Every week is climate week, but especially this week.
Kishore Hari
20 April 2026
Greetings science fans!
This Wednesday is 56th anniversary of Earth Day. The theme this year is “Our Power, Our Planet,” a call to unite around clean air, clean water, and renewable energy, and a reminder that when communities act together, they can become an unstoppable force. It is a fitting theme for a week that also happens to be SF Climate Week, when more than 650 events and 1,000 speakers are descending on the Bay Area to do exactly that.
Earth Day has deep Bay Area roots. The first Earth Day was held on April 22, 1970, when San Francisco activist John McConnell and Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson separately asked Americans to join in a grassroots demonstration – a convergence of local urgency and national organizing that resulted in one of the largest coordinated civic actions in American history. The moment that crystallized Nelson’s resolve was watching the aftermath of a catastrophic 1969 oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara. And the intellectual foundation had been laid just years earlier by Rachel Carson, whose Silent Spring made the case that a poisoned environment was an emergency. The book sold more than 500,000 copies in 24 countries and raised public awareness of how industrialization was not only harming wildlife and habitat but also clearly endangering human life.
Fifty-six years on, the scale of the challenge has grown, but so has the scale of the response. And there is no shortage of interesting ways to engage. My friend Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is hosting a series of climate action dance parties across the country. For SF Climate Week, there are dozens of panels on virtual power plants, sea-level rise, the future of energy affordability, and much more. If you want to do something with your hands this week, Thursday evening, the Exploratorium throws open its doors for After Dark: Climate Journeys, a look at creative approaches to navigating climate change and a preview of new local ecosystem exhibits. And on Friday, the Climate Action Youth Summit brings student-led climate projects to Yerba Buena Gardens.
All of which is to say: this is not a week for spectating. The whole spirit of Earth Day, from McConnell’s first proclamation to this year’s theme, is that you are the power. Get out there.
– Kishore
My picks for the week
- The Long Now: The Geometry of Consciousness (Monday, April 20, Fort Mason, San Francisco) UC Santa Barbara mathematician Nina Miolane joins science historian Claire Isabel Webb to explore a radical idea: that consciousness might be understood through the geometry of neural patterns with implications for both human minds and AI.
- Wonderfest: The Edge of Space-Time (Tuesday, April 21, Bookshop West Portal, San Francisco) Physicist and author Chanda Prescod-Weinstein brings her new book The Edge of Space-Time: Particles, Poetry, and the Cosmic Dream Boogie to a neighborhood bookshop for a free Wonderfest evening at the boundary of science, identity, and wonder.
- Consumers and the Future of Energy Affordability (Wednesday, April 22 — Earth Day! — Manny’s, San Francisco) On Earth Day itself, a sharp panel featuring Former FERC Chairman Neil Chatterjee, Palmetto CEO Chris Kemper, and energy journalist Mary Catherine O’Connor digs into the real-world politics and economics of who pays for the energy transition.
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