This document summarizes the work of the Kentucky Student Environmental Coalition (KSEC), a grassroots organization working to combat climate change through education and activism. KSEC utilizes college campuses to empower individuals and increase regional solidarity on climate issues. Recently, KSEC's Political Working Group successfully organized a climate rally, introduced state legislation supporting renewable energy, and collected over 700 petition signatures in support of the bill. The document argues that grassroots organizing is more effective than top-down approaches at inspiring climate action through interpersonal relationships and storytelling, which motivate behavioral changes.
Mitigation Of What And By What PresentationfinalLn Perch
Presentation of Draft Final findings from Research Paper on Mitigation of What and Adaptation by Whom. Presented at DevNet Conference, Uppsala, Sweden, November 2010
Ways Forward in Efforts to Ameliorate Climate Change EffectsSIANI
This study was presented during the conference “Production and Carbon Dynamics in Sustainable Agricultural and Forest Systems in Africa” held in September, 2010.
This paper describes how communities can contribute to the sustainability cause
1. Communities, communication and sustainability: what’s the purpose of this paper?
2. Online communities, why are they relevant?
3. How to communicate to achieve political goals?
4. What can politics learn from commercial communication?
5. What’s the proposed solution?
Mitigation Of What And By What PresentationfinalLn Perch
Presentation of Draft Final findings from Research Paper on Mitigation of What and Adaptation by Whom. Presented at DevNet Conference, Uppsala, Sweden, November 2010
Ways Forward in Efforts to Ameliorate Climate Change EffectsSIANI
This study was presented during the conference “Production and Carbon Dynamics in Sustainable Agricultural and Forest Systems in Africa” held in September, 2010.
This paper describes how communities can contribute to the sustainability cause
1. Communities, communication and sustainability: what’s the purpose of this paper?
2. Online communities, why are they relevant?
3. How to communicate to achieve political goals?
4. What can politics learn from commercial communication?
5. What’s the proposed solution?
The Stevens County Climate Dialogue is the first in a series of projects aimed at supporting rural citizens to assert leadership and build resiliency in the face of extreme weather and changing climate conditions.
YOUR COLOUR IS GREEN - PAPER OF LUISA VINCIGUERRA ITALYLuisa Vinciguerra
WOMEN IN THE GREEN ECONOMY. ROLE AND PROMOTION STRATEGIES OF INNER WHEEL, is the title of the Paper of Luisa Vinciguerra, connected with the Power Point Presentation.
Just as cities are hubs for innovations and investments that expand opportunities, they are also living laboratories confronting challenges of increasing complexity. They face a wide range of shocks and stresses ranging from natural hazards and climate change, to financial shocks and terrorism; slow-moving chronic stresses like poverty and violence and social conflict. As we consider how cities will adapt to the challenges of the 21st century – both known and unknown – the resilience agenda becomes increasingly important. This presentation highlights the Rockefeller Foundation’s understanding of city resilience, as informed by the RF-Arup City Resilience Framework, as well as its Resilience by Design portfolio, a series of place-based, landscape-scale interventions in U.S. coastal cities to show how we can build resilience with design while working with large federal institutions.
Equity workshop: Balancing equity and efficiency in Payments for Ecosystem Se...IIED
Balancing equity and efficiency in PES.
A presentation given at the Expert Workshop on Equity, Justice and Well-being in Ecosystem Governance, held at IIED in London, March, 2015.
A presentation by Meine van Noordwijk, Beria Leimona, Sara Namirembe, Peter Minang.
The extractives industry is a major sector in the economies
of the region as it makes a significant contribution to GDP
and constitutes a large portion of exports. However, the
sector's impact on the livelihoods of citizens has not been as
positive. To the contrary, some argue that the industry has
worsened the state of things in many nations, weakening
effective governance by engendering corruption.
This issue explores trends in sustainable development and
the extractives industry. The first article surveys emerging
trends, the second article examines trends in local content,
and the third article is a case study of the community-level
impact of the mining sector in Sierra Leone.
The Itasca County Climate Dialogue is the second in a series of projects aimed at supporting rural citizens to assert leadership and build resiliency in the face of extreme weather and changing climate conditions.
Learning Objective: After completing this lesson students will be able to -
a) describe the concept of intergenerational justice
b) address the complexities relating to the objectives of implementing intergenerational justice
The Stevens County Climate Dialogue is the first in a series of projects aimed at supporting rural citizens to assert leadership and build resiliency in the face of extreme weather and changing climate conditions.
YOUR COLOUR IS GREEN - PAPER OF LUISA VINCIGUERRA ITALYLuisa Vinciguerra
WOMEN IN THE GREEN ECONOMY. ROLE AND PROMOTION STRATEGIES OF INNER WHEEL, is the title of the Paper of Luisa Vinciguerra, connected with the Power Point Presentation.
Just as cities are hubs for innovations and investments that expand opportunities, they are also living laboratories confronting challenges of increasing complexity. They face a wide range of shocks and stresses ranging from natural hazards and climate change, to financial shocks and terrorism; slow-moving chronic stresses like poverty and violence and social conflict. As we consider how cities will adapt to the challenges of the 21st century – both known and unknown – the resilience agenda becomes increasingly important. This presentation highlights the Rockefeller Foundation’s understanding of city resilience, as informed by the RF-Arup City Resilience Framework, as well as its Resilience by Design portfolio, a series of place-based, landscape-scale interventions in U.S. coastal cities to show how we can build resilience with design while working with large federal institutions.
Equity workshop: Balancing equity and efficiency in Payments for Ecosystem Se...IIED
Balancing equity and efficiency in PES.
A presentation given at the Expert Workshop on Equity, Justice and Well-being in Ecosystem Governance, held at IIED in London, March, 2015.
A presentation by Meine van Noordwijk, Beria Leimona, Sara Namirembe, Peter Minang.
The extractives industry is a major sector in the economies
of the region as it makes a significant contribution to GDP
and constitutes a large portion of exports. However, the
sector's impact on the livelihoods of citizens has not been as
positive. To the contrary, some argue that the industry has
worsened the state of things in many nations, weakening
effective governance by engendering corruption.
This issue explores trends in sustainable development and
the extractives industry. The first article surveys emerging
trends, the second article examines trends in local content,
and the third article is a case study of the community-level
impact of the mining sector in Sierra Leone.
The Itasca County Climate Dialogue is the second in a series of projects aimed at supporting rural citizens to assert leadership and build resiliency in the face of extreme weather and changing climate conditions.
Learning Objective: After completing this lesson students will be able to -
a) describe the concept of intergenerational justice
b) address the complexities relating to the objectives of implementing intergenerational justice
La generación z. Redes sociales y tecnología en el ocio juvenilJose María Regalado
Presentación utilizada por Jose María Regalado para la sesión sobre Redes Sociales y Tecnología en el curso de Coordinadores de Ocio y Tiempo Libre de Moralzarzal el 14 de septiembre de 2015
Youth and Climate Change: Areas for Youth DevelopmentLeneka Rhoden
Future uncertainty has grown as a result of climate change. One thing has become certain as its effects worsen over time: We will bequeath the Earth to the children and young people of today and to future generations.
The largest generation of youth in history, there are 1.8 billion young people in the globe between the ages of 10 and 24. Young people are becoming more conscious of the risks and difficulties posed by the climate crisis as well as the chance for sustainable development provided by a solution to the problem.
The unprecedented global mobilization of young people demonstrates the enormous power they have to hold policymakers responsible.
HOW TO TALK EFFECTIVELY ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGEHaulTail
Lately, climate change has imposed itself on the public sphere. Through extreme events linked to changes in the climate, new scientific reports and studies, and rejuvenated youth movements (along with many other political, economic, scientific, ecological, meteorological and cultural events and issues) climate change has been increasingly difficult to ignore.
But you wouldn't really have picked up on that in the first round of the U.S. Democratic party primary debates that took place in Miami, Florida. As 20 candidates made their case to the American people, it was striking how minimally and shallowly they discussed climate change.
372017 Opposing Viewpoints in Context Print18Green.docxtamicawaysmith
3/7/2017 Opposing Viewpoints in Context Print
1/8
Greening the campus: contemporary student
environmental activism
Radical Teacher, Spring 2007
From Opposing Viewpoints in Context
In November 1992, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) issued a report entitled "World Scientists'
Warning to Humanity." Written by UCS Chair Henry Kendall and signed by 1,700 of the world's leading
scientists, including the majority of Nobel laureates in the sciences, the report's admonition was conveyed in
the strongest terms:
Human beings and the natural
world are on a collision course.
Human activities inflict harsh and
often irreversible damage on the
environment and on critical
resources. If not checked, many of
our current practices put at serious
risk the future that we wish for
human society and the plant and
animal kingdoms, and may so alter
the living world that it will be unable
to sustain life in the manner that we
know. Fundamental changes are
urgent if we are to avoid the collision
our present course will bring about. (1)
As Ross Gelbspan has documented, warnings issued by the UCS and similar groups were met with a well
funded and orchestrated corporate campaign of fake science, scaremongering, and political smearing that
effectively killed off efforts to address human beings' collision course with the planet's natural limits. (2) Nine
years after the UCS issued its stark alarm, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
unequivocally confirmed UCS claims concerning the unsustainability of contemporary industrial civilization's
growing levels of greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon emissions have continued to rise notwithstanding both
the IPCC's report and the "World Scientists' Warning." The world, and, in particular, wealthy industrialized
nations such as the United States, must reverse course dramatically if cataclysmic environmental collapse
is to be avoided. Measures such as the Kyoto Protocol (1997), which essentially seek to cap emissions at
unsustainable levels, fail to address the coming crisis adequately. Indeed, recent estimates conclude that
developed countries will have to cut their emissions by at least 70 percent over the next thirty years if
temperatures are to be kept from rising above the danger point of two degrees centigrade in excess of pre
industrial levels. (3) This is clearly a massive task, one that will require a dramatic reorientation of both the
material and ideological underpinnings of developed and industrializing countries.
As those responsible for training the scientists, entrepreneurs, and opinionmakers of tomorrow, educators
in general and institutions of higher learning in particular have a critical role to play in this race to save the
planet for habitation by human beings and other species. Despite its important role as our society's primary
site of credentialization and putative moral pillar of our culture, academia has been disappoint ...
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IN THIS SUMMARY
The earth today suffers from many problems ranging from climate change, insufficient food, dwindling energy resources, biodiversity, and poverty. Although the vast majority of human action is based on competition, many of the challenges faced by society could be solved through cooperation. In Co-opportunity, John Grant describes different cooperative solutions to sustainability problems. He focuses on five “bottlenecks” to sustainability, including representative democracy, how people define the “good life,” the relationship between buyers and sellers, the current free market model, and using return on investment as a measure of productivity. Through case studies of different people and organizations, Grant illustrates how social innovators can implement cooperative solutions.
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CSCR Community Track #1: Talking About Climate Using Tools of Media Literacy....Sustainable Tompkins
Climate Smart & Climate Ready Conference Community Track #1 on April 20, 2013 at Cinemapolis Theater in Ithaca, NY. Sox Sperry, Project Look Sharp. Talking About Climate Using the Tools of Media Literacy.
1. Grassroots Organizing and Public Activation in
Climate Action
By: Mariah Harrod
Grassroots activism entails citizens organizing around some common value or goal. In
contrast, top-down efforts utilize overarching frameworks to impose large-scale change on
communities. Both approaches to environmentalism have been undertaken with their own merits
and pitfalls, yet in the face of such time-salient and globally threatening issues as climate change
in the midst of a lack of binding international governmental agreement, grassroots organizing
offers an accessible and universally motivating route to mitigation. To demonstrate these
advantages I highlight one grassroots organization working against climate change, the Kentucky
Student Environmental Coalition (KSEC). KSEC is a statewide network of students and their
allies holding the government, corporations, and other institutions accountable through education
and activism (“Our Mission”). By utilizing college campuses, KSEC is able to alter the actual
practices of communities and individuals and increase regional solidarity to empower the public
in a way that is imperative for the globally-affected populace to respond to climate change.
Within the past few months, KSEC has demonstrated remarkable success in reducing
carbon impacts through lobbying. This was chiefly accomplished through the work of one of
three teams subdividing KSEC, the Political Working Group. The PWG is composed of students
from Centre College, University of Kentucky, Transylvania University, Eastern Kentucky
University, and Covington Latin High School and administrated by KSEC President Cara
Cooper. Relying on biweekly conference calls and delegation, this team has recently managed to:
organize a climate action rally at the state capital
2. partner with a legislative sponsor and introduce a state bill (currently HB 339/SB 190)
establishing a feed-in tariff, mandating Kentucky utility companies purchase 12.5% of
their electricity from renewable sources, and setting an efficiency standard for these
companies to create energy savings over time
collect over 700 student signatures on a petition indicating support of the bill
hold a lobbying day and youth forum for the bill in which a new sponsor and supporters
were recruited
persuade the EKU president to sign a climate commitment
KSEC members & allies join to listen to speeches relating to representative action on climate change.
3. KSEC students meet with a bill sponsor to discuss lobbying strategies.
These accomplishments are perhaps intangible in print but when enforced supremely efficacious
in catalyzing larger scale mitigation through citizens organizing. Additionally, the two less active
KSEC teams, the Local Food Working Group and the Just Transition Working Group, have held
their own planning meetings and lobby days to convince local and regional decision-makers to
cut fossil fuel use. These initiatives involved meeting with decision makers and demanding
adherence by merit of being a paying student or voting constituent. Grassroots organizing thus
allows an individual to amplify their voice on a more intimately personal scale than is possible
through a distant lens of democratic representation.
4. Though institutional change is powerful and pervasive in the battle for emission limits,
individual alterations in behavior as a result of public aggregation both arise from and establish
norms to influence the remainder of society. This is unique to small grassroots organizing which
relies heavily on interpersonal relationships and emotional appeal. Seasonally—with short
sessions in fall and spring and a week-long program in the summer—KSEC holds a “summit”
inviting students, graduates, teachers, and allied environmental associations to participate in
workshops for discussion of relevant issues and possible solutions. At these summits, provided
meals are often vegetarian, vegan, or local to reduce the resource consumption and emissions
associated with meat and distantly processed foods.
Spring 2016 Summit.
5. Participants remind each other to shut off lights, compost fruit peels, and exchange advice on
sustainable farming. These are important conversations unique to small-scale grassroots activism
in that they sidestep the larger scale tendency to overlook the individual. Indeed, mass media has
failed to significantly alter individual behavior by marketing a “one size fits all” distant,
impersonal, and uninspiring message (Moser and Dilling 165-168). Whereas top-down
approaches often justify climate change mitigation using mentally inaccessible information,
grassroots organizing engages interpersonal relationships in which social reinforcement—and the
tailoring of specific interests, narratives, and emotions—is strongest (Moser and Dilling 168;
Hoffman 79).
Top-down approaches to climate change mitigation rely heavily upon scientific and
economic analyses and, when political, are morphed through the lenses of several stakeholders
rarely held accountable for accurate constituent representation. This ivory towered information
alienates people and thus promotes contestation (Hoffman viii). Bottom-up grassroots
organizing—at least on a small scale—aggregates individuals and inspires using emotional
narrative. KSEC encourages story-telling as a catalyst of climate activism within events such as
the youth forum and upcoming Clean Energy Tour. At the former, student and ally speakers
(including members of KFTC and STAY Project, Senate candidate Sellus Wilder, and a Clean
Power Planet podcaster) spoke in the capitol rotunda on why renewable energy is important to
them. Explanations ranged from living in an industrial town with prominent health concerns to
fear for an economy dependent upon finite resources to desire for youth to remain in the state.
6. Similarly, the Clean Energy Tour recruits miners, farmers, students, and graduates to provide
narrative on renewable energy in Kentucky to an audience of legislators. These endeavors are
significant and unique to bottom-up approaches because story-telling provides a personally
relatable intrinsic motivation to change behavior (Kearns 414). By emphasizing the veritable
experiences of the individual, grassroots organizations are able to bridge the gap between people
to work in solidarity to mitigate climate change. The same cannot be true of national policies
7. formed by an elite oligarchy and seen as an imposition on a disconnected public; this motivates
pushback through both corporate lobbying against regulation and individual noncompliance
when people cannot genuinely appreciate the benefits of mitigation. Thus grassroots organizing
can establish social norms through emotional narrative in a way that top-down approaches can
only unsustainably enforce.
Grassroots organizing currently lacks the large scale solidarity necessary to effectively
address our climate crisis, but this does not make it less necessary. Where top-down frameworks
fail in persuading (rather than attempting to coerce) behavior and empowering the public to act
collaboratively, bottom-up frameworks haul ass. Fundamentally, a climate action plan issued by
an oligarchy without approval of the rest of the globe will fail. Humans require relatable
motivation to justify action, and it is individual humans who are both responsible for and capable
of altering climate change. Though localized organizing can seem too small or too
disharmonious, this is a flaw of current recruiting tactics rather than of bottom-up activism itself.
Effective, cohesive grassroots organizing capable of keeping our temperature rise well below 2°
Celsius must learn to appeal to common interests and become more inviting to those who may
not be economically or mentally on par with those affiliated. We must begin to find these
universal values and act in solidarity as a globe—not as representatives of it—if we are to save
ourselves. Climate change is undeniably a tragedy, but it also provides a historically unique
opportunity to form a unified international front against a collective threat. In light of renowned
Kentucky environmental lawyer Tom Fitzgerald’s speech topic at Centre College, I too would
agree that Margaret Mead was right: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed
citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” We must intertwine our
roots.
8. Works Cited
Hoffman, Andrew J. How Culture Shapes the Climate Change Debate. Palo Alto, US: Stanford
UP, 2015. Print.
Kearns, Laurel. “The Role of Religions in Activism.” Ed. Dryzek, John S., Richard B. Norgaard,
and David Schlosberg. Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society. Oxford, U.K.:
Oxford UP, 2011. Print. 414-425.
Moser, Susanne C., and Lisa Dilling. “Communicating Climate Change: Closing the Science-
Action Gap.” Ed. Dryzek, John S., Richard B. Norgaard, and David Schlosberg. Oxford
Handbook of Climate Change and Society. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford UP, 2011. Print. 161-
169.
"Our Mission." KY Student Environmental Coalition. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2016.