The living earth provides all that is necessary for life to thrive: fresh water, clean air, fertile ground and the vast diversity of species that constitute the great Web of Life. These systems are under acute attack from human civilization based on extractive fossil industries and the combustion of fossil fuel. This talk addresses the moral obligation to preserve the living Earth and to transform our civilization into one based on a regenerative approach to resource use. We strive to live in harmony with Nature.

Patricia M. DeMarco is a Pittsburgh author with a doctorate in Biology from the University of Pittsburgh. She spent a fifty-year career in energy and the environment. She now writes and lectures in the fields of sustainability, energy and environmental policy, and natural history. Returning to Pittsburgh in 2006, she became Executive Director of the Rachel Carson Homestead Association, then Director of the Rachel Carson Institute at Chatham University, where she now is Senior Scholar and Adjunct Faculty. She was elected Mayor of Forest Hills for a four-year term beginning in January 2026.