Vandana Shiva is a world-renowned environmentalist and physicist who earned her Ph.D. on “Hidden Variables and Non-locality in Quantum Theory” at the University of Western Ontario. She’s also a featured interviewee in the acclaimed Canadian documentary The Corporation and the author of over three hundred papers and dozens of books. She founded the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, which according to her website vshiva.net, “works on biodiversity conservation and protecting people's rights from threats to their livelihoods and environment.” She also founded Navdanya, an Indian movement to protect bio-diversity and life-form integrity, especially for native seeds.

Way back in 2004, Shiva spoke in Edmonton for the Revolutionary Speakers Series curated by the University of Alberta Students Union. We met outside an organic chain store in Edmonton’s historic Old Strathcona district to discuss—what else—saving the planet. She explained many things, including:

Along the way, Shiva referenced Percy Schmeiser, the Saskatchewan farmer who battled agribusiness megacorp Monsanto all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada and lost.

We began by discussing the how differences between North American and European cultures affect the relationship between politics and science.

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