Plastic is ubiquitous. It is in the Arctic, in the depths of the Mariana Trench, and in the high mountain tops of the Pyrenees. It permeates the air we breathe and the water we drink, and has even given birth to new bacteria and microorganisms. As nanoplastics pierce our cell walls and instigate evolutionary change, plastic challenges the delusion that we exist apart from our environment. 

In this episode of Science and Society, Professor Jack Halberstam speaks to Heather Davis, author of Plastic Matter, and evolutionary biologist Malin Ah-King. Together, they explore the question of material responsibility in a world where contamination is unavoidable. Recognizing that plastic pollution is a permanent reality, the conversation draws on queer theory to imagine how we might navigate the ongoing ecological crisis. ♦

Professor Jack Halberstam speaks to Heather Davis, author of Plastic Matter, and evolutionary biologist Malin Ah-King about material responsibility in a world where contamination is unavoidable. Recognizing that plastic pollution is a permanent reality, the conversation draws on queer theory to imagine how we might navigate the ongoing ecological crisis. 

Science & Society grapples with our relationships with nature and each other. Each episode leads us deep into humanity’s timely and intersectional challenges, from biodiversity, to plastics, public knowledge, the high seas, farming, climate, and love.

Toxic Progeny

In an age of rampant techno-optimism (and ever-growing techno-anxiety), AI is playing an ever-more central role in how we live, work, think, and play; in the conduct of government; in the futures we imagine for ourselves and our species. To learn more, PW Director of Publishing (and 

 co-editor-in-chief) Joshua Jelly-Schapiro sat down with Ruha Benjamin and Kate Crawford—two leading voices on the social impact of AI. ♦

In an age of rampant techno-optimism (and ever-growing techno-anxiety), AI is playing an ever-more central role in how we live, work, think, and play; in the conduct of government; in the futures we imagine for ourselves and our species. To learn more, PW Director of Publishing (and Broadcast co-editor-in-chief) Joshua Jelly-Schapiro sat down with Ruha Benjamin and Kate Crawford—two leading voices on the social impact of AI.

AI and Us

When it comes to climate change, much of our cultural imagery is apocalyptic. The result is that most of us can’t realistically imagine getting it right. And if we can’t imagine possible climate futures, we can’t create them. This is design’s time to shine. Practically and tangibly, design—from buildings and technology, to materials and processes—shapes how we experience and move through the world, what we value and how we interact with it. Given how much the climate has already changed, and how much more change is inevitable, we urgently need design to lead us toward a transformed world.

Salvage punk artist Olalekan Jeyifous and MoMA curator Paola Antonelli join ecologist, policy expert, and Climate Futurism curator Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson to discuss design’s role in addressing the climate crisis. ♦

When it comes to climate change, much of our cultural imagery is apocalyptic. The result is that most of us can’t imagine, realistically, getting it right. And if we can’t imagine possible climate futures, we can’t create them. Salvage punk artist Olalekan Jeyifous and MoMA curator Paola Antonelli join ecologist, policy expert, and Climate Futurism curator Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson to discuss design’s role in addressing the climate crisis. 

Climate Futurism

Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson hosts landscape architect Kate Orff and architect and design justice pioneer Bryan Lee in a conversation grappling with how we might envision and achieve a thriving future for coastal cities and all who call them home.

So many forces collide around coastal cities—ocean and climate, ecosystems and infrastructure, and millions of people. Dramatic events like hurricanes and incremental events like sea-level rise have demonstrated how tenuous things already are, and what more may come as climate change intensifies. Put simply, coastal cities are unprepared for the impacts of the climate crisis and the stakes are high—but the future is not yet written. Design, technology, collectivism, and nature itself offer a wealth of possibilities. City governments and communities can charge ahead with solutions. ♦

In a conversation grappling with how we might envision and achieve a thriving future for coastal cities and all who call them home, Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson hosts landscape architect Kate Orff and architect and design justice pioneer Bryan Lee.

Coastal Cities

The Future of Coastal Cities

The quest for short-term profits has been to the detriment of a habitable planet. Mining, overfishing, and clear cutting have led to pollution, extinctions, and loss of nature. By combusting fossil fuels, we’ve gone beyond changing ecology to changing the very chemistry of the atmosphere and ocean. Extractive capitalism has upended our climate. Yet, might it also, given the power of markets, help us find a way forward? 

This moment in human history requires nothing less than transformation—of electricity, transportation, agriculture, buildings—of our relationships to nature and to each other. But we actually have most of the solutions we need, from renewable energy to regenerative farming. Can we implement them at scale within a financial system that maximizes quarterly profits? How might banks, insurance companies, corporations, and the like become an intentional and engaged part of the solution? And what is the role of governments? Of communities? Of artists and storytellers? 

Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson will host journalist and activist Naomi Klein and finance expert Régine Clément, both contributors to the climate anthology All We Can Save, for a conversation grappling with how we might transform our economy in order to address the climate crisis.

Capitalism vs. Climate 

We can’t go back to a world free of plastic pollution. We designed a material that essentially lasts forever, and we throw it away, all day, every day. Each year, 270 million metric tons of plastic (and rising) are produced, and 8 million metric tons (and rising) enter the ocean. There are 500 times more pieces of plastic in the ocean than there are stars in our galaxy. It has infiltrated our food chain—there is plastic in our seafood, sea salt, drinking water, and beer. By 2050 there may be more plastic in the ocean than fish. What is this proliferation doing to ecosystems, society, and our bodies? How can we break our addiction to this modern material convenience?

Our Plastic Problem

The urgency of the climate crisis has permeated public consciousness. How bad might things get? Our fossil-fuel economy has created a global emergency, and the Green New Deal has thrust the issue, and the magnitude of changes needed, to the political forefront. Where does the latest science point us? What are the most promising solutions? And what does our changing climate mean for New York City? Our guests Rhiana Gunn-Wright, a director at New Consensus and policy lead for the Green New Deal, and Dr. Kate Marvel, climate research scientist at NASA and Columbia University, join series host Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, Pioneer Works science scholar and founder of Ocean Collectiv, to grapple with the scientific realities of the cultural, governmental, and corporate shifts needed to mitigate our climate crisis.


Our Climate Crisis

Knowledge is power. Power to the people. Knowledge for the people. We live in a world of increasingly digitized, editable, and bifurcating information sources, of exponentially accelerating knowledge production. We live in a world of increasing inequality, and of spin and fabrications finding megaphones so large they spread further than facts. While the terms “open access,” “open source,” and “open data” proliferate, so too do paywalls, patents, and information deemed proprietary. Access to reliable information is fundamental. Experts increasingly find themselves undervalued. The role of libraries is evolving.

Knowledge for the People

We have reached peak fish. Despite fishing farther from shore, in deeper waters, and using ever more high-tech equipment, the global catch has been declining since 1996. Overfishing, habitat destruction, and pollution have rendered a once abundant and healthy food depleted and contaminated. Meanwhile, aquaculture production has increased dramatically, from providing 7% of fish for human consumption in 1974 to 53% in 2016. So what could a future of sustainable seafood look like, both wild and farmed, for a human population approaching 8 billion?