The world is projected to generate 90 zettabytes of data this year and the next. That’s more than all the data produced since the arrival of computers, and if we still used DVDs, we’d need 19 trillion to store it all. Swimming in this massive sea of information, humans are easily overwhelmed; studies suggest we avoid important information because it might make us miserable, while seeking out information of dubious value to make ourselves happy. What information do we need to know? What role should policymakers play in helping us find data that improves our well-being and filter out information—from calorie counts to credit card fees—that wastes our time or even endangers us?

Harvard University legal scholar Cass Sunstein, author of Too Much Information: Understanding What You Don’t Want To Know, visits Zócalo and the Commonwealth Club to explain how we can make information work for us. Moderated by WIRED senior writer Lauren Goode, “How Much Information Is Too Much?” goes live at 3:30 P.M. PDT.

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From Australia to the Amazon to the American West, megafires—wildfires that burn more than 100,000 acres of land—have grown so frequent, large, and deadly that they’ve forced a reevaluation of how human societies coexist with fire. In a warming world, governments are confronting whether we must retreat from certain places to survive in a fierier world. Have fires become too big for people and the planet? How are fire management techniques—both old (such as “cool” or prescribed burns used by some Indigenous people) and new (digital technology that maps fire hot spots)—being employed against megafires? And how can citizens and their communities learn to live, build, and plan for a future of firestorms?

Historical ecologist Jared Dahl Aldern, CSU Long Beach American Indian Studies professor Theresa Gregor, and Fernanda Santos, The Fire Line author and Professor of Practice at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, examine how and whether human beings can coexist with megafires at tonight’s online streaming Zócalo/Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West Event event, “How Can Humans Coexist With Monster Wildfires?,” moderated by NPR national desk correspondent Nathan Rott.

Want more Zócalo? Get to know our panelists in advance of tonight’s event by stopping by our virtual green room.

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