Online events w) Nikole Hannah-Jones, Medea Benjamin, Jeremy Lent, Naomi Klein, and others

Upcoming Online Events:

Thu, 11/17, 4 pm -- An Emergent Strategy Event -- A conversation between adrienne maree brown and Susan Raffo about their new releases in the Emergent Strategy Series -- A virtual event to celebrate the release of Fables and Spells by adrienne maree brown and Liberated to the Bone by Susan Raffo -- Fables and Spells, a gathering of adrienne maree brown's short stories and poems, is a vibrant selection of visionary works, both previously published and brand new. Included is her most beloved story, "The River," as well as the two sequel tales of her Water Trio. The remaining fourteen tales and nineteen poems explore moments of beauty, conflict, and transformation that weave deep, radical lessons into the folds of the fantastical. Fables and Spells brings fans of her work--and all lovers of speculative fiction and poetry--brilliant, new visions of change and possibility -- The newest title in the Emergent Strategy Series, Liberated to the Bone, addresses the intersections between healing our physical bodies and healing our social relations which are shaped by violence. Bodyworker and cultural worker Susan Raffo addresses intergenerational trauma, social justice, organizing, and how all of these things are relevant to our bodies -- adrienne maree brown is the author of Emergent Strategy, the New York Times best-selling Pleasure Activism, We Will Not Cancel Us, Holding Change, and Grievers. brown grows transformative ideas in public through her writing and art; she is a poet changing the world. She is the writer-in-residence at Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute -- Susan Raffo is a writer, cultural worker, and bodyworker. She is part of the Healing Histories Project, which focuses on transforming the medical-industrial complex and confronting eugenic legacies. She works with REP, a Black-led community-based crisis response model grounded in the belief that we have the ability to love and protect one another without giving our agency to systems built to destroy, consume, or commodify us. Author of Queerly Classed and Restricted Access, she is published in a range of anthologies and websites. She is based in Minneapolis, MN:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/an-emergent-strategy-event-tickets-439130770957?aff=ebdsoporgprofile

Thu, 11/17, 5:30 pm -- Trauma of Caste Book Launch with Cornel West, Prachi Patankar, & Thenmozhi Soundararajan -- We welcome you to join us for the book launch of Themozhi Soundararajan’s new book, The Trauma of Caste -- Equality Labs and North Atlantic Books welcome you to a meeting of minds, hearts, and histories as author and EL's executive director Thenmozhi Soundararajan is joined by philosopher Dr. Cornel West and Bahujan Activst Prachi Patankar as they celebrate and dig into Thenmozhi’s new book The Trauma of Caste (releasing November 15, 2022) -- The Trauma of Caste calls readers to urgent action as it demands an end to caste apartheid through a practise of grounded Dalit feminist abolition and engaged Buddhism. It explores how caste ravages many dimensions of the human spirit, and how a global movement rooted in love can be the antidote to this violent system -- About the Speakers: Thenmozhi Soundararajan -- Thenmozhi Soundararajan is a Dalit American artist, community organizer, technologist, and theorist. Currently, Thenmozhi is the Executive Director of Equality Labs, which she co-founded. Equality Labs is one of the largest Dalit civil rights organizations working to empower caste-oppressed people in the US. Through her work at Equality Labs, Thenmozhi has mobilized South Asian Americans towards dismantling eons-long systems of oppression, with the goal of ending caste apartheid, gender-based violence, white supremacy, and religious intolerance -- Her intersectional, cross-pollinating work—research, education, art, activism, and digital security—helps to create a more generous, global, expansive, and inclusive definition of South Asian identity, along with safe spaces from which to honor the stories of these communities. Thenmozhi’s work has been recognized by the U.S. Congress, The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, The Producers Guild of America Diversity Program, The Museum of Contemporary Art, The Sorbonne, Source Magazine, Utne Reader, The National Center for the Humanities, The National Science Foundation, The Ford Foundation, and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. She is a frequent contributor on issues related to South Asia, caste, gender, and racial Equity, as well interfaith issues and peace building, and has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, Guardian, ABC, and NBC news. She was also an inaugural fellow of the Robert Rauschenberg Artist as Activist, Atlantic Foundation for Racial Equity, and is a current fellow at Stanford Center for South Asian Studies. You can order her new book The Trauma of Caste from North Atlantic Books to learn more about her work around caste equity, abolition, and healing -- Cornel West -- Dr. West is the former Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. Cornel West graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard in three years and obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy at Princeton -- He has written 20 books and has edited 13. He is best known for his classics, Race Matters and Democracy Matters, and for his memoir, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud. His most recent book, Black Prophetic Fire, offers an unflinching look at nineteenth and twentieth-century African American leaders and their visionary legacies -- Prachi Patankar -- Prachi Patankar: Born and raised in rural India, Prachi was raised by a freedom-fighter grandmother and parents deeply involved in anti-caste, feminist, and peasant movements. Over two decades in New York City, she has been an activist, educator, grantmaker, and writer involved in social movements which link the local and the global, police brutality and war, migration and militarization, race and caste, women of color feminism and global gender justice -- Prachi works as the Senior Program Officer at Foundation for a Just Society, where she leads the program to provide funding to gender justice movements in South and Southeast Asia. Through her work with organizations such as Afghan Women’s Mission, CAAAV and Palestine Education Project, Prachi has been involved in innovative projects to link social justice movements between the United States and the Global South. She serves on the Advisory Board of the Human Rights Funders Network and the Grantmakers for Girls for Color. Prachi believes in the vital power of intersectional and international visions and strategies, which resonate across Dalit rights and Black lives, migrant justice and gender justice, to build bottom-up change from the local to the global:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/trauma-of-caste-book-launch-with-cornel-west-prachi-patankar-thenmozhi-tickets-439087892707?aff=erellivmlt


Fri, 11/18, 9 am -- Nomad Century: Gaia Vince in conversation with Elizabeth Cripps -- Author Gaia Vince draws attention to mass migration and climate change at a time when huge swathes of the world are becoming uninhabitable -- ‘Gaia Vince's new book should be read not just by every politician, but by every person on the planet, because it lays out, much more clearly than any existing scientific assessment, the world we are creating through global heating' – Observer -- While the climate catastrophe is finally getting the attention it deserves, the inevitability of mass migration has been largely ignored. While we must do everything we can to mitigate the impact of climate change, the truth is that huge swathes of the world are becoming uninhabitable -- In Nomad Century, Gaia Vince provides an examination of this most pressing issue facing humanity. In conversation with Elizabeth Cripps, Vince discusses how migration brings benefits not only to migrants themselves, but to host countries, many of which face demographic crises and labour shortages -- Speaker Biographies: Gaia Vince is a journalist, writer and broadcaster, and an honorary senior research fellow at UCL. She writes for publications including the Observer and Guardian, and presents programmes on BBC R4. She is the author of the ground-breaking work Adventures in The Anthropocene for which she spent two and half years travelling to over 50 countries to map the ways humans are changing the planet forever. She draws on this, along with a wealth of eye-opening data and original reporting, and her own first-hand experience of the state of the planet. Gaia shows how migration brings benefits not only to migrants themselves, but to host countries, many of which face demographic crises and labour shortages -- Chair: Dr Elizabeth Cripps is a writer and philosopher. She is a senior lecturer in political theory at the University of Edinburgh and the author of What Climate Justice Means and Why We Should Care (Bloomsbury, 2022), as well as the forthcoming Parenting on Earth: A Philosopher’s Guide to Doing Right by your Kids – and Everyone Else (MIT Press). Elizabeth has written opinion pieces for the Guardian, the Herald and the Big Issue and appeared on podcasts and radio shows, including for BBC Radio, WBAI, and Newstalk. As a former journalist, she worked for the Financial Times Group:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/nomad-century-gaia-vince-in-conversation-with-elizabeth-cripps-tickets-409812659697?aff=ebdsoporgprofile

Fri, 11/18, 9 am -- Climate & Public Health -- Climate Emergency Mobilization Task 3RD Virtual Summit Series: Climate, Equity & Race UNITED ACTIONS for an Environmentally Just and Regenerative Future -- The Climate Emergency Mobilization Task Force presents: CEMTF 3RD Virtual Summit Series: Climate & Public Health: 9:00 AM - Noon -- DRAFT Schedule for 11/18: 9:00 - 9:15 Welcome/Land Acknowledgement/student survey 9:15 - 9:30 – Corrina Gould Segorea Te land trust (confirmed?) 9:30 - 9:50 Laura Satchel – We Care Solar–Solar public health solutions in Africa 9:50 - 10:10 Marta Segura–Chief heat officer and director of Climate Emergency Mobilization Department in Los Angeles 10:10 - 11:10 –Climate & Mental Health Hannah Estrada–Youth vs Apocalypse organizer, Christie Manning–Professor of Environmental Studies and Psychology and Leslie Davenport–author of 4 books on climate & mental health. 11:10 - 11:15 Break – College Corps students explain their climate survey for all to take online 11:15 - 11:30 Niasha Wright Brown –climate and healthy soils/healthy foods 11:30 - 11:50–Kasima Helamin–healing, chakras,--closing out the program with healing techniques 11:50 - noon – announcements, evaluation survey:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-public-health-registration-369244529327?aff=ebdsoporgprofile

Fri, 11/18, 10 am -- A George Mason University Symposium: Thinking through American Polarization -- America’s deep political and cultural polarization is widely acknowledged, and most frequently explored through its symptoms, how it manifests itself, rather than through its causes. In this state of deep polarization, the tendency is to vilify rather than to intellectually engage with the “other side.” This symposium seeks to delve into the histories, root causes, and mechanisms of polarization—diagnosing the problems that have led to such deeply entrenched positions. Why now? What distinguishes current polarization from previous divisions in American life and why/how has it become unusually pervasive and bitter? What has happened to previously unifying values (a belief in the nation, a commitment to the common good)? To what extent does political and media polarization cause further division? To what extent is polarization a response to more basic social and economic changes in American life? To what extent is it connected to longstanding inequalities in American life? American polarization is of course not unique in the contemporary world, but it does seem unusually charged, and some comparative analysis with other national contexts may be an appropriate part of the overall evaluation -- Panel One: Daniel Rodgers (Henry Charles Lea Professor of History Emeritus, Princeton University), "What's New About Polarization?" -- Julius Fleming (Associate Professor of English and Director of English Honors, University of Maryland, College Park), "Black Patience: On Race and the Problem of Waiting for Freedom" -- Allyson Shortle (Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Oklahoma), "The Polarizing Role of Christian Nationalism in American Politics" -- David Rand (Erwin H. Schell Professor, MIT), "Rethinking the link between motivated reasoning and polarization" -- Panel One will be chaired by Alison Landsberg, Professor of History and Art History and Cultural Studies and Director of the Center for Humanities Research at Mason -- Panel Two: Supriya Baily (Professor, College of Education and Human Development, George Mason University), "Battling for Control - Polarization and Education in the US" -- Stefan Wheelock,(Associate Professor, English Department, George Mason University), "A Polarizing Truth: Warnings from Ida B. Wells" -- David E. Bernstein (Professor and Chair, Scalia Law School, George Mason University), "The Growth of Executive Power as a Cause of Divisiveness" -- Richard Rubenstein (Professor, Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, George Mason University), "Class, culture, and conflict resolution" -- Panel Two will be chaired by Peter Stearns, Professor of History and Art History and Provost Emeritus at Mason:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-george-mason-university-symposium-thinking-through-american-polarization-tickets-433972372047?aff=ebdsoporgprofile


Sat, 11/19 ,9 am -- Cleveland Public Library Writers & Readers: Nikole Hannah-Jones -- The Cleveland Public Library welcomes Nikole Hannah-Jones as part of our Writers & Readers signature author series -- Nikole Hannah-Jones is the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of the 1619 Project and a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine. She has spent her career investigating and writing about racial inequality and injustice. Her reporting has earned her the MacArthur Fellowship ("the Genius Grant"), a Peabody Award, two George Polk Awards and three National Magazine Awards -- Moderator: Connie Hill-Johnson, Chair of The Cleveland Foundation Board of Directors, and The Soul of Philanthropy Cleveland (TSOPCLE) Executive Steering Committee member:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cleveland-public-library-writers-readers-nikole-hannah-jones-tickets-212566009657?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch


Sun, 11/20, 9:30 am -- AN IMPORTANT CONVERSATION IN A TIME OF PERIL WITH MEDEA BENJAMIN Sunday, November 20, 9:30 am -- Russia’s brutal February 2022 invasion of Ukraine has attracted widespread condemnation across the West. Government and media circles present the conflict as a dichotomy between an evil empire and an innocent victim. In her new book, War in Ukraine Medea Benjamin (along with co-author Nicolas Davies) insists the picture is more complicated -- “Yes, Russia’s aggression was reckless and, ultimately, indefensible. But the West’s reneging on promises to halt eastward expansion of NATO in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union played a major part in prompting Putin to act. So did the U.S. involvement in the 2014 Ukraine coup and Ukraine’s failure to implement the Minsk peace agreements -- The result is a conflict that is increasingly difficult to resolve, one that could conceivably escalate into all-out war between the United States and Russia—the world’s two leading nuclear powers.” -- Skillfully bringing together the historical record and current analysis, War in Ukraine looks at the events leading up to the conflict, surveys the different parties involved, and weighs the risks of escalation and opportunities for peace:
https://www.uusf.org/forum


Mon, 11/21, 10 am --Technomoral Conversations: Sustainability and Artificial Intelligence -- What is the impact of AI on the planet? There are reasons to hope that data-driven efficiencies and insights can help produce innovative solutions to the climate emergency, touching areas such as energy, biodiversity monitoring and conservation, transportation, water conservation, and agriculture, among others. On the other hand, there are also real concerns about the climate cost of producing AI models in the first place. Researchers have found that training a single AI model can emit as much carbon as five cars in their lifetimes. Will AI turn out to be a net negative or a net positive for the sustainability of life on the planet? -- Join us for a conversation on sustainability and AI, featuring a panel of experts who are tackling different facets of this challenge -- Speaker Biographies: Professor Shannon Vallor, Chair: Shannon Vallor is the Director of the Centre for Technomoral Futures at the Edinburgh Futures Institute. She is the Baillie Gifford Chair in Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence at the Edinburgh Futures Institute. She also holds an appointment in the University of Edinburgh’s Department of Philosophy and chairs the University’s AI and Data Ethics Advisory Board. Shannon’s research explores the philosophy and ethics of emerging science and technologies. Current projects focus on the impact of emerging technologies – particularly those involving automation and artificial intelligence – on the moral and intellectual habits, skills and virtues of human beings: our character -- Speakers: Aimee van Wynsberghe: Dr Aimee van Wynsberghe is head of the Sustainable AI Lab and is Alexander von Humboldt Professor for Applied Ethics of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Bonn in Germany. Aimee is co-founder and co-director of the Foundation for Responsible Robotics and on the board of the Institute for Accountability in a Digital Age. She is a 2018 L'Oreal Unesco 'For Women in Science' laureate. Aimee also serves as a member of the European Commission's High-Level Expert Group on AI and is a founding board member of the Netherlands AI Alliance. She is a founding editor for the international peer-reviewed journal AI & Ethics (Springer Nature) and a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Futures Council on Artificial Intelligence and Humanity -- Ronita Bardhan: Dr Ronita Bardhan is Associate Professor of Sustainable Built Environment at the Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on data-driven design for built environments that respond by reducing health and energy burdens in the warming climate. She currently works on humid heat health and energy burdens due to the built environment design. Bardhan combines architectural engineering, AI and machine learning with social sciences to develop built environment design solutions. She has developed novel methods to inform building and city design by combining physics-based building design optimisation with qualitative socio-economic, socio-cultural norms, occupant behaviour and community norms data. She has conducted heat-health & energy research in diverse socio-economic settings in the United Kingdom, India, Ethiopia, South Africa, Indonesia etc. Bardhan specialises in data-driven design for developing context-specific solutions in the affordable housing sector. Bardhan is the Director of MPhil in Architecture and Urban Studies (MAUS) and leads the Sustainable Design Group at the university. Her impactful work on developing design solutions for reducing the burdens of tuberculosis, heat health and poor indoor air quality in slum rehabilitation housing has received immense traction from policymakers. Bardhan currently advises government agencies on energy efficiency and heat health in affordable housing and has written over 130 academic articles on the health and environmental design of the affordable residential built environment -- Ramit Debnath: Dr Ramit Debnath is a computational social scientist and a Gates Scholar based at the University of Cambridge. He is passionate about energy and climate justice. Ramit is the inaugural Cambridge Zero Fellow and a visiting faculty associate in Computational Social Science at Caltech, and a sustainability fellow at Churchill College, University of Cambridge. Ramit works at the intersection of data science and public policy to support climate action, primarily focussing on developing novel approaches to natural language processing, machine learning, AI and qualitative analysis to enable a people-centric and just net-zero transition. He is passionate about energy and climate justice as well as countering misinformation -- Jonathan Bean: Jonathan Bean is a physicist, engineer and CEO of Materials Nexus, a deep-tech start-up that originated at Cambridge University and within the Carbon13 Venture Builder. His ground-breaking, AI-enabled Materials Discovery Platform transforms the way that new materials are designed using a rapid automated process and advanced quantum calculations that give high accuracy at larger scales. He work with partners to accelerate development of next-generation materials to reduce global CO2e emissions. Jonathon is a trustee at the charity Science Projects and has teaching roles at Trinity College Cambridge and London South Bank University:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/technomoral-conversations-sustainability-and-artificial-intelligence-tickets-411151323677?aff=ebdsoporgprofile


Tue, 11/22, 9 am -- Making Sense of the Senseless Conflict in Ukraine -- Speakers: Medea Benjamin and Nicolas Davies -- Moderator: Claire Price, ex-AFP Africa (Video) Head and Chair of the Board of Fair Observer -- Outline of Discussion: Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine in February this year has brought war back to Europe. Publications like The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal put the blame squarely on an autocratic and bloodthirsty Vladimir Putin -- In their book War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, Medea Benjamin and Nicolas Davies put things in context. They examine the events leading up to the conflict, survey the different parties involved, weigh the risks of escalation, evaluate the consequences of the destructive war and highlight opportunities for peace -- Speaker Bios: Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of both CODEPINK and the international human rights organization Global Exchange. She is the author of eight books, including Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control and Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran -- Nicolas J.S. Davies is an independent journalist and a researcher for CODEPINK. He is also the author of Blood On Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq:
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_kJEMrFPTT6G-vIFA5d3b8g

Tue, 11/22, 10 am -- Think Tank Keynote: Dean Spade -- The Northwestern Ontario Women’s Centre is hosting our 4th annual Think Tank series as part of the Analysis to Action on Gender-Based Violence Project -- We're hosting a virtual presentation from our keynote speaker on Tuesday, November 22nd -- This year’s focus is on learning about mutual aid and transformative justice approaches to preventing and responding to gender-based violence. Our keynote speaker is Dean Spade, who will be speaking about mutual aid and building solidarity through organizing -- ABOUT OUR SPEAKER: Dean Spade is an organizer, writer and teacher. Dean has been working to build queer and trans liberation based in racial and economic justice for the past two decades. He is a lawyer, writer, trans activist, and professor at the Seattle University School of Law -- Dean’s new book, Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the next) was published by Verso Press in October 2020:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/think-tank-keynote-dean-spade-tickets-453308396617?aff=erellivmlt&keep_tld=1


Thu, 11/24, 10:30 am -- Positive Tipping Points in Practice: Doughnut Economics -- What are the positive tipping points for the widespread adoption of Doughnut Economics? How can we create and trigger them? -- Doughnut Economics offers a vision of what it means for humanity to thrive in the 21st century, as well as the mindset and ways of thinking needed to get us there -- Local governments and communities across the world are now co-creating their own applications of the model as a response to the interconnected crises we are facing. The Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL) is part of this emerging global movement of new economic thinking and doing. Their aim is to help create 21st century economies that are regenerative and distributive by design, so that they can meet the needs of all people within the means of the living planet -- But while many places are part of this transformation, many more are still operating in systems that are based on continual economic growth -- So how close are we to a tipping point for Doughnut Economics? What can be learned from what has or hasn't worked? How can we better understand the conditions required for the model to lead to more transformative action in places large and small across the world? -- Join this free workshop to find out, and hear the latest research into Positive Tipping Points, from world-leading experts. We will collectively practice using the Positive Tipping Points framework - creating the right conditions for change, finding reinforcing feedback loops, and triggering a shift into a new system - before identifying key next steps for food systems, from global initiatives to local projects:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/positive-tipping-points-in-practice-doughnut-economics-tickets-414777499667?aff=ebdsoporgprofile


Sun, 11/27, 12 Noon -- Burning Issues Book Club (November 2022: DECOLONIZING WEALTH) -- Decolonizing Wealth is a provocative analysis of the dysfunctional colonial dynamics at play in philanthropy and finance. Award-winning philanthropy executive Edgar Villanueva draws from the traditions from the Native way to prescribe the medicine for restoring balance and healing our divides -- Though it seems counterintuitive, the philanthropic industry has evolved to mirror colonial structures and reproduces hierarchy, ultimately doing more harm than good. After 14 years in philanthropy, Edgar Villanueva has seen past the field's glamorous, altruistic façade, and into its shadows: the old boy networks, the savior complexes, and the internalized oppression among the house slaves, and those select few people of color who gain access. All these funders reflect and perpetuate the same underlying dynamics that divide Us from Them and the haves from have-nots. In equal measure, he denounces the reproduction of systems of oppression while also advocating for an orientation towards justice to open the floodgates for a rising tide that lifts all boats. In the third and final section, Villanueva offers radical provocations to funders and outlines his Seven Steps for Healing -- With great compassion--because the Native way is to bring the oppressor into the circle of healing--Villanueva is able to both diagnose the fatal flaws in philanthropy and provide thoughtful solutions to these systemic imbalances. Decolonizing Wealth is a timely and critical book that preaches for mutually assured liberation in which we are all inter-connected: https://burningissuesbookclub.weebly.com/reading-list and:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/burning-issues-book-club-november-2022-decolonizing-wealth-tickets-393459647397?aff=ebdsoporgprofile


Mon, 11/28, 10:15 am and Tue, 11/29, 10:15 am -- The Penrose Lectures 2022 -- This year, Professor Mariana Mazzucato (UCL) will deliver two lectures: Lecture 1: From market fixing to market shaping: a new policy framework (28th November 2022) -- Lecture 2: A challenge-led approach to industrial strategy: lessons for the global south (29th November 2022) -- Mariana Mazzucato (PhD) is Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London (UCL), where she is Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose (IIPP). She received her BA from Tufts University and her MA and PhD from the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research. Her previous posts include the RM Phillips Professorial Chair at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at Sussex University. She is a selected fellow of the UK’s Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) and of the Italian National Science Academy (Lincei) -- She is winner of international prizes including the Grande Ufficiale Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana in 2021, Italy's highest civilian honour, the 2020 John von Neumann Award, the 2019 All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values, and the 2018 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought. She was named as one of the '3 most important thinkers about innovation' by The New Republic, one of the 50 most creative people in business in 2020 by Fast Company, and one of the 25 leaders shaping the future of capitalism by WIRED -- She is the author of three highly-acclaimed books: The Entrepreneurial State: debunking public vs. private sector myths (2013) which investigates the critical role the state plays in driving growth; The Value of Everything: making and taking in the global economy (2018) which looks at how value creation needs to be rewarded over value extraction; and the newly released Mission Economy: a moonshot guide to changing capitalism (2021) -- She advises policy makers around the world on innovation-led inclusive and sustainable growth. Her current roles include being Chair of the World Health Organization's Council on the Economics of Health for All and a member of the Scottish Government’s Council of Economic Advisors, the South African President’s Economic Advisory Council, the OECD Secretary General’s Advisory Group on a New Growth Narrative, the UN High Level Advisory Board for Economic and Social Affairs, Argentina’s Economic and Social Council, Vinnova’s Advisory Panel in Sweden, and Norway’s Research Council. Previously, through her role as Special Advisor for the EC Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation (2017-2019), she authored the high-impact report on Mission-Oriented Research & Innovation in the European Union, turning “missions” into a crucial new instrument in the European Commission’s Horizon innovation programme:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-penrose-lectures-2022-tickets-440996381047?aff=ebdsoporgprofile


Thu, 12/1, 12 Noon -- Book Club! Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass -- Just like a proper book club, we're getting together to discuss November's book, the game changing Braiding Sweetgrass -- This month we're getting together without the author joining us - Robin is understandably in high demand after publishing such a profound reflection on our place in the world -- What a great opportunity to hear from each other what we thought about the book, its themes and wisdom -- Our discussion will flow along these lines, though the actual directions we head in will be entirely down to where the conversation takes us: Starting with gratitude and thanksgiving - yes, we will be saying the Thanksgiving Address, please volunteer to read a section that means something to you! -- Potawatomi - the language of being -- The beneficial relationship between humans and sweetgrass -- An honourable harvest -- A clash with the Windigo, consumption vs an abundant economy -- Learning and using the nature of our gifts -- The Seventh Fire prophecy and carrying our spark into the world -- What a joy this will be to discuss with each other, if you'd like to take a different tangent, just throw it in as we go:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/book-club-robin-wall-kimmerers-braiding-sweetgrass-tickets-460077904397?aff=ebdsoporgprofile


Thu, 12/8, 9:30 am -- Live in conversation with Jeremy Lent about 'The Web of Meaning' -- An incredible opportunity to hear first hand from one of the foremost thinkers of our age -- It is an absolute honour to host a conversation with Jeremy Lent, described as 'One of the greatest thinkers of our age' by George Monbiot -- Those of us who use our time with the natural world to reflect upon our place within it are already attuned with his core message in The Web of Meaning that a connection that flows through all forms of life. His book, and our conversation, will help hone that understanding and articulate the foundations upon which it is built -- Unusually, this title, our latest deep read, was purposefully paired with Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass, as they both take a similar approach by synthesising indigenous knowledge with modern science. Despite being unable to speak with Robin herself (see the 12/1 event above), we have an equally exciting opportunity to engage directly with Jeremy -- Our conversation will explore where Jeremy discovered his convictions and insights after his time at the forefront of the tech industry in the dot.com boom -- We'll delve into the scientific, spiritual and philosophical perspectives he combines to construct his wonderfully coherent worldview -- And we'll discuss how these most challenging of times are also our most exciting opportunity to reconceive what it means to be alive in the world today and how through cultivating our connection, we can bring marvellous meaning into our lives, and hopefully transition to a future in which we can all thrive -- As ever, you will be able to put your own questions to Jeremy during the discussion:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/live-in-conversation-with-jeremy-lent-about-the-web-of-meaning-tickets-466203566417?aff=ebdsoporgprofile

Thu, 12/8, 11 am -- Greta Thunberg in conversation with Naomi Klein -- Greta Thunberg will be joined by Naomi Klein and others to discuss the climate emergency – and how we can stop it -- Have we run out of time to change the world, or is there still hope? The Climate Book gathers the wisdom and experience of more than 100 experts – from geophysicists and meteorologists, to engineers, economists and indigenous leaders – to show how the ecological and sustainability crises are all connected, and to give us the tools and knowledge we need to find hope through action -- Thunberg became a prominent figure in the fight against greenwashing, denial and climate justice in 2018, when she inspired an international movement of school strikes against government inaction. She frequently addresses parliaments and world summits, and in 2019, a collection of her speeches, No One Is Too Small To Make a Difference, made her Waterstones author of the year -- At this livestreamed event, our chair Damian Carrington will be joined by Thunberg, Naomi Klein and some of the contributors to The Climate Book, soon to be announced:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/greta-thunberg-in-conversation-with-naomi-klein-tickets-461706706187?aff=erellivmlt