OUR FUTURE IN THE ANTHROPOCENE: WHAT IT MEANS FROM THE DEEP NATURAL HISTORY PERSPECTIVE

A Lecture by Pranay Lal

Soils, mud, detritus, mulch, sand, gravel, grit, and rock are as crucial pieces in the climate change story, as are ocean currents, wind circulation, the shapes and sizes of landmasses, and of course, life forms—especially microbes, the principal primary energy producers on Earth that regulate the bulk of Earth’s carbon-oxygen cycle. When all these pieces come together, they power Earth’s enormous, planetary-scale, biogeochemical reactor. But in our silo-ed / straitjacketed approaches, we often see only its components and pieces, and forget to view nature in its entirety. Biochemist and natural history writer Pranay Lal ponders on how geology and evolution underpin nature’s processes and how understanding them can perhaps help us make better decisions about the confounding environmental crises we face.

About the Speaker
Pranay Lal is a biochemist by training and works for a non-profit organisation on public health. He has been a caricaturist for newspapers, an animator for an advertising agency, and an environmental campaigner. His first book, Indica: A Deep Natural History of the Indian Subcontinent was published in December 2016, and won multiple awards. His most recent book, Invisible Empire: The Natural History of Viruses was released in November 2021.​

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