UC-CSU KAN CONFERENCE

A NEARLY CARBON-NEUTRAL CONFERENCE

Panel 2: NORTHRIDGE AREA TEAM

Pedagogies of Empowerment: Teaching Climate Change without Hopeless Despair         

Amanda Baugh

When we teach students about climate change and other environmental problems, how can we convey the enormity and urgency of the situation without leaving students in a state of hopeless despair? In this presentation I discuss some strategies I have employed to achieve that goal.

We need to change our diets to save our climate, our health, and our communities

David Cleveland

Our food system, including on our college and university campuses, is dominated by private corporate profit with huge externalized costs – it contributes 25% or more of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change, and fuelsan epidemic of noncommunicable diseases like diabetes, heart disease and cancers,with low income communities and POC bearing a disproportionate level of the costs. Diet change is required to successfully tackle the climate-health-justice problem, but is challenged by the political power of the food industry, the institutions it has co-opted, and behavioral inertia. Policies to promote diet change include top down regulation and price adjustments, and activation of values like autonomy and fairness.

Call to Action: Building a Movement for Climate Justice and Sustainable Economies

Rosa RiVera Furumoto

1.    Preservation and revitalization of the language, culture, values, and traditions of Chicana/o/Latina/o and Native American community members;

2.    Involvement and engagement of multiple generations in the teaching and learning processes including children, parents, grandparents, and other kin and community members;

3.    Critical pedagogical practices to promote critical thinking, reflection and action regarding climate change, sustainability, and other social justice issues and;

4.    Promoting connection, love, and respect for nature and the environment via outdoors exploration and the establishment of urban gardens and forests.

Digital Environmental Humanities in Chicana/o Communities

Stevie Ruiz

In this talk, I talk about my experience with teaching and research pertaining to the involvement of Chicana/o communities in the great outdoors.  I provide some techniques and student driven teaching to engage students using the digital humanities in environmental justice research.  I argue that there are significant implications for democratizing the dialogue about climate resilience that takes into consideration Chicana/o engagement with the great outdoors and the types of knowledge that immigrant communities provide that will save our planet from ecological catastrophe.

Epistemological Differences

Valerie Wong and Allison Mattheis

This talk brings together a scholar from the humanities, a social scientist, and a natural scientist to explore our understandings of research approaches and ontological assumptions about data and objectivity. We first present the beliefs that underlie particular modes of inquiry and communication in our distinct fields, and then engage in a collective presentation of how these points of view can expand, rather than create conflict, in discussions of climate change. By uncovering points of difference we also explore areas of convergence in order to advocate for sustainable future practices in our communities. 

Q & A


Have questions or comments? Feel free to take part in the Q&A!
Before posting, you must first register. Note that questions and comments can be intended for individual speakers, the entire panel, or anyone who has posted to the Q&A. Respond directly to a particular question/comment by way of the little “reply” below it. The vertical threadlike lines are there to make it easier to see which part of the discussion (i.e. “thread”) you are taking up. You can choose to be notified via email (see below) whenever a question, answer, or comment is posted to this particular Q&A. Because the email notification will contain the new comment in its entirety, you can both follow the discussion as it is unfolding, as well as decide whether you would like to step in at any point. You can choose to receive email notifications for as many of the conference Q&A sessions as you like, as well as stop notifications at any time. Because the Q&A sessions will close at the end of the conference, all email notifications will also end at this time. Although only registered conference participants can pose questions and make comments, Q&A sessions are visible to the public and will remain so after the conference has ended, as we hope that they will become cited resources.

UC-CSU KAN CONFERENCE

A NEARLY CARBON-NEUTRAL CONFERENCE

Panel 1: OPENING REMARKS

John Foran (UC) UC Santa Barbara

John Foran is Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies at UCSB, teaching courses on climate change and climate justice, activism and movements for radical social change, and issues of alternatives to development and globalization beyond capitalism. His books include Fragile Resistance: Social Transformation in Iran from 1500 to the Revolution (1993) and Taking Power: On the Origins of Revolutions in the Third World (2005). He has served as UCSB’s Sustainability Champion, works on the UC Carbon Neutrality 2025 effort, and is co-facilitator of this year’s Critical Issues in America series – Climate Futures: This Changes Everything. His research and activism are now centered within the global climate justice movement, and can be found at the Climate Justice Project [www.climatejusticeproject.com] and the International Institute of Climate Action and Theory [www.iicat.org]. He is a member of 350.org, the Green Party of California, and System Change Not Climate Change.

Ken Hiltner (UC) UC Santa Barbara

Ken Hiltner is a Professor of the environmental humanities at UCSB. The Director of the Environmental Humanities Initiative (EHI), Hiltner has appointments in the English and Environmental Studies Departments. He has published five books, including Milton and Ecology, What Else is Pastoral?, Renaissance Ecology, and Ecocriticism: The Essential Reader, as well as a range of environmentally oriented articles. Hiltner has served as Director of UCSB’s Literature & Environment Center, its Early Modern Center, the English Department’s graduate program, and as the Currie C. and Thomas A. Barron Visiting Professor in the Environment and Humanities at Princeton University’s Environmental Institute. Prior to becoming a professor, for many years he made his living as a furniture maker. A second-generation woodworker, he received commissions from five continents and had collections featured in major metropolitan galleries.

 

Q & A


Have questions or comments? Feel free to take part in the Q&A!
Before posting, you must first register. Note that questions and comments can be intended for individual speakers, the entire panel, or anyone who has posted to the Q&A. Respond directly to a particular question/comment by way of the little “reply” below it. The vertical threadlike lines are there to make it easier to see which part of the discussion (i.e. “thread”) you are taking up. You can choose to be notified via email (see below) whenever a question, answer, or comment is posted to this particular Q&A. Because the email notification will contain the new comment in its entirety, you can both follow the discussion as it is unfolding, as well as decide whether you would like to step in at any point. You can choose to receive email notifications for as many of the conference Q&A sessions as you like, as well as stop notifications at any time. Because the Q&A sessions will close at the end of the conference, all email notifications will also end at this time. Although only registered conference participants can pose questions and make comments, Q&A sessions are visible to the public and will remain so after the conference has ended, as we hope that they will become cited resources.

UC-CSU KAN CONFERENCE

A NEARLY CARBON-NEUTRAL CONFERENCE

Panel 1: FULLERTON AREA TEAM

Engaging American Indian students in Earth System Science through a Residential Summer Camp

Julie Ferguson (UC) UC Irvine

Native Americans are one of the most under-represented groups in geoscience despite a critical need for qualified environmental professionals within tribal communities who can help in managing resources and planning for the changes expected as a result of climate change. This talk will describe a 5-year NSF-funded project which brought American Indian high school students to UC Irvine for a 2-week Earth System Science summer camp (AISIESS). Students spend the first week camping at the La Jolla Band of Luiseño Indians reservation where they participate in hands-on scientific activities with academic staff and the tribal environmental professionals. The second week is spent at UC Irvine where students complete Native Studies classes and work on individual projects related to environmental issues specific to their tribal community. I will describe the aspects of the camp that we felt had the most impact on students, and our ideas for continuing to increase the participation of American Indian students in geoscience and other STEM fields.

Latina Environmentalist Activism in Los Angeles: the Ovarian Psycos Bicycle Brigade

Gabriela Nuñez (CSU) CSUF

I build on the work of scholars of the humanities who argue that “the humanities provide an imaginative space and set of critical tools for grappling with issues of power, representation, and materiality. Historical knowledge and interpretive skills help us untangle the oftentimes invisible connections between ordinary structures of feeling, habit, and the political facts of the modern carbon economy that fuels climate change” [Teaching Climate Change in the Environmental Humanities, edited by Stephen Siperstein, Shane Hall, & Stephanie LeMenager (New York:  Routledge, 2017), 4]. What role can Chicanx cultural production have in the teaching of climate change and sustainability? My presentation speaks to this question to consider how we can use Chicanx cultural texts in the classroom to teach the vital connections between social justice, feminism, climate change and sustainable ways of living. By focusing on the Ovarian Psycos Bicycle Brigade I discuss how this group co-opts the language of fear and history of colonialism to assert themselves as cyclists and activists.

Can the Resilience Commitment be an Effective Step in Transforming our Curriculums, Campuses, and Communities for Climate Justice?

Lily House-Peters

This talk will draw on my firsthand experience implementing the Second Nature Resilience Commitment at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB). The Resilience Commitment is a comprehensive 3-year campus planning and community engagement process that aims to reduce vulnerability and enhance resilience to future climate impacts. The concept of resilience has been troubled in the academic scholarship, receiving critique from multiple disciplines for its lack of attention to power relations, politics, and social/environmental justice. However, the process of operationalizing the Resilience Commitment at CSULB has sought to thoughtfully engage these critiques and move forward with issues of diversity, power imbalances, and climate justice as core organizing themes. Thus, I will attempt to tackle the question of whether the Resilience Commitment can function as an effective step in transforming our curriculums, campuses, and communities to achieve climate justice goals. I will share our experience with the process, including opportunities and obstacles, and discuss how we are working to infuse resilience into a broad range of campus and community activities.

Teaching professional and leadership skills, sustainability awareness, and self-efficacy through collaborations between university and high school classes

Jessica Pratt

Communication and collaboration across disciplinary boundaries and between communities of learning and practice are essential to addressing the myriad conservation and sustainability issues facing our society. One step in achieving this is to foster mutually beneficial relationships between the university and the community to promote positive social and environmental change. A learning objective that educators often have for students is effective communication of course content to broad audiences. Assignments relating to this learning objective typically only require students to interact directly with other students in their classes; where students conduct and present research projects on relevant issues this often means they are “preaching to the choir.” Integrating student-public interactions into courses through community-engaged scholarship and presentation of course projects to audiences outside of the university setting provides students with a more empowering experience that teaches essential professional and leadership skills. In particular, collaborations between university and high school classes on such projects can increase sustainability awareness and self-efficacy for all students. Interaction in such settings allows students to increase the impact of their research, network with important community groups, form mentoring relationships, and contribute to a shared vision for sustainability locally.


Student Experts and Partners: Engaging Student Strengths in the Climate Justice Classroom

Jade Sasser

Students today have access to a broad range of digital platforms, many of which they engage with daily. Drawing on student knowledge and expertise in digital communications and social media platforms repositions them as partners in the classroom and offers strong opportunities for pedagogical innovation. In this talk, Ireview examples of how I have partnered with students to develop lesson plans, interactive assignments, data repositories, and opportunities for creative advocacy and other engagement on gender, justice, and climate change.

“Feeling Funny about Environmental Crisis: How and Why to Teach beyond Gloom and Doom”

Nicole Seymour (CSU) CSUF

I will explain how I teach texts that model a broad range of affective responses to climate change — that is, that move beyond “gloom and doom” to showcase irony, irreverence, and other “inappropriate” feelings. These texts do multifaceted work: first, they identify climate change as an affective (and not just scientific, or even political) issue, they open up discussions with students around their own feelings, and they demonstrate the political contributions of traditions such as parody and satire.

Undergraduate Research: Design as an Umbrella for Examining Sustainability and Addressing the Human-Animal Equation

Lucy HG Solomon, Samia Carrillo-Percastegui, Mathias Tobler, Kodie Gerritsen, Sarai Silva Carvajal

The Jaguar Umbrella Project is a collaborative and community-engaged research project pairing jaguar conservation with interactive media. Undergraduate research is the linchpin in this interdisciplinary art endeavor, which brings conservation biology to K-12 education and the public through art and design. The Jaguar Umbrella Project partners with conservation biologists, Samia Carrillo-Percastegui and Mathias Tobler, who study jaguars in the Amazon with the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research in Peru. The project relies on the design innovations of CSUSM undergraduate researchers, Kodie Gerritsen and Sarai Silva Carvajal. We discuss an integrated arts and science approach to teaching K-12 students about complex ecosystems and personal responsibility. Through this lens we ponder the role of human beings as planetary actors in the Anthropocene.

Doing History is Climate Action? Collaborating with Non-Profits on Storytelling and Public Education Projects

Kristina Shull

I will discuss how a “Climate Refugees” History methods and writing course I taught in the Winter of 2017 at UCI has become a springboard for producing a collaborative multi-media project that features the stories of migrants in US immigration detention and refugee camps abroad. Collaborators on the project include the non-profit Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC), undergraduate and graduate students, UC and CSU professors, and UCI’s Office of Sustainability.

Q & A


Have questions or comments? Feel free to take part in the Q&A!
Before posting, you must first register. Note that questions and comments can be intended for individual speakers, the entire panel, or anyone who has posted to the Q&A. Respond directly to a particular question/comment by way of the little “reply” below it. The vertical threadlike lines are there to make it easier to see which part of the discussion (i.e. “thread”) you are taking up. You can choose to be notified via email (see below) whenever a question, answer, or comment is posted to this particular Q&A. Because the email notification will contain the new comment in its entirety, you can both follow the discussion as it is unfolding, as well as decide whether you would like to step in at any point. You can choose to receive email notifications for as many of the conference Q&A sessions as you like, as well as stop notifications at any time. Because the Q&A sessions will close at the end of the conference, all email notifications will also end at this time. Although only registered conference participants can pose questions and make comments, Q&A sessions are visible to the public and will remain so after the conference has ended, as we hope that they will become cited resources.

THE WORLD IN 2050: CREATING/IMAGINING JUST CLIMATE FUTURES

A NEARLY CARBON-NEUTRAL CONFERENCE

Special Panel: Making Sense of the 2016 Presidential Election

Ken Hiltner

Recorded on November 9th, the day after the 2016 U.S. presidential election, event co-organizer Ken Hiltner invites all conference participants to take part in an open discussion of what the election of Donald J. Trump means not just for us today, but also for the world in 2050.

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Scroll down for talk transcript.

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0:00 So, during this Nov. 2016 conference,
0:06 which takes as its theme The World in
0:09 2050, something altogether extraordinary,
0:12 almost unthinkable happened. And that is
0:15 that the world in 2050 changed,
0:17 significantly – and not I fear for the
0:21 better. I know, I am making it sound like
0:25 something out of a sci-fi, or more to the
0:27 point, a cli-fi novel where some event,
0:32 so epically important, that it forever
0:35 changed the timeline so that
0:38 decades later millions, maybe
0:41 billions, of people will be effected.
0:43 But I have to say that I believe that the
0:47 election yesterday of Donald J Trump, the
0:51 2016, November 8th election election of
0:55 Trump, may well be one of the most
0:58 significant events in the early part of the
1:00 twenty-first century. I not really sure
1:03 what would compete with it, maybe
1:05 something like the very
1:07 important agreement coming out of the
1:09 COP21 in December of last year. I
1:13 think that these two events may well be
1:16 forever yoked together in history.
1:20 It’s not just because of what Trump
1:23 may do. For example, regarding the
1:27 COP21, he may renegotiate that agreement.
1:30 But it’s also what he might undo:
1:34 Fifty years of environmental activism &
1:36 legislation, starting in the 1960s and
1:40 ’70s with the Clean Air Act, Clean Water
1:42 Act, Solid Waste Disposal Act, the EPA,
1:46 leading up to and including things
1:51 like the Obama Clean Power Plan, which
1:53 Trump may very early in his
1:55 administration completely rescind.
1:58 It is unclear exactly what will happen,
2:02 but it seems clear that it will
2:07 effect generations out from
2:10 where we are now. So, the organizers of
2:14 this conference, John and I and everyone
2:16 else involved, wanted to take the
2:20 opportunity to give everyone who
2:23 is participating in the conference
2:25 the opportunity to weigh in on this.
2:27 You know, there are some wonderful
2:29 panels going on, some exciting Q&As, and
2:32 I really don’t want to take any
2:33 attention away from those. But,
2:36 given the timing of this event, I thought
2:39 that it would be important
2:44 for us to clear a space for discussion.
2:46 So, that space is below the video you’re
2:50 watching. Feel free to to comment. It
2:53 would be great to get a discussion
2:55 going in order to try to make sense of
2:59 what, for a lot of us, doesn’t make a
3:01 whole lot of sense – and has kind of
3:03 stunned us. So, I will not make you listen
3:07 to me any further, but do please
3:10 comment and let’s try to to think about
3:14 this together. Okay, thanks.

Note that to the right of the video is an unabridged transcript for this talk (scroll down to view).

Q & A

Have questions or comments? Feel free to take part in the Q&A!

Before posting, you must first register. Note that questions and comments can be intended for individual speakers, the entire panel, or anyone who has posted to the Q&A. Respond directly to a particular question/comment by way of the little “reply” below it. The vertical threadlike lines are there to make it easier to see which part of the discussion (i.e. “thread”) you are taking up. You can choose to be notified via email (see below) whenever a question, answer, or comment is posted to this particular Q&A. Because the email notification will contain the new comment in its entirety, you can both follow the discussion as it is unfolding, as well as decide whether you would like to step in at any point. You can choose to receive email notifications for as many of the conference Q&A sessions as you like, as well as stop notifications at any time. Because the Q&A sessions will close at the end of the conference, all email notifications will also end at this time. Although only registered conference participants can pose questions and make comments, Q&A sessions are visible to the public and will remain so after the conference has ended, as we hope that they will become cited resources.

Featured2

THE WORLD IN 2050: CREATING/IMAGINING JUST CLIMATE FUTURES

A NEARLY CARBON-NEUTRAL CONFERENCE

Featured Panel: What Will it Take to Win?

A Discussion of Bill McKibben, the Climate Mobilization Victory Plan, and the World War 2 Mobilization Idea

The recent almost simultaneously publication of two influential statements calling on the United States government and public to treat the climate crisis as a “war-time emergency” that will require of us a “climate mobilization” equivalent to the country’s World War 2 effort to defeat fascism in Germany and Japan has sparked intense interest in just what it would take to somehow “win” the war against climate change.

The two statements – the Climate Mobilization’s 100-plus page Victory Plan and Bill McKibben’s essay “A World at War” – have led to a healthy and vigorous debate about these ideas and their potential to play a role in the US response to the greatest global challenge of the 21st century.

John Foran will introduce this “Open Panel” will take off from presentations by Bill McKibben and Ezra Silk followed by critical appraisals from Paul Gilding and Chris Williams, and then switch to an on-line discussion open to all conference participants.

Expect fireworks – may there be insight and inspiration as well as light and heat!

A selection of published contributions to the discussion so far.

John Foran

John Foran teaches sociology and environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a member of 350.org, the Green Party and System Change Not Climate Change. He is co-founder of the International Institute of Climate Action and Theory, and of the Climate Justice Project, where much of his writing on the climate justice movement can be found.North Korea.

Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben is an author, environmentalist, and activist.  In 1988 he wrote The End of Nature, the first book for a common audience about global warming.  He is a co-founder and Senior Advisor at 350.org, the first planet-wide, grassroots climate change movement, which has organized twenty thousand rallies around the world in every country save

Ezra Silk

Ezra Silk is Director of Policy & Strategy and Co-Founder of The Climate Mobilization. He is the author of The Victory Plan.

Paul Gilding

Paul Gilding serves on the Board of The Climate Mobilization and wrote the Foreword to the Victory Plan. He is a Fellow at University of Cambridge’s Institute for Sustainability Leadership, and former Executive Director of Greenpeace International. He is the author of The Great Disruption: How the Climate Crisis Will Transform the Global Economy.

Chris Williams

Chris Williams is an educator, author and activist whose work has been published in numerous media outlets and his work translated into several languages. He is the author of Ecology and Socialism: Solutions to Capitalist Ecological Crisis (Haymarket Books, 2010) and the forthcoming Creating an Ecological Society: Toward a Revolutionary Transformation (Monthly Review Press).

Q & A

Have questions or comments? Feel free to take part in the Q&A!

Before posting, you must first register. Note that questions and comments can be intended for individual speakers, the entire panel, or anyone who has posted to the Q&A. Respond directly to a particular question/comment by way of the little “reply” below it. The vertical threadlike lines are there to make it easier to see which part of the discussion (i.e. “thread”) you are taking up. You can choose to be notified via email (see below) whenever a question, answer, or comment is posted to this particular Q&A. Because the email notification will contain the new comment in its entirety, you can both follow the discussion as it is unfolding, as well as decide whether you would like to step in at any point. You can choose to receive email notifications for as many of the conference Q&A sessions as you like, as well as stop notifications at any time. Because the Q&A sessions will close at the end of the conference, all email notifications will also end at this time. Although only registered conference participants can pose questions and make comments, Q&A sessions are visible to the public and will remain so after the conference has ended, as we hope that they will become cited resources.

Featured Panel: What Will It Take to Win?

THE WORLD IN 2050: CREATING/IMAGINING JUST CLIMATE FUTURES

A NEARLY CARBON-NEUTRAL CONFERENCE

Featured Panel: What Will it Take to Win?

A Discussion of Bill McKibben, the Climate Mobilization Victory Plan, and the World War 2 Mobilization Idea

The recent almost simultaneously publication of two influential statements calling on the United States government and public to treat the climate crisis as a “war-time emergency” that will require of us a “climate mobilization” equivalent to the country’s World War 2 effort to defeat fascism in Germany and Japan has sparked intense interest in just what it would take to somehow “win” the war against climate change.

The two statements – the Climate Mobilization’s 100-plus page Victory Plan and Bill McKibben’s essay “A World at War” – have led to a healthy and vigorous debate about these ideas and their potential to play a role in the US response to the greatest global challenge of the 21st century.

John Foran will introduce this “Open Panel” will take off from presentations by Bill McKibben and Ezra Silk followed by critical appraisals from Paul Gilding and Chris Williams, and then switch to an on-line discussion open to all conference participants.

Expect fireworks – may there be insight and inspiration as well as light and heat!

A selection of published contributions to the discussion so far.

John Foran

John Foran teaches sociology and environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a member of 350.org, the Green Party and System Change Not Climate Change. He is co-founder of the International Institute of Climate Action and Theory, and of the Climate Justice Project, where much of his writing on the climate justice movement can be found.North Korea.

Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben is an author, environmentalist, and activist.  In 1988 he wrote The End of Nature, the first book for a common audience about global warming.  He is a co-founder and Senior Advisor at 350.org, the first planet-wide, grassroots climate change movement, which has organized twenty thousand rallies around the world in every country save

Ezra Silk

Ezra Silk is Director of Policy & Strategy and Co-Founder of The Climate Mobilization. He is the author of The Victory Plan.

Paul Gilding

Paul Gilding serves on the Board of The Climate Mobilization and wrote the Foreword to the Victory Plan. He is a Fellow at University of Cambridge’s Institute for Sustainability Leadership, and former Executive Director of Greenpeace International. He is the author of The Great Disruption: How the Climate Crisis Will Transform the Global Economy.

Chris Williams

Chris Williams is an educator, author and activist whose work has been published in numerous media outlets and his work translated into several languages. He is the author of Ecology and Socialism: Solutions to Capitalist Ecological Crisis (Haymarket Books, 2010) and the forthcoming Creating an Ecological Society: Toward a Revolutionary Transformation (Monthly Review Press).

Q & A

Have questions or comments? Feel free to take part in the Q&A!

Before posting, you must first register. Note that questions and comments can be intended for individual speakers, the entire panel, or anyone who has posted to the Q&A. Respond directly to a particular question/comment by way of the little “reply” below it. The vertical threadlike lines are there to make it easier to see which part of the discussion (i.e. “thread”) you are taking up. You can choose to be notified via email (see below) whenever a question, answer, or comment is posted to this particular Q&A. Because the email notification will contain the new comment in its entirety, you can both follow the discussion as it is unfolding, as well as decide whether you would like to step in at any point. You can choose to receive email notifications for as many of the conference Q&A sessions as you like, as well as stop notifications at any time. Because the Q&A sessions will close at the end of the conference, all email notifications will also end at this time. Although only registered conference participants can pose questions and make comments, Q&A sessions are visible to the public and will remain so after the conference has ended, as we hope that they will become cited resources.

clone w/transcript

THE WORLD IN 2050: CREATING/IMAGINING JUST CLIMATE FUTURES

A NEARLY CARBON-NEUTRAL CONFERENCE

Opening Remarks

John Foran

John Foran is Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies at UCSB, teaching courses on climate change and climate justice, activism and movements for radical social change, and issues of alternatives to development and globalization beyond capitalism. His research and activism are now centered within the global climate justice movement.

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Scroll down for talk transcript.

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0:00 okay welcome everyone
0:03 I’m John foreign I’m co-organizer at
0:05 this virtual conference here at UC Santa
0:09 Barbara the world and 2050 imagining and
0:12 creating just climate futures with can
0:15 help net and I do think of us as a
0:19 community least a community in the
0:21 making
0:22 who aren’t involved in this wonderful
0:24 experiment together and i look forward
0:29 to our interaction during the three
0:32 weeks that the conference is open for
0:35 comments and Beyond who knows what’s
0:38 going to happen i make immensely excited
0:40 about the possibilities the virtual
0:43 conference aspect is hugely important to
0:46 us in here i want to give full credit to
0:49 my partner and co-organizer can Hiltner
0:53 who is really architect of the virtual
0:57 conference in an academic setting who
1:00 conceived it and overcame many a
1:03 technical issue to make it possible to
1:05do this and to open it to the world and
1:08indeed this is the second such
1:10conference to our knowledge ever done in
1:13this way you can think of me as the
1:17chief cheerleader of this revolutionary
1:20concept the idea that we would actually
1:23as academics who work on issues related
1:26to climate change and environment that
1:29we would actually walk the talk of the
1:31realities of climate change and that we
1:34would model this and offer it freely to
1:37others as the conference introduction
1:42says we believe that a conference that
1:44takes up the issue of climate change
1:46while simultaneously contributing to the
1:48problem to such a degree through airfare
1:51through aviation and airfare because it
1:56costs a great deal of money that most
1:58people don’t have to organize such a
2:00conference is simply unconscionable the
2:04team the world in 2050 imagining and
2:07creating just climate futures matters a
2:10lot to us
2:11it comes from our critical issues
2:13America program for twenty fifteen and
2:16sixteen this larger program of which
2:19this conference is the culmination it is
2:22on the theme of climate futures this
2:25changes everything and Ken and I with
2:28many others here at UCSB faculty
2:31graduate students undergraduates
2:33undertook this about a year ago because
2:37we think there’s no more critical issue
2:39faced by the world by humanity let alone
2:42America then our climate future when
2:47both Ken and I have devoted the last
2:49half decade or more to signaling this
2:52across the humanities and the social
2:54sciences and as far as possible
2:57beyond them again to read from the south
3:03introduction to this conference the most
3:06pressing existential issue of the 21st
3:09century for Humanity as a whole is the
3:12increasingly grim reality of climate
3:14change and our entry into a new era in
3:17the history of humans on the planet
3:19well signified by the term the answer
3:22passing the changing conditions of life
3:25on Earth lie at the center of a storm of
3:28interconnected prices which include
3:31among others the precarity and the great
3:34inequality that the global economy
3:36drives a widening deficit of political
3:40legitimacy which one you look no further
3:42than the current American election
3:45season of 2016 and cultures scarred by
3:49violence from the most intimate
3:51interpersonal interactions to the most
3:54global realities of war making but we’ve
3:58gone to say
3:59unlike either the justifiable
4:00pessimistic critical discussions or the
4:04unrealistically optimistic policy
4:06approaches that increasingly confront or
4:09indeed ignore each other around the
4:11climate crisis this conference will
4:14depart from our present ground 0 by
4:17asking participants to experiment with
4:20perspectives on the multiple possible
4:22states of the world in mid-century and
4:25to work back
4:26toward the present in an attempt to
4:29imagine envision ultimately enable and
4:34to collaboratively find or create some
4:36of the pathways to a more just for just
4:40less worse outcome for humanity by 2050
4:45so what’s going to happen at this
4:47conference
4:48actually I don’t know so much is up to
4:51you to all of us and to many others you
4:54the audience traditionally speaking are
4:57more than that your direct participants
5:00in the conversations that we hope these
5:02talks will start so please involve
5:06yourself with all the passion and
5:08imagination and creativity and loving
5:11activism that you can bring to this
5:13making it fun as well as serious there
5:18some 50 talks organized into 17 panels
5:22covering such topics as oceans life I
5:26climate fiction cities agriculture and
5:30food technology climate action climate
5:34justice and many others often
5:37intersecting since this changes
5:39everything means that everything affects
5:42everything else and part of the
5:44challenges to figure out how and to use
5:47that knowledge strategically to change
5:49ways to change things in ways that
5:52ripple outward long and slow or sudden
5:56and flashing Lee who create a new word
5:59there is far from enough diversity and
6:03no doubt that is our fault in this
6:06conference and the early stages of doing
6:08this kind of conference in ways that
6:10permit full activation of its deeply
6:13Democratic potential and I feel this we
6:17do someone pointed out have speakers
6:20from six continents and with any luck
6:24we’ll have participants from all seven
6:26if not also from the nonhuman world
6:29which is our partner in this adventure
6:30we do have sponsorships from all major
6:33plant and animal groups by the way we
6:38have some great keynote speakers and I
6:39want to thank
6:40each of them bill mckibben I’m not going
6:44to try to introduce each of these people
6:46they’re all extremely significant to me
6:49and I hope you’ll enjoy what they have
6:52to say bill mckibben Margaret klein
6:56Solomon Eric sadorian Patrick bond when
7:01Stephenson all of them have had a major
7:03impact on me as a scholar as an activist
7:06as a person of thinking and feeling
7:09person we also have two featured panels
7:13one that can is put together on this
7:17very topic of the movement toward
7:20getting academics to fly less and one
7:24that I’ve put together on the idea that
7:26we need something again to a wartime
7:29mobilization effort at this point in the
7:32climate crisis so let the discussion
7:35begin and may it unfold far and wide and
7:39deeply we look forward to hearing from
7:42you and I feel immense gratitude that
7:45you’ve joined us so that we may inspire
7:47and learn from each other and ultimately
7:50acts together to imagine and create the
7:54world we want
7:56thank you again and welcome

Ken Hiltner

Ken Hiltner is a Professor of the environmental humanities at UCSB. The Director of the Environmental Humanities Initiative (EHI), Hiltner has appointments in English and Environmental Studies.  He has served as Director of UCSB’s Literature & Environment Center and as the Barron Visiting Professor in the Environment and Humanities at Princeton University.

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cloned page

THE WORLD IN 2050: CREATING/IMAGINING JUST CLIMATE FUTURES

A NEARLY CARBON-NEUTRAL CONFERENCE

Opening Remarks

John Foran

John Foran is Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies at UCSB, teaching courses on climate change and climate justice, activism and movements for radical social change, and issues of alternatives to development and globalization beyond capitalism. His research and activism are now centered within the global climate justice movement.

Ken Hiltner

Ken Hiltner is a Professor of the environmental humanities at UCSB. The Director of the Environmental Humanities Initiative (EHI), Hiltner has appointments in the English and Environmental Studies Departments.  Hiltner has served as Director of UCSB’s Literature & Environment Center, its Early Modern Center, and as the Currie C. and Thomas A. Barron Visiting Professor in the Environment and Humanities at Princeton University’s Environmental Institute.

Q & A

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Before posting, you must first register. Note that questions and comments can be intended for individual speakers, the entire panel, or anyone who has posted to the Q&A. Respond directly to a particular question/comment by way of the little “reply” below it. The vertical threadlike lines are there to make it easier to see which part of the discussion (i.e. “thread”) you are taking up. You can choose to be notified via email (see below) whenever a question, answer, or comment is posted to this particular Q&A. Because the email notification will contain the new comment in its entirety, you can both follow the discussion as it is unfolding, as well as decide whether you would like to step in at any point. You can choose to receive email notifications for as many of the conference Q&A sessions as you like, as well as stop notifications at any time. Because the Q&A sessions will close at the end of the conference, all email notifications will also end at this time. Although only registered conference participants can pose questions and make comments, Q&A sessions are visible to the public and will remain so after the conference has ended, as we hope that they will become cited resources.

Keynotes World in 2050 (Final)

THE WORLD IN 2050: CREATING/IMAGINING JUST CLIMATE FUTURES

A NEARLY CARBON-NEUTRAL CONFERENCE

Keynote Speakers

Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben is an author, environmentalist, and activist.  In 1988 he wrote The End of Nature, the first book for a common audience about global warming.  He is a co-founder and Senior Advisor at 350.org, the first planet-wide, grassroots climate change movement, which has organized twenty thousand rallies around the world in every country save North Korea.

 

Erik Assadourian

Erik Assadourian is a Senior Fellow at the Worldwatch Institute. Over the past 15 years with Worldwatch, Erik has directed two editions of Vital Signs and five editions of State of the World, including the 2013 edition: Is Sustainability Still Possible? and the upcoming 2017 edition: EarthEd: Rethinking Education on a Changing Planet.

Margaret Klein Salamon

Margaret Klein Salamon is the Founder and Director of the The Climate Mobilization. Margaret earned her PhD in clinical psychology from Adelphi University and also holds a BA in social anthropology from Harvard. Though she loved being a therapist, Margaret felt called to apply her psychological and anthropological knowledge to solving climate change.

Wen Stephenson

Wen Stephenson, an independent journalist and climate activist, is a contributor to The Nation and the author of What We’re Fighting For Now is Each Other: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Climate Justice (Beacon Press, 2015). As a volunteer activist he helped launch the grassroots network 350 Massachusetts, has been deeply engaged in the Divest Harvard campaign from the outset, and has participated in and supported numerous nonviolent civil disobedience actions.

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Q & A

Have questions or comments? Feel free to take part in the Q&A!

Before posting, you must first register. Note that questions and comments can be intended for individual speakers, the entire panel, or anyone who has posted to the Q&A. Respond directly to a particular question/comment by way of the little “reply” below it. The vertical threadlike lines are there to make it easier to see which part of the discussion (i.e. “thread”) you are taking up. You can choose to be notified via email (see below) whenever a question, answer, or comment is posted to this particular Q&A. Because the email notification will contain the new comment in its entirety, you can both follow the discussion as it is unfolding, as well as decide whether you would like to step in at any point. You can choose to receive email notifications for as many of the conference Q&A sessions as you like, as well as stop notifications at any time. Because the Q&A sessions will close at the end of the conference, all email notifications will also end at this time. Although only registered conference participants can pose questions and make comments, Q&A sessions are visible to the public and will remain so after the conference has ended, as we hope that they will become cited resources.