Tectonic

If planetary diplomacy is to work, we can't represent the planet's interests until we understand how the planet actually works. From various different disciplines we have come to understand that Earth is more a single, interconnected system rather than a collection of separate parts. This understanding has given rise to a new field, earth systems science.

In this episode, we sat down with Sonia Seneviratne, Professor of Land-Climate Dynamics at ETH Zurich and a member of the IPCC , to explore the science of Earth systems. Her research focuses on climate extremes, land-atmosphere interactions, and the feedback loops that amplify heatwaves, droughts, and other climate impacts.

In the conversation, we discuss how vegetation and soils influence the climate, the role of positive feedback loops and tipping points, the risks facing ecosystems like the Amazon rainforest, and why, despite remaining uncertainties, we already know enough to act. We also explore what a more balanced Earth system could look like—and the pathways that could help us get there.

Lawyers, scholars, and policy makers are increasingly coming to recognize the right to a healthy environment as an essential human right – but is that enough to protect the environment itself? Can we protect nature by protecting humans' rights to nature, or do we need a new, eco-centric approach?

To explore these topics, we talked to Tyler Giannini, a human rights lawyer, co-founder of EarthRights International, and the director of the Human Rights Entrepreneurship Clinic at Harvard Law School. 

In the conversation, we dig into the enforcement of human rights, the intersection of court cases and social movements, the idea of guardianship and legal standing for nature, and how the law is evolving in response to planetary-scale crises.

This season is part of the Planetary Embassy, a global initiative across the Swissnex network. Discover more at https://swissnex.org/planetary-embassy/

Tectonic is a production of Swissnex in Boston and New York. Find us online at https://swissnex.org/boston/

In the previous episode, we explored how questioning anthropocentrism could help us better understand not just other species, but humanity itself. But what if we broadened our perspective beyond the biological? What would it mean to recognize the agency, rights, and personhood of rivers, mountains, and entire ecosystems?

To explore these ideas, we turn to the field of environmental humanities. We sat down with Federico Luisetti, professor at University of St. Gallen and co-organizer of the Swiss-based interdisciplinary research network Unruly Natures, and Sophie Gosselin, a philosopher who teaches at EHESS in Paris and has collaborated with Unruly Natures in Switzerland and beyond.

Our wide-ranging conversation explores the field of environmental humanities and its relation to the natural sciences, as well as their work on non-human agency, legal and political representation for rivers, and more.

This season is part of the Planetary Embassy, a global initiative across the Swissnex network. Discover more at https://swissnex.org/planetary-embassy/

Tectonic is a production of Swissnex in Boston and New York. Find us online at https://swissnex.org/boston/

As humans, we tend to see ourselves at the top of a natural hierarchy — the most intelligent and successful species on Earth. What if that conviction isn't just wrong, but also dangerous?

In this episode of our season on planetary diplomacy, we sat down with Christine Webb, a primatologist and Associate Professor at New York University, to help us rethink humanity’s place in the web of life.

Christine is the author of The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why it Matters, a scientist’s plea for more humility toward the more-than-human world and an argument for how de-centering humanity could help us better understand not just other species, but ourselves.

In this conversation, we dig into the stubborn myth of human superiority — what it is, why it persists, and what it might take to finally leave it behind.

This season is part of the Planetary Embassy, a global initiative across the Swissnex network. Discover more at https://swissnex.org/planetary-embassy/

Tectonic is a production of Swissnex in Boston and New York. Find us online at https://swissnex.org/boston/ 

What do we mean when we talk about the planetary? Why not just use familiar terms like global or international? 

For the first episode of our new season on planetary diplomacy, we sat down with Jonathan Blake, Associate Director of Programs at the Berggruen Institute, to define our terms. 

Jonathan is the co-author, with Nils Gilman, of Children of a Modest Star: Planetary Thinking for an Age of Crises, a provocative re-imagining of our institutions in the face of supranational challenges like climate change, pollution, global pandemics and more.

In this conversation, we explore how planetary thinking can offer a useful perspective on the intertwined natural, social, and technological systems that shape life on earth, and how it can inform governance from the local to the global scale.

This season is part of the Planetary Embassy, a global initiative across the Swissnex network. Discover more at https://swissnex.org/planetary-embassy/

Tectonic is a production of Swissnex in Boston and New York. Find us online at https://swissnex.org/boston/ 

What would it mean to create a new form of diplomacy, one that represents the interests of the more-than-human world? 

Welcome to Season 3 of Tectonic, where we’ll be exploring an idea we call planetary diplomacy. 

This season is part of the Planetary Embassy, a global initiative across the Swissnex network. Discover more at https://swissnex.org/planetary-embassy/

Tectonic is a production of Swissnex in Boston and New York. Find us online at https://swissnex.org/boston/

Massachusetts and Switzerland both often rank near the top of state and country innovation rankings. Key to this success are innovation zones, and none is more influential than Kendall Square – a small strip of former swampland in Cambridge, just across the river from Boston. These days it’s home to MIT and some of the most important biotech research on the planet, as well as pharmaceutical giants like Novartis and Moderna. Little wonder it’s been called ‘the most innovative square mile on earth.’

Our guest on this episode, Bob Buderi, has just written a book on Kendall Square, Where Futures Converge. We talk with Bob about Kendall’s progression from marsh to factory zone to biotech hub, and how constant change was necessary to maintain a vibrant urban innovation ecosystem. We explore the Swiss connections in Kendall Square, and what makes the small, unofficial innovation zone tick. We also delve into the shortcomings of Kendall Square’s imbalanced growth. While it’s an amazing place to invent and innovate, it’s not a great community to live in. Bob explores how plans for affordable housing and artist space can transform Kendall Square into a more livable urban landscape in the future.

Switzerland famously lacks natural resources, especially wood. To build its modern economy, the mountainous country came to rely heavily on concrete – and today has become a world leader in the concrete industry. But the building material has come under heavy scrutiny for its carbon footprint. Concrete production emits at least five percent of all human greenhouse gas emissions. As we face the urgent need for more sustainable built environments, does concrete have a future?

In this episode, we hear from Marc Angélil, the Swiss architect responsible for such buildings as Zurich Airport Terminal E. Marc has dedicated his career to sustainable construction, and he sees building materials as just one component in the full life cycle of a building – from construction, to use, and even disassembly. Concrete, he says, can be used to achieve energy savings that no other affordable material can match. He explores how efficient and hybrid buildings can work with nature to create low-tech, passive solutions for sustainability. Ultimately, Marc is designing for a world where even our lifestyles, such as how we cook and commute, are affected by the quality of our architecture.

The problems of the globe are also the problems of our major cities, especially post-industrial ones: environmental damage, economic inequality, public health crises. Can we solve these problems one city at a time, through renewal and innovation? We talk with Katie Stebbins, who has spent her career working to revive some of Massachusetts' most economically challenged towns. Her mission? To democratize innovation.

Katie explores how a community garden, or a small business growing coral in a garage, can and should count as innovation. "I think in any community you go into, you'll be surprised when you start knocking on doors, going in buildings, meeting people, the kind of assets you have on your roof that you never thought you had," says Katie. She says we have to work with the new populations that have migrated to our cities rather than attempt to re-create the factory town of old - a model she says is out-of-touch with our 21st-century workforces.

Katie also discusses public-private partnerships, her work in food innovation, and the 'circular economy' of best practices that allow ideas to migrate between cities and big national or supranational organizations. In her many roles, she emphasizes the need to 'get proximate' to people in order to democratize engagement.

As our global population continues to expand, and developing societies grow wealthier, our food supply is being stretched thin. In particular, global demand for meat continues to rise – and with it the stress on our land and freshwater ecosystems. One new technology being touted as a future solution is animal protein grown in a bioreactor. Is laboratory meat our future?

Historian and writer Ben Wurgaft spent over a half-decade researching and writing about the lab-grown meat industry, still in its infancy. In his book Meat Planet, he emerged a skeptic about lab meat’s  potential to transform our future food systems. In this episode, Ben discusses the technological challenges to scaling up production, and the way that the profit-driven hype machine around laboratory meat lauds techno-utopian solutions over hard social choices.

“There is plenty of protein already,” Ben says. “Why not redistribute it better? Why not treat food scarcity as a problem of distribution and justice rather than as a problem of production?” For Ben, hoping for a lab meat revolution only lets us avoid these deeper challenges. “The broader question here is about the human imagination, and what's available to us and what isn't, in order to imagine a better collective future.”

Tectonic is a production of Swissnex in Boston and New York, whose aim is to bring the leading ideas from our hub of academic inquiry to Switzerland and the world, in order to inspire new thinking across disciplinary and national boundaries.

This episode was written and hosted by Brendan Karch, with production, sound design, and editing by Anour Esa.

Credits for clips used in episode:
On Demand News, “Taste test: World's first test-tube burger revealed in London”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJrSdKk3YVY
 
ABC Action News, “The Paleo Diet helped one Tampa Bay family lose weight and live healthier” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRJsuQiGuEs

CBSDFW, '"Impossible Burger': Veggie Burger That Claims To Taste Like Real Beef Now Served In Denver" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9q8wUpHxq5M

Basque Culinary Center, "Gastroarmony"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC7EC6FJJiQ&t=1s

United Nations News, “Stop the waste: UN food agencies call for action to reduce global hunger”
https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/10/1049181