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

"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.

"The thing that with nature that I think is most profound is that it's always truthful. And I think that that's something that always resonates with me. Whenever I'm in raw nature, there's just an undeniable truth and a sense of how it's supposed to be. And I think that that's something that I reach for in my own music, where I try to take myself out of my own single being and try to be in touch with all of it. And that's just something that's so resonating in nature, the sense of wholeness and connectedness. 
When I'm writing music, I don't think I'm ever specifically trying to capture any of these moments specifically. I think it's just the way your mind works when you're in nature and the way you're able to hear yourself and peace, really. So, for me, there's always this very strong connection to creativity in nature."

What will happen when Artificial General Intelligence arrives? What is the nature of consciousness? How are music and creativity pathways for reconnecting us to our humanity and the natural world?
Dustin O’Halloran is a pianist and composer and member of the band A Winged Victory for the Sullen. Winner of a 2015 Emmy Award for his main title theme to Amazon's comedy drama Transparent, he was also nominated for an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a BAFTA for his score for Lion, written in collaboration with Volker Bertelmann (aka Hauschka). He has composed for Wayne McGregor (The Royal Ballet, London), Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, Ammonite starring Kate Winslet, and The Essex Serpent starring Claire Danes. He produced Katy Perry’s “Into Me You See” from her album Witness and appears on Leonard Cohen’s 2019 posthumous album Thanks For The Dance. With six solo albums under his name, his latest album 1 0 0 1, which explores ideas of technology, humanity and mind-body dualism, is available on Deutsche Grammophon.