Town Hall Seattle Science Series

We know we have to do something about climate change, and we know we need to move immediately. The mere thought of it tends to make people freeze in their tracks from sheer overwhelm. Thousands of ideas exist, but there's no clear, collective plan. Try as some people might, jumping on a rocket to the next planet isn't the answer. But what if we don't need groundbreaking new inventions to move the needle on climate change? What if most of the innovations already exist? Could we build a better, cleaner future (and maybe even generate millions of new jobs while we're at it)? Engineer and inventor Saul Griffith shared a detailed plan of action in his new book, Electrify: The Optimist's Playbook for our Clean Energy Future. Take note of two important words in the book's title, electrify and optimist. Griffith's strategy circles around the transformation of our infrastructure to electrify everything, update our grid, and adapt homes to make it possible. And then there's optimism: if we're to build the future we dream of, a realistic yet optimistic outlook is necessary. After all, desperation and doom haven't successfully elicited the unified global response needed to shift our trajectory; but we can change. Griffith shared the blueprints for exactly how. Saul Griffith is an inventor, entrepreneur, and engineer. He is the founder of Rewiring America, a nonprofit dedicated to decarbonizing America by electrifying everything, and founder and chief scientist at Otherlab. He was a recipient of a MacArthur "genius grant" in 2007. David Roberts writes for his newsletter, Volts, and previously wrote for Vox and Grist. Over the past 15+ years, he's written for several other publications and appeared on a variety of TV shows, radio programs, and podcasts. Buy the Book: Electrify: An Optimists Playbook for Our Clean Energy Future (Hardcover) from Third Place Books Presented by Town Hall Seattle. To become a member or make a donation click here.

The year 2050 once felt like a far-off speck on a distant horizon. But with less than three decades left before we reach the halfway point of the 21st century, that faraway mote doesn't feel quite so distant. Is it possible to avoid the worst effects of climate change by then? What efforts can we focus on to truly make an impact? In The Decarbonization Imperative, Professor Michael Lenox and Rebecca Duff described the urgent situation we're in and why the year 2050 is so significant. They clearly and methodically broke down 5 key sectors— Energy, Transportation, Industrial, Building, and Agricultural— to look at which technologies stand the best chance of decarbonizing each sector. They also considered areas where investments and policy actions are needed to quicken the pace of adopting new technologies. The good news? In some sectors, clean technology is emerging or already exists; we only need a plan to transition in time. Lenox and Duff reminded us that climate change isn't just looming; it's here. And while there's no shortage of work to do, there's a pathway to get there through innovation and disruption of the status quo. The Decarbonization Imperative shows us how. Michael Lenox is the Tayloe Murphy Professor of Business Administration and Senior Associate Dean and Chief Strategy Officer at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business and co-author of Can Business Save the Earth? and The Decarbonization Imperative. His work has been cited by the New York Times, the Financial Times, and The Economist. He has been recognized as a Faculty Pioneer by the Aspen Institute, as the top strategy professor under 40 by the Strategic Management Society, and one of the top 40 business professors under 40 by Poets&Quants. Rebecca Duff is Senior Research Associate at the Batten Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. She also serves as the managing director for the Institute's Business Innovation and Climate Change Initiative. She has more than 20 years of experience conducting industry and technology research, with a particular focus on product development, emerging technologies, and policy and market interventions. Nick Licata was elected to five terms on the Seattle City Council before leaving office at the end of 2015 to pursue helping citizens influence government policies. His new book, Becoming a Citizen Activist: Stories, Strategies and Advice on How to Change Our World, recaps his and others strategies and how they can be applied to current issues. Buy the Book: The Decarbonization Imperative: Transforming the Global Economy by 2050 Presented by Town Hall Seattle. To become a member or make a donation click here.

Escaping infectious disease and managing its spread has long been at the forefront of the human mind; it's certainly taken front and center in the minds of today's humans as the globe continues to wade through the COVID-19 pandemic. In an especially timely and fascinating look at the story of disease past and present, historian Kyle Harper explained the evolutionary past of humanity's uniquely dangerous disease pool in Plagues Upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History. Disease, he argued, is accelerated by technological progress and entangled with the history of slavery, colonialism, and capitalism. And while triumph over disease helps our lives progress, it's actually destabilizing the environment and fostering new diseases. Gulp. But all is not lost. Harper pointed out what we can learn by looking at history while simultaneously looking forward, examining patterns of wealth, health, power, and inequality, paired with insights from cutting-edge genetic research. And, he reminded us, that human health is intrinsically connected to the health of the planet itself. Dr. Kyle Harper is Professor of Classics and Letters and Provost Emeritus at The University of Oklahoma. Dr. Harper is a historian of the ancient world whose work has spanned economic, environmental, and social history. His book, Plagues Upon the Earth, is a New Statesman Essential Non-Fiction Book of 2021. His other books include The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire (Princeton) and From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity. Buy the Book: Plagues Upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History (Princeton Economic History of the Western World #106) (Hardcover) from Third Place Books Presented by Town Hall Seattle. To become a member or make a donation click here.

Whether we can see it or not, the impacts of Monsanto— the agrochemical giant best known for creating the herbicide Roundup and the genetically engineered seeds that resist it— are everywhere. Monsanto has shaped and reshaped the farms that provide food to people worldwide; and while we might not be able to see the breadth of the company's impacts, we're most certainly eating them. In Seed Money, Bartow J. Elmore investigated how the future of food remains tethered to Monsanto, despite a toxic and troubling past that extends far beyond Roundup. Through extensive fieldwork, previously-unseen records, and countless interviews with farmers, lawyers, chemists, and past employees, he traced Monsanto's rise and eventual domination of an agricultural empire. While it's easy to imagine a cadre of evil corporate villains at the helm, plotting the demise of the world, Elmore found something more subtle. His research revealed a cautionary tale of what happens when a series of seemingly small decisions have a cascading effect on an entire global system. Bartow J. Elmore teaches environmental and business history at The Ohio State University. For this project he received the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award and a New America fellowship. He lives with his family in Columbus, Ohio. Buy the Book: Seed Money: Monsanto's Past and Our Food Future (Hardcover) from Third Place Books Presented by Town Hall Seattle as part of the Town Green series.

When it comes to human reproduction, particularly from a Western perspective, there's no shortage of physical things involved. Pregnancy tests. Maternity clothing. Pacifiers. Baby carriers. Reproduction and parenting involve a plethora of objects, each designed with a purpose in mind and each contributing to the reproductive experience, for better or for worse. Historians and authors Michelle Millar Fisher and Amber Winick explored the stuff of reproduction in their new book, Designing Motherhood: Things that Make and Break Our Births. Their highly visual, design-driven book explores over 80 objects that have shaped the world of people and babies during the past century, revealing designs that range from iconic to just plain strange. Together, Fisher and Winick considered how design impacted everything from the clothing that pregnant people wear to how the home pregnancy test was once a "threat" to male gynecologists—and beyond. Michelle Millar Fisher, a curator and architecture and design historian, is Ronald C. and Anita L. Wornick Curator of Contemporary Decorative Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She lectures frequently on design, people, and the politics of things. Amber Winick is a writer, design historian, and recipient of two Fulbright Awards. She has lived, researched, and written about family and child-related designs, policies, and practices around the world. Zoë Greggs is a queer, Black, disabled Philadelphia-based artist and nonprofit administrator who serves as the Community Outreach Coordinator at Maternity Care Coalition (MCC). Greggs is also the Curatorial Assistant for Designing Motherhood, where she brings her expertise of community engagement, project management, and art history. Buy the Book: Designing Motherhood: Things that Make and Break Our Births (Hardcover) from Third Place Books Presented by Town Hall Seattle. To become a member or make a donation click here.

We've pondered the puzzles of the human body for millennia, questioning the function of both the visible parts and the parts hidden away behind layers of skin, muscle, and bones. When it comes to the human body— and the bodies of many other living creatures— the heart is an organ that's long been central to our understanding of life. How did humans get from mummifying the heart separately from the body in order to weigh the soul inside it, as ancient Egyptians once did, to the modern ability to save and extend lives by transplanting a heart from one human into another? In Pump: A Natural History of the Heart, zoologist Bill Schutt explored the mind-boggling history of the heart in both human and non-human life forms. He covered everything from clear-blooded Antarctic icefish to the origin of the stethoscope, weaving in fascinating myths, hypotheses gone wrong, and scientific breakthroughs along the way. You'll never consider that rhythmic thumping in your chest the same way again. Bill Schutt is a vertebrate zoologist and author of six nonfiction and fiction books, including the New York Times Editor's Choice, Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History. Recently retired from his post as professor of biology at LIU Post, he is a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History, where he has studied bats all over the world. His research has been featured in Natural History magazine as well as in the New York Times, Newsday, the Economist, and Discover. Buy the Book: Pump: A Natural History of the Heart (Hardcover) from Third Place Books Presented by Town Hall Seattle. To become a member or make a donation click here.

All human beings are 99.9 percent identical in their genetic makeup. All our differences are found in the remaining .1 percent. Our DNA makes us different in our personalities and in our health, and both matter when it comes to educational and economic success in our current society. In The Genetic Lottery, clinical psychology professor Paige Harden aimed to reclaim genetic science from the legacy of eugenics and dismantle dangerous ideas about racial superiority. She argued that we must acknowledge the role of genetic luck if we are ever to create a fair society. Genetically associated inequalities, Harden brought forth, can be viewed through a lens of "luck egalitarianism." This philosophical perspective on fair versus unfair inequality is already manifest in current research and policy. She proposed that genetic research can be used to advance equity goals. Regardless of the .1 percent, we can all be equal. Paige Harden, Ph.D. is a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, where she is the director of the Developmental Behavior Genetics lab and co-directs the Texas Twin Project. Buy the Book: The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality (Hardcover) from Third Place Books Presented by Town Hall Seattle. To become a member or make a donation click here.

Plastic is everywhere, and it lasts forever. But humans have a hard time grasping "forever"— the scope is far greater than our comprehension. That's precisely the problem that Allison Cobb explored in her new book, Plastic: An Autobiography. Cobb aimed to give shape to behemoths like climate change, nuclear technologies, and racism, using plastic waste as the thread that connects them all. She insisted that the current design of manufacturing and retail, which relies on a cycle of consuming and discarding, obstructs our view of the humans who actually create objects. It's a design that's intentional; because if consumers truly knew how things were made and who was making them, could we continue living the way that we do on this planet? Allison Cobb is the author of four books: Plastic: an Autobiography, Green-Wood, After We All Died, and Born2. Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Denver Quarterly, Colorado Review, and many other journals. She was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award and National Poetry Series; has been a resident artist at Djerassi and Playa; and received fellowships from the Oregon Arts Commission, the Regional Arts and Culture Council, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Allison works for the Environmental Defense Fund and lives in Portland, Oregon. Clayton Aldern is a writer and data scientist interested in science and society. His writing has been published by The Atlantic, The Economist, Scientific American, Logic, and Grist, among others. Based in the Pacific Northwest, he is currently working on a book about the effects of climate change and environmental degradation on neurochemistry, behavior, decision-making, and mental and emotional health. Buy the Book: Plastic: An Autobiography (Paperback) from Elliott Bay Books Presented by Town Hall Seattle and Grist.

The Sahara desert, once upon a time, wasn't a desert at all. It was green. It was a pleasant place, fed by rivers and lakes. It was home to crocodiles, hippos, turtles, and fish of all stripes. Prehistoric hunters and gatherers came to the lush land, as well, to partake of its rich bounty. It's now the largest hot desert in the world, equal in size to the United States. Temperatures can reach upward of 130 degrees and sand dunes can climb to nearly 600 feet in height. All this begs the question: What happened? Martin Williams, in When the Sahara Was Green: How Our Greatest Desert Came to Be, helped answer this question, and asks many more. A time-traveler, of a sort, Williams went back millions of years to showcase the rich history of earth's greatest desert. Why did its climate change? Did it really have forests roamed through by dinosaurs? How has all this impacted human populations? Will the desert ever return to that verdant Eden? And what will climate change do to the desert? He also brought to the fore the science and scientists who have come to the desert to ask more questions and find more answers in the arid heat and the deep sand. Answers, and the knowledge that even in the harshest of environments, life finds a way. Martin Williams is professor emeritus and adjunct professor of earth sciences at the University of Adelaide. His many books include Climate Change in Deserts; Nile Waters, Saharan Sands; and The Nile Basin. Buy the Book: When the Sahara Was Green: How Our Greatest Desert Came to Be (Hardcover) from Elliott Bay Books Presented by Town Hall Seattle. To become a member or make a donation click here.

The web of life is sometimes freezing. Take, for instance, what's happening in the Alaska Arctic. In one of the largest remaining wilderness ecosystems on the planet, the frigid place is home to the Western Arctic Caribou Herd, and is also a hotspot to study the effects of climate change. What becomes of the caribou if climate change continues unabated? Further, what becomes of those that live, and depend, on the caribou, like the indigenous Iñupiat people, if the caribou disappear? The interconnectedness of us all is hanging by a thread. Seth Kantner was born and raised in northern Alaska and has worked as a trapper, wilderness guide, wildlife photographer, gardening teacher, and adjunct professor. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Outside, Orion, and Smithsonian. Kantner is the author of the award-winning novel Ordinary Wolves, memoir Shopping for Porcupine, and collection of essays Swallowed by the Great Land: And Other Dispatches from Alaska's Frontier. He has been a commercial fisherman in Kotzebue Sound for more than four decades and lives in the Northwest Arctic. Bellamy Pailthorp covers the environment beat from the Seattle offices of KNKX Public Radio News, where she has worked since 1999. She also has a deep interest in indigenous affairs and the Salish Sea. Buy the Book: A Thousand Trails Home: Living with Caribou [Hardcover] from Mountaineers Books Presented by Town Hall Seattle. To become a member or make a donation click here.