Ezra Klein

Ezra Klein is a columnist and podcast host at The New York Times and the author of Why We’re Polarized (02020).

Derek Thompson

Derek Thompson is a staff writer at The Atlantic, host of the podcast Plain English and a news analyst with NPR. He is author of Hit Makers: How to Succeed in an Age of Distraction (02018).

Michael Pollan

For more than thirty years, Michael Pollan has been writing books and articles about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in our minds. Pollan is the author of eight books, six of which have been New York Times bestsellers.

Presented in partnership with Manny's and City Arts & Lectures

Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's forthcoming book Abundance is a once-in-a-generation, paradigm-shifting call to rethink big, entrenched problems that seem mired in systemic scarcity: from climate change to housing, education to healthcare. This evening's program will delve deeper into the abundance agenda within the context of the next and last 10,000 years — a timespan we call the long now. The moderator will be Michael Pollan, who writes about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in our minds. Pollan gave a Long Now Talk on Deep Agriculture in 02009.

The history of the twenty-first century in America is one of growing unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, the entire country has a national housing crisis. After years of slashing immigration, we don’t have enough workers. After decades of off-shoring manufacturing, we have a shortage of chips for cars and computers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven’t built anything close to the clean energy infrastructure we need.

Progress requires the ability to see promise rather than just peril in the creation of new ideas and projects, and an instinct to design systems and institutions that make building possible. Klein and Thompson trace the political, economic, and cultural barriers to progress and how we can adopt a mindset directed toward abundance, and not scarcity, to overcome them.

We've moved our talks to a virtual format, and to share them with a wider audience, the live streams are now public on the Long Now Live Stream page and YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

We continue to release media from all of our talks and you can follow the series by subscribing to the podcasts, watching the videos and highlights and connecting with Long Now on our social channels.

Long Now is able to continue our work thanks to the ongoing support of members and donors. Please consider joining our global community of long-term thinkers. Membership starts at just $8/month and takes two minutes to set up. Special one-time donations are also appreciated, and all of your support will help us foster more long-term thinking. Thank you so much.