Please see below for a draft agenda.
Day 1: Monday, December 11, 2023
| Breakfast | |
| Morning Session 1 | Introduction and ice breakers. Who is who? What are your interests and why did you choose to join this discussion? To what degree would you say you fall into the category of environmental optimist, or pessimist? |
| Coffee Break | |
| Morning Session 2 | Discussion – (pre-reading) The International Panel on Climate Change: “Sixth Assessment Report,” (2021), and likely other materials (i.e., Olafur Eliasson’ s 2021 Future Assembly) Discussion – How do we theorize extinction? |
| Lunch | |
| Afternoon Session 1 | Field Trip – Visit to the Museum of Comparative Zoology, potentially in coordination with a curator. [Curator] ~ possibly some involvement from the Harvard University Center for the Environment? |
| Coffee Break | |
| Afternoon Session 2 | Discussion – Collecting Extinction / Representing Extinction: discussion of the MCZ, Audubon, cryogenic libraries, and various attempts to catalog what is being lost. |
| Break | |
| Group Dinner | Restaurant TBD; informal discussion. |
Day 2: Tuesday, December 12, 2023
| Breakfast | |
| Morning Session 1 | Discussion – De-Extinction: What is it good for? On techno-optimism and pessimism, and the role of geoengineering in staving off extinction. |
| Coffee Break | |
| Morning Session 2 | Discussion – Human extinction: was Malthus wrong? Considering Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb in relation to Stewart Brand’s “Ecomodernists” and the continued battle between the neo-Malthusians and techno-cornucopians. |
| Lunch | |
| Afternoon Session | Discussion – Interventions: what can be done? |
