China Miéville, award-winning science fiction author and associate professor of creative writing at Warwick University in England, speaks on “the limits of utopia,” exploring links between environmentalism and social justice in a rapidly changing world, at the eighth annual Nelson Institute Earth Day Conference on April 22, 2014 in Madison, Wisconsin.

The conference, titled Earth: To Be Determined, explored ideas and issues related to the Anthropocene — the age of humans — a term many scientists are using to describe the profound impact people are having on the global environment by adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, converting land to human uses and consuming natural resources.