Tuesday, September 22, 5:00pm – Plant Life: A film screening & conversation on the future of climate-resilient agriculture
Dr. Joanne Chory spent decades revealing the secret life of plants — how they grow, sense, and respond to the world. Even as she faced her own mortality, she devoted her final years to one last experiment: engineering plants to heal a warming planet. She passed away in 2024. A co-production of Speculative Films and HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, Plant Life is an intimate portrait of a scientist whose decades of discovery converge in a race against time.
Salk’s Harnessing Plants Initiative continues Dr. Chory’s legacy by ushering in a new era of sustainable agriculture, with crops that feed a growing global population, remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and thrive in an increasingly harsh and unpredictable climate.
After the presentation, there will be a Q&A with the film’s directors Josh Izenberg and Brett Marty, along with Salk Institute scientists Wolfgang Busch and Lena Mueller, who will update the audience on research that has taken place since the film was completed.
Tuesday, September 22, 7:00pm – Your Climate Story is Already Here, The Case for Feeling It with AOA
Rachel Carson knew in 1962. John Muir knew before that. The evidence has been there for over a century. What’s been missing isn’t more data – it’s the space where people can finally feel the weight of what the data means.
During Climate Week NYC, The Explorers Club is proud to host AOA, a full-service immersive experience design and project management firm founded by former Walt Disney Imagineers with 35 years of physical storytelling experience, for an evening exploring the gap between climate knowledge and climate feeling. Structured as an experiential event, the evening, featuring Didi Bethurum, Jackie Wolford, and Tom Acomb, will include a live diagnostic and case studies in scientific and cultural legacy to demonstrate what physical storytelling can do that no chart or report ever has.
