What is "the Wild"? Where did it come from, and what is its future? In a world where humans and human activities increasingly encroach upon wild spaces, how can "the Wild" be preserved?

Join us Tuesday, May 14 at 6:30 p.m. for a conversation between author, educator, and environmentalist Bill McKibben and the Adirondack Council’s “Wilderness Campaign Director” Aaron Mair as they discuss the origin of the concept of ‘the Wild’ and what it means for a greater understanding of the state of our environment today.

This program is part of the COAL + ICE exhibition and series of programs at Asia Society, Feb. 13-Aug. 11, 2024, designed to provoke thought and action on climate change. Galleries will be open until 6:30 p.m. on May 14 and museum admission will be included for holders of event tickets from 5:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.

Bill McKibben is a contributing writer to The New Yorker, and a founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 to work on climate and racial justice. He founded the first global grassroots climate campaign, 350.org, and serves as the Schumann Distinguished Professor in Residence at Middlebury College in Vermont. In 2014 he was awarded the Right Livelihood Prize, sometimes called the ‘alternative Nobel,’ in the Swedish Parliament. He's also won the Gandhi Peace Award, and honorary degrees from 19 colleges and universities. He has written over a dozen books about the environment, including his first, The End of Nature (1989), and his latest book is The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at His Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened (2022).

Dr. (Hon) Aaron Mair is a retired New York State public health epidemiological-spatial analyst, environmentalist, and 57th national president of the Sierra Club with an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters for his international climate work from the State University of New York at Binghamton. Dr. Mair is the Adirondack Council’s “Wilderness Campaign Director” responsible for connecting all New Yorkers to the nation’s largest environmental treasure. As a national environmental justice movement pioneer, founder, and activist of the Arbor Hill, NY community in Albany, he was responsible for the creation of the W. Haywood Burns Environmental Education Center and the Arbor Hill Environmental Justice Corporation. He currently lives in Schenectady, New York and works for the Adirondack Council.

Presented in collaboration with Third Act. 

Third Act is a movement of Americans over sixty determined to leave a safer planet for future generations. Together, we harness our experience and structural power as elders to safeguard our climate and democracy.

What we do
Leveraging the lifelong skills of volunteers, we carry out campaigns to uphold voting rights; strengthen clean energy policies; and end financial investments in the fossil fuel industry. What we do now determines the world we leave for generations to come.Whether writing postcards to voters or taking action in the street, we put joy and community at the center of our work––and we back up the youths!

Why Americans over 60?
We’ve discovered a largely untapped source of power that can stand up to both Washington and Wall Street. Our generation is often stereotyped and left out of progressive conversations, but there is power in numbers.
There are more than 70 million Americans over 60, and that number grows by 10,000 each day. We also hold 2/3 of the nation’s wealth. And we vote. Always. We demand change not just for older people––for people of all ages and the earth we inhabit.