Visions for a Resilient Future
This panel will feature an exchange of opinions and visions for creating a more resilient Europe post-crisis. Well-known experts, politicians, authors, NGO representatives and journalists will discuss the different aspects of our society that have been impacted by the crisis - including health care systems, welfare states, labour, democracy, and geopolitical relations - and how we can emerge from this emergency and build a better tomorrow.
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Keynote speech by:
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Dr Vandana Shiva, scholar, environmental activist, food sovereignty advocate, and author Vandana Shiva is an Indian scholar, environmental activist who has dedicated nearly five decades of her life to the protection of biodiversity. Shiva did her M Sc Hons in Particle physics at Panjab University in Chandigarh in 1973\. In 1979, she completed and received her PhD in the Foundations of Quantum Theory on the topic “Non locality and Hidden Variable in Quantum Theory“ at the University of Western Ontario. Her quantum training and her work in ecology has enabled her to understand the limitations of the mechanistic Monoculture of the Mind. Her scientific research and her Biodiversity Conservation work with local Communities, specially women, has allowed her to evolve a paradigm of Oneness and Non separability, which she refers to as the Biodiversity of the Mind. In 1981, she founded the Research Foundation for Science Technology and Ecology. Since 1984 she has dedicated herself to promote non violent farming based on Biodiversity. In 1991 she founded Navdanya. Her work has shown how through conservation of Biodiversity, humans can produce more food, better health, and reduce hunger, disease and poverty. She is currently based in Delhi and Dehra Dun, her hometown where she established the Earth University and A Biodiversity Conservation farm. She has authored more than twenty books. She is one of the leaders and board members of the International Forum on Globalization (along with Jerry Mander, Edward Goldsmith, Ralph Nader, Jeremy Rifkin, et al.), and a figure of the global solidarity movement which she refers to as the Earth Democracy movement. She received the Right Livelihood Award in 1993, the Midori prize on Biodiversity and numerous other awards for her service to the Earth, the protection of Biodiversity, and people’s rights. Twitter: @drvandanashiva |
Speakers:
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Bill McKibben, Author, educator, environmentalist, and Co-founder of 350.org Bill McKibben is an author and environmentalist who in 2014 was awarded the Right Livelihood Prize, sometimes called the ‘alternative Nobel.’ His 1989 book The End of Nature is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change, and has appeared in 24 languages; he’s gone on to write a dozen more books. He is a founder of 350.org, the first planet-wide, grassroots climate change movement, which has organized twenty thousand rallies around the world in every country save North Korea, spearheaded the resistance to the Keystone Pipeline, and launched the fast-growing fossil fuel divestment movement. The Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he was the 2013 winner of the Gandhi Prize and the Thomas Merton Prize, and holds honorary degrees from 18 colleges and universities. Foreign Policy named him to their inaugural list of the world’s 100 most important global thinkers, and the Boston Globe said he was “probably America’s most important environmentalist.” A former staff writer for the New Yorker, he writes frequently for a wide variety of publications around the world, including the New York Review of Books,National Geographic, and Rolling Stone. He lives in the mountains above Lake Champlain with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern, where he spends as much time as possible outdoors . In 2014, biologists honored him by naming a new species of woodland gnat— Megophthalmidia mckibbeni--in his honor. |
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Amy Goodman, journalist and author, as well as host and Executive Producer of Democracy Now! Amy Goodman is an American broadcast journalist, columnist, investigative reporter, and author. She is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing worldwide. Goodman has co-authored six New York Times bestsellers. Facebook: AmyGoodman.DemocracyNow Twitter: @democracynow Instagram: @democracynow |
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Ilaria Capua, Pre-Eminent Professor at the University of Florida, researching avian influenza and zoonotic diseases, and Director of the University of Florida's One Health Center Ilaria Capua is a full professor and Director of the One Health Center of Excellence at the University of Florida. She is a veterinarian by training with a PhD in Virology. She directed international reference laboratories on emerging viruses and has authored over 220 scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals, scientific books, and 5 books for the general public. She has been a Member of the Italian Parliament for over three years (2013-2016), and during that period she focused on bridging science to policy in the field of Emerging Infections and anti-microbial resistance. She is active in the field of science communication, in promoting female leadership in the scientific arena and in advocating for awareness about fake news in science. She is currently engaged in developing new frontiers for the One Health approach by exploiting the digital environment. She regularly contributes columns and editorials to Italian and international press.
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Reinhard Bütikofer, Member of the European Parliament, Greens/EFA Group; Chair of the Delegation for relations with the People's Republic of China of the European Parliament REINHARD BÜTIKOFER is a Member of the European Parliament (Greens/EFA). He sits on the Committee on Foreign Afairs (AFET), where he serves as Greens/EFA foreign affairs spokesperson, and on the Committee on International Trade (INTA) as a substitute member. He is the Chair of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with the People’s Republic of China as well as a member of the Delegation to the United States and a substitute member of the ASEAN Delegation. From 2012 to 2019 he was co-chair of the European Green Party. Before getting elected to the European Parliament in 2009, Mr. Bütikofer was the Co-Chair of the German Green Party BÜNDIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN (from 2002 until 2008). He was the party’s Secretary General from 1998 until 2002\. Prior to that he served as the Chair of the Greens in the Federal State of Baden-Württemberg. From 1988 until 1996 he served as a Member of the Baden-Württemberg State Parliament. His engagement with the German Greens began when he was elected as a member of the city council in Heidelberg in 1984. Besides his positions in the party and parliament, Mr. Bütikofer is a member of the Europe/Transatlantic Advisory Board and the General Assembly of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the NABU Club, the German-Israeli Society, and the German-Chinese Dialogue Forum, as well as the DGAP and the IISS. Facebook: r.bueti Twitter: @bueti |
Moderator:
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Thomas Waitz, Co-chair, European Green Party Thomas Waitz is a Member of the European Parliament from Austria and since 2019 Co-Chair of the European Green Party. In his work, he is focused on sustainable agriculture, regional production and healthy food, especially the Common Agriculture Policy of the EU, reforming the animal transport directive and the Western Balkan Area. He is by profession a beekeeper and an organic farmer and forester. |
