Climate Change & Social Justice: 2024 Annual Library Lecture Series
3 October 2024 - 24 October 2024
EVENT DESCRIPTION
Each year, the Rotman Institute of Philosophy organizes a public lecture series co-sponsored with the London Public Library and the Department of Philosophy. The theme for this year’s lecture series is Climate Change & Social Justice.
Please join us in welcoming Professor Anna Zalik (York University), Professor Bipasha Baruah (Western University), Professor Pablo Bose (University of Vermont), and Asst. Professor Evan Bowness (Western University) to the London Public Library for this year’s series: Climate Change & Social Justice.
All lectures will be held on Thursdays in October, from 7:00 – 8:30 pm weekly.
Hosted at the Central Library, 251 Dundas St, London, ON. Lectures will take place in the Lawson Room.
2 hours free validated parking in Citi Plaza during Library hours
Attendance is free and open to the general public. Advance registration is not necessary.
Continental Power – The Struggle over Energy under the Canada US Mexico Agreement
Lawson Room, Central Library
Thursday, October 3, 2024 | 7:00 – 8:30 pm
Abstract:
This talk will examine the energy supply and infrastructural systems associated with 5 years of the Canada-US-Mexico Agreement. Professor Zalik will draw from her two decades of research examining power relations in the global extractive sector, considering questions of state, popular and Indigenous territorial sovereignty in the continental energy system with relation to environmental and climate justice.
Speaker Bio:
Anna Zalik is Professor in the Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change at York University where she teaches in the areas of Global Geography, Political Ecology, Agrarian Studies and Critical Development Studies. Her research, in conjunction with colleagues and community organizations, examines and critiques the political ecology and political economy of industrial extraction, with a focus on the merging of corporate security and social welfare interventions in strategic exporters. She has received SSHRC funding for her research on topics related to the political economy of hydrocarbons, substantive industrial transparency, and the contested regulation of extractive industries in oceans beyond national jurisdiction. Emerging from this work and informed by critiques of capitalism and persistent colonialism/imperialism, her current projects center on Canadian investment in the denationalization of the Mexican energy sector and financial risk in new extractive frontiers in the global oceans/seabed beyond national jurisdiction. She has given invited presentations at various universities internationally, among them the UNAM, Mexico City, the Peace Research Institute – Oslo, and the University of Chicago Human Rights Centre. In 2014, she was the invited keynote speaker to the AAG Energy and Environment specialty group. From 2005-7 she was a Ciriacy-Wantrup Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley. She is appointed to the graduate programs in Environmental Studies, Geography and Politics at York University.
What does degrowth say about gender equality and social justice?
Lawson Room, Central Library
Thursday, October 10, 2024 | 7:00 – 8:30 pm
Abstract:
Degrowth is an emerging field of research and social movement in industrialized countries founded on the premise that infinite economic growth is incompatible with the biophysical limits of our finite planet. In this lecture, Dr. Baruah will identify and discuss the potential impacts degrowth may have on gender equality and social justice.
Speaker Bio:
Bipasha Baruah is Professor and Western Research Chair in the Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at Western University. She conducts interdisciplinary research on gender, economy, environment, and development; gender and work; and social, political, and economic inequality. Author of a book and more than 100 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters and professional reports, Dr. Baruah serves frequently as an expert reviewer and advisor to Canadian and intergovernmental environmental protection and international development organizations.
Website: https://publish.uwo.ca/~bbaruah/
Climate, Health Impacts and Migration: Understanding Patterns and Building Resilience in the Anthropocene
Lawson Room, Central Library
Thursday, October 17, 2024 | 7:00 – 8:30 pm
Abstract:
The effects of climate migration are already being felt across the globe. Providing tools – in conversation with practitioners who would use them – can aid in better planning and management of what has already proven to be a chaotic and unpredictable dynamic. In this talk, I explore an initiative to bring together social and data scientists, policymakers and practitioners to understand the contexts of displacement and the multifaceted nature of impacts on individuals, communities and host sites for refugees and to support all in addressing this global crisis.
Speaker Bio:
Pablo Bose is a migration and urban studies scholar in the Department of Geography and Geosciences and Director of Global and Regional Studies at the University of Vermont. He also serves as the Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education in the College of Arts and Sciences and is a Fellow of the Gund Institute for Environment, a member of the Food Systems Program, and the Sustainable Development Policy Economics and Governance graduate program. His research focuses on four main areas – refugee resettlement in North America and Europe, environmental and forced displacement across the world (with a special focus on the effects of climate change), cities of the Global South, and food security and sovereignty in diverse communities. His work on migration and secondary cities is featured in Refugees in New Destinations and Small Cities: Resettlement in Vermont (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020) while his earlier work on Indian cities can be found in Urban Development in India: Global Indians in the Remaking of Kolkata (Routledge 2015). Other recent publications focus on food politics, the ethics of research with refugee communities, climate change and refugee camps, and comparative resettlement experiences in the US, Canada and Europe. He is currently completing a monograph titled Critical Geographies of Migration.
Led by the Land: Towards Community-Directed Adaptation Research
Lawson Room, Central Library
Thursday, October 24, 2024 | 7:00 – 8:30 pm
Abstract:
Land-based communities live in reciprocal relationships with their surrounding ecosystems and possess deep local knowledges about the waters and soils that sustain their ways of life. As is often the case for those who have contributed the least to climate emissions, these communities are highly vulnerable to the accelerating and intensifying impacts of climate change. They increasingly face threats to their food and water security, livelihoods, and community well-being. Furthermore, these communities are often excluded from sustainability research and policy development, instead having “solutions” paternalistically imposed on them from outside researchers and institutions. These inequitable dynamics remain dominant despite growing recognition that land-based communities play a critical role in responses to the climate and nature emergency —including a central role in the future of transdisciplinary climate change research. This talk will explore the complexities in co-creating research at the behest of BIPOC and Global South land-based communities, and the challenges and opportunities associated with building climate adaptation research collaborations that are truly community-directed.
Speaker Bio:
Evan Bowness is a critical and interdisciplinary environmental social scientist and Assistant Professor at Western University in the Department of Geography and Environment. Previously, he was an Assistant Professor of Community Food Systems at the Trent School of the Environment (TSE). His PhD is from UBC’s Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, and he has a BA(hons) and MA in Sociology from the University of Manitoba where he used to teach courses related to social inequality.