Troy Vettese and Drew Pendergrass

Environmental scholars Drew Pendergrass and Troy Vettese, co-authors of the book Half-Earth Socialism: A Plan to Save the Future from Extinction, Climate Change and Pandemics, will give an AAD Arguments talk on Wednesday, July 12th at 11:30am at GSAPP Columbia University.

Their talk, “Half Earth Socialism: Design, Democracy, and Planning in the Anthropocene”, will critique and envision post-capitalist political and economic structures of the climate crisis.

Troy Vettese is an environmental historian and Max Weber research fellow at the European University Institute in Fiesole. He studies the history of environmental economics, non-conventional fossil fuels, and animals. His popular writing has been published in The Guardian, Boston Review, N+1, In these Times, Jacobin, and Book Forum. He is currently writing a book on neoliberal environmental thought since the 1920s.

Drew Pendergrass is a writer, activist, and climate scientist, currently a PhD candidate in Environmental Engineering at Harvard University. His work imagines how humanity can democratically govern itself in an age of environmental crisis. In his scientific research, he uses satellite, aircraft, and surface observations of the atmosphere to create global real-time maps of greenhouse gas emissions. Together with social scientists, historians, and designers, he imagines the sorts of institutions and protocols that would allow humanity to democratically manage our economy and its interchange with ecosystems. Imagining a better world pushes against the normal boundaries between fields, and with his collaborators, he expresses ideas in a variety of forms beyond traditional scholarship, including popular writing, fiction, and video games. He is co-author of the 2022 book Half-Earth Socialism and its accompanying game, and his environmental writing has been published in Harper’s, The Guardian, and Jacobin.

Drew Pendergrass and Troy Vettese will be introduced by Ranjani Srinivasan, who will be joined by Elise Misao Hunchuck and Marco Ferrari in responding to the presentation and hosting the Q&A.

Free and open to the public. Organized by the MS in Advanced Architectural Design program as part of its Arguments Lecture Series.