young sustainable impact is an oslo-based youth innovation program with a mission to empower youths to solve the sustainability challenges by creating measurable impact. norway itself is the cradle of sustainable policy-making, ranking number one in the world for initiatives like tax-free electric vehicles.

but even here the young are sick of greenwashing. “we’ve heard a lot of talking from businessmen and politicians—but where’s the action?” asks marcus bruns, 26, chief executive officer of ysi. and thus, ysi was born with a simple phrase: makers gonna make.

“our starting point was to see what would happen if you brought together the smartest young minds of our time to tackle the sustainability challenges,” says bruns.

when a friend told me that ysi was “run by a bunch of 20-year-olds in norway,” i was sold.

i joined 20 other talented youth in ysi’s third batch. in teams of three, we worked together in a five-month online innovation program culminating with a two-week conference in oslo in august 2018 to pitch our start-ups. some of the innovations included smart toilet sensors, vegan kombucha leather, and even an uber-like trash pickup service.

4 things to learn from 20-year olds

after being part of the third cohort and witnessing how ysi is reinventing innovation for the future, i have four main takeaways for how we can innovate and reclaim the reigns of sustainability:

1. crack ageism in entrepreneurship

according to ysi innovation director didrik strohm: “statistically, the best and most successful start-up founders are between the ages of 45 and 47.”

that’s why we need experienced entrepreneurs to collaborate with youths and share their experiences to reduce a dismal nine out of 10 startup failure rate. but in my experience, a mentor or founder will usually ask a young person questions about their start-up as a lead-in to a pre-packaged lecture, not to construct a dialogue.

since the younger generation gets branded as naïve and idealistic by seasoned experts in an industry, ysi advocates for an equal setting for all ages to work together. a mentor might walk into a meeting expecting to give advice for digital marketing, and leave having learned about a simple but elegant billboard bed campaign in pakistan from a participant.

strohm adds: “they [experts] know everything inside that field, but more often than not, those people don’t change systems. they keep grinding along the same path, which is why we need both old and young together.”

2. capitalise on collaboration, not competition

rather than emulating the cutthroat environment of silicon valley, where intellectual property must be guarded under legal writ, ysi is capitalising on collaboration.

the sustainability issues that each team is working on has little risk of being crowded out. two waste management projects will find more than enough trash to go around in the developing world. and it may take more than one start-up to disrupt the $100 billion leather industry. when team 7 unexpectedly sold 4,000 t-shirts made from recycled plastic bottles in less than a week, fintech expert louis wouters from team 1 was more than happy to sit with them and help write up their financials.

participant usama tauqeer from pakistan affirms: “there are start-ups that go in to win competitions, and there are start-ups that go on for the long-term and then monetise. i prefer to be the latter.”

our task as the last generation with a shrinking window for action on climate change is not to save the world, but to build the things we really need for a thriving, sustainable planet.

3. flip power asymmetries

the majority of ysi participants have never pitched in front of high-level investors to acquire seed funding. getting people twice your age to buy into somewhat crazy, futuristic concepts is a daunting task. and without investor money, it can seem like those dreams will never take off.

but what strohm advises is to flip the power asymmetry if need be. we approached investors not as streams of cash flow, but as partners taking equity in our companies. start-ups could frame the ask to an investor as:

“this is something i’m going to do anyway, and we need to find out; are we the right fit for each other?”

by doing that, the 20-year old participant is protecting his or her status and the importance of the proposition, and should also be ready to walk out of the room if that goes south.

but start-ups needs to know their audience to play hardball. a tactic like this, which might work in norway or the us, might not work in japan.

4. the market may be your best teacher

despite the science of innovation that we may read dozens of books on, or hear countless ted talks about, the market is ultimately the best teacher for what solutions work. ysi advocates breakthrough innovation, and yet the least innovative start-up this year got the most traction. a team making mixed fiber and plastic t-shirts broke us$60,000 in revenue during the two weeks in oslo. companies like patagonia have been making such products since 1993, and the team still faces criticism that they are contributing to one of the most polluting industries in the world—fashion.

the most successful product is the most easily understood. t-shirts are simple to wear, sell, and advertise. rolling out a brand-new platform or patenting an invention may take more time to gain traction. finding this this sweet spot for innovation means combining simplicity with market need.

systemic changes are difficult to build a product out of, and harder still to sell. a practical lesson is breaking away from the idealism we strive for in silver-bullet solutions, and making impactful products people will use.

our task as the last generation with a shrinking window for action on climate change is not to save the world, but to build the things we really need for a thriving, sustainable planet.

visit the ysi global website and follow these teams’ development into full-fledged start-ups in the months to come. 

—

this story was originally published on eco-business and reproduced with permission.

besides switching our vocabularies and our mindsets to more positive connotations in our own language, there are certain concepts and terms nonexistent in the english language that would aid in our envisioning of a better future.

published later this year, the collection loanwords to live with: an ecotopian lexicon against the anthropocene seeks to assemble a disparate lexicon that describes “not what exists in fossil-fueled capitalism but what should be: ecological terms and phrases that intimate and inspire better ways of life.” ecotopian language in the anglosphere pits mankind as separate from nature, deepening the divide between us and the environment. reaching beyond english and the dominant narrative of humans triumphing over the elements, we provide here a list of 6 words or terms of potential topics in the collection to reinvent how we talk about climate change and our relationship to the rest of life in the ecological web.

1. nahual

in ancient mayan mythology, each person was believed to have a companion animal that shared their soul and fate – as such, human and nature were intimately connected. the relationship between a person and their nahual is described like wearing a mask: one hides behind the other. the quetzal, guatemala’s national bird, was said to be the nahual of a mayan prince who fought the spanish conquistadors. when the prince was felled by a spanish spear, the quetzal which was circling overhead in protection, flew down and landed upon the prince’s wound, dipping its breast feathers in his blood – this is why the breast feathers of the quetzal are said to be a fiery red.

your nahual is assigned to you at birth, and similar to a zodiac, influences one’s character traits.

2. empath 

the term empath is borrowed from science fiction writing, most notably from octavia butler’s parable of the sower which is a hopeful tale set in a dystopian united states. an empath is a person with paranormal ability to perceive the mental or emotional state of another individual. butler’s protagonist in this novel became a “sharer” or empathy because her mother took a drug while pregnant. the protagonist shares the pain of all those living around her, and the connection she has to the rest of the world through compassion and empathy, rather than selfishness, become the guiding principles to a new society that the protagonist founds. empathy and sympathy are central to the concept of universal humanity, and nurturing our capacities to be empaths, or emotional sponges, from a young age, will allow us to engrave the importance of other life (human and non-human) into our consciousness.

3. pachamama (and other earth gods/goddesses)

pachamama is an earth goddess of the andes mountains who survived the spanish conquest and is still revered today. in incan mythology, pachamama presides over planting and harvesting and has the power to embody mountains or shake the earth. in english, pachamama most closely means mother earth. pacha means earth, cosmos, universe, time, space etc. in quechua and aymara, and mama means mother. the deity is claimed to be the origin of the elements of the world as we know it – the four cosmological quechua principles of water, earth, moon, and sun come from pachamama. the relationship to pachamama is visible to this day in the practice of challa, or the sprinkling of drops of beer/alcohol on the ground before drinking as a way to give thanks to pachamama.

the veneration of earth deities is most common in places where people are more closely bound to the cultivation of their own livelihoods and sustenance. as more of the world’s population continues to move into cities, we must not forget importance of balance in nature. in south america, many believe that problems arise when too much is taken from nature because they are taking too much from pachamama.

4. forest bath (森林浴)

the longevity of the japanese may be tied to their practice of “forest bathing,” or essentially meditation in nature. there’s no water involved in this bath. it is rather a submerging of oneself into the elements of nature; quality time in the forest without distractions. the practice of shinrin-yoku was part of a national public health program introduced in 1982 when the forestry ministry coined the term. since then, there has been proof of beneficial health effects. the magical, rejuvenating boost that a walk in the woods gives you is rooted in naturally produced allelochemic substances known as phytoncides, or pheromones for plants. when humans are around these phytoncides, they help to decrease blood pressure, alleviate stress, and strengthen the immune system. garlic, onion, pine, tea plants, and oak trees give off phytoncides (and that’s also why they are so aromatic!).

5. heyiya-if, from ursula le guin’s always coming home

famous sci-fi author ursula le guin integrates taoist beliefs into a cultural group called the kesh in her book, always coming home. the kesh are a peaceful people who reject domination over nature. the double spiral of the heyiya-if is a holy symbol for the kesh. it resembles the taijitu, or the ancient symbol of yin yang. the swirling motion of the heyiya-if describes the divine circle of life. its endless movement represents the constant change of the world and its cycles, where night becomes day which turns into night again; all births culminate in death, which leads to a re-birth. the opposing but complementary forces present in everything show how our own life cycles are interconnected and dependent on the natural world. when our lives and fates are intertwined with the rest of nature, we cannot exist separately.

6. buen vivir

buen vivir literally means a good life or well-being, but it also encompasses a social philosophy inspiring movements in south america. in just two words, buen vivir includes concepts of degrowth, dematerialism, alternative development, happiness, and collectivism. similar to some of the other loanwords, buen vivir has its roots in indigenous society.

buen vivir is loosely translated from sumak kawsay, or the cosmovision (world view) of the quechua. this world view sees humans and nature existing in communion based on harmonious totality of existence (the necessary interrelation of beings, knowledges, rationalities, etc.). the term has inspired social movements advocating for an alternative paradigm of development that is balanced, culturally-appropriate, and communitarian. the defining principle of the collective in buen vivir paves a path separate from that of capitalism and the mechanisms created to put a price on nature, such as ecosystem services. under the outlook of buen vivir, humans cannot own the earth – we can only act as stewards.

the ideas coming into fruition today from the belief systems of indigenous cultures like the quechua are visible in concepts like the sharing economy or collaborative consumption.

———

our words are our ultimately our tools to construct a vision of the future. we must stretch ourselves beyond the limits of the anglosphere to incorporate multiculturalism and multilingualism in understanding how we talk about our relationship with the earth and our connection to future generations. with the publication of loanwords to live with, we can begin to speak in the way we wish to act, living in harmony.

one in three filipinos is directly employed in agriculture, but agriculture only contributes to 9% of gross domestic product (gdp).

in the last few decades, rural communities have experienced cycles of poverty and indebtedness in which farmers find themselves trapped in cycles of loaning and insecurity. vulnerable to the effects of climate change and stuck without crop insurance, many filipino farmers perennially live in debt and at the mercy of traders. the philippines is hit by an average of 20 deadly typhoons per year, which wipe out crops and perpetuate cycles of borrowing and debt. a farmer’s average income is around 2,000 philippine pesos (about $40) per month. the philippines is an agricultural country, yet it is also one of the top rice importers in the world.

these problems and paradoxes have not been lost on urban millennials. cropital, a crowdfunding platform for local farmers, was started by a group of filipino college students in 2015 with a simple philosophy: doing good comes with great rewards. low-cost, sustainable investments support farmers with the mission of improved productivity, reduced poverty, and food security. this is the first platform that allows individuals to finance filipino farmers.

a bottom-up alternative

for 24-year-old co-founder rachel de villa, cropital’s objective stems from watching her own family become trapped in a cycle of oppressive debt. predatory lending forces farmers into a crippling cycle of debt passed down between generations. when her grandmother lost her pineapple farm, de villa became aware of the systemic injustices that farmers face.

“we had to sell it because we lacked money. and thinking about it now, if only i had the skills back then, i would have created cropital and helped my grandmother not sell her land,” de villa says. she was listed in forbes’ 30 under 30 asia list in 2016. cropital was awarded philippine social enterprise of the year at the philippine rice bowl startup awards 2016. the company has financed more than 600 farmers so far in six provinces.

cropital works by allowing people to choose from a list of approved farms to invest in. cropital’s team manages the funds, helping farmers get access to crop insurance and capital to protect against weather and pest risks, and then investors receive returns once the farm has been fully funded. the minimum amount of investment is php$5,000 (about $100) up to a maximum of php$50,000 (or $1,000), and the rate of return for users ranges from 3% to 30% in less than six months. the farmers have 100% repayment rates so far.

investors range from young professionals, older consumers, and overseas filipino workers (ofws).

all of cropital’s campaigns have maxed out in mere minutes, and on the faq section of their website, the second question asks: “if all farms are already fully funded, when will you open the new cycle and how will i know?” users can then await email notifications from cropital to hear when new farms for funding are posted according to the cropping seasons.

growing agriculture by growing money

global trends show a shifting labor movement away from agriculture. massive rural-urban migration coupled with erratic climate patterns have pushed filipinos off their farms to seek opportunities elsewhere. farmers are aging; the average age of a filipino farmer is 57 years old. cropital is tasked not only with maintaining farms, but also reviving interest in younger generations to grow food. the reality of philippine agriculture must change to demonstrate there is a future in farming.

innovations in financing and technology must reach beyond urban economies. de villa explains that cropital works by a simple formula: capital + resources for production = sustainable income for farmers. cropital’s team is using the most powerful resource of this generation — technology — to revolutionize farmers’ access to resources, and thus empowering them.

combining agriculture and technology is controversial in the philippines. we still see the damaging repercussions of the green revolution on farmers in cycles of indebtedness and reliance on high-value inputs. monsanto, golden rice, and gmo wars are large as life. the international rice research institute (irri), located just outside metro manila, is financed by figures like bill gates. these resources always were controlled by giant companies and the government.

what we are seeing now with cropital is a bottom-up, grassroots approach to implementing technology for agricultural change. cropital is run as an open platform, where any vetted and approved farmer may list their farm and any individual may choose to finance. besides providing resources to make farming more promising and viable, cropital is building partnerships and redistributing economic power between citizens and food growers. cropital hopes to educate people about farming, its opportunities, and its challenges: “many young people are entrepreneurs, and maybe not all of them will go into farming but they can create tools and innovations that will help make farming more sustainable and attractive to younger generations,” de villa said in a forbes interview.

a regional platform

crowdfunding schemes can happen anywhere, at any time. as cropital aims to scale up its impact across an archipelago of 7,000 islands, the business model can be replicated and expanded throughout southeast asia. financing and agricultural services and support offered by cropital will improve food security in the asean countries. besides financing thousands more farmers in the next few years, cropital’s future plans include supporting farmers by matching them with established contract buyers, providing weather resilience technology, and building efficient production systems.

there is rich potential for cropital’s achievements to tie back into the united nations’ sustainable development goals of no poverty, zero hunger, and reduced inequalities. stakeholders at the upcoming responsible business on food and agriculture in jakarta on march 26-28, may sit up and take note of cropital’s work and potential in the region. cropital provides an avenue to tie us back into the roots of our food system, reminding us that our farmers are our food growers. we must support agriculture and fulfill our basic needs to achieve equitable, inclusive progress in food security.

dr. matthew schneider-mayerson received his ph.d. in american studies at the university of minnesota before spending two years as the cultures of energy postdoctoral fellow at rice university’s center for energy and environmental research in the humanities. his first book, “peak oil: apocalyptic environmentalism and libertarian political culture” (university of chicago press, 2015), explores the american ‘peak oil’ movement in the context of contemporary responses to environmental crises (such as climate change), fossil fuel dependency and the spread of neoliberal ideals throughout american political culture. he is currently engaged in research projects on climate change fiction; the role of art and literature in the ongoing energy transition; and novel forms of happiness for the age we live in: the anthropocene, where human activity is now driving planetary processes.

alaine johnson: your journey in higher education began when you were recruited to play soccer at yale, and now you’re singapore as an environmental studies professor, ph.d. in american studies. can you tell me a bit about what influenced this journey, and what choices were made to bring you here?

matthew schneider-mayerson: all the bad choices, all the places where it went wrong? (laughs) i’ve been heavily involved in social justice movements since i was in college, starting with anti-sweatshop organizing, and then union organizing, and then globalization movements. i went to grad school in american studies, which is a pretty leftist and politically-engaged field, combining history and politics especially around race, class gender, and sexuality. i read elizabeth’s kolbert’s “field notes from a catastrophe” – she’s a writer for the new yorker – and then i read tim flannery’s “the weathermakers,” and i just felt like this was an issue i had to be involved in. all the things i cared about were going to be potentially swept away by climate change. i somehow needed to turn my academic and activist and life interests in that direction, if possible. it was a bit tricky because american studies at that point, and still today, was really not that engaged in environmental issues, especially compared to fields like literature and to some extent history. so i don’t know if my advisors really knew what the hell i was doing! they didn’t quite understand why i was focusing on these weirdos who thought the world was ending because we were running out of oil – the peak oil subculture – or what “anthropogenic” meant. at that point i was working in the field of energy humanities, which is now an emerging field, that didn’t really exist. so it was sort of charting new territory. there’s freedom with doing interdisciplinary work. you can pick what are the most appropriate lenses for any given project.

q: a lot of your research has fascinating intersections with the humanities, pop culture, and literature. so this buzzword: anthropocene. where did you first chance upon it, and what does living in the anthropocene mean to you?

a: i’m glad that i can’t remember where i first chanced upon it – it would be quite sad if that were one of my really memorable moments in life! i echo others’ criticisms of the term; it is indeed universalizing and flattening. it doesn’t pay enough attention to the way that a very small group of humans is mostly responsible. so in that sense i like “capitalocene” better, but i think it’s useful as serving as a formal announcement of how we’re living in a fundamentally different world. i think of it as an echo in what bill mckibben was doing in his 2010 book, “eaarth,” to announce that we’re on a different planet. it’s also useful in making people aware of how we’re shaping the world.

q: it seems a bit anthropocentric, or anthropogenic – with good cause of course.

a: that’s why some scholars like donna haraway says our goal is to make the anthropocene as short as possible, to the ecocene or phronocene, or whatever’s coming next. environmentalism and environmental scholars need to pay attention to things like branding. so the anthropocene could be misused, it could be like hey this is our age, so let’s party. but it can also be useful. for terminology there’s the academic critique, the linguistic critique, but what makes most sense is what you can get most out of it.

q: i know you did a project before about climate fiction. maybe you could explain briefly about the project and whether you think this literature is useful for envisioning or if it’s mostly just apocalyptic?

a: environmental literature is a growing area. i’ve written that i think in the near future, all fiction will be climate fiction; if it doesn’t acknowledge climate change, it’s fantasy, essentially. over the last 25 years, eco-criticism, the study of environmental literature, has become one of the main areas of environmental humanities. people have highlighted climate fiction as one of the ways that the humanities can contribute to responding to climate change. but there has been no methodologically rigorous attention to reception. people have interesting and brilliant analyses of literature and climate fiction: what happens on page 264, what different narrative techniques do – but nobody is really looking at what happens when actual people pick up the book. when it comes to environmental literature in 2017, given the problems that we’re facing and the future that we’re facing, i’m most interested in the cultural and political work that it does. i conducted one survey on americans who are reading climate fiction, asking them what they make of that reading experience, what actions they’re taking, what kind of emotions they’re feeling in response to the narratives. and i’m doing a quantitative study measuring people’s environmental beliefs, and then having them read a short story and then measuring them again. the idea is to really figure out, what are these narratives doing? are they helping or are they hurting? how? if you look at these authors like barbara kingsolver, who wrote “flight behavior,” or nathaniel rich, who wrote “odds against tomorrow,” or ian mcewan, who wrote “solar” – in most of their interviews, these authors have an admirable desire to contribute in some way, to help people envision the future by dramatizing the dangers, the worst possibilities. but sometimes it can backfire. if you’re painting a really dystopian picture, maybe that just leads people to wanting to ignore or avoid climate change, because it’s always bringing up these really terrible, anxious emotions.

q: what did you mostly find from these surveys?

a: i’ll mention two things. conservatives don’t read these books. there were only a handful of conservatives and, of those conservatives, only one or two seemed to even take the book seriously. a couple of people said, “it was entertaining, but god said he would never flood the earth, so i’m not worried about it.” which isn’t terribly surprising, because if you look at the jacket covers or amazon descriptions of these books, it’s pretty clear that they’re about climate change. so if you think climate change is a hoax, you’re probably not going to read the book. if authors, critics, or activists think these kinds of narratives are going to transform conservatives, it’s probably not going to happen. the other point i would mention is that most of the narratives of the climate futures that people are writing now are pretty apocalyptic, pretty dark. in a book chapter i have coming out soon, i describe them as devastated, depopulated, and denatured worlds. they’re quite dark, and the idea is that they’re going to serve as cautionary tales. but i think it’s worth authors and literary critics looking at the scholarship in environmental communication and environmental psychology. we need a lot more stories of struggle and resilience.

q: my next question is about teaching climate change. i remember in your course, energy humanities, i was moved to think, everything that i care about is affected by this. and every time i would leave class i would feel like my future was a bit darker.

a: you’re welcome.

q: yeah, tough semester! it was in that class that i first heard the term climate depression, which is a real thing climate scientists undergo. so what do you think about happiness in the anthropocene? can you explain a bit about the research project you’re doing now?

a: i’m trying to do some research on what happiness should mean in the time of climate change. happiness on one hand seems to be the most obvious, natural thing – we feel it in our bodies. we know when we’re happy. but it’s also socially and culturally constructed. every culture has a slightly different version of happiness, and that’s true across cultures today but also looking back historically. so if happiness is the ultimate goal for most people in life, it should take us somewhere we want to go. my supposition is that the current version of western happiness, american happiness specifically, is not helping us. it’s comparatively individualistic, materialistic, and hedonistic. it’s obviously not solely responsible for the environmental ills we’re facing, but i think it’s fair to say that it’s contributing to them. so i’m trying to look at what would be a better version of happiness.

q: are there any examples you think we can follow?

a: people have pointed to buddhism as a belief system that seems particularly appropriate to the present moment, in its emphasis on ridding oneself of attachment or clinging, and its acceptance of the inevitability of suffering. that may not be a great sell for some people. there seems to be a commonality among indigenous conceptions of happiness or well-being – a lot of them place emphasis on interconnectedness and social stability, and i think that those are valuable, underrated things. it’s difficult to generalize because you have very different versions of happiness even within a given culture. you have what the happiness books are saying, and then what  religious or philosophical texts are saying, and then you have what people call folk happiness, which is what people actually experience and what’s lived by people. but given that happiness is the ultimate goal of life for a lot of people, it’s how you evaluate whether you’ve lived a good life, it’s worth looking at as one potential battlefront for facing climate change and other issues.

q: what would be your words of wisdom to fresh grads who are interested in getting involved in environmental issues and activism?

a: we’re facing a really dangerous future, and there’s no guarantee that action now will stave off bad things from happening. those are baked into the future. we need to shift rapidly. people need to be willing to take risks. i was interviewing a 75-year-old man last night who has gotten arrested four times. after retiring, he’s spent the last four years as a climate activist. he’s now retired, relatively comfortable, he has grandkids. but he’s basically dedicated his life to climate activism. he isn’t scared of going to prison. it’s difficult to ask for that level of commitment from anybody, but we’re in that place in the movie where ‘the aliens are coming! the aliens are here!’ it doesn’t get any more dramatic than this. it’s unfortunate that it’s a slow-moving crisis. it’s not as visible as an alien attack. but there’s no question that dramatic action is necessary. there are ways to do that which are more or less effective than others, of course. there are forms of dramatic or direct action that look principled and attract supporters, and there others that could potentially lose support. and no matter what you do, joy and community sustain. the people that i’ve interviewed find a lot of joy in what they do, they feel like they’re in the right place at the right time, and that there isn’t better place for them to be at this moment. there’s a lot of social and cultural pressures that push you away from thinking that way, and that’s why joy and community are so important. without community, if you’re just acting alone, you’re never going to see it through.

q: lastly, what’s the most interesting thing/person/initiative that has stood out to you in this field, and how would you like to see the planet move forward?

a: i love what the folks at liberate tate are doing in the u.k., fighting to get museums to divest from fossil fuels. chipping away at the social license to operate that a lot of fossil fuel companies and other damaging companies have is really important. there are ways to do that which is not just like targeting corporate headquarters. i love the creativity they display. it’s inspirational, it’s culturally specific, so it’s not necessarily something you can imitate, but it’s a model for action so i’m pretty inspired by them. how should the planet move forward… i don’t know – on its axis? not too close to the sun? the planet is such an interesting concept. in some ways it’s part of the problem, thinking of things in terms of the planetary, because it distances us from the little bit of it that we live on and can legitimately influence. in some ways it’s an annoying academic critique to say the planet will be fine, it’s humans and other animals that are vulnerable. but i think it’s important because ultimately what we’re concerned about is the habitability of the planet for us, and species like us that have been living for the past couple hundred millions of years on a fairly stable weather system. so it’s important to make that point; if you actually care about conserving the status quo, then you should get involved. what would it actually mean if the planet went forward? there’s a wonderful short story by liu cixin, “the wandering earth,” in which i think the sun is expanding. a global unity government installs boosters on one side of earth, turns the planet into a spaceship, and sends it out of its orbit into a different solar system. the journey takes thousands of years. so that’s really the planet moving forward! maybe that’s where we’re headed – damn the milky way, onto alpha centauri.

what dr. schneider-mayerson talks about here rings true for anyone studying in the environmental realm; this is the era of the anthropocene that we are now driving, and we must understand how to best stay joyful, active, and empowered to 2022年卡塔尔世界杯官网 and away from the forecasts of apocalyptic speculative fiction.