The Creative Process - Arts, Culture, Society - 2021-2022 (The Creative Process - Books, Film, Music, TV, Art, Writing, Education, Environment, Theatre, Dance, LGBTQ, Social Justice, Spirituality, Feminism, Technology, AI)

Tony Walton was an award-winning director and production designer.  His work was vast and stretches from Broadway productions and operas to films and television.  Over the course of his long and coveted career Tony  was honored with 16 Tony Award Nominations for his Broadway sets and costumes.  Of those nominations he received awards for Pippin, House of Blue Leaves, and Guys and Dolls.  In his television career he worked on over 20 films and received tremendous recognition for his work on Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz where he won an Oscar and Death of a Salesman where he received an Emmy.  In 1991, Tony Walton was elected to the Theatre Hall of Fame. Until his passing in 2022, he lived in New York City with his wife Gen LeRoy Walton.

www.tonywalton.net

www.creativeprocess.info

“In 2003, the Pentagon commissioned a report titled something like An Abrupt Climate Scenario. They asked some independent researchers to look at what would happen in a worse case scenario. They found that the United States and Australia. They said that they would have to put up defensive fortresses ‘to stop unwanted starving immigrants’…”

Todd Miller is an author and independent journalist. He has researched and written about border issues for more than 15 years, the last eight as an independent journalist and writer. He resides in Tucson, Arizona, but also has spent many years living and working in Oaxaca, Mexico. His work has appeared in the New York Times, TomDispatch, The Nation, San Francisco Chronicle, In These Times, Guernica, and Al Jazeera English, among other places.  Miller has authored four books: Build Bridges, Not Walls: A Journey to a World Without Borders (City Lights, 2021), Empire of Borders: The Expansion of the U.S. Border Around the World (Verso, 2019),  Storming the Wall: Climate Change, Migration, and Homeland Security (City Lights, 2017), and Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Homeland Security (City Lights, 2014).  He’s a contributing editor on border and immigration issues for NACLA Report on the Americas and its column “Border Wars”.

www.toddmillerwriter.comwww.oneplanetpodcast.org
www.creativeprocess.info

Ben Pring is the director of Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work. In 2018 he was a Bilderberg Meeting participant and in 2020 was named one of world’s top management thinkers by Thinkers 50. 

He co-authored Monster: A Tough Love Letter On Taming the Machines that Rule Our Jobs, Lives and Code Halos with Paul Roehrig, and Future, What To Do When Machines Do Everything with Roehrig & Malcolm Frank.

www.cognizant.com/futureofwork/author/details/benjamin-pring

www.creativeprocess.info

“We live in buildings and cities because that’s what generates a living for a lot of people, but where we’re most comfortable as humans is when we’re in nature. Your generation owns this. Don’t let anybody take it from you or damage it because you own it. The next generation is the one that owns it and view it with a sense of ownership and a sense of pride and a sense of protection because there are a lot of benefits you get from nature.”

Ron Gonen is the Founder and CEO of Closed Loop Partners, a New York Based investment firm that focuses on building the circular economy. In his fulfilling career, Ron has been recognized as the “Champion of Earth” by the United Nations Environment Program. Serving as the Deputy Commissioner of Sanitation, Recycling and Sustainability in New York City under the Bloomberg Administration, Ron Gonen is a visionary and his idea of the circular economy is certainly the way of the future.

In 2021, he released his first book with Penguin Random House, The Waste Free World: How the Circular Economy Will Take Less, Make More, and Save the Planet, highlighting how companies that utilize circular economy business models will generate the most value and lead their industries. 

Earlier in his career, Ron was the Co-Founder and CEO of RecycleBank from 2003-2010. He started his career at Deloitte Consulting. Ron was a Henry Catto Fellow at the Aspen Institute and past term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He holds a number of technology and business method patents in the recycling industry.

· www.closedlooppartners.com
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

Ron Gonen is the Founder and CEO of Closed Loop Partners, a New York Based investment firm that focuses on building the circular economy. In his fulfilling career, Ron has been recognized as the “Champion of Earth” by the United Nations Environment Program. Serving as the Deputy Commissioner of Sanitation, Recycling and Sustainability in New York City under the Bloomberg Administration, Ron Gonen is a visionary and his idea of the circular economy is certainly the way of the future.

In 2021, he released his first book with Penguin Random House, The Waste Free World: How the Circular Economy Will Take Less, Make More, and Save the Planet, highlighting how companies that utilize circular economy business models will generate the most value and lead their industries. 

Earlier in his career, Ron was the Co-Founder and CEO of RecycleBank from 2003-2010. He started his career at Deloitte Consulting. Ron was a Henry Catto Fellow at the Aspen Institute and past term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He holds a number of technology and business method patents in the recycling industry.

· www.closedlooppartners.com
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of the NYTimes best-selling illustrated collection of nature essays and Kirkus Prize finalist, World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks & Other Astonishments, which was chosen as Barnes and Noble’s and has sold 5 million copies. She has four previous poetry collections: Oceanic, Lucky Fish, At the Drive-in Volcano, and Miracle Fruit. Her most recent chapbook is Lace & Pyrite, a collaboration of epistolary garden poems with the poet Ross Gay. Her writing appears twice in the Best American Poetry Series, The New York Times Magazine, ESPN, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, and Tin House.

Honors include a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, Pushcart Prize, Mississippi Arts Council grant, and being named a Guggenheim Fellow in poetry. She’s the first-ever poetry editor for Sierra magazine, the story-telling arm of The Sierra Club. She is professor of English and Creative Writing in the University of Mississippi’s MFA program.

· aimeenez.net
· www.creativeprocess.info

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

“I think something happened in 2016, where I just snapped. There was a lot of a hateful news going around with American politics, and I didn’t know how to answer a lot of my kids questions then. Something I know I can do is to tell them things that I loved about this planet or things that I loved in other people because all they saw or heard about was just this weird ugliness, school shootings, leaders who were saying ‘build that wall’ to anybody who looked different than them, and so I remember the night I shut myself up in my office after the kids went to bed and just started writing about plants and animals that I loved from my childhood.”

Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of the NYTimes best-selling illustrated collection of nature essays and Kirkus Prize finalist, World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks & Other Astonishments, which was chosen as Barnes and Noble’s  and has sold 5 million copies. She has four previous poetry collections: Oceanic, Lucky Fish, At the Drive-in Volcano, and Miracle Fruit. Her most recent chapbook is Lace & Pyrite, a collaboration of epistolary garden poems with the poet Ross Gay. Her writing appears twice in the Best American Poetry Series, The New York Times Magazine, ESPN, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, and Tin House.

Honors include a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, Pushcart Prize, Mississippi Arts Council grant, and being named a Guggenheim Fellow in poetry. She’s the first-ever poetry editor for Sierra magazine, the story-telling arm of The Sierra Club. She is professor of English and Creative Writing in the University of Mississippi’s MFA program.

· aimeenez.net
· www.creativeprocess.info

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

“I’m grateful for the fact that through my work I’ve had a lot of opportunities to go to places that a lot of people just simply won’t ever get a chance to go. I like having those opportunities to try to share with people what that’s like. I honestly had no idea I would ever be here. I’m from a working-class background, didn’t have a huge amount of opportunities but now I can and that’s one thing that I particularly enjoy.”

Antonella Wilby is a PhD Candidate and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at the Contextual Robotics Institute, UC San Diego, and a National Geographic Explorer. Her current research focuses on the development of autonomous underwater robots and vision-based algorithms for mapping and exploration of ocean environments, with the ultimate goal of better understanding and protecting our blue planet. She holds Master of Science and Bachelor of Science degrees in Computer Science from the University of California, San Diego.

· antonellawilby.com
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

Antonella Wilby is a PhD Candidate and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at the Contextual Robotics Institute, UC San Diego, and a National Geographic Explorer. Her current research focuses on the development of autonomous underwater robots and vision-based algorithms for mapping and exploration of ocean environments, with the ultimate goal of better understanding and protecting our blue planet. She holds Master of Science and Bachelor of Science degrees in Computer Science from the University of California, San Diego.

· antonellawilby.com

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

· www.creativeprocess.info

“They’re single-purpose engines doing one thing in extraordinary ways, and they’ve been encouraged in that by the ecosystem around them, by the funding that’s being pumped into them by people whose only motivation is simply to make more money–and you can see the results of that in the world as this technology has grown from a little acorn to now being the biggest Sequoia in the forest. And it’s shading every other tree, it’s taking all the light, it’s taking all the energy from the forest, and it’s distorting so much in the world.”

Ben Pring is the director of Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work. In 2018 he was a Bilderberg Meeting participant and in 2020 was named one of world’s top management thinkers by Thinkers 50. 

He co-authored Monster: A Tough Love Letter On Taming the Machines that Rule Our Jobs, Lives and Code Halos with Paul Roehrig, and Future, What To Do When Machines Do Everything with Roehrig & Malcolm Frank

· www.cognizant.com/futureofwork/author/details/benjamin-pring

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

· www.creativeprocess.info

Jason W. Moore is an environmental historian, historical geographer, and professor of sociology at Binghamton University.  He is author or editor, most recently, of Capitalism in the Web of Life, Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism, and, with Raj Patel, A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things. His books and essays on environmental history, capitalism, and social theory have been widely recognized. He also coordinates the World-Ecology Research Network.
· jasonwmoore.com
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

“We’re not waiting for the disasters to happen. They have happened. They are happening, and the disasters aren’t natural. They involve climate, but the disasters are very much made by the conditions of capitalist accumulation. We are not going to be able to grapple with the challenges of planetary crisis with the thinking that created planetary crisis.”

Jason W. Moore is an environmental historian, historical geographer, and professor of sociology at Binghamton University.  He is author or editor, most recently, of Capitalism in the Web of Life, Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism, and, with Raj Patel, A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things. His books and essays on environmental history, capitalism, and social theory have been widely recognized. He also coordinates the World-Ecology Research Network.
· jasonwmoore.com
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

“That’s just always been something that’s been inspiring to me which is helping people from the wrong side of the tracks, the misunderstood, the addicted, helping people step into their power and believe in themselves.”

Jessa Reed is a comedian and host of her own podcast called Awakening Orientation Dept. She describes herself as an 8th dimensional being disguised as a comedian. Reluctantly sharing pointers for “life in the Matrix”. She is also the host of her other podcast Soberish. Jessa has been featured on Comedy Central, This Is Not Happening, and more. She’s a bridge between worlds, a storyteller, a “galactic ambassador to the 3rd dimension”.

· www.jessareed.com

· podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/awakening-od/id1542888792

· www.soberishpod.com/page/1?season=1
· www.creativeprocess.info

Jessa Reed is a comedian and host of her own podcast called Awakening Orientation Dept. She describes herself as an 8th dimensional being disguised as a comedian. Reluctantly sharing pointers for “life in the Matrix”. She is also the host of her other podcast Soberish. Jessa has been featured on Comedy Central, This Is Not Happening, and more. She’s a bridge between worlds, a storyteller, a “galactic ambassador to the 3rd dimension”.

· www.jessareed.com

· podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/awakening-od/id1542888792

· www.soberishpod.com/page/1?season=1
· www.creativeprocess.info

Paulo Szot won the Tony as Best Leading Actor in a Musical for his Broadway debut at Emile de Becque in the 2008 Tony-winning revival of South Pacific. This performance also netted him Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Theatre World awards. Szot’s opera credits include performances at the Metropolitan, Scala di Milano, Paris Opera, Carnegie Hall, and others. He’s currently starring as Billy Flynn in Chicago, the longest-running American musical in Broadway history.

· www.pauloszot.com
· chicagothemusical.com

· chicagothemusical.com/cast/#cast-gallery-3
· www.creativeprocess.info

“All the themes are very contemporary. I think what moves this story is the search for instantaneous celebrity. That’s what the girls are all about, Roxie and Velma. They want to be famous. Of course everything that you cited, corruption, crimes, the press focusing on sensational stories–it’s all there. And I think that’s why the public relates so much to it.”

Paulo Szot won the Tony as Best Leading Actor in a Musical for his Broadway debut at Emile de Becque in the 2008 Tony-winning revival of South Pacific. This performance also netted him Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Theatre World awards. Szot’s opera credits include performances at the Metropolitan, Scala di Milano, Paris Opera, Carnegie Hall, and others. He’s currently starring as Billy Flynn in Chicago, the longest-running American musical in Broadway history.
· www.pauloszot.com

· chicagothemusical.com

· chicagothemusical.com/cast/#cast-gallery-3
· www.creativeprocess.info

Giulio Boccaletti, Ph.D., is a globally recognized expert on natural resource security and environmental sustainability. Trained as a physicist and climate scientist, he holds a doctorate from Princeton University, where he was a NASA Earth Systems Science Fellow. He has been a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a partner of McKinsey & Company, and the chief strategy officer of The Nature Conservancy, one of the largest environmental organizations in the world. 

He is an Honorary Research Associate in the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at Oxford University. He writes on environmental issues for news media, and is an expert contributor to the World Economic Forum, which elected him as one of its Young Global Leaders. His work on water has been featured in the PBS documentary series H2O: The Molecule that Made Us. His new book, "Water, A Biography" is published by Pantheon Books, a division of Penguin Random House. He lives in London.

· www.giulioboccaletti.com
· www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/602733/water-by-giulio-boccaletti/

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

“The problem doesn’t really reside there. The problem is that people have gotten used to thinking about water as a technical issue that can be solved by somebody sitting in a room somewhere with a white coat. The reality is that the history of water shows that this is probably the most political and salient issue of society–How we share the resources that make it possible for us to live is a fundamentally political problem. And in nations that live together under a social contract is fundamentally a constitutional problem. So my hope is that we elevate water to a much higher level of political discourse.”

Giulio Boccaletti, Ph.D., is a globally recognized expert on natural resource security and environmental sustainability. Trained as a physicist and climate scientist, he holds a doctorate from Princeton University, where he was a NASA Earth Systems Science Fellow. He has been a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a partner of McKinsey & Company, and the chief strategy officer of The Nature Conservancy, one of the largest environmental organizations in the world. 

He is an Honorary Research Associate in the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at Oxford University. He writes on environmental issues for news media, and is an expert contributor to the World Economic Forum, which elected him as one of its Young Global Leaders. His work on water has been featured in the PBS documentary series H2O: The Molecule that Made Us. His new book, "Water, A Biography" is published by Pantheon Books, a division of Penguin Random House. He lives in London.

· www.giulioboccaletti.com
· www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/602733/water-by-giulio-boccaletti/

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

Mike Pondsmith is an accomplished roleplaying, tabletop, and video game designer. He is best known for his work with the publisher R. Talsorian Games where he developed the majority of the company’s roleplaying games since its founding in 1982. He is credited as the author of several tabletop roleplaying games such as Mekton, Cyberpunk, and Castle Falkenstein and was recently involved with creating the universe of CD Projekt RED’s Cyberpunk 2077.

· rtalsoriangames.com
· www.cyberpunk.net
· www.creativeprocess.info

“One of the things I’ve noticed is that a lot of those younger people are actually much nicer than they need to be. And they have to realize that this is going to be your world. It turns out the way you want to make it and so you should be thinking now about what you want out of this. What do you want that world to be? Do not wait around until the two generations beyond you have gone ahead and done it the way they want it because, by the time they get done, you’re not going to have the chance to shift it to where you want it. So start thinking now about where do you want to be? What is the future you want? And don’t be nice about it, just go ahead and start planning it now.”

Mike Pondsmith is an accomplished roleplaying, tabletop, and video game designer. He is best known for his work with the publisher R. Talsorian Games where he developed the majority of the company’s roleplaying games since its founding in 1982. He is credited as the author of several tabletop roleplaying games such as Mekton, Cyberpunk, and Castle Falkenstein and was recently involved with creating the universe of CD Projekt RED’s Cyberpunk 2077.

· rtalsoriangames.com
· www.cyberpunk.net
· www.creativeprocess.info

Jim Jermanok is an award-winning writer, director, producer author and speaker based in NY. He is currently directing and producing a feature documentary about the life and art of Oscar-winning actor Martin Landau.  Jermanok wrote and produced the highly acclaimed romantic comedy, Passionada. His  film Em won the Grand Jury Prize at the Seattle International Film Festival and the Criterion International Inspiration Award. 
Jim also speaks and has conducted over 300 workshops worldwide on the subject of his recent bestseller, Beyond The Craft: What You Need to Know to Make A Living Creatively!

· jimjermanok.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

“I like uncovering truth about behaviour, about history. I think all artists are attracted to unveiling truth. I think it’s a mirror of our society, of our world. It’s the soul of our world.”

Jim Jermanok is an award-winning writer, director, producer author and speaker based in NY. He is currently directing and producing a feature documentary about the life and art of Oscar-winning actor Martin Landau.  Jermanok wrote and produced the highly acclaimed romantic comedy, Passionada. His  film Em won the Grand Jury Prize at the Seattle International Film Festival and the Criterion International Inspiration Award. 
Jim also speaks and has conducted over 300 workshops worldwide on the subject of his recent bestseller, Beyond The Craft: What You Need to Know to Make A Living Creatively!
· jimjermanok.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

“I went to the Amazon and I got a canoe and I started rowing into the forest. It was absolutely like going back into the 17th century! I went around for six months on my own and that was fantastic because in this part of the Colombian rainforest there were absolutely no roads, no towns, no electricity, no flowing water. You are with the indigenous group. They are all still in their loincloths. They speak different languages. I went through about eight different ethnic groups. They all spoke different languages. I couldn’t understand what they said. They couldn’t understand what I said, but we got along well.”

Martin Von Hildebrand has dedicated the last five decades strengthening indigenous communities in the Colombian Amazon. During this time he obtained the recognition of their rights in the National Constitution, including the collective ownership of their land and the development of their governments. They now own 26 million hectares of continuous rain forest, their rights have been recognized, and they have set up many of their governments.

Currently, Martin, along with NGOs, indigenous organizations, civil society, governments, and private enterprises, is coordinating the protection of the largest stretch of rainforests on the planet (the northern part of the Amazon between the Andes and the Atlantic, 260 million hectares).

He is an ethnologist, with a doctorate from the University of Paris VII, founder, and the current president of the Gaia Amazonas Foundation. He has been awarded a dozen international awards, such as The Right Livelihood Award, the Talberg Award, The Golden Arc award, the Special Irish presidential Award for Irish Abroad, and the Colombian National Environmental Award.

Gaia Amazonas Foundation 

· gaiaamazonas.org

Alianza Noramazónica website

· alianzanoramazonica.org

RAISG website

· amazoniasocioambiental.org/es/

Why is the Amazonia important?/¿Porque la Amazonia es tan importante?

· youtube.com/watch?v=_mO1bf8iTMI

Netflix: "El Sendero de la Anaconda"

Flying rivers/Los rios voladores en la Amazonia. El Corredor Andes Amazonas Atlantico

bbc.com/mundo/noticias-41038097#:~:text=Son%20%22r%C3%ADos%20voladores%22.,m%C3%A1s%20agua%20que%20el%20Amazonas

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

Martin Von Hildebrand has dedicated the last five decades strengthening indigenous communities in the Colombian Amazon. During this time he obtained the recognition of their rights in the National Constitution, including the collective ownership of their land and the development of their governments. They now own 26 million hectares of continuous rain forest, their rights have been recognized, and they have set up many of their governments.

Currently, Martin, along with NGOs, indigenous organizations, civil society, governments, and private enterprises, is coordinating the protection of the largest stretch of rainforests on the planet (the northern part of the Amazon between the Andes and the Atlantic, 260 million hectares).

He is an ethnologist, with a doctorate from the University of Paris VII, founder, and the current president of the Gaia Amazonas Foundation. He has been awarded a dozen international awards, such as The Right Livelihood Award, the Talberg Award, The Golden Arc award, the Special Irish presidential Award for Irish Abroad, and the Colombian National Environmental Award.

Gaia Amazonas Foundation 
· gaiaamazonas.org
Alianza Noramazónica website.
· alianzanoramazonica.org

RAISG website
· amazoniasocioambiental.org/es/

Why is the Amazonia important?/¿Porque la Amazonia es tan importante?
· youtube.com/watch?v=_mO1bf8iTMI
Netflix: "El Sendero de la Anaconda"
Flying rivers/Los rios voladores en la Amazonia. El Corredor Andes Amazonas Atlantico
· bbc.com/mundo/noticias-41038097#:~:text=Son%20%22r%C3%ADos%20voladores%22.,m%C3%A1s%20agua%20que%20el%20Amazonas
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

“What frame, what scene, ultimately what story is going to capture the most emotion to make you feel something? Because those are the films that have always resonated the most with me. Those films that actually make you feel. They stop you and they make you feel and make you think. They really jar you.”
Director of photography John Matyśiak’s career has focused on shooting internationally recognized independent films, which have screened at over 50 festivals worldwide, including the Festival de Cannes. Matyśiak is widely admired for his arresting, contemporary images, which evocatively support and amplify his directors’ vision.

He recently shot Meet Cute, a genre-defying dark comedy starring Pete Davidson and Hayley Cuoco, directed by Alex Lehmann and produced by Akiva Goldsman. Prior to shooting Old Henry, which premiered at TIFF 2021, Matyśiak achieved the Best Cinematography award at the 25th Los Angeles Asian-Pacific Film Festival for his work on the feature films, Two Shadows and Model Minority. 

His commercial clients include: Audi, Jameson, Nissan and Lexus. Matyśiak studied film at the Czech National Film School, FAMU, in Prague and Emerson College in Boston, MA. He is a member of the International Cinematographers Guild, Local 600. He is based in Los Angeles, CA.
· www.johnmatysiak.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

Image: Tim Blake Nelson in Old Henry

Director of photography John Matyśiak’s career has focused on shooting internationally recognized independent films, which have screened at over 50 festivals worldwide, including the Festival de Cannes. Matyśiak is widely admired for his arresting, contemporary images, which evocatively support and amplify his directors’ vision.

He recently shot Meet Cute, a genre-defying dark comedy starring Pete Davidson and Hayley Cuoco, directed by Alex Lehmann and produced by Akiva Goldsman. Prior to shooting Old Henry, which premiered at TIFF 2021, Matyśiak achieved the Best Cinematography award at the 25th Los Angeles Asian-Pacific Film Festival for his work on the feature films, Two Shadows and Model Minority. 

His commercial clients include: Audi, Jameson, Nissan and Lexus. Matyśiak studied film at the Czech National Film School, FAMU, in Prague and Emerson College in Boston, MA. He is a member of the International Cinematographers Guild, Local 600. He is based in Los Angeles, CA.
· www.johnmatysiak.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

Eben Alexander, MD, was an academic neurosurgeon for over 25 years, including 15 years at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School in Boston. He experienced a transcendental Near-Death Experience (NDE) during a week-long coma from an inexplicable brain infection that completely transformed his worldview. A pioneering scientist and modern thought leader in the emerging science that acknowledges the primacy of consciousness in the universe, he is the author of the New York Times #1 bestseller Proof of Heaven, The Map of Heaven and Living in a Mindful Universe. 

· ebenalexander.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

“Take care of yourself. Bring that love and kindness and compassion into your dealings with self and others. And this world will change dramatically. I think you’ll find great reason for optimism and hope and viewing the way our world can go, but it absolutely involves a change from the status quo from our current direction.”

Eben Alexander, MD, was an academic neurosurgeon for over 25 years, including 15 years at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School in Boston. He experienced a transcendental Near-Death Experience (NDE) during a week-long coma from an inexplicable brain infection that completely transformed his worldview. A pioneering scientist and modern thought leader in the emerging science that acknowledges the primacy of consciousness in the universe, he is the author of the New York Times #1 bestseller Proof of Heaven, The Map of Heaven and Living in a Mindful Universe. 

· ebenalexander.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

Writer and producer Rebecca Walker has contributed to the global conversation about race, gender, power, and the evolution of the human family for three decades. Author and editor of seven bestselling books on multiracial identity, Black Cool and ambivalent motherhood, she has co-founded the Third Wave Fund, which makes grants to womxn and transgender youth working for social justice. For her efforts, she has been named by Time as one of the most influential leaders of her generation.
· www.rebeccawalker.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

INSTAGRAM @creativeprocesspodcast
www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

"The idea of writing memoir is about listening carefully. The way to find a story or, at least the story that needs to be told is that moment that you’re writing is the emerges from a deep kind of inner listening and finding the memories that are charged that don’t want to leave that have a certain kind of energy to them and, if you listen to them, and you allow them to be born in the writing, you discover your own story because your story is basically made up of all the memories that continue to hold the charge for you. All the memories that are lodged in your mind that you’ve secreted away and when you can excavate that story and you can write it down, then you can make sense of it and you can understand why you’re living the way you’re living and why you feel the way you feel. And you can also decide to to release those memories so that you can have new memories that can define and can shape your life."

Writer and producer Rebecca Walker has contributed to the global conversation about race, gender, power, and the evolution of the human family for three decades. Author and editor of seven bestselling books on multiracial identity, Black Cool and ambivalent motherhood, she has co-founded the Third Wave Fund, which makes grants to womxn and transgender youth working for social justice. For her efforts, she has been named by Time as one of the most influential leaders of her generation.


· www.rebeccawalker.com

· www.creativeprocess.info

“Literally during the last week of production, we kept having this conversation. We are part of a cultural moment and we know we are, which is a very out of body experience… Any iconic black show, did they know? Because a lot of those when you look back at their history they were one the bubble, and I always think about Girlfriends and Living Single––did they know that people would still be talking about them?”

Amy Aniobi is a writer, director and Executive Producer on HBO’s Emmy-nominated comedy, “Insecure,” starring Issa Rae. “Insecure” will premiere its fifth and final season on October 24th with Aniobi behind the camera as director of the seventh episode (#507) to be broadcast on December 5th. She also served as showrunner/head writer/EP for season one of the HBO stand-up special “2 Dope Queens.” Under her new production shingle “SuperSpecial” and overall deal with HBO, Aniobi already is in development on several projects, as well as two features set up at Universal. Amy recently directed the award-winning short film, "Honeymoon," which explores a modern-day Nigerian couple's arranged marriage. She also co-created, co-directed and starred in the web series, “Lisa and Amy Are Black,” created the web series, “The Slutty Years” and wrote for both seasons of “Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl.” Amy is Nigerian, hails from North Texas, graduated from Stanford University and UCLA, and has lived both in the US (New York, the Bay Area) and abroad (France, Morocco).

· amyaniobi.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

(Photo Credit: Merie W. Wallace/HBO)

Amy Aniobi is a writer, director and Executive Producer on HBO’s Emmy-nominated comedy, “Insecure,” starring Issa Rae. “Insecure” will premiere its fifth and final season on October 24th with Aniobi behind the camera as director of the seventh episode (#507) to be broadcast on December 5th. She also served as showrunner/head writer/EP for season one of the HBO stand-up special “2 Dope Queens.” Under her new production shingle “SuperSpecial” and overall deal with HBO, Aniobi already is in development on several projects, as well as two features set up at Universal. Amy recently directed the award-winning short film, "Honeymoon," which explores a modern-day Nigerian couple's arranged marriage. She also co-created, co-directed and starred in the web series, “Lisa and Amy Are Black,” created the web series, “The Slutty Years” and wrote for both seasons of “Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl.” Amy is Nigerian, hails from North Texas, graduated from Stanford University and UCLA, and has lived both in the US (New York, the Bay Area) and abroad (France, Morocco).

· amyaniobi.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

“One of the things that is dying is our planet. We hear these sirens every single day. We’re being warned daily by experts and concerned people how vast that squandering is going. It’s a case of urgency and it’s astounding and a very sad, a very pathetic comment on modern life that most people are ignoring those signs. As a poet, it seems to me that one of the tasks that the poet takes on, it’s a vocation that’s born with it, it’s this consciousness, this serving as witness.”

Xicana activist, editor, poet, novelist, and artist Ana Castillo, was born and raised in Chicago. She is known for coining the term “xicanisma” which is defined in her book the Massacre of the Dreamers as, “a sociopolitical movement in the United States that analyzes the historical, cultural, spiritual, educational, and economic intersection of Mexican American women that identify as Chicana.” The term cross bred Chicana feminism, which came to include the indigenous ancestry of Mexican Americans, unifying us with our sisters on the other side of the border.

· www.anacastillo.net
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

Xicana activist, editor, poet, novelist, and artist Ana Castillo, was born and raised in Chicago. She is known for coining the term “xicanisma” which is defined in her book the Massacre of the Dreamers as, “a sociopolitical movement in the United States that analyzes the historical, cultural, spiritual, educational, and economic intersection of Mexican American women that identify as Chicana.” The term cross bred Chicana feminism, which came to include the indigenous ancestry of Mexican Americans, unifying us with our sisters on the other side of the border.

· www.anacastillo.net
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

Jericho Brown is author of the The Tradition (Copper Canyon 2019), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Award. Brown’s first book, Please (New Issues 2008), won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament (Copper Canyon 2014), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His third collection, The Tradition won the Paterson Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His poems have appeared in The Bennington Review, Buzzfeed, Fence, jubilat, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, TIME magazine, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry. He is the director of the Creative Writing Program and a professor at Emory University.

· www.jerichobrown.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

“I just want to make the poems like a living being…There are moments that I’m not at the desk, but I’m living life. And living life is actually what leads to writing. You have to have experiences to write about. Whether or not you are aware of those experiences as you are writing them down because if you’re doing music first, maybe you’re not aware of what you’re writing. And yet, those experiences are what come to fruition in your writing. You become aware. Oh, I did come on that roller coaster that time that I haven’t thought about in twenty years. Oh I did make love to that cute person that I haven’t thought about in ten years, but you’ve got to make love, you’ve got to get on roller coasters, you’ve got to get your heart broken. You’ve got to dance. You gotta get out and do things and that, too, is a part of writing. You have to trust you’re a writer by identity. And if you can trust that you’re a writer by identity, then you don’t have to be at a desk.”

Jericho Brown is author of the The Tradition (Copper Canyon 2019), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Award. Brown’s first book, Please (New Issues 2008), won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament (Copper Canyon 2014), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His third collection, The Tradition won the Paterson Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His poems have appeared in The Bennington Review, Buzzfeed, Fence, jubilat, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, TIME magazine, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry. He is the director of the Creative Writing Program and a professor at Emory University.

· www.jerichobrown.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

Gary Griggs received his B.A. in Geological Sciences from the University of California Santa Barbara and a Ph.D. in Oceanography from Oregon State University. He has been a Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of California Santa Cruz since 1968 and was Director of the Institute of Marine Sciences from 1991 to 2017. His research and teaching have been focused on the coast of California and include coastal processes, hazards and engineering, and sea-level rise. Dr. Griggs has written over 185 articles for professional journals as well as authored or co-authored eleven books.

In 1998 he was given the Outstanding Faculty Award at UC Santa Cruz and the Alumni Association honored him with a Distinguished Teaching Award in 2006. The California Coastal Commission and Sunset Magazine named him one of California’s Coastal Heroes in 2009. He has served on three National Academy of Sciences Committees. He has served on the Science Advisory Team to the Governor’s Ocean Protection Council since 2008 and in 2015 was appointed to the California Ocean Sciences Trust.
· eps.ucsc.edu/faculty/Profiles/fac-only.php?uid=griggs
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

Gary Griggs received his B.A. in Geological Sciences from the University of California Santa Barbara and a Ph.D. in Oceanography from Oregon State University. He has been a Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of California Santa Cruz since 1968 and was Director of the Institute of Marine Sciences from 1991 to 2017. His research and teaching have been focused on the coast of California and include coastal processes, hazards and engineering, and sea-level rise. Dr. Griggs has written over 185 articles for professional journals as well as authored or co-authored eleven books.

In 1998 he was given the Outstanding Faculty Award at UC Santa Cruz and the Alumni Association honored him with a Distinguished Teaching Award in 2006. The California Coastal Commission and Sunset Magazine named him one of California’s Coastal Heroes in 2009. He has served on three National Academy of Sciences Committees. He has served on the Science Advisory Team to the Governor’s Ocean Protection Council since 2008 and in 2015 was appointed to the California Ocean Sciences Trust.

· eps.ucsc.edu/faculty/Profiles/fac-only.php?uid=griggs

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

For more than 30 years, Master Shi Heng Yi has been studying and practicing the interaction between mind and body. His strength is the ability to smoothly combine this knowledge with physical exercises and to practice Martial art –Kung Fu and Qi Gong. He has an academic background but he prefers to live at the Shaolin Temple Europe, Monastery located in Otterberg, Germany. Since 2010 he has been taking care of the settlement and he personifies sustainable development and spreading Shaolin culture and philosophy.

· www.shihengyi.online
· www.shaolintemple.eu
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

“Just getting to know what is Buddhism, which is the foundation of every monastery. The Shaolin Temple is in the core, first of all it’s a Buddhist monastery and when you are starting to read about Buddhism, one of the key sentence in the beginning is: With your thoughts you are creating the world…So it’s very rarely clearly stated that it is the thoughts that are creating the world. Nevertheless, if you are now looking at the practices that the Shaolin Temple offers, that is quite physical. There is a lot of physicality in there, so you might think but why are you saying with thoughts you create the world, but you have so many different physical activities. It is because if you want to have mental freedom. If you want to approach freedom, you cannot just approach freedom by doing things or trying to chase freedom. The freedom that we are looking for is the type of freedom that is derived and that is very closely related to its counterpart, which is very hard restriction or very hard structure. So if you want to experience what freedom is, look at the restrictions of your life.”

For more than 30 years, Master Shi Heng Yi has been studying and practicing the interaction between mind and body. His strength is the ability to smoothly combine this knowledge with physical exercises and to practice Martial art –Kung Fu and Qi Gong. He has an academic background but he prefers to live at the Shaolin Temple Europe, Monastery located in Otterberg, Germany. Since 2010 he has been taking care of the settlement and he personifies sustainable development and spreading Shaolin culture and philosophy.

· www.shihengyi.online
· www.shaolintemple.eu
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

“The search for identity is something I think everyone goes through in their lives. It’s a constantly evolving answer. I think all of us can relate to the sense of belonging and what is home. Us being so far away from our families…Alicia Vikander’s scene was memorable to me. One of the rare times I cried while operating the camera.” –Ante Cheng

“There’s not really many stories about people who look like me in Australia, so I was just making films. How do I be invisible in a way and transcend whatever I’m shooting? It wasn’t until I came to the U.S…it was the first time I had to think about me being Asian and my experiences and how does that relate to what we’re telling in this film.” –Matthew Chuang

Ante Cheng and Matthew Chuang are collaborating cinematographers on the 2021 dramatic release Blue Bayou, directed by Justin Chon. Ante Cheng is known for his collaboration on director Chon's previous films, namely the Sundance Award Winning Gook (2017) and Miss Purple (2019). Together with Blue Bayou, these films form a trilogy meditating on the Asian American experience. Matthew Chuang, a newcomer to this project, has shot and directed a number of music videos, short films, and other creative projects.

· http://www.adopteesunerased.com
· chengante.com

· www.matthewchuang.com
· www.imdb.com/title/tt11121664/
· www.creativeprocess.info

Ante Cheng and Matthew Chuang are collaborating cinematographers on the 2021 dramatic release Blue Bayou, directed by Justin Chon. Ante Cheng is known for his collaboration on director Chon's previous films, namely the Sundance Award Winning Gook (2017) and Miss Purple (2019). Together with Blue Bayou, these films form a trilogy meditating on the Asian American experience. Matthew Chuang, a newcomer to this project, has shot and directed a number of music videos, short films, and other creative projects.

· http://www.adopteesunerased.com
· chengante.com

· www.matthewchuang.com
· www.imdb.com/title/tt11121664/
· www.creativeprocess.info

“The difference between stage and screen acting is vast, but it's the same root. It's just some of the techniques are very different. I really know theater because that's where I started. I went at it in a very haphazard way. I had a very haphazard approach. It was not orderly at all. I didn't go to a proper school or anything like that. After fooling around in Europe for almost a couple of years, just because I'd gotten out of the army...and didn't really know what to do or how to do it. And so I just went and while there I did some acting, but nothing very remarkable except doing a nightclub with William Burroughs. That was great fun. I did a little bit of studying here or there...Jeff Corey (and at one class in New York) someone said something that helped me a great deal. And then I just learned by doing it.”

Harris Yulin has appeared on Broadway in Hedda Gabler, The Price, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Visit, A Lesson From Aloes, and Watch On The Rhine. His off-Broadway credits include Raindance at Signature Theatre; Don Juan In Hell at Symphony Space; Steve Tesich’s Arts And Leisure at Playwrights Horizons; Tina Howe’s Approaching Zanzibar at Second Stage; Hamlet, King John, Richard III, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at New York Shakespeare Festival; and Mrs. Warren’s Profession and Hedda Gabler at Roundabout. Regional credits include Finishing the Picture at Goodman Theatre; a recent appearance in the title role of King Lear at New Jersey Shakespeare Festival; The Talking Cure at Mark Taper Forum; Tartuffe at the Guthrie and Arena Stage; Henry V at Hartford Stage; and The Tempest at Shakespeare & Co. Mr. Yulin’s directing credits include Horton Foote’s The Prisoner’s Song at Ensemble Studio Theatre; Conor McPherson’s This Lime Tree Bower at Primary Stages; Don Juan In Hell in London (Riverside Studios) and in New York (Symphony Space), Steve Tesich’s Baba Goya (Second Stage), Adele Shank’s Winter Play at Second Stage; Candida at the Shaw Festival; and The Front Page and The Guardsman at Long Wharf. His television credits include “Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight,” “Mister Sterling,” “24,” “Buffy The Vampire Slayer,” “Frasier” (Emmy Nomination), and “La Femme Nikita” (Emmy Nomination). His film credits include Fur, The Place Beyond the Pines, The Emperor’s Club, Training Day, The Million Dollar Hotel, The Hurricane, Looking for Richard, Murder at 1600, Multiplicity, Clear and Present Danger, and Scarface.

· www.imdb.com/name/nm0950867/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1
· www.creativeprocess.info

Harris Yulin has appeared on Broadway in Hedda Gabler, The Price, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Visit, A Lesson From Aloes, and Watch On The Rhine. His off-Broadway credits include Raindance at Signature Theatre; Don Juan In Hell at Symphony Space; Steve Tesich’s Arts And Leisure at Playwrights Horizons; Tina Howe’s Approaching Zanzibar at Second Stage; Hamlet, King John, Richard III, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at New York Shakespeare Festival; and Mrs. Warren’s Profession and Hedda Gabler at Roundabout. Regional credits include Finishing the Picture at Goodman Theatre; a recent appearance in the title role of King Lear at New Jersey Shakespeare Festival; The Talking Cure at Mark Taper Forum; Tartuffe at the Guthrie and Arena Stage; Henry V at Hartford Stage; and The Tempest at Shakespeare & Co. Mr. Yulin’s directing credits include Horton Foote’s The Prisoner’s Song at Ensemble Studio Theatre; Conor McPherson’s This Lime Tree Bower at Primary Stages; Don Juan In Hell in London (Riverside Studios) and in New York (Symphony Space), Steve Tesich’s Baba Goya (Second Stage), Adele Shank’s Winter Play at Second Stage; Candida at the Shaw Festival; and The Front Page and The Guardsman at Long Wharf. His television credits include “Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight,” “Mister Sterling,” “24,” “Buffy The Vampire Slayer,” “Frasier” (Emmy Nomination), and “La Femme Nikita” (Emmy Nomination). His film credits include Fur, The Place Beyond the Pines, The Emperor’s Club, Training Day, The Million Dollar Hotel, The Hurricane, Looking for Richard, Murder at 1600, Multiplicity, Clear and Present Danger, and Scarface.

· www.imdb.com/name/nm0950867/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1
· www.creativeprocess.info

“We are always students. We are students of the earth. We need to do better and we can do better because the capacity of the human spirit is quite expansive and we owe it to future generations to do the best we can do while we can…It’s about who is at the table or rather what is the table, meaning what are the terms of the debate. Setting the terms of the debate, but how do we even know what the terms of the debate are, who is being included, who is being heeded, and part of that is, therefore, a decolonizing of knowledge and power structures because it’s centrally or fundamentally a justice issue.”

Dr. Farhana Sultana is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and the Environment at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of Syracuse University, where she is also the Research Director for Environmental Collaboration and Conflicts at the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflicts and Collaboration (PARCC).

Dr. Sultana is an internationally recognized interdisciplinary scholar of political ecology, water governance, post‐colonial development, social and environmental justice, climate change, and feminism. Her research and scholar-activism draw from her experiences of having lived and worked on three continents as well as from her backgrounds in the natural sciences, social sciences, and policy experience.

Prior to joining Syracuse, she taught at King’s College London and worked at United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Author of several dozen publications, her recent books are “The Right to Water: Politics, Governance and Social Struggles” (2012), “Eating, Drinking: Surviving” (2016) and “Water Politics: Governance, Justice, and the Right to Water” (2020). Dr. Sultana graduated Cum Laude from Princeton University (in Geosciences and Environmental Studies) and obtained her Masters and PhD (in Geography) from the University of Minnesota, where she was a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellow.

She was awarded the Glenda Laws Award from the American Association of Geographers for “outstanding contributions to geographic research on social issues” in 2019.
· www.farhanasultana.com

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

Dr. Farhana Sultana is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and the Environment at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of Syracuse University, where she is also the Research Director for Environmental Collaboration and Conflicts at the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflicts and Collaboration (PARCC).

Dr. Sultana is an internationally recognized interdisciplinary scholar of political ecology, water governance, post‐colonial development, social and environmental justice, climate change, and feminism. Her research and scholar-activism draw from her experiences of having lived and worked on three continents as well as from her backgrounds in the natural sciences, social sciences, and policy experience.

Prior to joining Syracuse, she taught at King’s College London and worked at United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Author of several dozen publications, her recent books are “The Right to Water: Politics, Governance and Social Struggles” (2012), “Eating, Drinking: Surviving” (2016) and “Water Politics: Governance, Justice, and the Right to Water” (2020). Dr. Sultana graduated Cum Laude from Princeton University (in Geosciences and Environmental Studies) and obtained her Masters and PhD (in Geography) from the University of Minnesota, where she was a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellow.

· www.farhanasultana.com

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

Professor Bayyinah Bello is a Afrodescendant Ourstorian, Educator, Writer and Humanitarian. With over 50 years of wisdom and extensive research, Professor Bello specializes in Ayitian Ourstory and linguistics.
She has taught in many parts of Africa, Ayiti, and America from the primary to the university level, including the State University of Haiti. She is the founder of Fondation Marie-Claire Heureuse Félicité Bonheur Dessalines, popularly known as FONDASYON FELICITEE (FF), named after the Empress consort of Ayiti and wife of the revolutionary leader and founder of Ayiti (Hayti, Empire of Freedom), Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Emperor 1st of Hayti. As an author she publishes in Ayitian, English and French. Her latest work, Sheroes of the Haitian Revolution, highlights the lives of ten women in the Ayitian Ourstory who played a significant role in the nation’s journey to freedom. Professor Bello is based in Ayiti and serves as advisor to key eldership councils.
· www.marugekundi.org/SHEROES
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

Song credit: Jean Amédé Caze

“It’s true. In Haiti, to a large degree more women were involved in the Revolution, in the war, in the fighting for the nation for the very simple reason that women had more opportunities. After a certain time, we became invisible. Once you’re in your 60’s, you are missing a few front teeth, in fact, some of the women used to take a stone and break up their front teeth so that they wouldn’t be noticed anymore. ‘That’s just an old lady with no front teeth. Okay, she goes about her business, nobody looks at her. She can do nothing.’And those were the fighters–the greatest fighters of our revolution.”

Professor Bayyinah Bello is a Afrodescendant Ourstorian, Educator, Writer and Humanitarian. With over 50 years of wisdom and extensive research, Professor Bello specializes in Ayitian Ourstory and linguistics.
She has taught in many parts of Africa, Ayiti, and America from the primary to the university level, including the State University of Haiti. She is the founder of Fondation Marie-Claire Heureuse Félicité Bonheur Dessalines, popularly known as FONDASYON FELICITEE (FF), named after the Empress consort of Ayiti and wife of the revolutionary leader and founder of Ayiti (Hayti, Empire of Freedom), Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Emperor 1st of Hayti. As an author she publishes in Ayitian, English and French. Her latest work, Sheroes of the Haitian Revolution, highlights the lives of ten women in the Ayitian Ourstory who played a significant role in the nation’s journey to freedom. Professor Bello is based in Ayiti and serves as advisor to key eldership councils.
· www.marugekundi.org/SHEROES
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

Song credit: Jean Amédé Caze

Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and bestselling author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures. Merlin received a Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Entangled Life won the Wainwright Prize 2021, and has been nominated for a number of other prizes. Merlin is a research associate of the Vrije University Amsterdam, Head of Science and Communications Strategy for the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks, and sits on the advisory board of the Fungi Foundation.



· www.merlinsheldrake.com


· www.oneplanetpodcast.org


· www.creativeprocess.info

"Humans have been partnering with fungi for an unknowably long time, no doubt for longer than we’ve been humans. Whether as foods, eating mushrooms, as medicines, dosing ourselves with moulds and other mushrooms that might help, parasites or others helpers with infection, mushrooms as tinder or ways to carry a spark, this very important thing that humans needed to do for a very long time, and as agents of fermentation, as in yeasts creating alcohol. So humans have partnered with fungi to solve all sorts of problems and so fungi have found themselves enveloped within human societies and cultures for a long time."

Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and bestselling author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures. Merlin received a Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Entangled Life won the Wainwright Prize 2021, and has been nominated for a number of other prizes. Merlin is a research associate of the Vrije University Amsterdam, Head of Science and Communications Strategy for the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks, and sits on the advisory board of the Fungi Foundation.



· www.merlinsheldrake.com


· www.oneplanetpodcast.org


· www.creativeprocess.info

Since 1971, Pilobolus Dance Company has toured more than 65 countries, performing to over a quarter of a million people each year. Pilobolus has appeared on Oprah, the Academy Awards, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, NBC’s TODAY Show, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, MTV’s Video Music Awards. Their honors include a TED Fellowship, a Grammy® Award Nomination, a Primetime Emmy® Award, and several Cannes Lion Awards. Pilobolus has collaborated with more than 75 brands and organizations to create bespoke performances for television, film, and live events.
· www.pilobolus.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

Since 1971, Pilobolus Dance Company has toured more than 65 countries, performing to over a quarter of a million people each year. Pilobolus has appeared on Oprah, the Academy Awards, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, NBC’s TODAY Show, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, MTV’s Video Music Awards. Their honors include a TED Fellowship, a Grammy® Award Nomination, a Primetime Emmy® Award, and several Cannes Lion Awards. Pilobolus has collaborated with more than 75 brands and organizations to create bespoke performances for television, film, and live events.

· www.pilobolus.org

· www.creativeprocess.info

Osprey Orielle Lake is the Founder and Executive Director of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International dedicated to accelerating a global women’s climate justice movement. She works nationally and internationally with grassroots and Indigenous leaders, policy-makers and scientists to promote climate justice, resilient communities, and a just transition to a decentralized, democratized energy future. She serves on the Executive Committee for the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and Osprey is the Co-Director of the Indigenous Women's Divestment Delegations, and actively leads WECAN’s advocacy, policy and campaign work in areas such as Women for Forests, Divestment and Just Transition, Indigenous Rights, a Feminist Agenda for a Green New Deal, and UN Forums. Osprey is the author of the award-winning book,"Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature."

· Global Women's Assembly for Climate Justice: Solutions from the Frontlines and the Protection and Defense of Human Rights and Nature
https://www.wecaninternational.org/womens-assembly

· WECAN COP26 Analysis Blog: Despite Government Failures at COP26, Peoples' Movements Continue Rising to Transform our World - https://www.wecaninternational.org/post/despite-government-failures-at-cop26-peoples-movements-continue-rising-to-transform-our-world

· WECAN Programs: https://www.wecaninternational.org/our-work

- WECAN Women Speak Storytelling Database: https://womenspeak.wecaninternational.org/  

· Join the WECAN Network: https://www.wecaninternational.org/join-the-network

· WECAN Social Media Handles:

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/WECAN.Intl/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/WECAN_INTL

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wecan_intl/

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

· www.creativeprocess.info

“There’s a wide range of reasons that we really need to understand the root causes of a lot of our social ills and environmental ills. I think we need to continue to come back to this question of how we heal this imposed divide between the natural world and human social constructs. And that healing is key to how we’re going to really unwind the perilous moment that we face right now. How do we reconnect with the natural world? Not just intellectually, but in a very embodied way.”

Osprey Orielle Lake is the Founder and Executive Director of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International dedicated to accelerating a global women’s climate justice movement. She works nationally and internationally with grassroots and Indigenous leaders, policy-makers and scientists to promote climate justice, resilient communities, and a just transition to a decentralized, democratized energy future. She serves on the Executive Committee for the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and Osprey is the Co-Director of the Indigenous Women's Divestment Delegations, and actively leads WECAN’s advocacy, policy and campaign work in areas such as Women for Forests, Divestment and Just Transition, Indigenous Rights, a Feminist Agenda for a Green New Deal, and UN Forums. Osprey is the author of the award-winning book,"Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature."

· Global Women's Assembly for Climate Justice: Solutions from the Frontlines and the Protection and Defense of Human Rights and Nature
https://www.wecaninternational.org/womens-assembly

· WECAN COP26 Analysis Blog: Despite Government Failures at COP26, Peoples' Movements Continue Rising to Transform our World - https://www.wecaninternational.org/post/despite-government-failures-at-cop26-peoples-movements-continue-rising-to-transform-our-world

· WECAN Programs: https://www.wecaninternational.org/our-work

- WECAN Women Speak Storytelling Database: https://womenspeak.wecaninternational.org/  

· Join the WECAN Network: https://www.wecaninternational.org/join-the-network

· WECAN Social Media Handles:

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/WECAN.Intl/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/WECAN_INTL

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wecan_intl/

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

· www.creativeprocess.info

Jane Madgwick is an ecologist and author with 30 years of experience of working internationally on the science, policy and practice of wetlands and water management. Since 2004, she has been CEO of Wetlands International, leading a network of 20 offices operating in over 100 countries. Wetlands International works to mobilise the conservation and restoration of wetlands, connecting science, policies and practices for biodiversity, resilient communities and reduced climate risks.

· www.wetlands.org
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

Photo by Pieter van Eijk

Wetlands naturally absorb twice the amount of carbon than all the world’s forests combined.

“I think everybody at school learns about the water cycle. That rings a bell with everybody. Maybe this is a good hook to show the place of wetlands in capturing and purifying and the story of water. And then in turn how this links to what we’re seeing every year: droughts, floods, fires, heat waves which are devastating and life-threatening. I think this may be one of the easiest routes in educating people, connecting wetlands with water and the direct impact of that.”

Jane Madgwick is an ecologist and author with 30 years of experience of working internationally on the science, policy and practice of wetlands and water management. Since 2004, she has been CEO of Wetlands International, leading a network of 20 offices operating in over 100 countries. Wetlands International works to mobilise the conservation and restoration of wetlands, connecting science, policies and practices for biodiversity, resilient communities and reduced climate risks.

· www.wetlands.org
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

Duke University Professor Emeritus Orrin H. Pilkey is one of the rare academics who engages in public advocacy about science-related issues. His collaborator, Mary Edna Fraser, is an artist who highlights environmental concerns in large silk batiks and oils. They are the co-authors of A Celebration of the World’s Barrier Islands and Global Climate Change: A Primer. Their traveling exhibits, “Our Expanding Oceans” and “Shifting East Coast Barrier Islands” creatively merge science and art.

· www.maryedna.com
· www.deleteapathy.com
· https://sites.nicholas.duke.edu/orrinpilkey
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

"I think any time we are closer to the earth, we can feel the struggles of other human beings as well. I encourage young women to find whatever it is they are passionate about and invest their entire soul in it and go for it! Because you’ll be happy if you’re passionate about your work." –Mary Edna Fraser

"Southern Africa, south of the Sahara, they’re expecting within this century 200 million climate refugees. Where are they going to go? Who wants those refugees. We have the same thing happening in Central America. Where are they going to go? All over the world, we’re seeing because of climate change we’re seeing vast changes affecting all aspects of society. It’s very worrisome and that’s something that we’ve not been able to face politically. We need to do that.” – Orrin H. Pilkey

Duke University Professor Emeritus Orrin H. Pilkey is one of the rare academics who engages in public advocacy about science-related issues. His collaborator, Mary Edna Fraser, is an artist who highlights environmental concerns in large silk batiks and oils. They are the co-authors of A Celebration of the World’s Barrier Islands and Global Climate Change: A Primer. Their traveling exhibits, “Our Expanding Oceans” and “Shifting East Coast Barrier Islands” creatively merge science and art.

· www.maryedna.com
· www.deleteapathy.com
· https://sites.nicholas.duke.edu/orrinpilkey

· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

“The good thing about our species is that we create our own environment. What we’ve been doing so far is creating an environment where we’re much more successful. We live a lot longer, we’re much healthier than we have been in the past. There are many, many more of us, so we’re very successful as a species and that’s been at the expense of other ecosystems, but what’s happened is we are now dominating the planet to a dangerous degree, but we are also self-aware. We’re capable of understanding that.”

Gaia Vince is a science writer and broadcaster interested in the interplay between humans and the planetary environment. She has held senior editorial posts at Nature and New Scientist, and her writing has featured in newspapers and magazines including the Guardian, The Times and Scientific American. She also writes and presents science programmes for radio and television. Her research takes her across the world: she has visited more than 60 countries, lived in three and is currently based in London. In 2015, she became the first woman to win the Royal Society Science Book of the Year Prize solo for her debut, Adventures in the Anthropocene: A Journey to the Heart of the Planet We Made. She is author of Transcendence: How Humans Evolved Through Fire, Language, Beauty & Time.

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

Gaia Vince is a science writer and broadcaster interested in the interplay between humans and the planetary environment. She has held senior editorial posts at Nature and New Scientist, and her writing has featured in newspapers and magazines including the Guardian, The Times and Scientific American. She also writes and presents science programmes for radio and television. Her research takes her across the world: she has visited more than 60 countries, lived in three and is currently based in London. In 2015, she became the first woman to win the Royal Society Science Book of the Year Prize solo for her debut, Adventures in the Anthropocene: A Journey to the Heart of the Planet We Made. She is author of Transcendence: How Humans Evolved Through Fire, Language, Beauty & Time.
· www.wanderinggaia.com
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

Brian Wilcox is the chief engineer and co-founder of Marine BioEnergy, Inc.  Marine BioEnergy was founded to grow plants in the open ocean to provide carbon-neutral fuels so that eventually fossil fuel use can be eliminated. Previously, Brian spent 38 years at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory working on robots for planetary exploration and other extreme environments. At NASA, he was the Supervisor of the Robotic Vehicles Group for over 20 years, and Manager of the Space Robotics Technology Program for another nearly 15 years.
· www.marinebiomass.com
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

"I have a strong feeling that at the moment, especially in the United States, people are much more interested in the culture and backgrounds of minorities than they are in the cultures where those minorities originally came from. I think it’s a sign of people drawing inwards more and more. That goes for the Right Wing populists and White Supremacists just as much. They’re also drawing the wagons around what they see as their identity, and I think that’s exactly not the way to go…I can only emphasize that in terms of education is that everything should be fostered to open people’s minds. Open minds to the past, to other cultures and not to have minds closed by limiting ourselves more and more to the circumstances of our birth.”

Ian Buruma is the author of many books, including A Tokyo Romance, The Churchill Complex,Their Promised Land, Year Zero, The China Lover, Murder in Amsterdam, Occidentalism and God’s Dust. He teaches at Bard College and is a columnist for Project Syndicate and contributor to The New Yorker,
The New York Times, and other publications. He was awarded the 2008 Erasmus Prize for making "an especially important contribution to European culture" and was voted one of the Top 100 Public Intellectuals
by the Foreign Policy magazine.


· www.bard.edu/faculty/details/?id=153

· www.creativeprocess.info

Ian Buruma is the author of many books, including A Tokyo Romance, The Churchill Complex,Their Promised Land, Year Zero, The China Lover, Murder in Amsterdam, Occidentalism and God’s Dust. He teaches at Bard College and is a columnist for Project Syndicate and contributor to The New Yorker,
The New York Times, and other publications. He was awarded the 2008 Erasmus Prize for making "an especially important contribution to European culture" and was voted one of the Top 100 Public Intellectuals
by the Foreign Policy magazine.
· www.bard.edu/faculty/details/?id=153

· www.creativeprocess.info

George Pelecanos is an award-winning author, essayist, screenwriter and producer from Washington, D.C. He has written over 20 novels and four series in the crime and detective fiction genre. He is also a recipient of the Los Angeles Times Book prize, the Raymond Chandler award, the Hammett Prize, the Barry Award, the Gumshoe Award, and the Grand Prix Du Roman Noir award. Pelecanos worked as a screenwriter for HBO’s The Wire, where his writing earned him an Emmy nomination as well as an Edgar and Writers Guild of America Award. Other shows he has written and/or produced for are The Pacific, The Deuce, and Treme.

· www.george-pelecanos.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

“I do want to point out–many writers don’t want to admit to it or say it–it’s just words on a page until everybody else makes it come alive. You had Idris Elba and Wood Harris acting in that scene. I had Joe Chappelle shooting it. He was the director. All the craftsmen and artists that worked on that made it what it is. And that’s actually what I like about it. It’s why I continue to work in television. I like working with all these artists. I like getting together with these people and making something together. It’s not just the writing. It’s everything that everybody contributes to make it what it is.”
George Pelecanos is an award-winning author, essayist, screenwriter and producer from Washington, D.C. He has written over 20 novels and four series in the crime and detective fiction genre. He is also a recipient of the Los Angeles Times Book prize, the Raymond Chandler award, the Hammett Prize, the Barry Award, the Gumshoe Award, and the Grand Prix Du Roman Noir award. Pelecanos worked as a screenwriter for HBO’s The Wire, where his writing earned him an Emmy nomination as well as an Edgar and Writers Guild of America Award. Other shows he has written and/or produced for are The Pacific, The Deuce, and Treme.

· www.george-pelecanos.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

Rob Pringle is a professor of ecology, biodiversity, and conservation at Princeton University. He’s fascinated by nearly all facets of ecology and conservation and his research in his lab addresses a correspondingly broad sweep of questions. His work on these questions is motivated by curiosity. The questions are united by a single goal: to understand how wild ecosystems work by studying their modular components and emergent properties.

· https://pringle.princeton.edu
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

“For nature and natural beauty to survive, people have to want it. If they don’t ever experience it, why should they want it? What could you see of value in it, something that you not only have never experienced but don’t ever expect to. We intellectually know that the Amazon is an important thing because it stores carbon and it’s home to many species, but I’ve been there. That’s a different thing entirely to be able to appreciate it on that level and care about it for the sheer beauty and magic and joy of being in a place that’s still so big and so wild. So that I think is the most important thing for the next generation.”

Rob Pringle is a professor of ecology, biodiversity, and conservation at Princeton University. He’s fascinated by nearly all facets of ecology and conservation and his research in his lab addresses a correspondingly broad sweep of questions. His work on these questions is motivated by curiosity. The questions are united by a single goal: to understand how wild ecosystems work by studying their modular components and emergent properties.

· https://pringle.princeton.edu

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

Born and raised in Haiti, Jean Weiner has worked on coastal and marine since 1991.  In 1992, Jean founded Haiti’s first coastal and marine environmental non-profit the Foundation for the Protection of Marine Biodiversity. He is the head of the organization today and he specializes in coastal and marine sciences, environmental monitoring and management, and community development, and has executed a wide range of projects including resource assessments, association building, environmental rehabilitation, community needs evaluations, as well as pure scientific research for institutions as diverse as the Ministry of Environment of Haiti, the UN. He is Haiti’s most awarded environmentalist and has received the Goldman Environmental Prize.

· www.foprobim.org
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

“We’re coming out of one of the worst times for resource exploitation, waste and everything related to that waste of resources, so trying to set the example, especially for my kids, recycling, trying to be reasonable about purchasing things, about where things end up after you’re done using them, just in general being careful about what you do, what impacts there are down the line. Even for them already, they’re 18 and 20 now–What are you going to do to try to protect the planet for your kids? Already trying to put that mindset for them because it’s very difficult for our generation to change the way it has done things for so long, but trying to at least bring that change. Be responsible, be reasonable, think about the impacts.”

Born and raised in Haiti, Jean Weiner has worked on coastal and marine since 1991.  In 1992, Jean founded Haiti’s first coastal and marine environmental non-profit the Foundation for the Protection of Marine Biodiversity. He is the head of the organization today and he specializes in coastal and marine sciences, environmental monitoring and management, and community development, and has executed a wide range of projects including resource assessments, association building, environmental rehabilitation, community needs evaluations, as well as pure scientific research for institutions as diverse as the Ministry of Environment of Haiti, the UN. He is Haiti’s most awarded environmentalist and has received the Goldman Environmental Prize.

· www.foprobim.org
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

Dr. Joeri Rogelj is Director of Research at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College and also at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. He studies how societies transform towards more sustainable futures, connecting Earth sciences to policy. He publishes on 1.5°C pathways, UN climate agreements, carbon budgets and net zero targets. He is a long-serving author on authoritative science assessment reports of the UN Environment Programme and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

· www.imperial.ac.uk/people/j.rogelj

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

“A key part of how I go about doing my research is being involved in policy discussions, policy conversations, and also by following the international climate negotiations very closely. Actually, I started my research career as a part of the Presidency of the International Climate Negotiations in 2009. After that I remained an advisor to country delegations in the international negotiations, particularly small island development states or least developed countries. That really helped me to get a sense of what the real questions are that they are struggling with.”

Dr. Joeri Rogelj is Director of Research at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College and also at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. He studies how societies transform towards more sustainable futures, connecting Earth sciences to policy. He publishes on 1.5°C pathways, UN climate agreements, carbon budgets and net zero targets. He is a long-serving author on authoritative science assessment reports of the UN Environment Programme and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

· www.imperial.ac.uk/people/j.rogelj

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

“A lot of people think climate change is about avoiding the extinction of mankind. In my opinion, climate change is about putting pressure on society and disrupting society to an extent that it can't function properly anymore. So my greatest fear is that if we don't combat climate change, the weather extremes will hit us with a frequency and intensity that we will not be able to recover after each impact. And then we will start to fight with each other.” 

Anders Levermann is a professor at the Physics Institute of Potsdam University, Germany, as well as an adjunct senior research scientist of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Earth Institute at Columbia University, New York. Levermann’s research focuses on climate dynamics and its social-economic impact. His work is used to advise political and economic stakeholders on the issue of climate change. Levermann has been involved in the assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since 2004. He is a member of the scientific advisory body of UNEP Finance Initiative’s Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance. He is also the head of global economic stability project Zeean. 

· www.pik-potsdam.de/~anders/
· www.pik-potsdam.de/en/output/transfer/projects/zeean

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

· www.creativeprocess.info

“A lot of people think climate change is about avoiding the extinction of mankind. In my opinion, climate change is about putting pressure on society and disrupting society to an extent that it can't function properly anymore. So my greatest fear is that if we don't combat climate change, the weather extremes will hit us with a frequency and intensity that we will not be able to recover after each impact. And then we will start to fight with each other.” 

Anders Levermann is a professor at the Physics Institute of Postdam University, Germany, as well as an adjunct senior research scientist of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Earth Institute at Columbia University, New York. Levermann’s research focuses on climate dynamics and its social-economic impact. His work is used to advise political and economic stakeholders on the issue of climate change. Levermann has been involved in the assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since 2004. He is a member of the scientific advisory body of UNEP Finance Initiative’s Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance. He is also the head of global economic stability project Zeean. 

· www.pik-potsdam.de/~anders/
· www.pik-potsdam.de/en/output/transfer/projects/zeean

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

· www.creativeprocess.info

Samuel Myers, MD, MPH studies the human health impacts of accelerating disruptions to Earth’s natural systems.  He is a Principal Research Scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and is the founding Director of the Planetary Health Alliance.  Sam’s current work spans several areas of planetary health including global nutritional impacts of CO2, health impacts of land management, or impact of animal pollinator declines on human nutrition. He is the lead editor of the book: Planetary Health: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves.
· www.planetaryhealthalliance.org
· www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cZ0zBSJz_g
· environment.harvard.edu/about/faculty/samuel-myers
Planetary Health: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves
· www.islandpress.org/books/planetary-health
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

“I think the environmental community has been guilty of a lot of catastrophism, a lot of statements like ‘Game Over for the Planet’, and we’ve painted a lot of very dark pictures about where we’re going, but when you look across these different sectors and all the solutions that are out there, there’s no reason to believe that our grandchildren couldn’t live in an incredibly exciting world.”

Samuel Myers, MD, MPH studies the human health impacts of accelerating disruptions to Earth’s natural systems.  He is a Principal Research Scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and is the founding Director of the Planetary Health Alliance. Sam’s current work spans several areas of planetary health including global nutritional impacts of CO2, health impacts of land management, or impact of animal pollinator declines on human nutrition. He is the lead editor of the book: Planetary Health: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves.
· www.planetaryhealthalliance.org
· www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cZ0zBSJz_g
· environment.harvard.edu/about/faculty/samuel-myers
Planetary Health: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves
· www.islandpress.org/books/planetary-health
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

“I think the next crisis is going to be a materials crisis. The whole point of moving from a zero-sum game–like who makes the best cheapest product at the lowest price and can find lowest labor somewhere around the world so someone can be happy with a new laundry machine and buy another one in five years–that’s not going to work for us.”

Tiemen ter Hoeven is founder and CEO of Roetz, a manufacturer of circular bicycles and e-bikes. In the Netherlands alone, about 1 million bicycles are discarded every year - whilst many parts can still be used perfectly well. In the Roetz Fair Factory, the parts are cleaned, repaired, and reassembled into new bicycles by people with poor job prospects. Roetz’ mission is to bring circular design and innovation to the bike industry and beyond.
· roetz-bikes.com

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

· www.creativeprocess.info

Tiemen ter Hoeven is founder and CEO of Roetz, a manufacturer of circular bicycles and e-bikes. In the Netherlands alone, about 1 million bicycles are discarded every year - whilst many parts can still be used perfectly well. In the Roetz Fair Factory, the parts are cleaned, repaired, and reassembled into new bicycles by people with poor job prospects. Roetz’ mission is to bring circular design and innovation to the bike industry and beyond.
· roetz-bikes.com

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

· www.creativeprocess.info

Craig Kauffman is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Oregon and a member of the United Nations Knowledge Network on Harmony with Nature. He has authored numerous works on environmental politics, ecological law, and sustainable development, including The Politics of Rights of Nature: Strategies for Building a More Sustainable Future, MIT Press, 2021 (with Pamela Martin). He is currently developing the EcoJurisprudence Monitor, which tracks ecological law initiatives worldwide. 

· polisci.uoregon.edu/profile/ckauffma/

· mitpress.mit.edu/books/politics-rights-nature

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

· www.creativeprocess.info

"The term Rights of Nature tends to be applied to two different things. One is this underlying legal philosophy that is actually broader than just Rights of Nature, that’s probably better understood as ecological jurisprudence that may or may not be expressed in terms of rights, but because Rights of Nature is getting a lot of attention that term tends to be applied to represent this broader underlying philosophy. Of course, the other way it’s used it to refer to the legal provisions that explicitly recognize Rights for ecosystems."

Craig Kauffman is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Oregon and a member of the United Nations Knowledge Network on Harmony with Nature. He has authored numerous works on environmental politics, ecological law, and sustainable development, including The Politics of Rights of Nature: Strategies for Building a More Sustainable Future, MIT Press, 2021 (with Pamela Martin). He is currently developing the EcoJurisprudence Monitor, which tracks ecological law initiatives worldwide. 

· polisci.uoregon.edu/profile/ckauffma/

· mitpress.mit.edu/books/politics-rights-nature

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

· www.creativeprocess.info

“Find a balance. Use technology. And connect with nature. I think that’s really critical. There is big hope for your generation because you have better environmental education. I can see this. You are more aware of these issues. In terms of the environmental issues that we face now, we need to connect more with nature, to open up your heart for that. You have this amazing opportunity to reach out information to explore technologies through the Internet. What you choose now what we’re going to focus on, it’s really critical.”

Spatial analyst specialist Carlos Souza Jr. is a senior research associate at the Institute of People and the Environment of the Amazon, otherwise known as Imazon. He’s also a technical and scientific coordinator for MapBiomas, a collaborative network of co-creators, NGOs, universities, and technology companies, among others. He received his Ph.D. in Geography at University of California in Santa Barbara, and his work is focused on using current data and technology to increase understanding and awareness of the impact of human activity in the Brazilian Amazon.

· imazon.org.br/en/

· mapbiomas.org/en

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

Spatial analyst specialist Carlos Souza Jr. is a senior research associate at the Institute of People and the Environment of the Amazon, otherwise known as Imazon. He’s also a technical and scientific coordinator for MapBiomas, a collaborative network of co-creators, NGOs, universities, and technology companies, among others. He received his Ph.D. in Geography at University of California in Santa Barbara, and his work is focused on using current data and technology to increase understanding and awareness of the impact of human activity in the Brazilian Amazon.

· imazon.org.br/en/

· mapbiomas.org/en

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

Harriet Bulkeley is Professor at Durham University, UK and Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Her research is concerned with the politics and governance of environmental issues, with a particular interest in climate change, energy, nature and urban sustainability. She is currently working on how nature-based solutions are coming to occupy a place in the political landscape of environmental governance. 

Johannes Stripple is an Associate Professor in Political Science at Lund University, Sweden. His research has traced the governance of climate change through a range of sites, from the UN to the everyday, from the economy, the urban, and the low carbon self. Currently Johannes' work focus on how we imagine and engage an increasingly carbon constrained and warming world.

Harriet and Johannes share a wide interest in the cultural politics of climate change. They have jointly edited Governing the Climate: New Approaches to Rationality, Power and Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2014), Towards a Cultural Politics of Climate Change (Cambridge University Press, 2016), and Decarbonising Economies (Forthcoming with Cambridge University Press, 2021).

Harriet and Johannes have in the last years worked on a set of initiatives that through experimentation, narratives and speculative design portray the possibilities of life in a fossil-free future. Examples of these are the low carbon mobile laboratory, a tourist guide to a fictional decarbonized European city, the Carbon Ruins exhibition, soundwalks in changed climate, and a climate fiction writing contest.

· www.climaginaries.org/carbon-ruins

· www.reinvent-project.eu/roughplanetguide

· www.climatefutures.lu.se/futurewalks

· www.climaginaries.org/anthroposcenes

· www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE7wgwcmyMA

· grist.org/article/in-a-future-without-climate-change-how-will-we-be-remembered/

· www.transformingsociety.co.uk/2021/02/16/concretise-situate-democratise-the-museum-of-carbon-ruins/

· www.rapidtransition.org/commentaries/tour-tomorrow-today-why-we-made-a-travel-guide-to-an-imaginary-future-city/
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

"Our starting point was that a lot of the stories we tell about futures world are quite poor. It’s not stories that are meeting the world as it is now. It’s difficult for people to inhabit the kinds of worlds that we imagine through scenarios or modelling, so there is a kind of distance between where we are now and the life worlds of a decarbonized or a post-fossil world."
Harriet Bulkeley is Professor at Durham University, UK and Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Her research is concerned with the politics and governance of environmental issues, with a particular interest in climate change, energy, nature and urban sustainability. She is currently working on how nature-based solutions are coming to occupy a place in the political landscape of environmental governance. 

Johannes Stripple is an Associate Professor in Political Science at Lund University, Sweden. His research has traced the governance of climate change through a range of sites, from the UN to the everyday, from the economy, the urban, and the low carbon self. Currently Johannes' work focus on how we imagine and engage an increasingly carbon constrained and warming world.

Harriet and Johannes share a wide interest in the cultural politics of climate change. They have jointly edited Governing the Climate: New Approaches to Rationality, Power and Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2014), Towards a Cultural Politics of Climate Change (Cambridge University Press, 2016), and Decarbonising Economies (Forthcoming with Cambridge University Press, 2021).

Harriet and Johannes have in the last years worked on a set of initiatives that through experimentation, narratives and speculative design portray the possibilities of life in a fossil-free future. Examples of these are the low carbon mobile laboratory, a tourist guide to a fictional decarbonized European city, the Carbon Ruins exhibition, soundwalks in changed climate, and a climate fiction writing contest.

· www.climaginaries.org/carbon-ruins

· www.reinvent-project.eu/roughplanetguide

· www.climatefutures.lu.se/futurewalks

· www.climaginaries.org/anthroposcenes

· www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE7wgwcmyMA

· grist.org/article/in-a-future-without-climate-change-how-will-we-be-remembered/

· www.transformingsociety.co.uk/2021/02/16/concretise-situate-democratise-the-museum-of-carbon-ruins/

· www.rapidtransition.org/commentaries/tour-tomorrow-today-why-we-made-a-travel-guide-to-an-imaginary-future-city/
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

Seth is a lawyer, activist, entrepreneur, public speaker and New York Times Bestselling Author. He is an expert in water management and conservation. His first book Let There Be Water: Israel’s Solution for a Water-Starved World talks about how a government in one of the driest regions in the world revolutionised water managed. His second book Troubled Water: What's Wrong with What We Drink, presented an ambitious agenda for a fundamental rethinking of America’s drinking water system. Seth’s most recent book, Other People's Words: Wisdom for an Inspired and Productive Life.

His essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and in leading publications in Europe and Asia. Seth is a Senior Fellow at the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Water Policy, and is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Seth is a widely sought-after speaker, having spoken hundreds of times on water and other issues throughout the US and around the world. Among the places he has spoken include the US Congress, the United Nations, the World Bank, Davos and at Google’s headquarters, and on more than 40 college campuses, including Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Yale, and Stanford. 

Seth is the co-founder of several companies, including Beanstalk, the world’s leading trademark brand extension company, which he sold to Ford Motor Company. He was also a Producer of the Tony Award-nominated Broadway revival of Man of La Mancha. Seth sits on the board of several not-for-profit organizations. All of the royalties from sales of Seth’s books are donated to charity.

· http://sethmsiegel.com
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

“On average in advanced societies, about 70% of freshwater that’s consumed is consumed by agriculture. In less developed countries, sometimes as high as 95% of the freshwater goes to agriculture, which means that you’re depleting the amount of water available for the environment. You’re depleting amount of groundwater to preserve for the future, especially in dry times, and it creates a stress for the future…What are you going to do when you have hundreds of millions of water refugees coming from places where there used to be enough water where there’s now just not enough water? What is the world going to do then?”

Seth is a lawyer, activist, entrepreneur, public speaker and New York Times Bestselling Author. He is an expert in water management and conservation. His first book Let There Be Water: Israel’s Solution for a Water-Starved World talks about how a government in one of the driest regions in the world revolutionised water managed. His second book Troubled Water: What's Wrong with What We Drink, presented an ambitious agenda for a fundamental rethinking of America’s drinking water system. Seth’s most recent book, Other People's Words: Wisdom for an Inspired and Productive Life.

His essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and in leading publications in Europe and Asia. Seth is a Senior Fellow at the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Water Policy, and is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Seth is a widely sought-after speaker, having spoken hundreds of times on water and other issues throughout the US and around the world. Among the places he has spoken include the US Congress, the United Nations, the World Bank, Davos and at Google’s headquarters, and on more than 40 college campuses, including Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Yale, and Stanford. 

Seth is the co-founder of several companies, including Beanstalk, the world’s leading trademark brand extension company, which he sold to Ford Motor Company. He was also a Producer of the Tony Award-nominated Broadway revival of Man of La Mancha. Seth sits on the board of several not-for-profit organizations. All of the royalties from sales of Seth’s books are donated to charity.

· http://sethmsiegel.com

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org


· www.creativeprocess.info

Marian Macgowan is a producer with a global imprint, working across film, documentary and television mediums.  As principal of the independent Australian production company Macgowan Films, her company develops, finances and produces feature films, television, and documentaries. Currently preparing for Season 3 of the critically acclaimed Emmy, Critics Choice nominee for Best Comedy Series, and Golden Globe nominee for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy, THE GREAT.

Marian Macgowan has produced or executive-produced international films as LILIAN’S STORY, with Toni Collette; Gregor Jordan's TWO HANDS, with Rose Byrne, Bryan Brown, and Heath Ledger; Tony McNamara's THE RAGE IN PLACID LAKE, starring Rose Byrne, Ben Lee, and Miranda Richardson; SOUTH SOLITARY, directed by Shirley Barrett, with Miranda Otto and her father Barry Otto; and the documentaries BOXING FOR PALM ISLAND directed by Adrian Russell Wills, and WOMEN HE’S UNDRESSED, directed by Gillian Armstrong. The latter is about legendary Oscar-winning costume designer Orry-Kelly. 

· www.macgowanfilms.com/about
· www.hulu.com/series/the-great-238db0d4-c476-47ed-9bee-d326fd302f7d
· www.creativeprocess.info

"As a filmmaker, what you are selling and your primary asset is yourself, so the clearer you are about yourself, the clearer you can “play yourself”, the more effective you’re going to be in expressing the ideas that you are particularly gifted to do. So that clarity of voice is as important for a writer or a director or producer as it is for a performer or a musician or anybody else. You want to find the best version of yourself and that is about recognizing when those moments of clarity are there and when they are not."

Marian Macgowan is a producer with a global imprint, working across film, documentary and television mediums.  As principal of the independent Australian production company Macgowan Films, her company develops, finances and produces feature films, television, and documentaries. Currently preparing for Season 3 of the critically acclaimed Emmy, Critics Choice nominee for Best Comedy Series, and Golden Globe nominee for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy, THE GREAT.

Marian Macgowan has produced or executive-produced international films as LILIAN’S STORY, with Toni Collette; Gregor Jordan's TWO HANDS, with Rose Byrne, Bryan Brown, and Heath Ledger; Tony McNamara's THE RAGE IN PLACID LAKE, starring Rose Byrne, Ben Lee, and Miranda Richardson; SOUTH SOLITARY, directed by Shirley Barrett, with Miranda Otto and her father Barry Otto; and the documentaries BOXING FOR PALM ISLAND directed by Adrian Russell Wills, and WOMEN HE’S UNDRESSED, directed by Gillian Armstrong. The latter is about legendary Oscar-winning costume designer Orry-Kelly. 

· www.macgowanfilms.com/about

· www.hulu.com/series/the-great-238db0d4-c476-47ed-9bee-d326fd302f7d
· www.creativeprocess.info

Paul Shapiro is the author of the national bestseller Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World, the CEO of The Better Meat Co., a four-time TEDx speaker, and the host of the Business for Good Podcast.

· www.bettermeat.co
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

“If you go fill up your car with gas in the United States, chances are high that probably about 10% of your gas is not actually coming from fossil fuels. It's coming from ethanol.You don't even contemplate the fact that there's ethanol in your gas. And I think that meat maybe come like that, where people will obtain meat. But the norm will be for that meat not to be totally animal in its nature. And I think that people will just have a different view of what meat is, and it will be far more diverse than what it is today.”

Paul Shapiro is the author of the national bestseller Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World, the CEO of The Better Meat Co., a four-time TEDx speaker, and the host of the Business for Good Podcast.

· www.bettermeat.co
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

Jon Gertner is a journalist and historian whose stories on science, technology, and nature have appeared in a host of national magazines. Since 2003 he has worked mainly as a feature writer for The New York Times Magazine. He is the author of The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation and The Ice at the End of the World. A frequent lecturer on technology and science history, Gertner lives with his family in New Jersey.

· jongertner.net

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

“I don’t think there is anything in our history that prepares us for what we have to do next. I think we have a lot of promising signs. It seems like the real work is still ahead of us. To me it feels that we’re making this up as we go along, we’ve made a couple good steps, we know the problem really well. We know what to do or at least what is needed, but those questions of policy and politics and how to mobilise governments and align people, at least to me it seems like the world has gotten more contentious, maybe because of the pandemic, rather than more willing to align.”

Jon Gertner is a journalist and historian whose stories on science, technology, and nature have appeared in a host of national magazines. Since 2003 he has worked mainly as a feature writer for The New York Times Magazine. He is the author of The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation and The Ice at the End of the World. A frequent lecturer on technology and science history, Gertner lives with his family in New Jersey.

· jongertner.net

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

Peter Sutoris, PhD is an anthropologist, educator, writer, filmmaker and development professional whose research examines the ways various societies imagine the future differently. He is a Research Affiliate at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at SOAS, University of London as well as visiting lecturer at the University of Bath and supervises at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of monographs Visions of Development, published in 2016, and Educating for the Anthropocene, coming in 2022, as well as the Director and Producer of the 2012 documentary film The Undiscovered Country. He's a graduate of the United World College of the Atlantic, Dartmouth College and Cambridge University where he was a Gates Cambridge Scholar. Peter is the Founder and Director of Scale Research Group, a London-based consulting start-up focusing on research that supports scaling up ethical and sustainable international development programs. Sutoris’s work has been featured on The Guardian, The BBC and University World News. 

· www.petersutoris.com

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

· www.creativeprocess.info

“As a culture, how do we approach the environment? How do we approach the planet? Within our education systems are we emphasizing our arrogance? Or are we emphasizing our humility in the face of planetary-scale challenges? I think at the moment, from what I’ve seen in a number of countries, this huge focus on the natural sciences, hard science as a way of mastering nature. And perhaps less of a focus on social sciences, humanities that allow us to reflect a bit more deeply on our relationship more fundamentally with the planet.”

Peter Sutoris, PhD is an anthropologist, educator, writer, filmmaker and development professional whose research examines the ways various societies imagine the future differently. He is a Research Affiliate at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at SOAS, University of London as well as visiting lecturer at the University of Bath and supervises at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of monographs Visions of Development, published in 2016, and Educating for the Anthropocene, coming in 2022, as well as the Director and Producer of the 2012 documentary film The Undiscovered Country. He's a graduate of the United World College of the Atlantic, Dartmouth College and Cambridge University where he was a Gates Cambridge Scholar. Peter is the Founder and Director of Scale Research Group, a London-based consulting start-up focusing on research that supports scaling up ethical and sustainable international development programs. Sutoris’s work has been featured on The Guardian, The BBC and University World News. 

· www.petersutoris.com

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

· www.creativeprocess.info

Melissa Cristina Márquez is a multi-hyphenate Latina in STEM. Currently a PhD candidate at Curtin University, Márquez is interested in what environmental factors influence the composition and distribution of elasmobranchs using a variety of marine technology. She has become a household name via her Scholastic books (the "Wild Survival" series), freelance environmental issue articles, and TV presenter roles (BBC, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, and OceanX). Host of the "ConCiencia Azul" Spanish podcast, Melissa is passionate about making the scientific industry more diverse and inclusive, including making all of her educational content bilingual. With over 40,000 followers on social media, her platforms are filled with fun games (e.g. "Name That Shark," "ID That Ocean Critter," "Marine Tech Mondays," etc) that make learning about wildlife exciting! Featured in numerous media articles (GQ, People Chica, USA Today, etc), a Forbes "30 Under 30" honoree, and listed as one of InStyle's "BadAss Women for 2021," Melissa is currently aboard the OceanXplorer in the Atlantic Ocean as a scientific advisor/natural history show presenter.

· www.melissacristinamarquez.com

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

“A lot of people when you think of sharks, you think of hammerheads, great white sharks, tiger sharks, but there’s so much more diversity than just that. There’s over 500 different species and on average we’re discovering new species every two weeks, not just of sharks, but also their cousins, the stingrays, skates and sometimes the chimeras as well. And so knowing that diversity exists, for me it’s really important to get that message out there.”

Melissa Cristina Márquez is a multi-hyphenate Latina in STEM. Currently a PhD candidate at Curtin University, Márquez is interested in what environmental factors influence the composition and distribution of elasmobranchs using a variety of marine technology. She has become a household name via her Scholastic books (the "Wild Survival" series), freelance environmental issue articles, and TV presenter roles (BBC, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, and OceanX). Host of the "ConCiencia Azul" Spanish podcast, Melissa is passionate about making the scientific industry more diverse and inclusive, including making all of her educational content bilingual. With over 40,000 followers on social media, her platforms are filled with fun games (e.g. "Name That Shark," "ID That Ocean Critter," "Marine Tech Mondays," etc) that make learning about wildlife exciting! Featured in numerous media articles (GQ, People Chica, USA Today, etc), a Forbes "30 Under 30" honoree, and listed as one of InStyle's "BadAss Women for 2021," Melissa is currently aboard the OceanXplorer in the Atlantic Ocean as a scientific advisor/natural history show presenter.

· www.melissacristinamarquez.com

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

Since 2014, Rowin Snijder has been designing and building with his company Le Compostier “worm hotels” for community composting projects. A worm hotel is a structure in which an ecosystem of compost organisms work together to transform organic waste into beautiful worm compost. With a garden on top of each worm hotel, they give space to nature in neighborhoods and show us we can use organic waste to create a circular city.

· www.compostier.nl
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

“Know first of all that we are not separate from nature, but that we are part of it. To not even think of what is the benefit for me from it. I find it a very beautiful the concept of the food forest. Like you're actually building soil, and then the surplus is that you get some food back. To focus more on giving than on taking, especially for children.
What I like to teach my children–really look at what is your talent, what drives you and how you think you can use that to improve and to create more harmony. I think is very important. Do not think so much about what others expect from you, but what is really driving you? I think that's very important to find out and go for it.” 

Since 2014, Rowin Snijder has been designing and building with his company Le Compostier “worm hotels” for community composting projects. A worm hotel is a structure in which an ecosystem of compost organisms work together to transform organic waste into beautiful worm compost. With a garden on top of each worm hotel, they give space to nature in neighborhoods and show us we can use organic waste to create a circular city.

· www.compostier.nl
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

Sara Paretsky is the author of nineteen books, including sixteen V.I. Warshawski novels. She was named 2011 Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America and is the winner of many awards, including the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for lifetime achievement from the British Crime Writers' Association and the CWA Gold Dagger for BLACKLIST. 

· www.saraparetsky.com

· www.creativeprocess.info

"I had never seen anything like Forsythe’s Choreography for Step Text, and I thought, “This is possible?”...The articulation, the structures, the musicality, and the curtain coming in and out was just radical and amazing. I just wanted to be a part of it. If you remain curious just about anything as an artist, you can make it compelling...it reminds me of what a beautiful visual artist, Jack Whitten, talks about. He said that when people ask me (him) what art is about, I (he) say its giving structure to feelings. Also this notion that we can give meaning to something without it being a singular narrative. Something can have an individualized meaning. If it is meaningful in the conveyance of the dancer, everyone seeing that dancer or the group of dancers performing will receive something different that resonates with them in their life."

Jill Johnson is an internationally renowned dancer, choreographer, artistic director, educator, producer, stager, movement consultant, and advisor. Her leadership in the dance field brings into service over three and a half decades of experience and a vast knowledge of diverse repertoires and methodologies to realize visionary, world-class programming, develop the next generation of artist leaders, and reimagine how the arts engage, intersect, and interact with all people. Ms. Johnson choreographs for film, television, dance, theater, opera; has danced in over 60 tours on 5 continents including A Quiet Evening of Dance; was a soloist with the National Ballet of Canada; principal dancer and researcher with William Forsythe for over three decades; stages Forsythe’s work worldwide. Director of Harvard Dance Center, Founder/AD Harvard Dance Project, and faculty, at Harvard University, 2011-2021, where she designed an innovative interdisciplinary program of study in dance and was a campus leader in DEIJ. Amongst her recent projects: LA Dance Project, Paris Opera Ballet, La Scala, Boston Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Harvard Choruses, Dries Van Noten/Louvre Museum, V (Eve Ensler), American Repertory Theater, PBS’s Poetry in America, Sadler’s Wells Theater, and Equity Based Dialogue for Inclusion (EBDI).

www.nytimes.com/2019/10/13/arts/dance/william-forsythe-a-quiet-evening-of-dance-review.html
https://ofa.fas.harvard.edu/dance-deij-letter-strategic-priorities

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
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