With recent health, environmental, and economic crises, the capacity of humankind to innovate its way to a better future is, at times, in doubt. How are science and technology confronting our most foundational global challenges? How can we increase public trust in science? And what are the ethical and political challenges to charting a path of human progress in the 21st century? In this podcast, host Brendan Karch interviews thinkers, writers, scientists, policymakers, and researchers who are tackling these seismic questions. Tectonic is a production of Swissnex in Boston and New York, whose aim is to bring the leading ideas from our hub of academic inquiry to Switzerland and the world, in order to inspire new thinking across disciplinary and national boundaries.
Host Alex Thompson interviews Sonia Seneviratne, Professor of Land-Climate Dynamics at ETH Zurich, about Earth Systems Science and its interconnectedness.
13 Jul 2026
From Human Rights to Rights of Nature
Host Tyler Giannini, a human rights lawyer and director at Harvard Law School, explores whether human rights are sufficient to protect the environment or if an eco-centric approach is needed.
24 Jun 2026
Humanities for the More-than-Human
In the previous episode, we explored how questioning anthropocentrism could help us better understand not just other species, but humanity itself. But what if we broadened our perspective beyond the biological? What would it mean to recognize the agency, rights, and personhood of rivers, mountains, and entire ecosystems? To explore these ideas, we turn to the field of environmental humanities. We sat down with Federico Luisetti, professor at University of St. Gallen and co-organizer of the Sw...
3 Jun 2026
Beyond Human Exceptionalism with Christine Webb
As humans, we tend to see ourselves at the top of a natural hierarchy — the most intelligent and successful species on Earth. What if that conviction isn't just wrong, but also dangerous? In this episode of our season on planetary diplomacy, we sat down with Christine Webb, a primatologist and Associate Professor at New York University, to help us rethink humanity’s place in the web of life. Christine is the author of The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why it Matters, a sc...
19 May 2026
Defining the Planetary with Jonathan Blake
What do we mean when we talk about the planetary? Why not just use familiar terms like global or international? For the first episode of our new season on planetary diplomacy, we sat down with Jonathan Blake, Associate Director of Programs at the Berggruen Institute, to define our terms. Jonathan is the co-author, with Nils Gilman, of Children of a Modest Star: Planetary Thinking for an Age of Crises, a provocative re-imagining of our institutions in the face of supranational chal...
12 May 2026
Trailer: What is Planetary Diplomacy?
What would it mean to create a new form of diplomacy, one that represents the interests of the more-than-human world? Welcome to Season 3 of Tectonic, where we’ll be exploring an idea we call planetary diplomacy. This season is part of the Planetary Embassy, a global initiative across the Swissnex network. Discover more at https://swissnex.org/planetary-embassy/ Tectonic is a production of Swissnex in Boston and New York. Find us online at https://swissnex.org/boston/
27 Jul 2022TRANSCRIPT
The Most Innovative Square Mile on Earth
Massachusetts and Switzerland both often rank near the top of state and country innovation rankings. Key to this success are innovation zones, and none is more influential than Kendall Square – a small strip of former swampland in Cambridge, just across the river from Boston. These days it’s home to MIT and some of the most important biotech research on the planet, as well as pharmaceutical giants like Novartis and Moderna. Little wonder it’s been called ‘the most innovative square mile on ea...
5 Jul 2022TRANSCRIPT
The Foundations of Sustainable Construction
Switzerland famously lacks natural resources, especially wood. To build its modern economy, the mountainous country came to rely heavily on concrete – and today has become a world leader in the concrete industry. But the building material has come under heavy scrutiny for its carbon footprint. Concrete production emits at least five percent of all human greenhouse gas emissions. As we face the urgent need for more sustainable built environments, does concrete have a future? In this episode, w...
1 Feb 2022TRANSCRIPT
Democratizing Innovation in Cities
The problems of the globe are also the problems of our major cities, especially post-industrial ones: environmental damage, economic inequality, public health crises. Can we solve these problems one city at a time, through renewal and innovation? We talk with Katie Stebbins, who has spent her career working to revive some of Massachusetts' most economically challenged towns. Her mission? To democratize innovation. Katie explores how a community garden, or a small business growing coral in a g...
18 Jan 2022
Is the Future of Meat in the Lab?
As our global population continues to expand, and developing societies grow wealthier, our food supply is being stretched thin. In particular, global demand for meat continues to rise – and with it the stress on our land and freshwater ecosystems. One new technology being touted as a future solution is animal protein grown in a bioreactor. Is laboratory meat our future? Historian and writer Ben Wurgaft spent over a half-decade researching and writing about the lab-grown meat industry, still ...
4 Jan 2022
Renewing our Governance Systems
What’s ailing American politics, and can the underlying ideals of US democracy be renewed? How should the US change its role in the world, and are there alternatives to solving global challenges that exploit resources beyond our current UN system of nation-states? To answer such big-picture and wide-ranging questions, we spoke with a prodigious thinker. Anne-Marie Slaughter has worn many hats: lawyer, Ivy League academic, foreign policy leader, and now CEO of the think tank New America....
21 Dec 2021
Making Science Work for Policy and the Public
We live an era where we need science more than ever to solve our global challenges, from global warming to pandemics. And yet science often feels under attack from multiple directions. How can scientists, the public, and policymakers create lasting relationships of trust and collaboration? This question has occupied our guest, Noelle Selin, Professor in Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at MIT, and director of MIT’s Technology and Policy Program. “If you’re sort of starting at the ‘I...
3 Dec 2021
Rebuilding Trust in Institutions
"I think Facebook may be one of these broken institutions, where we actually need to replace it with something different," says Ethan Zuckerman, an early internet pioneer and scholar examining the intersection of social media and democracy. You might also know Ethan as the inventor of the pop-up ad (and yes, he has officially apologized for it.) He went on to reflect on the myth of social media being one big community, adding that "there is no such thing as a community of three billion peop...
Inside a recent episode
Earth Systems Science
Published 29 Jul 2026 · Transcript excerpt
[…] On average, you have 60% of all precipitation that is flowing back to the atmosphere in the form of evapotranspiration. So it's a huge amount. I think sometimes it's underestimated because we don't see it. We do see the precipitation. So everybody, of course, realized, oh, we have a huge downpour of water from the atmosphere. Nobody sees this. as a flux of water, which is from the surface to the atmosphere, even though it's very large. I think that's the main point, that's the main interaction there, and they add then connection at the same time to the water cycle, obviously, because this is this flux of water, but you have also a connection to the energy balance, because energy required to evaporate water is very large. […]
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