The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a quarter of all seaborne oil trade moved in 2025, has laid bare our society’s utter dependence on crude oil and natural gas. In a matter of days, fuel prices spiked, financial markets shuddered, Asian nations turned to rationing, feedstocks for agriculture became scarce, and the effects are rippling across the global economy.
But our disastrous dependence on fossil fuels is not a new story; climate scientists, geologists, systems thinkers, and activists alike have sounded the alarm for decades about our addiction to these ecologically ruinous and depleting resources. What might be different this time?
Gaya Herrington (internationally known sustainability researcher and wellbeing economist) hosts this important conversation with Nate Hagens (energy and systems expert, host of The Great Simplification podcast) and Kumi Naidoo (renowned environmental and human rights leader, president of the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative). Join us as they put the current moment into perspective, explore both near- and longer-term implications of this energy crisis, and discuss efforts, ranging from local to global in scale, to rapidly shift away from fossil fuels.
About the panelists
Nate Hagens is the Executive Director of The Institute for the Study of Energy & Our Future (ISEOF). Allied with leading ecologists, energy experts, politicians, and systems thinkers, ISEOF assembles roadmaps for understanding how human societies might adapt to lower-throughput lifestyles.
Currently, Nate hosts the podcast The Great Simplification, where he has conversations with experts in energy, ecology, government, technology, and the economy to provide a systemic view of the world around us.
After ten years in finance, Nate left Wall Street to study the interrelationships between energy, ecology, and economics—and the implications for human futures. He was the Managing Editor of The Oil Drum, one of the most respected websites for analysis and discussion of global energy supplies and implications of the upcoming energy transition.
Kumi Naidoo is a South African human rights and environmental justice activist, who is currently the President of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. He is the former Secretary-General of Amnesty International (2018-2020) and also the first person from the Global South to lead Greenpeace International (2009-2015). He is an advisor for the Community Arts Network. He serves as a global ambassador for Africans Rising for Justice, Peace and Dignity.
His family has started the Riky Rick Foundation for the Promotion of Artivism to build on the positive legacies left by popular South African rapper Rikhado “Riky Rick” Makhado through his music and life’s work. Through this Foundation, he co-founded the Global Energising Artivism Initiative. Kumi is also the author of award-winning book Letters To My Mother: The Makings of a Troublemaker and the host of the podcast Power, People and Planet.
About the moderator
Gaya Herrington is an internationally known sustainability researcher, wellbeing economist and bioregionalism advocate. She’s been shaping conversations at local and global levels with her message that true sustainability will not be achieved without transforming our economic system away from an obsession with perpetual growth to one that centers around human and ecological wellbeing.
Showcasing her multidimensional approach to effecting change, Gaya has held pivotal roles in the corporate, government policy, and nonprofit world.
Gaya works on a fractional basis on several boards and is the Bioregional Finance co-Director of Cascadia, the bioregion where she lives (the Seattle area). She has been a guest lecturer at many universities and is an Adjunct Professor at Harvard University. Gaya has advised multinationals in Europe and the US for a dozen years, been interviewed in many media, delivered keynote speeches around the world, and also has a TED talk.
Event registration
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