Ministry for the Future
Episode 2: Extinction

With

Dennis Hansen
Natural History Museum of the University of Zurich

Marionna Schlatter
Green Party Switzerland

Details

Duration: 2hrs
Meeting point: Central, in front of the Polybahn station next to the fountain.

If you arrive late, please call: +41 76 823 84 52

This episode is sold out.

How will our near climate future look like? Science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel The Ministry for the Future has been celebrated as a science-based yet hopeful appeal to politicians and the public. Set in a near future that, in many ways, feels alarmingly close, the novel follows the efforts of a fictional UN institution based in Zurich and its determined leader as they tackle the devastating impacts of climate change.

Zurich’s Theater Neumarkt and the Collegium Helveticum take the fictional founding year of the Ministry as an opportunity to discuss important climate change issues within scenarios expected in 2034. The theater stages a four-part live series that envisions Zurich in the near future. Experts immerse themselves in these future scenarios to engage with the audience and discuss our shared future.

Episode 2: Extinction

In this episode, we join underground networks, both social and biological. The Ministry achieved important successes, but political tensions between the carbon lobby and eco-activists still escalate around the central question: Which ends justify which means? Minister Yram ends up in the middle of it all. But the true protagonist is the 2nd largest carbon recycler and great ally against the climate crisis: Mycorrhizal fungal networks.

What does it mean to lose a species? The minister calls for a basic orientation. Of all the worrisome developments related to climate change, biodiversity loss is by far the most irreversible. Therefore, protection should be non-negotiable. But not every species has the same lobby. Charismatic megafauna and over-ground life have caught the public attention in the last century and conservation efforts were mobilized. But what about the hidden agents? How do we protect what we don't see, and still hardly know?

Some call them the coral reefs of the soil, others speak of underground rainforests: Soil and the mycorrhizal fungal networks within contain unimaginable biodiversity, in fascinating systemic collaboration with entire ecosystems. Plants feed the fungal networks carbon in exchange for other nutrients—making the mycorrhizal networks central carbon recyclers. But fractures in the fungi are appearing. Farming practices, habitat destruction, extreme temperature: All threaten mass underground extinctions.

Do fungi have a lobby, and if not: do they need one? What about Algae? Bacteria? What can politics do for fungi? Must we rethink farming and develop a new agroecology? Should forests be engineered—or even put on life support? What if fungi are granted the same conservation status as animals?

A hearing on behalf of invisible and unknown diversity.

Other episodes of this series

A collaboration with

Theater Neumarkt

Further details

Concept Yael Borofsky, Georgia Drew, Charlotte Müller, Eneas N. Prawdzic, Julia Reichert, Sascha Ö. Soydan, Linus Truninger, and Mario Wimmer 
Production Design Birke Beyer, Bettina Bessenyei, Juhee Han, Emily Hugger, Luca Ihns, Josephine Leicht, Ewa Wasilewska, Verena Zenker, and students of the HfG Karlsruhe (lead by Prof. Constanze Fischbeck) 
Dramaturgy Julia Reichert and Eneas N. Prawdzic (Proberaum Zukunft) 
Production Assistance Linus Truninger