Speaker Bios
Carl Safina Carl Safina’s writing about the living world has won him a MacArthur “genius” prize; Pew, and Guggenheim Fellowships; book awards from Lannan, Orion, and…
Session Topics
Each session lasts an hour and half, divided into three parts: * a half-hour presentation by the speaker; * a half-hour Q&A conducted by an invited…
True Heroes
In a war-torn region, three stories of people fostering life in the midst of death.
Rivers of Blood
Sounds like something straight out of the ancient Biblical Ten Plagues: rivers of blood flowing down city streets. Except that it was happening last week right…
More Killing – Always the Answer
This week we’ve had the war on cats and the war on wild horses. Last week, it was wolves, and the week before, goats. Why are we always at war with the other animals?
Sacred Cows and Sacrificial Wolves
What goes wrong when well-meaning animal advocates make deals with businesses and agencies that don’t have the interests of the animals at heart.
Ocean Warming: the Most Dangerous Challenge
Up to now, most of the heat being generated by our industrial civilization has been being quietly absorbed by the oceans. But the oceans are now at a tipping point.
The Crystal Catastrophe Cruise
What do you call a luxury ship with 1,070 people paying up to $120,000 each for a cruise through the once-impenetrable Northwest Passage?
Floods, Fires & Earth Overshoot Day
Overall, there was hardly anywhere that didn’t have some kind of weather-related drama going on.
What Do Dolphins ‘See’ with Their Ears?
Imagine having two separate auditory circuits in your brain. That’s what dolphins have. So, what does the second one do??
Zika Related to Cattle Farming?
It’s now an unfolding pandemic, and it may be caused in part by intensive cattle farming.
Dingoes Armed with Suicide Time Bombs
Dingoes are being released onto an island in Australia to kill the feral goats. The dingoes have been implanted with poison “time-bombs” that will then kill them.
Meanwhile, on the South China Sea . . .
A classic case of international greed in the name of economic “progress” that’s destroying vast numbers of animals and their homes.
Some Sunlight for Chickens
Perdue Foods, announces new “humane” policies, like having windows in at least some of its chicken factory barns. Wow … windows!
Two Aquariums, Two Choices
As the National Aquarium announces bold plans to create a seaside sanctuary for its dolphins, an exploitation company builds a swim-with-dolphins center in the Arizona desert.
Pigs with Human Brains
Researchers are trying to grow human organs in pig embryos. But if the human stem cells start migrating around the embryo, the baby pig might start growing a human brain, too.
Are You More Important than a Gorilla?
In a world of 7.3 billion thoroughly destructive humans and just 125,000 very peaceable gorillas, was Harambe’s life worth less than Isaiah Dickerson’s?
Can There Ever Be a ‘Humane Economy’?
Is it possible for us humans to coexist peacefully with our fellow animals in a modern capitalist economy? Two books come to opposite conclusions.
Conservation, Restoration, Reparation
Even though we can never fully recompense these apex predators for what they’ve lost, having their own sanctuary can help to heal the deep wounds we have inflicted upon the fabric of nature itself.
New Whale Sanctuary Project
It’s the dawn of a new era for whales and dolphins. A new organization has been formed to create seaside sanctuaries for whales and dolphins being retired from marine circuses.