In 2009 Alex spoke at Town Hall Seattle over the course of two nights about how cities are the fulcrum point for leveraging a bright green future and how Seattle specifically could lead the way by targeting city-wide carbon neutrality by 2030.

In the first video below, Alex shares a compelling story about Albania and Czechoslovakia and how each country approached change. The moral of the story: "Don't be Albania" (the story begins at 47:25 through 54:07):

"Albania had to confront the failure of the idea of communism, and they didn't do it. We have to confront a different idea, which is the failure of the idea of limitless nature. We have built a way of life that is all about cranking nature through machines, delivering them to stores, taking them home, and throwing them away. Pieces of nature all over the place. If we want to be more like the Czechs and less like the Albanians, then we need to realize that that way of life is over. It is as outdated and passe as saluting comrade Lenin."

Night One: Building a Planet with a Future
Introduction by Seattle City Council President Richard Conlin

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Night Two: Seattle's Bright Green Moment
Introduction by Seattle Mayor-Elect Mike McGinn



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Alex Steffen Seattle Talks by Worldchanging is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Thank you to the Bullitt Foundation for their support in producing these videos!

If you'd like to book Alex for a talk where you are, please contact his agent, David Lavin.