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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0:00Welcome everyone!
0:03I’m John Foran, co-organizer at
0:05this virtual conference here at UC Santa
0:09Barbara: “The World in 2050: Imagining and
0:12Creating Just Climate Futures,” with Ken
0:15Hiltner. And I do think of us as a
0:19community, or least a community in the
0:21making,
0:22who are involved in this wonderful
0:24experiment together. And I look forward
0:29to our interaction during the three
0:32weeks that the conference is open for
0:35comments, and beyond. Who knows what’s
0:38going to happen? I’m immensely excited
0:40about the possibilities! The virtual
0:43conference aspect is hugely important to
0:46us, and here I want to give full credit to
0:49my partner and co-organizer Ken Hiltner,
0:53who is really architect of the virtual
0:57conference in an academic setting, who
1:00conceived it and overcame many a
1:03technical 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
2:04theme — 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 2015 and
2:162016, 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, than our climate future, and
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 self-
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”Anthropocene.”
3:22The changing conditions of life
3:25on Earth lie at the center of a storm of
3:28interconnected crises 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 need 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 go on
3:58to say:
3:59″Unlike either the justifiablly
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 zero 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 — or 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
4:54– the audience traditionally speaking — are
4:57more than that: you’re 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
5:18are some 50 talks, organized into 17 panels,
5:22covering such topics as oceans, cli-fi
5:26(climate 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
5:44challenge is 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 “flashingly” (to create a new word).
5:59There is far from enough diversity, and
6:03no doubt that is our faul, 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
6:30(we 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
6:56Salamon, Eric Assadurian, Patrick Bond, Wen
7:01Stephenson — all of them have had a major
7:03impact on me as a scholar, as an activist,
7:06as a thinking and feeling
7:09person. We also have two featured panels:
7:13one that Ken is putting together on this
7:17very topic of the movement toward
7:20getting academics to fly less [note: find this at the EHI website] and one
7:24that I’ve put together on the idea that
7:26we need something akin 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
7:50act together to imagine and create the
7:54world we want.
7:56Thank you again.

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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0:00 Hi everyone. This is Ken Hiltner. First,
0:03 welcome to our conference. I hope
0:05 that you enjoy it and that you
0:07 watch as many of the talks as you can and
0:09 you take part in the Q&A sessions, which
0:12 we hope will be very exciting. I wanted
0:15 to take just a minute or two
0:17 to talk about why we’ve
0:19 undertaken a conference like this. The first
0:22 reason is environmental.
0:24 Recently UC Santa Barbara did an
0:26 assessment of the carbon footprint for
0:28 the entire campus. We looked at buildings,
0:31 gas and electricity. We looked at the labs.
0:35 We looked at the vehicle fleet. We tried to
0:37 take everything into account. The
0:40 results really surprised me because
0:44 roughly a third of the carbon footprint
0:46 for the campus came just from air travel
0:49 to conferences, talks, meetings and the like.
0:53 To put that in another frame, that’s 55
0:58 million pounds of carbon dioxide or
1:01 equivalent gases expended every year by
1:04 this one campus. Put that in human terms,
1:08 that’s the equivalent of a city of
1:12 27,500 people for an entire year for all
1:17 aspects of their lives in India. That’s
1:19 an astonishing amount of CO2. So
1:24 obviously, one of the reasons that we
1:27 wanted to do a conference like this is to
1:29 cut down on that. This is our second such
1:31 conference. When we did the math for the
1:34 first one, we discovered that its
1:37 carbon footprint was smaller than 1% of
1:40 a traditional conference. But
1:44 there are other reasons, cultural reasons,
1:46 and important ones. Most people on the
1:49 planet will never get in an airplane. In fact,
1:52 only one and twenty people on the planet
1:55 have ever been in an airplane.
1:58 This simple fact summarily excludes
2:02 scholars from all over the developing
2:04 world from taking part in conferences. What I mean by this
2:07 is that the airfare from pretty much
2:09 anywhere in the development world to
2:11 pretty much anywhere in North America,
2:13 for example, often will exceed the
2:16 per-capita income of those countries –
2:17 meaning that scholars have incredibly
2:20 difficult time coming to conferences.
2:23 We’re very pleased that this conference
2:26 has scholars from all six continents
2:29 (though non from Antarctica) and that we have quite a few of them.
2:33 We are also proud of the fact
2:36 that we worked hard to make sure that
2:38 this conference can be viewed all over
2:40 the world, even in places like China,
2:42 where they ban YouTube, which is our
2:45 streaming service. We have kind of worked a
2:47 little work-around that allow folks
2:49 there by way of our website to watch
2:52 the talks. So, I think that’s really important
2:55 open up conferences, which have
2:58 largely been closed-door affairs for a
3:00 long time – and not just to folks in
3:04 different parts of the world, but also for
3:05 different sorts of
3:08 individuals with different
3:10 capabilities and accessibility issues.
3:14 What I mean by that is that in this
3:17 conference anyone can watch it from
3:19 anywhere. You do not have to
3:21 worry about physical accessibility
3:23 hurdles, such as going through an airport.
3:26 We are very pleased for the first time
3:27 that we’ve made the conference entirely
3:31 closed captioned, and all of the talks are
3:34 closed captioned. Most of them have
3:35 been carefully
3:37 closed captioned been by being edited by
3:39 the speaker’s themselves to make sure
3:41 that they are accurate, which I think is just
3:43 wonderful for individuals who are
3:44 deaf or hard-of-hearing. So, a
3:47 conference like this also has the
3:49 ability to be far more inclusive for a
3:52 range of individuals. It is also the
3:55 case that – and this is related to accessibility – that it
3:58 creates an archive
4:00 and the fact that it is entirely open
4:03 means that anyone anywhere can watch
4:06 this talk – that’s something that
4:07 hasn’t really been possible before. So,
4:10 in the case of really terrific conferences,
4:12 where groundbreaking work is
4:15 done, very few people get to
4:17 attend those. And since there is no
4:19 archive often left from them,
4:21 they are very privileged bunch. In this
4:25 case, however, anyone can do this.
4:27 In fact, we’ve opened this
4:29 conference up so that anyone anywhere
4:31 can participate in the Q&A sessions
4:33 as well. We think that’s very important.
4:37 It is also the case that we are
4:41 advocating for this type of conference.
4:43 In fact, we created the White Paper that
4:45 explains how how we did it in case
4:47 people would like to up to follow our
4:49 example – although we would very happy
4:52 if people diverged for our example
4:55 and did something entirely different,
4:57 insofar as they would be thinking
4:59 about how to do a conference
5:01 without air travel – that’s that’s just
5:03 great. But it is the case that
5:06 an institution anywhere in the world now
5:08 has the ability to stage a conference like
5:11 this. Traditionally doing an
5:13 international conference, between
5:15 the honorarium for a keynote
5:17 speaker, or multiple keynote speakers, the travel
5:20 involved, venue, food for dinners,
5:23 and all can be an incredibly expensive
5:25 proposition that institutions
5:27 in the developing world wouldn’t
5:28 necessarily have the ability to do – or
5:31 institutions all over the place.
5:33 We hope that this format allows people
5:35 everywhere to be able to stage
5:37 conferences and not just
5:39 institutions of higher learning, but also groups
5:41 of all sorts. So our hope is that this
5:46 effort to rethink the traditional
5:48 conference for the 21st century will
5:51 have a sufficient number of
5:54 advantages that it will be appealing for
5:56 other folks to experiment with it. But
5:59 you have the opportunity to assess just
6:01 how well something like this works.
6:04 Last time we were very happy that our
6:06 Q&A sessions were very active. In fact,
6:09 one of them had a
6:10 little over 10 times more activity than
6:13 you would traditionally get at a
6:15 face-to-face Q&A session. We’ll see what
6:19 happens this time. I actually have high
6:21 hopes that this is going to be a very
6:22 active conference. It will be open for three
6:25 weeks. We hope that you keep coming back. It
6:28 can, of course, be viewed on any sort of
6:30 device – and it is noteworthy that it can be
6:32 produced on any sort of device. What
6:34 I mean by this is that speakers do
6:37 not have to have very expensive
6:38 equipment. In fact, really all you needed
6:40 was a smartphone. In fact, some people did
6:42 do their talks using just a smartphone.
6:45 So, I will not take your time further. There
6:49 are some really interesting talks that I
6:51 think you would
6:53 rather be watching than listening
6:54 to me. But do give it a chance and see
6:58 how you like this format and and let us
7:00 know and think about, if you’re really
7:04 intrigued by the concept, of maybe doing
7:07 a conference like this or your own.
7:08 Okay, thank you very much and take care.