Events

Is the UN climate process at a dead end? In April, 2026, ministers from 59 countries gathered alongside civil society stakeholders in Santa Marta, Colombia for the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels—sidestepping the stalled UN framework in an attempt to rewrite the rules. Three of our Red Natural History Fellows were on the ground. Join them for a virtual roundtable on what happened — and what comes next.

What fuels the data center economy? What minerals are mined to build it, and what energy systems power it? Who bears the environmental and social costs—and what can we learn from the long tradition of Indigenous resistance to extractive infrastructure, as well as recent campaigns challenging data centers in the U.S.?

This virtual event series offers tools, strategies, and perspectives to understand what is at stake in today’s struggles over life and land—and how we might enter these struggles from the other side.

Drawing lessons from The Natural History Museum’s ongoing project “We Refuse to Die,” NHM Research Director Steve Lyons explores how communities are pushing back against the dominant representation of so-called “sacrifice zones” as sites of powerlessness and victimization, metabolizing grief into collective strength and community power.