Skip to main content

Cope, Adapt, Thrive: Ensuring Our Shared Future on a Hot and Hostile Planet

Tsai Auditorium

The last five years have illuminated our growing global interconnectedness: from the pandemic to volatile food prices and shortages to global tech outages. As we enter the second quarter of the twenty-first century, the twin threats of climate change and conflict are now converging with urgent global consequences for all: destruction of food systems and livelihoods; mass displacement and migration; and fierce competition over depleting natural resources. This convergence has unraveled decades of progress and strained our global systems to their breaking point. It is no coincidence that the world’s most worrisome hotspots are mired in conflict alongside the worst real-time impacts of climate change. Our hotter and more hostile world requires a bold new agenda for a shared humanity. Neither conflict nor climate change can be ignored or addressed by individual nations acting alone and in self-interest. Neither can we address climate change or conflict separately, as if they are somehow disconnected global challenges with divergent impacts and solutions. We must come together and partner with those most impacted by conflict and on the frontlines of climate change to forge innovative, cross-sector solutions born from communities themselves to build a better world where everyone can thrive.

ArtsThursdays: Sea Monsters

Harvard Museum of Natural History 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge

Join us for a free, fun night at the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture! Come with a date, come with friends, or make new friends while strolling through the galleries. Visit the exhibition Sea Monsters: Wonders of Nature and Imagination and explore the allure of serpents, krakens, and other mysterious creatures of the deep sea. Let your imagination run wild and create a felt sea “monster” with Alex Makes Art. Suggested ages 10 and up. Guided by visual artist Kat Owens, participate in the creation of a community art piece, and reflect on the impact of plastics on marine animals. Meet scientists from Harvard’s Bellono Lab to learn about the behavior and unique characteristics of octopuses. Learn about unique, unusual—and even spooky—marine specimens in the Museum of Comparative Zoology. Purchase drinks at the cash bar (valid government ID required to consume alcoholic beverages). Embark on a scavenger hunt to find sea monsters in the museum! Free and open to the public.