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

“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.”

Environmentalists, writers, artists, activists, and public policy makers explore the interconnectedness of living beings and ecosystems. They highlight the importance of conservation, promote climate education, advocate for sustainable development, and underscore the vital role of creative and educational communities in driving positive change.

"I want to be wowed by the world. I want to gaze at it in awe and wonder. And I think when we take a step back and begin to appreciate the complexity of the interactions around us. We're taking note of a very porous between the self and the rest of the world. We are literally observing our enmeshment in our environment. And it's that kind of a reference frameshift that I think is going to help us move out of some of the darkness. My mother is an artist, and I think growing up surrounded by her practice exposed me to the creative process and is probably that which afforded me a certain sympathy for those tools and those modes of exploring the world later in life."

How does a changing climate affect our minds, brains and bodies?

Clayton Page Aldern is an award winning neuroscientist turned environmental journalist whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Economist, and Grist, where he is a senior data reporter. A Rhodes Scholar, he holds a Master's in Neuroscience and a Master's in Public Policy from the University of Oxford. He is also a research affiliate at the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology at the University of Washington. He is the author of The Weight of Nature, How a Changing Climate Changes Our Minds, Brains, and Bodies, which explores the neurobiological impacts of rapid environmental change.

“What I think will stay with you for an entire lifetime is to be equipped with the capacity and the tools to find wonder in the world. And that is to find a language for that world, which is supplied through a folk tale, mythology, literature, poetry, and song. And then to also to have the kind of knowledge basis. I still think we suffer from this terrible division between the humanities and the sciences. These two worlds are sundered. I think we need to bring them together. Anybody who has for a moment studied the operations of photosynthesis in a plan or capillary action in trees is just astonished by the miracle of these operations. So I think we need to infuse a kind of a syncretic knowledge, but that would have as its central or its core point of value a rediscovery of wonder in the world. And of course, a world that you wonder at is a world that you cherish and a world that you cherish is a world that you want to preserve. And that, I think, is our only hope.”

How has tourism and writing about travel contributed to the ecological degradation of the planet?How does language influence perception and our relationship to the more-than-human world?

Michael Cronin is an Irish academic specialist in culture, travel literature, translation studies, and the Irish language. He has taught in universities in France and Ireland and has held visiting research fellowships to universities in Canada, Belgium, Peru, France, and Egypt. He's a fellow of Trinity College Dublin, an elected member of the Royal Irish Academy, and a senior researcher in the Trinity Centre for Literary and Cultural Translation. He is the current holder of the Chair of French (est. 1776) at TCD. He is the author of Eco-Travel: Journeying in the Age of the Anthropocene, Eco-Translation: Translation and Ecology in the Age of the Anthropocene, and other books.