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In this episode Oriana Persico and Salvatore Iaconesi, both teachers of digital design at La Sapienza University of Rome, discuss what the near future is, how they study it, and what implications of designing the near future has for natural resource companies such as Shell. They help listeners envision the possibilities of a collaborative and ubiquitous learning environment. Much of the conversation centers on their recent Human Ecosystems project in New Haven, Connecticut where they “mapped the city” using mass amounts of social media data. The implications this project has for creating more efficient and invigorating urban environments are striking.

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In this podcast, Christopher Sawyer — a partner with Alston & Bird, a law firm specializing in corporate governance, real estate and conservation law — discusses the body of skills necessary to transform ideas into a lasting positive community reality.

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In this podcast Mathias Risse, professor of philosophy and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, discusses his recent paper, “The Human Right to Water and Common Ownership of the Earth” which posits that humanity’s shared possession of our planet provides a philosophical foundation for a right to water and sanitation.

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In this episode, Rafay Alam, an environmental lawyer and activist in Lahore, Pakistan, speaks about the social and economic challenges the government faces in addressing endemic environmental issues. Much of the conversation revolves around problems with poverty and access to natural resources, and how Pakistan’s national identity is defined by the Indus River. Rafay also tells the story of starting Critical Mass Lahore, a bicycling advocacy group and how, person by person, it is changing people’s lives.

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In this podcast Peter Lehner, executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), discusses agriculture — both NRDC’s work on the issue and his own experiences as a coffee and sugar cane grower in Costa Rica — high-impact climate litigation, and career planning.

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The start date for what scientists call the Anthropocene – the era in which human activities begin to have a significant global impact on Earth’s ecosystems – varies widely. Some researchers point to the industrial revolution, others look much further back. In this podcast Jed Kaplan, of the Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics, University of Lausanne, Switzerland, discusses his research, focused on the role of the Earth’s land surface in the climate system — and what it reveals about how humans were transforming ecosystem more than 3,000 years ago.

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In this podcast WWF’s Dekila Chungyalpa, discusses the organization’s Sacred Earth program, which engages religious leaders and faith communities as stakeholders in the organization’s work. Religious leaders, Chungyalpa says, have long been the missing piece of conservation. Scientists often want to distance themselves from religion, or from addressing the moral and ethical questions inherent in many of our most critical environmental dilemmas. This idea that religion threatens science has been an Achilles heel, she says; instead, these leaders help reframe environmental issues in a way that resonates within their communities.

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In this podcast, Whendee Silver, Yale F&ES ’97 (PhD) and professor of ecosystem ecology at U.C. Berkeley, outlines how the use of composted organic material (agricultural and green waste) on rangeland soils can increase carbon storage and decrease greenhouse gas emissions.

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In this podcast Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, president of the Foundation for Landscape Studies and founding president of the Central Park Conservancy, discusses her work as a landscape design historian and a writer examining the cultural meaning of place.

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In this podcast Yale World Fellow Alexander Verbeek, strategic policy advisory on global issues at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, discusses how to build an robust social network — and how to use it effectively to communicate key issues and build a global community.