GPP 591 Lind Initiative Seminar: America and the Climate Crisis
WHAT: A 3 credit course
WHEN: Tuesdays, 3:00 – 5:00 PM, Winter Term 2, January – April, 2019
WHERE: Liu Institute for Global Issues – Boardroom
WHO CAN APPLY: This is a competitive entry graduate course for UBC students from any faculty from 4th-year undergraduates to PhD.
Led by Dr. Justin Alger (Lind Fellow) and Professor Taylor Owen (Graduate School of Journalism and School of Public Policy and Global Affairs), this seminar series will explore the theme, America and the Climate Crisis, with visits from some of the world’s leading intellectuals on the topic including Robert D. Bullard, Elizabeth Kolbert, John Kasich, Winona LaDuke, and Bill McKibben.
The world is nearing the point-of-no-return for catastrophic and irreversible climate change. Without action, the future will be one of mass forced migration, famine, and economic costs in the trillions of dollars. Many of these effects will be felt within the United States, and yet no other country is as deeply divided on climate change. For America, the climate crisis is as much a domestic political crisis as it is a crisis of planetary sustainability. But voices for climate action in America remain strong and there are signs of progress. American activists and philanthropists are increasingly steering the global conservation about how to solve the crisis. Innovation in renewable energy, geoengineering, and artificial intelligence are thriving and may hold the key. American cities have stepped up to assume the mantle of leadership in reducing greenhouse gases when the federal government has failed. There are signs of both promise and peril for America’s climate future. Can the United States overcome its domestic climate crisis to become a global leader for climate action? Or are the forces of extreme partisanship, climate denialism, and dirty industry too deeply entrenched?
Contact info: lind.initiative@ubc.ca
Course Instructors
Justin Alger
Lind Fellow
Justin Alger is a fellow at The Phil Lind Initiative at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs. His doctorate is in political science from the University of British Columbia, where he specialized in international relations and global environmental politics. He has published several articles and book chapters about the politics of marine conservation, with a book on the subject in progress. He is the co-editor (with Peter Dauvergne) of A Research Agenda for Global Environmental Politics, which identifies some of the most pressing questions and emerging issues for future researchers in the field.
Justin is also a sessional instructor at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs and in the Department of Political Science at UBC. He has taught courses in introductory methods, global politics, political economy, and global environmental politics.
Taylor Owen
UBC Assistant Professor
Taylor Owen is Assistant Professor of Digital Media and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia, a Senior Fellow at the Columbia Journalism School and the founder and publisher of OpenCanada.org. He was previously the Research Director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University where he designed and led a program studying the impact of digital technology on the practice of journalism, and has held research positions at Yale University, The London School of Economics and The International Peace Research Institute, Oslo where his work focuses on the intersection between information technology and international affairs.
His Doctorate is from the University of Oxford and he has been a Trudeau and Banting scholar, an Action Canada and Public Policy Forum Fellow, the 2016 Public Policy Forum Emerging Leader, and sits on the Board of Directors of the Center for International Governance Innovation (CIGI). He is the author, most recently, of Disruptive Power: The Crisis of the State in the Digital Age (Oxford University Press, 2015) and the co-editor of The World Won’t Wait: Why Canada Needs to Rethink its Foreign Policies (University of Toronto Press, 2015, with Roland Paris), Journalism After Snowden: The Future of the Free Press in the Surveillance State (Columbia University Press, 2017, with Emily Bell) and The Platform Press: How Silicon Valley Re-enginnered Journalism (Tow Center 2017, with Emily Bell), His work can be found at www.taylorowen.com and @taylor_owen.
