Alexa Firmenich: "Biodiversity, Beauty, and Being”

Episode 106
January 24th, 2024

(Conversation recorded on December 12th, 2023)  

Show Summary

On this episode, Nate is joined by Alexa Firmenich, whose work spans biodiversity advocacy, ESG investing, wilderness excursion facilitating, and podcasting/creative writing. Together, they philosophize on the importance of developing a connection to nature and understanding the - often overlooked - but critical function of biodiversity to the climate and other natural systems. Alexa also delves into her thinking about new economic and cultural models on human systems that could work within the biosphere. How can acknowledging our individual roles as a part of the Earth’s larger system give us a new perspective on what it means to live among its other inhabitants? Why does a system full of external incentives ultimately disincentivize our natural human inclination toward pro-sociality? Will a future of lower energy throughput result in each of us rekindling the inherent connection with the land that we live on, leading to simpler lives - yet perhaps more fulfilling ones? 

About Alexa Firmenich

Alexa Firmenich is an investor, consultant and facilitator focused on climate and biodiversity. She is the co-director of SEED, a new center of the Crowther Lab at ETH Zurich. SEED is developing the world's most holistic measure of biodiversity that reflects multiple scale’s of nature's complexity for any location on the planet, with the goal to steer financial and political decision-makers to crystallize the value of nature into the global economy. Alexa is also the founder of Ground Effect, an animist investment vehicle that supports early stage nature-based solutions, scientific research and new economic models. Parallel to this work she is trained as a group facilitator in leadership development and ecological pedagogy, designing multi-day learning journeys through her role at Leaders' Quest.  She is also an author, podcast host of Lifeworlds, a founding board member of Terra Habitus, a Mexican environmental fund that operates large-landscape conservation and watershed restoration, and a wilderness guide.

Watch on YouTube

https://youtu.be/4POPay2sIr8

Show Notes & Links to Learn More

PDF Transcript

00:00 - Alexa Firmenich Works + Info, SEED BioDiversity initiative, Ground Effect, Life Worlds Podcast, Art to Acres

09:02 - 80% of people have nature set as their screen saver

12:31 - Jon Young, 8 shields method of nature connections

13:11 - E.O. Wilson, Biophilia

20:52 - Joanna Macy, The Work that Reconnects

22:19 - Kahlil Gibran Poem

24:13 - Importance of biodiversity

24:50 - 1 out of 2 breaths come from the ocean planktons

25:13 - Plankton harvesting for omega 3s

25:28 - Plankton seed clouds

25:35 - Keystone species

26:53 - Trophic rewilding can expand natural climate solutions

28:56 - Tipping points, Melting ice sheets, Amazon becoming a carbon source

29:27 - Rewilding

29:39 - Derek Gow

30:08 - The diversity of animals identified as keystone species - Shukla - 2023

30:50 - Half-Earth

31:02 - 30 by 30

31:37 - Rich landowners buying up lands and rewilding them

32:41 - Wolf reintroduction into Yellowstone

33:02 - Past conservation and removing native people from their lands

33:32 - Switzerland wolf population cull

34:24 - 6,000 mammal species

39:07 - What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets | Michael J. Sandel 

40:09 - Switzerland town asked to be a nuclear waste site, financial incentive dropped people who were willing by half

42:03 - Universal Conservation Income

43:37 - Root of the word finance mean the repayment of a debt

44:16 - Capital Institute, Regenerative finance

46:15 - How Offsets work

49:30 - Carbon Trading Schemes

50:37 - Stream Mitigation Banking 

52:15 - New York state outlawing propane stoves

53:29 - The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures, Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures 

54:22 - Regenerative Agriculture

54:35 - Food focus at COP 28

55:37 - ESG
56:08 - Animism

58:09 - Rights of Nature

58:20 - Ecocide

1:01:18 - Michael Ableman 

1:14:38 - Simone Weil

1:15:46 - Sit Spots

1:17:30 - Sensing Place Life Worlds episode

1:18:01 - Story of Place

1:19:48 - Weed Watching, Urban Ecologies

1:21:19 - Moloch

1:33:48 - Lewis Mumford, Technics and civilization

1:32:12 - Against the Grain, Seeing Like a State, James C. Scott

1:34:26 - Fritjof Capra 

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