Event Description
The Environmental Policy program and the Institute for Energy and the Environment present the first annual lecture on People, Policy and the Environment.
On March 1, David Schlosberg will give a lecture: Disruption, Community and Resilient Governance: Environmental Justice in the Anthropocene
To date, the social science and humanities literature on the Anthropocene has been fairly devoid of considerations of justice. From wilderness advocates to ecomodernists, both critics and cheerleaders for the concept have failed to address the main issues facing the most vulnerable. The Anthropocene will bring two kinds of disruptions, both with justice implications. On the one hand, the slow violence of environmental deterioration, as Rob Nixon has called it, will continue to inequitable undermine the cultures, food, land, and health of vulnerable communities. Simultaneously, these injustices will also come quickly, in singular events like Katrina, wildfires, and heatwaves.
The Anthropocene will encompass ongoing examples of both slow and evolutionary devastation, and punctuated disequilibrium and disturbance. The center argument here is that these disruptive impacts will primarily impact a key need and demand of environmental justice -- attachments to the community. In response to the current trajectory, however, there are reflexive, resilient, and reconstructive ideas coming out of the environmental and climate justice committees. Reflexive, resilient, and regenerative practices, and hope for a 'sustainocene,' are apparent in community discourse and practice.
David Schlosberg, PhD, is professor of environmental politics in the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. He is the coordinator of their Environmental Politics Research Cluster, a member of the university's Environmental Humanities Group and Sydney Network on Climate Change and Society, and founding co-director of the Sydney Environment Institute. dschlosberg.com |
