Author Robin Wall Kimmerer presents a virtual conversation on positive ecological interaction

NEA Big Read Northeast Ohio, Holden Forests & Gardens and the City Club of Cleveland have partnered to present a virtual conversation with author and educator Robin Wall Kimmerer on how we can repair not only ecological communities, but also the reciprocal relationship humankind has with land.

Join the virtual livestream of Good Medicine: A Conversation with Robin Wall Kimmerer on Thursday, Jan. 13, beginning at noon, at https://tinyurl.com/2j3ywz7s.

 In State University of New York classroom, Kimmerer begins the semester by surveying her students on their perceptions of human’s interactions with land. She routinely found that nearly all her students believed humans and nature are a bad mix. Furthermore, they could not think of any beneficial interactions between humans and the environment, or even imagine what a beneficial interaction might look like.

What has led to this rising skepticism over human’s positive relationship with land? One could easily point to rising concern over human destruction of natural ecosystems, unchecked pollution and last summer’s Code Red warning to humanity by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as all contributors to our collective pessimism.

Kimmerer is a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, an author, a botanist, a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. In her New York Times bestselling book, “Braiding Sweetgrass,” Kimmerer outlines how we can reclaim our knowledge of ecology to collectively move toward sustainability.

For questions regarding the livestream, text the City Club at 330-541-5794.