Long Now Talks

Jared Farmer

Chronodiversity: Thinking about Time with Trees

What really interests me is how long-lived plants allow humans to think about—and emotionally relate to—long units of time. They provide a bridge between human time and geological time.  - Jared Farmer

Join us for an evening with geohumanist and historian Jared Farmer, who will share his multi-faceted approach to understanding our human relationship with trees over millennia. From ancient stories, as objects of reverence, named individuals and clonal organisms, sources of wealth in ancient and modern times, the lungs of the planet and the wood wide web - trees are deeply interwoven with our histories, cultures and growing scientific understanding of our complex global ecosystem. Farmer reflects on our long-term relationships with long-lived trees, and considers the future of oldness on a rapidly changing planet.

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Long Now Talks are made possible by David and Abby Rumsey, Kim Polese, The Kaphan Foundation, Garrett Gruener, Scorpio Rising Fund, Peter Baumann, Brian Eno, Greg Stikeleather, Cameo Wood, Ping Fu, Peter Schwartz, Lawrence Wilkinson, Ken and Maddy Dychtwald, Future Ventures, Ken and Jackie Broad, AtoB, WHH Foundation, Stewart Brand and Ryan Phelan, Jackson Square Partners Foundation, and The Long Now Members. We would also like to recognize George Cowan (01920 - 02012) for being the first to sponsor this series.

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Long Now Talks are made possible through the generous support of The Long Now Membership and our Seminar Sponsors. We offer $5,000 and $15,000 annual Sponsorships, both of which entitle the sponsor and a guest to reserved seating at all Long Now seminars and special events. In addition, we invite $15,000 Sponsors to attend dinner with the speaker after each Seminar, and $5,000 Sponsors may choose to attend any four dinners during the sponsored year. For more information about donations and Seminar Sponsorship, please contact donate@longnow.org. We are a public 501(c)(3) non-profit, and donations to us are always tax deductible.

What is the long now?

The Long Now Foundation is a nonprofit established in 01996 to foster long-term thinking. Our work encourages imagination at the timescale of civilization — the next and last 10,000 years — a timespan we call the long now.

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