Philosophy, Ideas, Critical Thinking, Ethics & Morality: The Creative Process: Philosophers, Writers, Educators, Creative Thinkers, Spiritual Leaders, Environmentalists & Bioethicists

"So it's just a great joy to be passing this guitar made from the wood of an 800-year-old tree around to musicians and asking them to play a song of resistance or celebration. And that's what we're going to do at Climate Aid: The Voice of the Forest. We're going to have it be an annual event like Farm Aid. And we want it to be big. We want it to be Woodstock in its pivot point. The way the Children's Trust court case was pivotal, the way this Black Ram court case we had and won was pivotal.We want Climate Aid to be a celebration. And this one guitar exploring the question: Can one tree save a forest? Can one song save a forest? And we think the answer is yes. We believe it will be. What we want to do with the forest that the guitar came from is establish it as a climate refuge, a place dedicated to storing as much carbon and long-term safekeeping as possible.I went into this old forest called Black Ram that we were seeking to defend and did successfully defend for now. There are these 600, 700, and 800-year-old trees already spraypainted in orange and blue that they were going to cut down. And I thought let's make a guitar out of a piece of one of these giant spruces. And that's what I did. I went back with my chainsaw and cut out a length of it, wheel-barreled it out, and took the piece of wood to a man named Kevin Kopp."Rick Bass, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist for his memoir Why I Came West, was born and raised in Texas, worked as a petroleum geologist in Mississippi, and has lived in Montana's Yaak Valley for almost three decades. His short fiction, which has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Esquire, and The Paris Review, as well as numerous times in Best American Short Stories, has earned him The Story Prize, multiple O. Henry Awards and Pushcart Prizes in addition to NEA and Guggenheim fellowships.He’s an organizer and speaker at Climate Aid: The Voice of the Forest, a fundraiser event to benefit the grassroots environmental movement of Protect Ancient Forests & The Montana Project. Featuring Maggie Rogers and more great performers and speakers. The evening will advance the efforts to protect the Black Ram forest by designating the region as the nation’s first Climate Refuge. Portland, Maine, on Sunday, Oct. 15 at 7 p.m. ET, at the Merrill Auditorium. Tickets available at the Merrill’s box office and online at PortTIX.com. www.rickbass.netwww.protectancientforests.orgwww.montanaproject.orgwww.PortTIX.comwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Rick Bass, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist for his memoir Why I Came West, was born and raised in Texas, worked as a petroleum geologist in Mississippi, and has lived in Montana's Yaak Valley for almost three decades. His short fiction, which has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Esquire, and The Paris Review, as well as numerous times in Best American Short Stories, has earned him The Story Prize, multiple O. Henry Awards and Pushcart Prizes in addition to NEA and Guggenheim fellowships.He’s an organizer and speaker at Climate Aid: The Voice of the Forest, a fundraiser event to benefit the grassroots environmental movement of Protect Ancient Forests & The Montana Project. Featuring Maggie Rogers and more great performers and speakers. The evening will advance the efforts to protect the Black Ram forest by designating the region as the nation’s first Climate Refuge. Portland, Maine, on Sunday, Oct. 15 at 7 p.m. ET, at the Merrill Auditorium. Tickets available at the Merrill’s box office and online at PortTIX.com. "So it's just a great joy to be passing this guitar made from the wood of an 800-year-old tree around to musicians and asking them to play a song of resistance or celebration. And that's what we're going to do at Climate Aid: The Voice of the Forest. We're going to have it be an annual event like Farm Aid. And we want it to be big. We want it to be Woodstock in its pivot point. The way the Children's Trust court case was pivotal, the way this Black Ram court case we had and won was pivotal.We want Climate Aid to be a celebration. And this one guitar exploring the question: Can one tree save a forest? Can one song save a forest? And we think the answer is yes. We believe it will be. What we want to do with the forest that the guitar came from is establish it as a climate refuge, a place dedicated to storing as much carbon and long-term safekeeping as possible.I went into this old forest called Black Ram that we were seeking to defend and did successfully defend for now. There are these 600, 700, and 800-year-old trees already spraypainted in orange and blue that they were going to cut down. And I thought let's make a guitar out of a piece of one of these giant spruces. And that's what I did. I went back with my chainsaw and cut out a length of it, wheel-barreled it out, and took the piece of wood to a man named Kevin Kopp."www.rickbass.netwww.protectancientforests.orgwww.montanaproject.orgwww.PortTIX.comwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

"I remember years ago, my Ph.D. advisor had asked me, 'How do you get such incredible footage of the whales and get them to stay with you?' So I said, 'unconditional love.' It's this whole sort of intuitive thing. And I can say this very comfortably as a scientist because it makes sense for anybody who works with these animals or any animals. And when you trust them, you emit this unconditional love, and they pick up on that, and they are going to respond. Believe me, every species of cetacean has its vibration, personality, and habits. And I'm just so fascinated by humpbacks and their beauty and their acrobatic abilities and their level of consciousness.Whales communicate with you constantly. It's like you have this relationship with them that you don't even have to use words. So it's reflections of the beauty and the wonder of the natural world, but it's also a reflection of the beauty of ourselves and nature and wildlife, and it's like awakening to to your true self."Nan Hauser is the President and Director of the Center for Cetacean Research & Conservation and the Director and Principal Investigator of Cook Islands Whale Research. Currently she's in the field studying the migration of the Southern Humpback Whale population that is currently passing through the Cook Islands, where she resides on the main island of Rarotonga. Her research includes population identity and abundance, acoustics, genetics stable isotopes behavior, and the navigation of cetaceans.https://whaleresearch.orghttps://whaleresearch.org/saved-by-a-whalewww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Nan Hauser is the President and Director of the Center for Cetacean Research & Conservation and the Director and Principal Investigator of Cook Islands Whale Research. Currently she's in the field studying the migration of the Southern Humpback Whale population that is currently passing through the Cook Islands, where she resides on the main island of Rarotonga. Her research includes population identity and abundance, acoustics, genetics stable isotopes behavior, and the navigation of cetaceans."I remember years ago, my Ph.D. advisor had asked me, 'How do you get such incredible footage of the whales and get them to stay with you?' So I said, 'unconditional love.' It's this whole sort of intuitive thing. And I can say this very comfortably as a scientist because it makes sense for anybody who works with these animals or any animals. And when you trust them, you emit this unconditional love, and they pick up on that, and they are going to respond. Believe me, every species of cetacean has its vibration, personality, and habits. And I'm just so fascinated by humpbacks and their beauty and their acrobatic abilities and their level of consciousness.Whales communicate with you constantly. It's like you have this relationship with them that you don't even have to use words. So it's reflections of the beauty and the wonder of the natural world, but it's also a reflection of the beauty of ourselves and nature and wildlife, and it's like awakening to to your true self."https://whaleresearch.orghttps://whaleresearch.org/saved-by-a-whalewww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

"I do think that literature is all about extending the empathetic imagination. And so I'm always looking to educate myself in emotional terms, too. Because I'm very interested in the way we respond in those situations where it feels like we both have responsibility, and we don't have responsibility. In terms of what I'm writing, I'm always trying to make myself a more interesting human being. And so that means I'm coming across these human dilemmas where I'm like what would it have been like to be in that position? And that snags my emotional imagination."How can literature help us extend our empathic imaginations? How can writing and reading expand our curiosity and compassion for people in situations distant from our own?Jim Shepard is the author of seven previous novels, most recently The Book of Aron (winner of the 2016 PEN New England Award, the Sophie Brody medal for achievement in Jewish literature, the Ribalow Prize for Jewish literature, the Clark Fiction Prize, and a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award) and five story collections, including Like You’d Understand, Anyway, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and won The Story Prize. His short fiction has appeared in, among other magazines, The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, McSweeney’s, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, Esquire, Tin House, Granta, Zoetrope, Electric Literature, and Vice, and has often been selected for The Best American Short Stories and The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories. He lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts, with his wife, three children, and three beagles, and he teaches film and creative writing at Williams College. His story “The World to Come” was adapted into a feature film starring Casey Affleck, Vanessa Kirby, and Katherine Waterston.https://jimshepard.wordpress.comwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

How can literature help us extend our empathic imaginations? How can writing and reading expand our curiosity and compassion for people in situations distant from our own?Jim Shepard is the author of seven previous novels, most recently The Book of Aron (winner of the 2016 PEN New England Award, the Sophie Brody medal for achievement in Jewish literature, the Ribalow Prize for Jewish literature, the Clark Fiction Prize, and a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award) and five story collections, including Like You’d Understand, Anyway, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and won The Story Prize. His short fiction has appeared in, among other magazines, The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, McSweeney’s, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, Esquire, Tin House, Granta, Zoetrope, Electric Literature, and Vice, and has often been selected for The Best American Short Stories and The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories. He lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts, with his wife, three children, and three beagles, and he teaches film and creative writing at Williams College. His story “The World to Come” was adapted into a feature film starring Casey Affleck, Vanessa Kirby, and Katherine Waterston."I do think that literature is all about extending the empathetic imagination. And so I'm always looking to educate myself in emotional terms, too. Because I'm very interested in the way we respond in those situations where it feels like we both have responsibility, and we don't have responsibility. In terms of what I'm writing, I'm always trying to make myself a more interesting human being. And so that means I'm coming across these human dilemmas where I'm like what would it have been like to be in that position? And that snags my emotional imagination."https://jimshepard.wordpress.comwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu and Azeezah Kanji talk with Sara Ahmed about her new book, The Feminist Killjoy Handbook. How and why is it that complaining about sexism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of bigotry, is considered impolite? How is civility uncivil, and the mandate to be “happy” a tool for silencing grievances? Sara Ahmed tackles all those questions, and gives us strength and courage to keep on killingjoy and speaking truth.Sara Ahmed is an independent queer feminist scholar of colour. Her work is concerned with how power is experienced and challenged in everyday life and institutional cultures. Her first trade book, The Feminist Killjoy Handbook is coming out with Seal Press next month. Previous books (all published by Duke University Press) include Complaint! (2021), What's The Use? On the Uses of Use (2019), Living a Feminist Life (2017), Willful Subjects (2014), On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life (2012), The Promise of Happiness (2010) and Queer Phenomenology: Objects, Orientations, Others (2006). She is currently writing A Complainer’s Handbook: A Guide to Building Less Hostile Institutions and has begun a new project on common sense. She blogs at feministkilljoy.com."So the door was shut. So when she said no, she ended up with nowhere to go. And that's one of the institutional mechanisms. You're more likely to progress if you say yes. It's a reproductive mechanism, which is why feminist culture knows so much about everything. We can explain how it is that institutions keep being reproduced in the same way. So what then do you do? Where do you go if your no has nowhere to go? And I think when you say no to the world, and you're pushed out by it, you still find your people. And that there's the world-making is in the people who find in the refusal of the institution a common ground."https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/454793/the-feminist-killjoy-handbook-by-ahmed-sara/9780241619537www.palumbo-liu.com https://speakingoutofplace.comhttps://twitter.com/palumboliu?s=20Photo credit: Sarah Franklin

What makes films memorable and meaningful? Great cinematographers are not only translators of a director’s vision but are involved in a dance between director and actor. When combined with personal techniques like handheld, the camera itself can become a character, bringing us back in time and behind the eyes of well-known figures like Van Gogh and Stephen Hawking, which is what Benoît Delhomme did in the films At Eternity’s Gate and The Theory of Everything.Benoît Delhomme studied cinematography at the École nationale supérieure Louis-Lumière and went on to make his breakthrough as a director of photography for the movie The Scent of Green Papaya directed by Tran Anh Hung. The film went on to win the Caméra d'Or Award at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award. Benoît has established himself as an international cinematographer and has worked with creatives such as Al Pacino, Julian Schnabel, and James Marsh. Over the years, Benoît Delhomme has worked on a wide array of films where his focus has been to tell a strong story through the visual. This focus has shined not only through his work as a cinematographer, but also his work as a painter."If you want to do your art well, you need to have some pleasure. If talking is not a pleasure, it's horrible. And when filming on a set is a bad experience, it's one of the worst things in life. As a cinematographer, if you can't make what you do personal to you, there is no soul. You need to make it personal.I don't know if Julian Schnabel trusted me, and I had to prove myself. For example, he had another guy in mind. And for many weeks, he said to me, 'Maybe we should keep two cinematographers?' And one evening he said, 'I'm going to paint in my outdoor studio tonight if you want to come.' And, I went to see him painting and brought a small digital camera. And he had music on and was doing this incredible painting. I was kind of fascinated to be there. We didn't talk. He knew I was filming him. He didn't say anything. So I spent part of the night cutting my small documentary. And in the morning at breakfast, I put my computer on the breakfast table and showed it to him, and he was so focused and very moved by what he saw. And he said, 'Okay, you captured what I was doing. You've got the film.'"www.benoitdelhomme.comwww.benoitdelhommestudio.comwww.instagram.com/benoitdelhommewww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Rob Verchick is one of the nation’s leading scholars in disaster and climate change law and a former EPA official in the Obama administration. He holds the Gauthier-St. Martin Eminent Scholar Chair in Environmental Law at  Loyola University New Orleans. Professor Verchick is also a Senior Fellow in Disaster Resilience at Tulane University and the President of the Center for Progressive Reform, a research and advocacy organization that advocates for solutions to our most pressing societal challenges. He is the author of numerous articles and books, including The Octopus in the Parking Garage. A Call for Climate Resilience.“Well, there are good stories and bad stories. So the good stories are, Oh my gosh, renewable energy is just a wonderful technology story with solar panels getting as cheap as almost anything. Wind turbine technology. We're working on offshore wind farm planning in the Gulf right now, and we're going to build wind turbines that can survive hurricanes. So there's a lot of technology going on in energy storage that involves batteries. And I'm hoping that at some point we're going to get to batteries that don't use things like lithium so much, so that we don't have to be involved so much in the mining of those kinds of things.There's a lot of really interesting technology going on with using natural landscapes to protect against flooding and storms. So we have a coastal restoration effort in Louisiana, one of the largest in the world. And what we're experimenting with is diverting water from the Mississippi River to replenish sediment and grow new wetlands on our tattered shores. And that's technology, too. I mean, we've got some of the best engineering firms in the world down here, and NASA trying to figure out exactly how to do that. And if we can do it, we'll export that technology all over the place and help rebuild coastlines. So those are some really bright spots in terms of the technology that I see.”https://robverchick.comhttps://works.bepress.com/robert_verchickwww.progressivereform.org/Twitter/X/Instagram/Facebook: @robverchick @robsoctopusbookwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

"Australia is generally considered one of the most vulnerable developed countries to the impacts of climate change, and I've been in the climate science space for more than 30 years, but I have to say this last month has been particularly confronting. We're seeing all sorts of tipping points that scientists have been warning about for decades and they are really real right now. I've never had such climate anxiety, and it's sort of new for me to be struggling with that because I think I've been pretty resilient to sort of eco-anxiety. Talking about averages all the time is a real problem in climate science because the temperature on any one day goes up and down a lot more than 1.5 or 2 degrees. So we have to keep working on relating those average global temperatures to the extremes that people experience in their lives on the ground where they live. We have to keep reminding people that that is the sort of thing that we are going to see more and more often. It isn't a one-off event. It's a message about the future."Now in the 21st century, with an abundance of renewable technologies, why is the world still using 18th-century energy technology? How can each of us harness our unique skills to help solve the climate crisis?Lesley Hughes is a Distinguished Professor of Biology and Interim Executive Dean of the Faculty of Science & Engineering at Macquarie University. She is an ecologist whose main research interest has been the impacts of climate change on species and ecosystems, and the implications of climate change for conservation. She was a Lead Author of the IPCC’s 4th and 5th Assessment Report, Director for the WWF Australia and federal Climate Commissioner and is now a Councillor and Director with the Climate Council of Australia. She is also a member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists.https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/persons/lesley-hugheswww.climatecouncil.org.auwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast