From conversations on saving our salmon and orcas to protecting humanity from climate change to engineering our way out of the climate crisis, we will be tackling some of the biggest environmental issues facing our planet — and our backyard — at this year’s festival. During our Environment & Outdoors sessions, thought leaders like Bill McKibben, Helen Neville, Eddie Hill and more will discuss climate migration, global food markets and the future of our planet. (Intrigued? Get tickets now.)
Since April is Earth Month, let’s take a look at some of the environmental conversations that will be happening at the Crosscut Festival next month.
Swimming Upstream: Can We Save Our Salmon?
The salmon runs of the Columbia River Basin are sliding toward extinction. The fate of the dams along the river will likely determine the future of these salmon runs — critical to orca, ecosystems and the lifeways of Northwest Tribes and riverside communities. Trout Unlimited senior scientist Helen Neville gets to the heart of this extinction crisis, discussing the urgency to address it and the moral and legal imperative to honor our commitments.
Attend this session Saturday, May 7, at Seattle U.
Kitchen Table Issues
The food we eat and how it arrived on our plate are the center of a voracious debate about our health and the sustainability of our environment. The assumption is local, organic, farm-to-table is our best course. But what if the data tells us global food markets and industrial farming actually do a better job setting the table? This conversation will feature Eddie Hill , co-founder of the Black Food Sovereignty Coalition and director of the Black Farm Bureau, as well as Robert Paarlberg, associate in sustainability sscience at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Attend this session Saturday, May 7, at Seattle University.
Everything in the Balance
Bill McKibben, the man who was among the earliest to warn of global warming, now tells us we have a small window of time remaining, not just to save ourselves from the impacts of climate change, but to rescue humanity itself. The question: Will we take the necessary measures before it's too late?
Learn more about this virtual conversation.
Hacking the Climate Crisis
If the human experience has been an experiment in denying nature, then we now face the challenge of engineering our way out of the havoc we've wreaked. From carbon capture to super coral to tiny diamonds shot into the stratosphere, our best hope for survival may be the same interventionist thinking that got us into this mess in the first place. This conversation will feature the host of Slate’s What Next: TBD Lizzie O’Leary and The New Yorker’s Elizabeth Kolbert.
Learn more about this virtual conversation.
Mark your calendars and get tickets for these Crosscut Festival panels now, or review our full list of sessions.
