Readings/resources for finishing out this semester

[Kate O'NEILL]

Dear all - this is a rougher semester than usual in terms of finishing a Global Environmental Politics course on a strong note. I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on an article, chapter or other resource that might help round it out. I have a Biden and Climate/Paris piece and connecting COVID to climate disasters/colonialism article, but I’m looking for a “next ten years of global environmental politics” piece, and, more importantly, something contemporary that might engage their imaginations in terms of thinking into the future or more widely about the world (I know that’s vague but I want to shift them out of their immediate stressful present if just for a moment. Doesn't have to be rosy but something that isn’t doom and end of the world). 

As always, send suggestions to me and I’ll compile for the list!

All best to you all,

Kate

***************************************

Kate O'Neill

Professor

Chair of the Society and Environment Division,
Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management,
University of California at Berkeley

kmon...@berkeley.edu

@kmoneill2530
Website

WASTE (Polity Press, 2019)

[Leah Stokes]

One option is you could assign something from our podcast, A Matter of Degrees. bit.ly/degreespod 

I know other faculty are using it in class. We did a nice forward looking episode on electrification and cleaning up the energy system by 2035 (episode 3). 

Leah 

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[Dana R Fisher]

Going in a really different direction,  here's a recent theoretical piece by Andrew Jorgenson and me that asks broad questions about risk, decision-making, and the Environment. Pdf is available here:  https://www.asanet.org/ending-stalemate-toward-theory-anthro-shift 

I'm happy to join a class on the paper to discuss.

Take care,

Dana

Dana R. Fisher, UMD

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[prom...@susannemoser.com]

Kate,

How about a selection from All We Can Save? 

www.allwecansave.earth

Uplifting!

Susi

Sent from tiny phone. Forgive typos

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[doreen stabinsky]

At a particularly downer part of the class the last time I taught Climate Justice, I inserted a short section on different (and an antidote to IPCC scenarios) approaches to thinking about the future. I was inspired by a quote from Stuart Candy: “Because the future is unwritten, it is plural.” Or something like that. I had them look at some TED talks and lectures online, links below.

Bina Venkataraman TED talk

Stuart Candy, Whose future is this?

Keri Facer, All our futures? Climate change, democracy & missing public spaces Keri Facer, Learning to live with a lively planet

Doreen

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[Schreurs, Miranda]

Hi Kate,

For precisely the reasons you describe below, I had my students do group projects as a class assignment where the assignment was to recognise that they are in a more privileged position than most people in the world right now and to contribute to problem solving themselves with an online project. The projects they developed were great!

One group did a project 100 Voices One Planet.  https://www.hfp.tum.de/en/environmentalpolicy/news/news-single-view-environmentalpolicy-en/article/100-voices-one-planet-new-project-from-mirandas-students/

This project is winning awards. 

Another group interviewed the different German political parties in Munich about the idea of a carless inner-city.  They then made a podcast. It was great listening to the different political views. The goal of the students is to help listeners better understand the political views of parties on key issues.

A third group looked at the impact of COVID on education, interviewing teachers and then doing a webinar (in Turkish) bringing in key experts. The webinar ran for 1.5 hours.

A fourth group developed information brochures on how to enhance recycling in Mexico.  

I found that empowering the students to recognise that they can themselves contribute even during Corona times had a huge positive psychological pull for all of them. 

And students from the Munich universities have created a new NGO called Think Tech, to develop artificial intelligence and Digital solutions to pressing global challenges.  www.thinktech.ngo

https://www.consciouscoders.io/#team-4

Best wishes

Miranda

Miranda Schreurs

Professor of Environment and Climate Policy

Dean of Studies, TUM School of Governance

Bavarian School of Public Policy/Hochschule für Politik München

Technical University of Munich

miranda....@hfp.tum.de

[Peter Newell]

Hi Kate

 

It’s always a challenge to get them thinking positively about viable alternative futures.

 

For the climate session I did last week, I presented on the international politics and negotiations and them got them to research different ‘bottom-up’ initiatives aligned with their own theories of change (community, NGO, city, corporate actions) using some of the links below and discuss their potential and limitations.

 

Leave it in the Ground campaign (Links to an external site.)

Centre for Alternative Technology (Links to an external site.) 

350.org (Links to an external site.)

Rapid Transition Alliance  (Links to an external site.)

Seeds of a Good Anthropocene (Links to an external site.)

C40  (Links to an external site.)

ICLEI  (Links to an external site.)

Fossil Free (Links to an external site.)

Reasons to be cheerful (Links to an external site.)

 

In terms of a paper that covers some of this, I just published a paper with Andrew Simms which looks at the politics and possibilities of rapid transitions (attached) and its more public facing predecessor ‘How did we do that? The possibility of rapid transition’.

 

We were trying to generate some ‘evidence-based hope’!

 

Good luck!

 

Pete

 

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 

From: Schreurs, Miranda
Sent: 16 November 2020 07:46
To: kmon...@berkeley.edu
Cc: gep...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [gep-ed] Readings/resources for finishing out this semester

 

Hi Kate,

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/gep-ed/7CFA6C2D-C30D-4779-9BA7-B61E567CD522%40hfp.tum.de.

[Johannes Stripple]

Dear Kate

This is leaning toward the more imaginative side, but we have written a tourist guide to an imagined coastal city in a decarbonised Europe circa 2045, we call it ’Rough Planet Notterdam’.
https://www.reinvent-project.eu/roughplanetguide

"The Rough Planet Guide declines to answer the question of “how do we make the decarbonisation transition happen?”, in favour of the question “how might we live in a successfully decarbonised Europe?” Thinking through the polyphony of the latter sheds new light on the former, not least because it makes it clear that there is more than one pathway to a post-fossil Europe.

This book is not a prophecy or promise, but it is a possibility. This book is not optimistic, but it is hopeful. This book is a fiction… but it is built upon the best truths we could find during the four-year interdisciplinary work research work done by many people across Europe."

Its free to download.

Here is a recent blogpost
https://www.rapidtransition.org/commentaries/tour-tomorrow-today-why-we-made-a-travel-guide-to-an-imaginary-future-city/

It deals with sectors like steel, plastic, meat, dairy and transport so there are some harder political economies below the surface in the book.

cheers
Johannes

[Benjamin Sovacool]

Hello Kate, all – no shortage of good suggestions and options here, another one could be to look at visions of the energy and climate future itself, which we tried to do systematically in this open access study, published in Social Studies of Science:

 

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0306312720915283

 

The visions cover many different energy systems or social innovations (nuclear, EVs, divestment), are positive and negative, and are drawn from robust mixed methods research.  Maybe worth exposing your class to 😊

 

Benjamin

 

From: gep...@googlegroups.com <gep...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Dana R Fisher

Sent: 15 November 2020 17:55
To: Leah Stokes <lst...@ucsb.edu>

Cc: Kate O'NEILL <kmon...@berkeley.edu>; gep...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [gep-ed] Readings/resources for finishing out this semester

 

Going in a really different direction,  here's a recent theoretical piece by Andrew Jorgenson and me that asks broad questions about risk, decision-making, and the Environment. Pdf is available here:  https://www.asanet.org/ending-stalemate-toward-theory-anthro-shift 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/gep-ed/CAMXTsQ-ML%3DSaOKt3ToiUnshx5zmP1NmapVadk6nxnLkKiW7zNg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Kate O'NEILL]

Dear everyone - thank you for such an informative, interesting and inspiring set of responses to my query. Here is the compilation!

Best,

Kate 

From Leah Stokes:

One option is you could assign something from our podcast, A Matter of Degrees. bit.ly/degreespod  - I know other faculty are using it in class. We did a nice forward looking episode on electrification and cleaning up the energy system by 2035 (episode 3).

 

Reed Kurtz:

Please excuse the self-promotion but I did just have a (very short) snap analysis of the 2020 election and its impact on global environmental issues/climate justice come out today: https://www.electionanalysis.ws/us/president2020/section-1-policy-and-political-context/u-s-presidential-politics-and-planetary-crisis-in-2020/ I definitely wrote it for a general audience and students, and I tried to be as 'positive' looking forward as possible. In particular I talk a bit about the shift in discourse I see regarding a "Green New Deal decade" as well as make some linkage to recent events in Chile as well as the grassroots organizing by folks like Stacy Abrams as sources of hope and inspiration for the struggles ahead. Hope this is helpful!

 

Dana Fisher:

Going in a really different direction,  here's a recent theoretical piece by Andrew Jorgenson and me that asks broad questions about risk, decision-making, and the Environment. Pdf is available here:  https://www.asanet.org/ending-stalemate-toward-theory-anthro-shift 

 

Rasmus Karlson

Chapter in: J. C. Pereira and A. Saramago (eds.), Non-Human Nature in World Politics, Frontiers in International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49496-4_6 On Conflicting Temporalities and the Ecomodernist Vision of Rewilding

 

Susi Moser:

How about a selection from All We Can Save? 

www.allwecansave.earth

 

Doreen Stabinsky:

 

Bina Venkataraman TED talk (The Power to Think Ahead in a Reckless Age; 2019)

Stuart Candy, Whose future is this?

Keri Facer, All our futures? Climate change, democracy & missing public spaces Keri Facer, Learning to live with a lively planet

 

There’s also the AOC video message from the future.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9uTH0iprVQ 

 

Libby Lundstrom:

 

I always close my GEC course out with these videos; both offer some degree of hope and idea of a more open future if we get our act together. I think both have won awards too I think given their not-entirely-dystopian stance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=v1iJ7X_OuQI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sacc_x-XB1Y

 

 

Simon Dalby:

Kim Stanley Robinson's new novel "The Ministry for the Future". Alas it's a little long at over 500 pages, but ...!!!? It is hilarious, and with an Irish character, one Mary Murphy, at the heart of saving the world, what's not to like? 

 

Radoslav Dimitrov:

Gabriela Iacobuta, Navroz K. Dubash, Prabhat Upadhyaya, Mekdelawit Deribe

& Niklas Höhne (2018) National climate change mitigation legislation, strategy and targets: a global update, Climate Policy, 18:9, 1114-1132, DOI: 10.1080/14693062.2018.1489772

 

Maria Ivanova:

Escobar-Pemberthy, N.; Ivanova, M. Implementation of Multilateral Environmental Agreements: Rationale and Design of the Environmental Conventions Index. Sustainability 2020, 12, 7098. At https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/17/7098

 

Peter Newell:

 

For the climate session I did last week, I presented on the international politics and negotiations and them got them to research different ‘bottom-up’ initiatives aligned with their own theories of change (community, NGO, city, corporate actions) using some of the links below and discuss their potential and limitations.

 

Leave it in the Ground campaign (Links to an external site.)

Centre for Alternative Technology (Links to an external site.) 

350.org (Links to an external site.)

Rapid Transition Alliance  (Links to an external site.)

Seeds of a Good Anthropocene (Links to an external site.)

C40  (Links to an external site.)

ICLEI  (Links to an external site.)

Fossil Free (Links to an external site.)

Reasons to be cheerful (Links to an external site.)

 

In terms of a paper that covers some of this, I just published a paper with Andrew Simms which looks at the politics and possibilities of rapid transitions (attached) and its more public facing predecessor ‘How did we do that? The possibility of rapid transition’.

 

Johannes Stripple

 

This is leaning toward the more imaginative side, but we have written a tourist guide to an imagined coastal city in a decarbonised Europe circa 2045, we call it ’Rough Planet Notterdam’.    

https://www.reinvent-project.eu/roughplanetguide

"The Rough Planet Guide declines to answer the question of “how do we make the decarbonisation transition happen?”, in favour of the question “how might we live in a successfully decarbonised Europe?” Thinking through the polyphony of the latter sheds new light on the former, not least because it makes it clear that there is more than one pathway to a post-fossil Europe.

This book is not a prophecy or promise, but it is a possibility. This book is not optimistic, but it is hopeful. This book is a fiction… but it is built upon the best truths we could find during the four-year interdisciplinary work research work done by many people across Europe."

It’s free to download. 

Here is a recent blogpost
https://www.rapidtransition.org/commentaries/tour-tomorrow-today-why-we-made-a-travel-guide-to-an-imaginary-future-city/

It deals with sectors like steel, plastic, meat, dairy and transport so there are some harder political economies below the surface in the book. 

 

Ben Sovacool:

 

Another one could be to look at visions of the energy and climate future itself, which we tried to do systematically in this open access study, published in Social Studies of Science:

 

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0306312720915283

 

The visions cover many different energy systems or social innovations (nuclear, EVs, divestment), are positive and negative, and are drawn from robust mixed methods research.  Maybe worth exposing your class to

 

Roopali Phadke:

 I was teaching an environmental politics class last Spring when all hell broke loose. I pivoted my final project and designed a new group project oriented around the new Bezos foundation and Covid. Students enjoyed it, and some of their projects were really terrific. It got them to think critically about climate change solutions, esp by playing in the neoliberal-philanthropic space. [I’m sure you can contact her for details!]

 

Jeff Colgan:

 

You’ve already got a ton of good suggestions, but if you’re looking for something really tangible and policy-oriented, you could use our new report to the Biden Admin on how they can use executive orders on climate change to advance their overall US foreign policy agenda:

https://watson.brown.edu/files/watson/imce/news/explore/2020/Final%20CSL%20Report.pdf