Sustainability, Climate Change, Renewable Energy, Politics, Activism, Biodiversity, Carbon Footprint, Wildlife, Regenerative

“ So that's what I would love for people to see and to realize is that nature is so incredibly beautiful and diverse. And so are we.”

Today, we’re looking at how the landscapes of our childhood shape the way we see the world. We explore memory, nature, and attunement to the present moment with composer Max Richter and writer and biologist David George Haskell. We’re joined by authors Kristin Ohlson and Dan Werb who revisit the freedom of youth. Novelist Amitav Ghosh shares his sensory his experiences of Calcutta. Writer and musician Eiren Caffall reflects on finding hope and living with illness, while circular economy designer Claire Potter reflects on the living world and the art of noticing.

(0:00) MAX RICHTER (Award-winning Composer & Pianist) A Continuous Stream of Music

(1:55) CLAIRE POTTER (Circular Economy Designer) Protecting What You Love

(3:55) EIREN CAFFALL (Writer & Musician) A Legacy of Generational Knowledge

(7:40) AMITAV GHOSH (Award-winning Novelist, Ghost-Eye) Sensory Discovery and Food

(9:31) DAVID GEORGE HASKELL (Biologist, The Songs of Trees) Stories to Tell the Future

(10:58) KRISTIN OHLSON (Author, The Soil Will Save Us) Learning the Power of Observation Through a Free Range Childhood

(12:42) DAN WERB (Epidemiologist & Author, Our Wild Familiars) The Undertow of the Pacific

To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.

Episode Website

http://www.creativeprocess.info/pod

Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

"We need to learn from the animals how to live more gently, consume less and look out for each other in this great circle of life.":

Our shared moment in time reminds us that we are one part of a vast ecosystem. Today, we explore how humanity can live in harmony with the Earth by paying attention to the land and lives of animals around us. We listen to those who translate the voices of the living world: authors Yann Martel, Georgi Gospodinov, Chiara Barzini, Erica Berry, Kristin Ohlson, Helen Whybrow, screenwriter-director Caroline Thompson and Existential Therapist Emmy van Deurzen. We reflect on our changing environment with Nobel Peace Prize-winning climate scientist Kevin Trenberth, soil expert David Montgomery, restoration ecologist Tom Crowther, wetlands conservationist Jane Madgwick, Scientist Rebellion co-founder Tim Hewlett, architect and urban designer Carlo Ratti. And Ingrid Newkirk reminds us that our survival directly depends on the health of the natural world.

(0:00) Ingrid Newkirk (Co-Founder, PETA) Chiara Barzini(Author of Aqua) (3:41) Erica Berry (5:07) Yann Martel (Author, Son of Nobody) (6:20) Georgi Gospodinov (Author, Time Shelter) (7:39) Emmy van Deurzen (Therapist) (9:08) Jane Madgwick (Ecologist) (10:29) Caroline Thompson (Screenwriter) (13:00) Helen Whybrow (Author, The Salt Stones) (14:11) Tom Crowther (Founder, Restor) (14:56) Kristin Ohlson (16:10) Tim Hewlett (17:54) Kevin Trenberth (20:10) Carlo Ratti (Architect) (21:59) David Montgomery

To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews https://www.creativeprocess.info/pod

https://www.creativeprocess.info/interviews-featured/anth-circle-life

Chiara Barzini has spent her life navigating the literal and cultural fault lines between Italy and California. Today we will discuss her book, Aqua: A Story of Water and Lost Dreams, and her life as an artist living between two countries. In her acclaimed 2017 novel, Things That Happened Before the Earthquake, she wrote about arriving in the San Fernando Valley just weeks after a catastrophic natural disaster and the illusions of the '90s.

In Aqua, she examines nature, the California water crisis and the broken dreams of the Hollywood machine. We talk about family, film, art as an act of faith and our collective ecological coming of age, where the end of empire meets the end of abundance, and the consequences of hypercapitalism and colonialism. What does it mean to stare our illusions in the eye and find the courage to imagine a better future?

(0:00) Water as Power

(2:17) The Necessity of Illusions

(4:24) Aqua: A Reading - On Hollywood and Water

(7:51) The Edge of Apocalypse & Writing

(9:10) The Etruscans and the Art of Dying

(13:13) Translation and the Creative Spark

(14:38) Raising Children in a Crazy World

(16:18) Poetry, Ruins, and The Waste Land

(18:48) Scents and Sounds of Two Cities (Rome and Los Angeles)

(20:43) The Connection with Animals and Nature

(22:54) The Evolution of Love and Compassion

(24:12) The Memory Museum

(27:04) We are in this lifetime together

Episode Website

https://www.creativeprocess.info/pod

Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“Well, I think first of all that in order to have disillusion, you need to have illusion and I really want to sort of take a stand in the name of being a delusional person, you know? I do think illusions are necessary to our sense of creativity, and we need to fall in love with extreme projects, and we need to have ideas that are sometimes unsustainable. We need to dream big in order to be creative and feel alive. The illusions that are a part of Aqua are larger illusions. They're illusions that have to do with my adult life. They're connected to nature and the presence or absence of water, the illusion that we can keep sustaining a city even though the water has run out.”

My guest today, Chiara Barzini, has spent her life navigating the literal and cultural fault lines between Italy and California. Today we will discuss her book, Aqua: A Story of Water and Lost Dreams, and her life as an artist living between two countries. In her acclaimed 2017 novel, Things That Happened Before the Earthquake, she wrote about arriving in the San Fernando Valley just weeks after a catastrophic natural disaster and the illusions of the '90s.

In Aqua, she examines nature, the California water crisis and the broken dreams of the Hollywood machine. We talk about family, film, art as an act of faith and our collective ecological coming of age, where the end of empire meets the end of abundance, and the consequences of hypercapitalism and colonialism. What does it mean to stare our illusions in the eye and find the courage to imagine a better future?

(0:00) The Necessity of Illusions

(1:40) Chiara Barzini, Author, Screenwriter

(4:44) The End of Empire and Ecological Anxiety

(12:15) The Allure and Cruelty of Capitalism

(16:07) Aqua: A Reading - On Hollywood and Water

(21:02) Screenwriter Robert Towne and the Legacy of Chinatown

(26:20) AI Consumption and Water Bankruptcy

(30:23) The Edge of Apocalypse and Bombay Beach

(33:41) The Etruscans and the Art of Dying

(42:33) Translation and Creativity

(44:28) Raising Children in a Crazy World

(47:30) Poetry, Ruins, and The Waste Land

(57:33) Scents and Sounds of Rome and Los Angeles

(01:04:17) The Connection with Animals and Nature

(01:07:35) The Evolution of Love and Compassion

(01:09:17) The Memory Museum

(01:13:00) We Are in This Lifetime Together

Episode Website

https://www.creativeprocess.info/pod

Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“It's my past selves that I feel are so intertwined with the experience of moving home and of childhood, that they're inside of us, that they're with us.”

Those past selves that the poet Ada Limón speaks of aren't ghosts, they are part of our present. Before we had the words to explain the world, we understood it through the warmth of sunlight, the scent of rain, and the sound of a mother’s voice. Today, we are joined by composers Max Richter and Dustin O'Halloran; biologist David George Haskell; and cognitive psychologist Donald Hoffman. We hear from the host of First Voices Radio, Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Lincoln Center’s Chief Artistic Officer, Shanta Thake; and photographer Ralph Gibson, who reflect on beauty, childhood and the memories that give their life meaning.

(0:00) ADA LIMÓN (24th U.S. Poet Laureate, Startlement) Returning to the Place of Childhood and Imagination (13:05) (19:10)

(2:24) TIOKASIN GHOSTHORSE (Founder, First Voices Radio) The Virtue of Patience and Connecting with Nature (5:08)

(3:45)MAX RICHTER (Oscar & Golden Globe-Nominated Composer, Hamnet, SLEEP, Arrival, The Blue Notebooks) First Musicial Memories (11:34)

(6:59) SHANTA THAKE (Chief Artistic Officer, Lincoln Center) Childhood Memories

(8:19) DUSTIN O'HALLORAN (Emmy Award-winning Composer, 1001, Silfur, Transparent, Lion) Exploring Soundwaves Underwater (12:23)

(9:53) DAVID GEORGE HASKELL (Biologist, Author, How Flowers Made Our World , The Songs of Trees) The Sensory Awakening of Childhood

(14:11) DONALD HOFFMAN (Cognitive Scientist) Childhood and the Magic of Nature

(16:23) RALPH GIBSON (Leica Hall of Fame Photographer) Vision in Childhood and the Perception of Time

To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.

Episode Website

http://www.creativeprocess.info/pod

Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

My guest today is Ada Limón. She served two historic terms as the 24th poet laureate in the United States. She has brought poetry to public parks across the US, and her words have traveled through deep space, engraved on NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft. In over 20 years of writing in celebrated collections like Bright Dead Thingsand The Carryingand her new book, Startlement: New and Selected Poems, Ada has brought a sincerity to American poetry rooted in connection to the natural world.

She’s written with inspiring honesty about the death of loved ones, trying to conceive and also the unexpected liberation of deciding to step away from societal expectations of motherhood and embrace a life happily childfree. Her latest book on craft, Against Breaking: On the Power of Poetry, asks how a poem can hold our heaviest grief without letting the human spirit fracture.

After years living in Kentucky and New York, she bought back her childhood home in Sonoma Valley, stepping back into the rooms where her poetic imagination first took root. We’ll talk about the discipline of paying attention and why poetry remains an essential act of human survival.

(1:45) Silence as the Music of the World

(9:17) The Deepening of Roots

(13:19) 'On Earth As It Is on Earth'

(18:08) Bearing Witness Without Surrendering to Grief

(21:02) Singing Back the Wounded World and the Case for Beauty

(28:22) Love as an Active Daily Choice

(30:38) The Practice of Loving-Kindness Meditation

(37:34) Writing Without Music, Listening to the Landscape

(40:04) Dreams as Archetypes of Consciousness

(42:51) The Creative Toll of AI

(51:29) Embracing the Liberation of a Childfree Life

(1:01:06) Listening to Trees as an Act of Reciprocity

(1:06:44) Interconnectedness of Living Beings

Episode Website

https://www.creativeprocess.info/pod

Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“It’s always very interesting that we have to make a case for art because we don’t have to make a case for fast food. Like, we don’t have to make a case for all of these sort of things in our lives that we do not need, and yet we have to make a case for beauty? We have to make a case for the soul? We have to make a case for humanity? We have to make a case for singing back the wounded world? That to me is fascinating”

My guest today is Ada Limón. She served two historic terms as the 24th poet laureate in the United States. She has brought poetry to public parks across the US, and her words have traveled through deep space, engraved on NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft. In over 20 years of writing in celebrated collections like Bright Dead Things and The Carrying and her new book, Startlement: New and Selected Poems, Ada has brought a sincerity to American poetry rooted in connection to the natural world.

She’s written with inspiring honesty about the death of loved ones, trying to conceive and also the unexpected liberation of deciding to step away from societal expectations of motherhood and embrace a life happily childfree. Her latest book on craft, Against Breaking: On the Power of Poetry, asks how a poem can hold our heaviest grief without letting the human spirit fracture.

After years living in Kentucky and New York, she bought back her childhood home in Sonoma Valley, stepping back into the rooms where her poetic imagination first took root. We’ll talk about the discipline of paying attention and why poetry remains an essential act of human survival.

(0:03) The Case for Beauty

(0:39) About Ada Limón

(2:44) The Deepening of Roots

(5:01) Reading 'On Earth As It Is on Earth'

(6:08) Bearing Witness Without Surrendering to Grief

(7:50) The Definition of Beauty and the Dissolving Self

(9:41) Love as an Active Daily Choice

(11:11) The Practice of Loving-Kindness Meditation

(13:28) Reading 'Hell or High Water'

(17:01) Writing Without Music and Listening to the Landscape

(19:08) Dreams as Archetypes of Consciousness

(21:34) The Environmental and Creative Toll of Generative AI

(24:02) AI and the Future of the Arts

(25:21) Stewardship, Conservation, and Faith in the Invisible Workers

(28:14) The Childfree Daughter

(29:57) Listening to Trees as an Act of Reciprocity

(32:40) The Music of the World

(34:03) The Seed of Interconnectedness

Episode Website

https://www.creativeprocess.info/pod

Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

"I really do believe that the arts are critical to how we move forward together, and live performance in particular, I think, is a way of us practicing how to move across our ideological boundaries and find one another and imagine these new worlds together and create together.

The point is that if we are moving through this world and we want to enjoy what it means to be fully human, I think then you have to be fully human and creation is part of that. This idea of thinking through, moving through, expressing yourself in your body and your words and your voice, through your paintbrush, those are all part of the human experience. And to imagine that we have something to offer each other, this act of generosity that creation gives us, I think is deeply important."

Shanta Thake is the Chief Artistic Officer at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts—the nation's largest performing arts complex. Before stepping into this role, she spent nineteen years at The Public Theater, shaping the city's cultural landscape through Joe's Pub and expansive community initiatives. Today, she is tearing down walls—both the literal barriers separating Lincoln Center from its neighbors, and the figurative ones that dictate who belongs in our cultural spaces. She views the arts not as a luxury, but as essential civic infrastructure. We are pleased to have Shanta Thake to discuss her journey, the power of radical curation, and the future of public performance.

(01:30) The Gift of Pause

(04:19) Art as the Oldest Technology

(07:12) Reimagining Lincoln Center

(09:35) A Collective Caretaking

(10:13) The Curiosity of Childhood

(15:19) San Juan Hill and The Wall

(17:57) globalFEST: Music and Connection

Episode Website

https://www.creativeprocess.info/pod

Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“We are in the middle of a labyrinth which suggests to us many fake corridors. What's the superpower of literature? Literature is like an antidote against propaganda. Propaganda explains the world easily in a two-dimensional way. Literature gives you a more complex explanation. Literature tells personal stories.”

Today, we have a conversation about time, memory, and the bittersweet geography of human sorrow. Georgi Gospodinovis widely considered one of the most daring voices in contemporary European literature. His acclaimed novel, The Physics of Sorrow, won the prestigious Jan Michalski Prize in 2016, blending ancient myth and quantum physics to chronicle the delicate realities of post-socialist Eastern Europe. Joining him is Angela Rodel, a brilliant linguist, musician, and translator whose profound artistic empathy carries the flowing cadences of the Bulgarian language into vivid English. Together, this extraordinary creative duo made history by winning the 2023 International Booker Prizefor Time Shelter—the first book written in Bulgarian to ever receive the honor.

Time Shelter is a masterfully dark, funny, and prescient novel. It begins with an enigmatic psychiatrist opening a clinic that treats Alzheimer’s patients by meticulously recreating past decades to match their internal clocks. But the experiment quickly escapes the clinic walls, triggering a pan-European crisis where entire nations hold democratic referendums to choose which era of the past they will retreat into. It is a book that holds up a mirror to our own world, exploring what happens when a civilization faces a deficit of meaning and tries to weaponize nostalgia.

(0:00) The Trap of Nostalgia

(2:13) The Art of Translation

(5:44) The Pandemic of the Past

(11:30) Reading from ‘Time Shelter’

(14:28) Death and the Gardener

(19:34) The Translator's Calling

(26:05) Cultural Rhythms of the Bulgarian Language

(30:00) The Nonlinear Approach to Storytelling

(34:30) Separating Personal and Historical Pasts

(42:55) Storytelling vs Propaganda

(47:19) Bodies, Animals and the Loneliness of the Minotaur

(56:00) Reading ' Eight Minutes and 19 Seconds’

(1:00:28) What makes a good life? What has given your life meaning?

(1:04:18) Childhood, Memory and Imagination

(1:10:38) Reflections on God and the Stories His Grandmother Told Him

(1:17:20) Education and the Empathic Imagination

(1:23:25) The Museum of Memory

(1:26:15) The Importance of Hugging and Empathy

(1:28:02) AI and the Future of Humanity

Episode Website

www.creativeprocess.info/pod

Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

Today, we have a conversation about time, memory, and the bittersweet geography of human sorrow. Georgi Gospodinovis widely considered one of the most daring voices in contemporary European literature. His acclaimed novel, The Physics of Sorrow, won the prestigious Jan Michalski Prize in 2016, blending ancient myth and quantum physics to chronicle the delicate realities of post-socialist Eastern Europe. Joining him is Angela Rodel, a brilliant linguist, musician, and translator whose profound artistic empathy carries the flowing cadences of the Bulgarian language into vivid English. Together, this extraordinary creative duo made history by winning the 2023 International Booker Prizefor Time Shelter—the first book written in Bulgarian to ever receive the honor.

Time Shelter is a masterfully dark, funny, and prescient novel. It begins with an enigmatic psychiatrist opening a clinic that treats Alzheimer’s patients by meticulously recreating past decades to match their internal clocks. But the experiment quickly escapes the clinic walls, triggering a pan-European crisis where entire nations hold democratic referendums to choose which era of the past they will retreat into. It is a book that holds up a mirror to our own world, exploring what happens when a civilization faces a deficit of meaning and tries to weaponize nostalgia.

(0:00) The Trap of Nostalgia

(1:22) The Nonlinear Approach to Storytelling

(3:53) Translating the Atmosphere

(4:31) The Pandemic of the Past

(6:37) Death and the Gardener

(9:49) The Translators Calling

(11:00) Slowing Down Time

(13:14) Storytelling vs Propaganda

(15:54) Translating the Atmosphere

(18:19) What makes a good life? What has given your life meaning?

(20:56) Reflections on God and the Stories His Grandmother Told Him

(23:43) The Importance of Hugging, Empathy and Storytelling

Episode Website

www.creativeprocess.info/pod

Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

If you live in a city, you’ve probably had that moment in the middle of the night. You hear a scratching in the walls, or you catch the glowing eyes of a raccoon peering out from a dumpster, and for a second, the concrete world feels a lot less 'controlled' than we like to pretend. We’ve been taught to think of cities as 'biological deserts'—places where nature goes to die. But my guest today, Dan Werb, says that’s a myth we tell ourselves to feel safe. Dan is an award-winning epidemiologist and a musician, and in his new book, Our Wild Familiars, he explores the 'synanthropes'—the wild creatures that aren't our pets, but aren't quite strangers either. They are the coyotes, the bats, and even the octopuses that are learning to use our cities as laboratories for their own rapid evolution. He’s also the author of The Invisible Siege and City of Omens.

(0:02) The unexpected biodiversity of urban areas and wild familiars

(1:18) What is a Synanthrope?

(4:15) The Myth of the Biological Desert

(8:04) The Ancestral Bond between early humans, ravens, and foxes

(9:15) Crows and Grudges

(12:42) Stepping Stones in the Concrete

(14:20) The Epidemiological Triangle

(17:58) The Illusion of AI Connection

(19:56) The Museum of Memory

Episode Website

https://www.creativeprocess.info/pod

Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

"So synanthropes are animals that have adapted to human-modified environments, and the Greek translation essentially is together with humans, so synanthrope. And they're a fascinating subset of wild animals that they're all around us, but we don't really notice them. And so in this new book, I was excited about writing something that had to do with the natural world. I was excited about writing something that touched on climate change. These are not just insects and earthworms and things like that. These are very large predators that have nevertheless found a way to survive among us. And that in and of itself I think is just an amazing story and what I explore in this book."

If you live in a city, you’ve probably had that moment in the middle of the night. You hear a scratching in the walls, or you catch the glowing eyes of a raccoon peering out from a dumpster, and for a second, the concrete world feels a lot less 'controlled' than we like to pretend. We’ve been taught to think of cities as 'biological deserts'—places where nature goes to die. But my guest today, Dan Werb, says that’s a myth we tell ourselves to feel safe. Dan is an award-winning epidemiologist and a musician, and in his new book, Our Wild Familiars, he explores the 'synanthropes'—the wild creatures that aren't our pets, but aren't quite strangers either. They are the coyotes, the bats, and even the octopuses that are learning to use our cities as laboratories for their own rapid evolution. He’s also the author of The Invisible Siege and City of Omens.

(0:02) The unexpected biodiversity of urban areas and wild familiars

(2:32) What are synanthropes?

(6:04) Why cities are becoming magnets for wildlife and natural biodiversity

(14:32) How our discarded garbage acts as a reliable nutrition source

(18:01) The raccoon city and highly adaptable urban mesopredators

(21:49) Redesigning cities as crucial sites for wildlife conservation and containerisation

(26:31) The impact of highways on mountain lion migration in Los Angeles

(31:03) The ancestral spiritual bond between early humans, ravens, and foxes

(38:24) Facial recognition, grudges, and the intense intelligence of urban crows

(42:40) Discovering giant Pacific octopuses living in discarded garbage near Seattle

(49:04) How translucent boardwalks helped save baby salmon afraid of the dark

(52:42) Building green corridors and ecological stepping stones in the concrete

(1:01:07) Cultural shifts in pods of orcas sinking boats off the Iberian coast

(1:05:23) Social epidemiology, vulnerable populations, and insights from City of Omens

(1:08:29) The epidemiological triangle and the environmental causes of novel viruses

(1:16:08) The rhythm shift required to observe wild animals in urban spaces

(1:25:26) Why we need more cosmological humility when studying animal biology

(1:31:06) The illusion of AI connection and why engaging with nature expands the mind

(1:34:46) Memories, Laughter, and Animal Connection

Episode Website

https://www.creativeprocess.info/pod

Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“Imagining with precision is a very fundamental part of my work. When I sit down to write about anything, whether it be The Hungry Tide in the Sundarbans, or let's say The Shadow Lines, or Ghost-Eye. It's very important for me to get the topography right, to get the outlay of the streets or the house exactly right so I can actually picture all of that in my head. It's very important for me to have a sort of pictorial sense of what I'm seeing and what I'm writing about. Before I can write about it, I need to see it, as it were. So that's absolutely fundamental to my craft. That's just how I go about it. Like the Sufis say—behind the apparent reality is a hidden or batin reality. “

In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liutalks with Amitav Ghosh about his new novel, Ghost-Eye. The novel is about reincarnation, but also a lot more. In our conversation we talk about the need to address the terrible set of environmental and other crises we face, and the seeming foreclosure of the imagination by the obsession with technology and the future it offers to us. Instead, we look to how we can fashion beginnings out of endings, aided by a renewed sense of wonder, curiosity, and awe. We turn to the body, to the haptic, and perhaps most important, to food as more than simply nourishment. In all this, story-telling, the revival of connections between living beings, and a deep sense of other times and places are central.

(0:56) Planetary Crisis and Accelerating Disasters

(3:50) The Lasting Impact of The Hungry Tide

(5:00) Storytelling and the Existential Crisis

(8:26) Imagining with Precision in Literature

(12:46) The Denuded Human Existence and AI

(15:37) Artisanal Intelligence vs. Artificial Intelligence

(17:57) Food, Industrial Agriculture, and Memory

(21:16) Cultural Assimilation Through Cooking

(24:12) The Sociability and Joy of Cooking

(27:57) The Failure of the Humanities

(31:38) The Role of the Narrator

(35:27) Regaining Our Sense of Wonder

(37:04) Past Life Memories and Circular Temporality

Episode Website

http://www.palumbo-liu.com/ https://speakingoutofplace.com/ Bluesky @http://palumboliu.bsky.social/ Instagram @speaking_out_of_place

Today, we examine how we will adapt to a changing climate and learn to listen to the Earth.(0:00) Abrahm Lustgarten (Reporter, ProPublica) (3:00) Jon Gertner (Author, The Ice at the End of the World) (5:32) Bill Hare (CEO, Climate Analytics) (6:35) Rob Nixon (Prof. Environmental Humanities, Princeton) (8:12) Louis de Jaeger (Co-founder, Food Forest Institute) (10:06) Kathleen Rogers (Pres., EarthDay.org) (11:31) Rebecca Tickell (Filmmaker, Groundswell) (13:42) Ben Goldfarb (Author, Crossings) (14:56) Jane Madgwick (CEO, Plantlife International) (19:23) Jason deCaires Taylor (Sculptor, Underwater Museums) (21:02) William McDonough (Architect, Cradle to Cradle) (23:19) Euan Nisbet (Scientist, Royal Holloway) (26:06) Roland Geyer (Author, The Business of Less) (28:15) Ron Gonen (CEO, Closed Loop Partners) (29:34) Paul Shrivastava (Co-President, Club of Rome) (30:14) Carlo Ratti (Architect, Dir., MIT Senseable City Lab) (31:24) Osprey Orielle Lake (Founder, WECAN) (32:38) Liza Featherstone (Journalist) (33:41) Yolanda Kakabadse (Fmr. President, WWF)

For more, listen to their full interviews

Episode Site: https://www.creativeprocess.info/interviews-featured/anth-regen

Why do we write? Is it to capture a memory before it vanishes or to build a bridge between the person we are and the stories we've been told? In this episode of The Creative Process, we explore the practice of writing as an awakening and tool for discovery with a group of celebrated poets, novelists, musicians and thinkers.

We hear from neuroscientist, dancer and author Julia Christensen on how literature inspires transformative aesthetic experiences. Award-winning poet and clinical psychologist Hala Alyan discusses navigating displacement through narrative, while bestselling author Andre Dubus III reflects on the honest labor of the writer and the willingness to fail.

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jericho Brown shares how the sounds of American vernacular guide his work and Fmr. US Poet Laureate Ada Limón discusses holding hope within frightening thoughts about the future of our planet. NYT Bestseller Aimee Nezhukumatathil speaks on tenderness towards the natural world and naturalist Sy Montgomery shares how animals have been her greatest teachers.

The conversation expands with poet Max Stossel on finding humanity in conflict, Tiokasin Ghosthorse on the ancient energy of the earth and Julian Lennon on art as a collective human endeavor. Finally, composer Erland Cooper takes us to the landscape of his youth, where the sound of the sea informed his creative voice.

To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.

Episode Website

http://www.creativeprocess.info/pod

Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

"What we need to do is learn from nature. If you think about how nature progresses through trial and error. I'm really a fan of how we can do open designs that citizens can respond to, and use the feedback in order to create similar systems to what happens in nature."

Our guest today is Carlo Ratti, an architect, engineer, and academic who is deeply engaged with the critical questions facing our planet and its urban spaces. He's known for his innovative work at MIT's Senseable City Lab, where he explores how digital technologies are transforming our cities and for his groundbreaking design projectsaround the world. Carlo Ratti's work has been called everything from sensory city philosophy to a driving force behind the world of design. And having recently tackled one of the biggest challenges of our time as a curator of the 19th International Architectural Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, the exhibition Intelligence, Natural, Artificial, Collective seeks to fundamentally rethink architecture's role in an altered world and rapidly changing climate.

(0:00) Learning From Nature's Trial and Error

(1:20) The Senseable City

(6:05) The Future Of Concrete and Circular Building

(9:02) Peak Population And The Century Of The City

(10:55) Transforming Architecture With Japanese Joinery and AI

(14:36) Curating the Venice Biennale As An Open Lab

(16:22) Blending The Natural And Artificial Through Data

(20:32) Breaking Down Silos and Staying Curious

Episode Website

https://www.creativeprocess.info/pod

Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“Architecture should bring a true sensation of wellbeing. We were really lucky to experience that as children, and now as architects, we try to bring all that we learned into our practice.”

Salwa and Selma Mikou are the founders of Paris-based Mikou Architecture. Born in Fez, Morocco and educated in Paris, they have spent the last two decades reimagining the relationship between the built environment and the cultural landscape.

After honing their craft under two of the world’s most iconic architects, Jean Nouvel and Renzo Piano, they founded their own studio. For them, architecture is a living interaction with landscape and what they call the Atlas of Resonance, interpreting the hidden layers of a territory, geology, memory, and craft. It is a philosophy that rejects the generic, seeking instead to weave together technological innovation with local materials. Whether it is a mosque in the north of England or a hybrid innovation hub in a former royal manufactory, their work asks a fundamental question: How does space shape the way we think, learn and remember?

They were selected by Rem Koolhaas to represent Morocco at the Venice Biennale. Most recently, they were commissioned by Hermès to create a 17,000-square-meter facility that bridges industrial performance with poetic expression. At the heart of their practice is a belief that architecture is not just about building—it’s about shaping relationships: between people, between past and future, between technology and craft.

(0:04) The Intuitive Knowledge of Living Art

(4:24) The Medina and the Geometry of Childhood

(8:18) The Social Spaces of Rooftops

(13:46) The Intuitive Knowledge of Living Art

(15:31) Contextual Echoes & Traces of the Site

(19:18) The Twin Dynamic and Confrontation with 'l'autre'

(26:42) The Temples of Water

(33:24) The Mosque as Pure Spatiality

(38:01) The Crisis Period and Structural Systems

(48:24) Building Culture with Yves Saint Laurent & Pierre Bergé

(51:38) The Wast ed-dar (وسط الدار) and the Heart of a Building

(57:02) Preserving the Human Core of Expression

(1:04:29) Urban Acupuncture in the Modern City

(1:08:46) The Smells and Sounds of Home

(1:10:02) Balance, Nature, and Sisterhood

Episode Website

https://www.creativeprocess.info/pod

Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

After 40 years of reporting on the world's most pressing ecological crises, you might expect Fred Pearce to be a cynic. Instead, he’s one of our greatest advocates for hope.

If you follow the news about the environment, it’s easy to feel a sense of impending doom. We hear about accelerating extinctions, collapsing water cycles, and climate tipping points. But my guest today, environmental journalist Fred Pearce, says that if you look at the "ground-truth"—the stories of nature and people he has encountered—there is a surprising, even radical, case for hope. His work has taken him to more than eighty countries, from the logging concessions of Borneo to the radioactive exclusion zones of Chernobyl. He is the environment consultant for New Scientist and a regular contributor to The Guardian.

In his latest work, Despite It All: A Handbook for Climate Hopefuls, he challenges the prevailing narrative of environmental collapse. He argues that the "population bomb" is being defused, that we are approaching "peak stuff" in developed nations, and that nature possesses a staggering capacity for resilience that we often ignore. He says that a "Good Anthropocene" is not only possible but is already beginning to take shape through a combination of ancient wisdom and modern technical fixes. We’ll talk today about his life as a journalist and why pessimism may be the greatest enemy of progress.

(0:00) The Radical Case for Climate Optimism

(2:46) Traveling the World to Find Environmental Resilience

(5:08) Fixing the Anthropocene and Escaping Despondency

(10:22) Indigenous Wisdom and Local Stewardship

(15:28) Rewilding and Trusting Nature's Adaptability

(21:10) The Renewable Energy Transition in China and Beyond

(23:56) Peak Stuff and Redesigning the Cities of the Future

(34:01) Defending Democracy and Environmental Protestors

(36:12) Drinking Radioactive Vodka in Chernobyl's Exclusion Zone

(41:29) When the Rivers Run Dry and Water Scarcity

(50:37) Why the Population Bomb is Defusing

(55:36) The Origins of an Environmental Journalist

(1:03:15) The Future of Journalism in the Age of AI

(1:13:27) Generational Hope and the Next Industrial Revolution

Episode Website

https://www.creativeprocess.info/pod

Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

Today, on Earth Day, we explore the Living World—a reality where we are not merely on a planet, but are a moving part of its very metabolism. We travel from the High Sierras with Paul Hawken to the forests of Costa Rica with Thomas Crowther. Guided by Merlin Sheldrake and David George Haskell, we explore ecology, policy and music with guests Paula Pinho, Hans Bruyninckx, Bill Hare and Alice Schmidt. Alongside Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Tom Chi, Erland Cooper, Rebecca Tickell and Britt Wray, we ask what happens when we stop trying to dominate and start trying to collaborate with the Earth?

(0:04) TIOKASIN GHOSTHORSE Founder, First Voices Radio

(2:05) PAUL HAWKEN Founder, Project Regeneration, Project Drawdown, Author (24:25)

(4:57) THOMAS CROWTHER Founder, Restor, Co-chair UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration

(5:51) MERLIN SHELDRAKE Biologist, Author, Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds

(8:23) DAVID GEORGE HASKELL Biologist, Author, How Flowers Made Our World

(10:43) HANS BRUYNINCKX Fmr. Director European Environment Agency

(11:39) REBECCA TICKELL (Director, Kiss the Ground) Soil Health (26:27)

(13:32) TOM CHI Founding Partner, At One Ventures, Author, Climate Capital

(14:44) PAULA PINHO Chief Spokesperson, European Commission

(16:08) BILL HARE Founder/CEO, Climate Analytics, Physicist

(18:03) ALICE SCHMIDTGlobal Sustainability Advisor, Author

(19:18) ERLAND COOPER (Composer) Earth as Collaborator

(22:38) BRITT WRAY Author, Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis

To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews

Episode Website www.creativeprocess.info/pod IG @creativeprocesspodcast

Why does our economy treat environmental destruction as an inevitable side effect rather than a massive design flaw? How can shifting our focus from polarizing "talkers" to practical "builders" literally save the planet? We are repeatedly told that the climate crisis is too vast and volatile to solve, but what if the true obstacle is simply bad design?

Tom Chi is a physicist, designer, inventor, and investor whose work has shaped everything from Google Glass and rapid prototyping at Google X to some of the most ambitious climate technologies being built today. He’s now the founding partner of At One Ventures, where he invests in deep-tech companies focused on a bold goal: a world where humanity is a net positive to nature.

Tom’s new book, Climate Capital: Investing in the Tools for a Regenerative Future, reframes economics itself—not as a fixed law, but as a design discipline that can be reimagined to align with the physical realities of our planet. Drawing on science, systems thinking, and lessons from nature, the book offers a grounded, practical framework for moving beyond both climate doom and empty optimism—and toward real, regenerative solutions. Today’s conversation is about what Tom calls the 4Cs: Capital, Compassion, Climate, and Community—but also about agency, responsibility, and what becomes possible when we stop treating the future as something that happens to us and start designing it deliberately.

0:00) Build Integrity: Choosing Builders Over Talkers

Why prioritizing those who physically create solutions over those who merely debate them is essential for systemic change

(1:21) Overcoming Powerlessness Through Creativity, Critical Thinking, Community Compassion

Utilizing a specific framework of portable skills to move from climate anxiety into meaningful, iterative action

(2:22) Capital Misallocation: Taxing What We Want to See

A critique of current tax structures that burden labor while under-taxing capital and failing to serve societal needs

(3:47) The Volatility Gap: Why Average Temperatures Mislead

Understanding why increasing climate volatility—rather than just average temperature rise—is the true driver of human distress

(6:19) Economics As Design: Redesigning The Global Engine

Moving beyond "physics envy" in economics to treat the global market as a discipline that can be redesigned for better outcomes

(9:11) Depth Over Breadth: Reforming Education Through Experience

(13:30) Local Resilience: How Cities Can Lead The Transformation

Practical, block-by-block strategies for urban adaptation, from expanding tree canopies to improving household efficiency

(16:33) AI and Robotics in Agriculture

(19:12) Human-Centric AI: Flipping The Priority Of Automation

(20:18) Thinking In Pictures: A Language Beyond Words

Episode Website

https://www.creativeprocess.info/pod

Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast