NE2019 P8: Teaching Climate Activism

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NEXT EARTH: TEACHING CLIMATE CHANGE ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES

A NEARLY CARBON-NEUTRAL CONFERENCE

Panel 8: Teaching Climate Activism

“Teaching Climate Justice Movements and Systemic Alternatives”

John Foran (Professor of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara)

“Deepening our Understanding of Climate Adaptation and Resilience”

Summer Gray (Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara)

“Community Engaged Research for Local Climate Action through a Campus- Community Partnership”

Victoria Derr (Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, California State University, Monterey Bay), Nancy Faulstich (Executive Director of Regeneración: Pájaro Valley Climate Action), Ana Gonzalez (California State University, Monterey Bay), Abigail Melchor-Aguila (California State University, Monterey Bay), Kianni Ledezma (California State University, Monterey Bay), and Sergio Guzman (Community Organizer, Regeneración: Pájaro Valley Climate Action)

13 replies
  1. tori_derr says:

    Hi Summer, I really enjoyed your talk! A common thread I see in your talk, and in my own work with resilience and climate adaptation planning is that while we know best practices for building community resilience, we often don’t see this reflected in plans – as in the case of the Maldives development, or in the Regeneracion talk in this same panel with farmworker perspectives being included in climate action and resilience plans. This feels particularly egregious to me with climate adaptation and resilience planning because the stakes are very high and time is of the essence. I wonder if in your own work you have found any *good* models of resilience planning, where community members are at the forefront of decision making and shaping how their community moves forward?

  2. tori_derr says:

    As follow up to the “Community Engaged Research for Local Climate Action through a Campus- Community Partnership” talk, I am posting here the links to Regeneracion’s work, including the fact sheet and policy analysis that students were involved in creating here. https://www.regenerationpajarovalley.org/blog

  3. dfernandez@csumb.edu says:

    Hi Tori,

    I organized a small group of faculty and students to watch your talk and it was very inspiring to see not only you, but staff at Regeneracion and several of your students also present. I really like how engaged and inspired your three students are (and one of them was also in my capstone class – she is great!). I also know Nancy Faulstich and it was great to see how you quickly filled a gap with the university that Reneracion needed to go to the next step.

    The biggest challenge was the wind noise…

  4. Jeff Black, Humboldt State University says:

    Teaching Climate Justice etc. I agree with John Foran’s suggestion of a ‘higher calling’ to include the development of ‘Climate Activism’ themes and examples in our courses. I teach Introduction to Wildlife Conservation and Administration at Humboldt State, which includes interactive lectures, readings, discussions (not to mention some walks outside in the redwoods!). An introduction to ‘Modern Approaches to Climate Crisis’ is included in addition to traditional course goals about the roots of ‘wildlife management.’
    I too notice students’ frustration, particularly as we discuss the recent erosion of environmental progress after exploring the history of conservation, environmental ethics, early and current laws, and criticism of Big Green. I concur that it helps very much to include a suite of “systemic alternatives,” including youth movements (like 350, Occupy and Sunrise) and even talk of revolution. The students and I also find a relevant march to attend (Earth Day, Women’s March, Science March, NO-DOPL, Friday Climate Strike) and we do so together. All this helps to balance the sadness/eco-grief that comes with students’ critical awakening to the neo-liberal growth paradigm based on ill treatment of the natural world and people (i.e. Kline’s ‘extractivism’). I have learned to include examples of ‘alternative movements’ like Rights of Nature, the Earth Charter, IUCN’s Nature Based Solutions, and Hawaiian Aloha ʻĀina, which embodies the mutual respect for one another and a commitment of service to the natural world. I was encouraged to hear John, that you seem to have come to a similar position at UCSB.

  5. dfernandez@csumb.edu says:

    Hi Summer,

    Thank you for your presentation. I recently saw a presentation on Dubai’s construction of islands and the likeness of what you showed regarding the islands constructed in the Maldives is very striking. Many of the same issues are present – low paid workers doing difficult, dangerous, and environmentally damaging work to mine sand and deposit it in large quantities to build islands that mainly serve a foreign and very-rich clientele. And, as it turns out, the islands aren’t even very stable and are already eroding… It seems to me (anecdotally, without having looked at a comprehensive study of this) that often the major result of high-cost technical solutions to some of our global crises are serving to further polarize economic disparity amongst populations.

    Regarding your means of addressing the crisis – the 6 points you raise in the framework at the end – I agree with them fully. I also feel a level of resistance to such ideas from (typically) whatever power structures are in place within many governments, particularly in this day and age. I realize, in re-reading the comments, that my question is somewhat related to Tori’s. Do you or others have any thoughts on this challenge between politics, planning and resilience?

    Regards. Dan

  7. ralaniz says:

    Tori,
    Great work! I am so impressed by how you are able to engage so many stakeholders in such valuable projects. I also agree that despite their best efforts, the largest beneficiaries are students and not the NGOs.

    Have you written your process of community action research? Would you be willing to share how you set up the class?
    Thanks,
    Ryan Alaniz

  8. Tori Derr says:

    Thank you, Ryan!

    I do not have this work written up, but have been considering doing so for a community engagement journal. I will share if/when I have that. I am happy to share this short presentation (in which you can also see some notes) about the process I used with Regeneracion. This short presentation was following a template for course-based undergraduate research mentoring at CSUMB. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1GvFhSIkw6E7hrKACL2gjnoOJsZNsjThLnp8dCfgexPA/edit?usp=sharing

    Also happy to share via email assignments or syllabi if you are interested, but I think some of the pieces and decisions that I had for this process would not really be found there. . .

    When I worked in the non-profit world, I worked with service learners from universities at University of Colorado and Stanford. I learned through trial and error what this all felt like from a community perspective, in that I put in a lot of time and resources for students, sometimes with no payout. So I think I am particularly sensitive to this engagement. I have tried to find ways to “make it pay” as a faculty person as well, and feel fortunate that CSUMB acknowledges this kind of work through professional application in its tenure review process, but I think this is the biggest challenge in building equity in campus-community partnerships. I also really like Leah Anne Teeters and Susan Jurow’s article in the Journal of Community Engaged Scholarship that focuses on equity in community based research: http://jces.ua.edu/generating-equity-oriented-partnerships-a-framework-for-reflection-and-practice/

  9. noacykman says:

    Hi John, Summer, and Tori (and companions),

    Your talks/research works are very impactant. It is refreshing and inspiring to hear about scholarly work that is so intimately connected to practical contexts and struggles.

    The students involved with Regeracion and the EcoVista project give the impression that activist engagement transforms perception in a deep and personal way–beyond what theory can do alone. And, besides making a wonderful didactic tool, it seems to raise energy and hope among students (and professors), which is beautiful, and necessary.

    Summer’s points on how the ecological crisis affects different social classes in different ways is emblematic to the state of things. The intersection of social injustice and ecological injustice gives rise to questions that confront traditional theoretical frameworks. I really liked the six points for the critical climatic justice framework suggested by Summer.
    I was also wondering how the two (or more) spheres could be approached at once, without separation (or “complementarity”), but by merging them. How to theorize and address contemporary problems without dividing them? Maybe through Ingold’s ideas of “organisms-in-their-environment”, and similar ones? I would love to hear Summer’s perspective on this.

    I have two other general questions (to whoever feels propelled to answer):
    How do you see, build, walk the bridge between theory and practice? How to transit from abstract to concrete?
    And a practical one: how to approach communities? How to build collaboration in a sensitive, effective way? How to build bonds of alliance and trust, avoiding the possible impression of being suspect strangers from the university?

    Thank you.

    Noa

    • Nancy Faulstich, Regeneration - Pajaro Valley Climate Action/CSUMB says:

      Thank you Noa and everyone for comments.
      I am rushed but a couple thoughts: As Tori said, I approached her and was so thrilled with the resulting partnership.
      If I were to be approached, I would want to have a sense of the values that the approaching professor/university was bringing, and a sense of long term caring/investment in the outcomes for the organization – whether or not the particular players were able to stay involved long term.
      I am just getting used to working with students for one semester at a time. Hoping to find more students who live in the area who want to stay involved with our organization after their required semester/30 hours of service learning are completed. While I understand that’s the nature of university work, there is something that feels strange about people coming in for a few months and then disappearing.
      Having frank conversations about what would be of benefit to both parties is important. I do think it can be easily mutually beneficial.

      All the best, Nancy

  10. Tori Derr says:

    Thank you Noa, for your thoughts are questions! I hope Summer replies as well!

    Yes, raising energy and hope among students (and professors) is an essential pieces, particularly when focused on weighty topics like climate change.

    I am not very good at answering the question about bridging abstract and concrete/theory and practice. I have had one foot in and one foot outside of academia for much of my life, so I think I do this often without realizing it, which in some ways makes it harder to articulate. I mentioned this in a reply to Ryan above, but I do like this article, which reflects a bit on both of your final questions: http://jces.ua.edu/generating-equity-oriented-partnerships-a-framework-for-reflection-and-practice/. In terms of approaching communities, I have used different approaches at different times. In the case of Regeneracion, they literally called and I responded enthusiastically. We found community needs for support that I was able to help with, and then discussed possibilities for longer term collaboration, which is how the work was folded into my course. I have found working where I am now, that communities are much more wary when approached about “doing research” than about receiving support and bodies to help with specific, community-identified needs. In a faculty cooperative on community engagement, we have had long discussions about how then the trick is to build the trust through community projects first, then to explore ways that the work can also fold into research questions that are interesting from a theoretical perspective. This takes a phenomenal amount of time, and hope, that something can pay out in this regard, which is why I also like folding this kind of work into my teaching, where I know the payoffs can be quite high, and there is no pressure for me to develop a research or published outcome. I have found community members/groups are much more receptive to working with classes and students than to research (at the outset anyway), and so it is a nice, safe entry point, to get to know each other’s needs and interests, and then to suggest future collaborations that maybe also do more to support research. Once the initial trust is established, it is easier to talk more openly about meeting each other’s needs, through partnership. I think the article link expresses this nicely as well.

    I hope to hear from my colleagues in the panel on your questions as well! Thank you again,
    Tori

  11. dfernandez@csumb.edu says:

    Hello John,

    Thank you for your inspiring presentation. Are there any success stories or, for that matter, challenge stories you have at either a local or an international level about how your work has either made a positive difference or else confronted power structures in some manner that bears attention?

  12. Rebecca Young, University of Birmingham says:

    Thanks, John, for this engaging talk about approaching climate change in education. I am intrigued by the creation of the educator network you mentioned and wonder if you have any recommendations or plans for fostering such a network in K-12 education?

    Thanks!
    -Rebecca

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