacturers get certain subsidies. There's an infrastructure of gas stations and electric charging points. And so if you want to tackle environmental consequences, perhaps a more effective way would be to intervene, try to disrupt those habits and plan cities and mobility in different ways that are environmentally friendlier."

    17 min
  7. Out of the Darkness: The Germans 1942 to 2022 with FRANK TRENTMANN

    14 AUG

    Out of the Darkness: The Germans 1942 to 2022 with FRANK TRENTMANN

    What can we learn from Germany's postwar transformation to help us address today's environmental and humanitarian crises? With the rise of populism, authoritarianism, and digital propaganda, how can history provide insights into the challenges of modern democracy? Frank Trentmann is a Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London, and at the University of Helsinki. He is a prize-winning historian, having received awards such as the Whitfield Prize, Austrian Wissenschaftsbuch/Science Book Prize, Humboldt Prize for Research, and the 2023 Bochum Historians' Award. He has also been named a Moore Scholar at Caltech. He is the author of Empire of Things and Free Trade Nation. His latest book is Out of the Darkness: The Germans 1942 to 2022, which explores Germany's transformation after the Second World War.

    55 min
  8. The SDGs & UN Summit of the Future - Highlights - GUILLAUME LAFORTUNE

    31 JUL

    The SDGs & UN Summit of the Future - Highlights - GUILLAUME LAFORTUNE

    How can we get 193 countries to move in the same direction for a better tomorrow? In today's podcast, we talk with Guillaume Lafortune, Vice President and Head of the Paris Office of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), the largest global network of scientists and practitioners dedicated to implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We discuss the intersections of sustainability, global progress, the UN Summit of the Future, and the daunting challenges we face. From the impact of war on climate initiatives to transforming data into narratives that drive change, we explore how global cooperation, education, and technology pave the way for a sustainable future and look at the lessons of history and the power of diplomacy in shaping our path forward.

    15 min
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The story of our environment may well be the most important story this century. We focus on issues facing people and the planet. Leading environmentalists, organizations, activists, and conservationists discuss meaningful ways to create a better and more sustainable future. Participants include EARTHDAY.ORG, Greenpeace, UNESCO World Heritage Centre, PETA, European Environment Agency, Peter Singer, 350.org, UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development, Citizens’ Climate Lobby, Earth System Governance Project, Forest Stewardship Council, Global Witness, National Council for Climate Change, Sustainable Development and Public Leadership, Marine Stewardship Council, One Tree Planted, Polar Bears International, EarthLife Africa, Shimon Schwarzschild, and GAIA Centre, among others. Interviews conducted by artist, activist, and educator Mia Funk with the participation of students and universities around the world. One Planet Podcast Is part of The Creative Process’ environmental initiative. www.oneplanetpodcast.org www.creativeprocess.info INSTAGRAM @creativeprocesspodcast

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