Environment
Agriculture
At Aspen Ideas: Climate 2024, the world's most ambitious climate problem solvers came together in Miami Beach to address our collective future on this planet. Watch highlights from this year's event, which brought together global and local policy makers, innovators, scientists, artists, young leaders, and many others to forge solutions to climate change. These sessions wil...
Environmental stewardship has become as much a watchword in the business sector as it has among activists and advocates. When corporate executives start talking about the importance of ecosystems, regenerative agriculture, and responsible product sourcing, and NGOs promote innovative financing mechanisms that forgive national debt in exchange for funding conservation activ...
In May 2022, the world's most ambitious climate problem solvers came together in Miami Beach to address our collective future. Watch highlights from the inaugural Aspen Ideas: Climate, which brought together global and local policy makers, experts, artists, young leaders, and many others for a series of conversations aimed at educating and inspiring action to combat climat...
A 2018 UN report on climate change urged swift and unprecedented action to curb the rise of the planet’s temperature. Experts argue that avoiding a crisis will require significant breakthroughs in technology, a full stop on fossil fuel projects, fundamental changes to the way we feed the world, and ubiquitous carbon policies. Who will lead the charge towards a multilateral...
Protecting wild spaces helps to conserve the species that call them home — and is one of the best strategies for meeting global climate goals. National parks and other protected areas can cultivate a healthy relationship between humans and the land they depend on. How much more land — and ocean — do we need to preserve in order to maintain ecological and social wellness? W...
Food — delicious, nutritious, and plentiful — is essential to life. But the way we’re producing and consuming it is anything but friendly to life on the planet, and we need a new plan. In this pair of conversations, celebrity chef Daniel Humm shares his vision for transitioning the famed Eleven Madison Park to a vegan restaurant, and two innovators present new technology t...
Anyone who has ever had a pet understands how deeply connected human beings are to the animals who serve as our companions, lessen our stress, and perhaps offer a buffer against cognitive decline. Puppy play date, anyone? Honeybees help to protect our food supply, vision-impaired people rely not only on seeing-eye dogs but also on seeing-eye horses, and animal research has...
Earth is as resilient as it is fragile. From single species to whole ecosystems, scientists are studying the incredible ways our oasis in space responds to unprecedented human impact. Whether you want to honor Earth Day, or you're just innately curious about the natural world, hit play on a session from Aspen Ideas and start learning!
Unpredictable weather is threatening crop production and a swelling population is increasing the demand for food.
A changing climate means a changing diet.
Civilization was a byproduct of humanity’s need to feed ourselves, but we still haven’t figured it out. World population continues to grow even as developing economies demand more resource-intensive food. And though we face the prospect of long-term crop-antagonistic weather, we still throw away a tremendous amount of food. Take a look at the challenges of today — and the...
Rural communities were once the beating heart(land) of America, places of economic and social power. Today, they seem left to wither as dollars, workers, and priorities shift to the cities. Don’t write them off yet, though — there’s a growing movement that’s bringing innovation and energy to once-forgotten communities, and the reasons behind it are as much rational as nost...
Board Member, Global Innovative Health Technology Fund and Clinton Health Access Initiative; Former US Secretary of Agriculture; Former Executive Director, UNICEF
For more than 130 years, the National Geographic Society has pushed the boundaries of science by engaging the average citizen in a deeper understanding of the planet. Join two Nat Geo Fellows, Joel Sartore, renowned animal photographer, and Scott Loarie, director of a plant and animal identification app, to learn about the tools and strategies they're using to connect peop...
Congress’s approval ratings are in the gutter, local candidates routinely campaign against Washington, and voter turnout for national elections rarely tops 60 percent. Politicians can be counted on to campaign against all things Washington and claim outsider status whenever possible. Yet our national media outlets cover the ups and downs of DC on a nonstop, 24-hour cycle....
Federal funds could not be used to pay for sugar-sweetened beverages under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly called food stamps), if recommendations from the Bipartisan Policy Center are adopted. In its 2018 report, Leading with Nutrition, the center calls for restrictions and incentives that would recast SNAP as a tool for healthy eating. Other...
Population growth, shifting agricultural practices, and altered weather patterns are weighing on the food supply, a pressure that will only intensify over the next 30 years, when the planet holds an estimated 10 billion inhabitants. Rising temperatures will reduce crop yield and spawn more pests, higher carbon dioxide levels will lessen the nutritional value of food, and f...
Many of the people doing today’s most consequential environmental work — restoring America’s grasslands, wildlife, soil, rivers, wetlands, and oceans — would not call themselves environmentalists; they would be too uneasy with the connotations of that word. What drives them is their deep love of the land — they feel a moral responsibility to preserve their heritage and ens...
Social entrepreneurs Anne Kelly of Ceres and Rebecca Onie of Health Leads discuss how they’ve made unlikely allies in unlikely places, despite working on hot-button issues in a difficult political climate. By meeting people, practitioners, policymakers, and leaders where they are, Ceres and Health Leads have made considerable progress on two of the most urgent and universa...
We often take biology for granted, rarely recognizing the incredible technological feats of an organism as it grows, heals, and self-assembles—sustainably. As our ability to read, write, and design DNA grows, this power of biology is enabling amazing new biotechnologies to impact numerous industries, from everyday products brewed by designed microbes to programmable materi...