Mondays at 4:00 pm in 112 Walker Building
"Embracing Change: Resilience and Adaptation in Turbulent Times" is the theme for the 2010 EarthTalks seminar series with scientists, policy makers and practitioners from across the nation and abroad joining Penn State faculty in discussions on visions for a more sustainable and equitable future.
The 13-week series takes as a starting point that human activities are impacting ecosystems and climate in unprecedented ways and threatening the various resource bases that sustain both human and ecological well being.
But rather than give in to doomsday scenarios, the speakers will argue for a different approach - resilience or the capacity to regenerate and revive after major changes or shocks have occurred.
"Resilience is the concept that we are better off preparing for and adapting to an uncertain future now rather than learning by shock," said Petra Tschakert, EESI associate and series organizer.
"While acknowledging that challenges, surprises and even chaos may lurk around the corner, resilience calls for embracing and working with change rather than trying to control it."
Tschakert will lead off the series at 4 p.m. on Monday, August 30, in a talk titled "Participatory Learning for Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience." Free and open to the public, all talks will be in 112 Walker Building.
Other speakers include Susanne Moser (Sept. 13), who has served as a staff scientist for climate change at the Union of Concerned Scientists and who is a review editor on the IPCC's Special Report on "Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation"; Lance Gunderson (Oct. 11), founding chair of the Department of Environmental Studies at Emory University and former executive director of the Resilience Network; and Byron "Ken" Williams (Oct. 18), chief of the Cooperative Research Units, U.S. Geological Survey, and lead author of the Department of Interior Adaptive Management Technical Guide.
The 2010 EarthTalks series is sponsored by the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (EESI), the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, the John A. Dutton e-Education Institute, the Department of Geography and the Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment (PSIEE).
Date | Speaker | Presentation |
---|---|---|
Aug 30 | Petra Tschakert Department of Geography, Penn State University |
"Participatory Learning for Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience" |
Sept 13 | Susanne Moser Research Associate & Consulting (Santa Cruz, Calif.) Institute for Marine Sciences, University of California-Santa Cruz |
"Americans Embracing Climate Change? - Resistance and Engagement Opportunities in the Land of the Free" |
Sept 20 | Thomas H. McGovern Department of Anthropology, Hunter College, CUNY |
"New Views of Norse Greenland: Well Adapted but Still Extinct" |
Sept 27 | Mark Somer Host and Executive Producer |
"Resilience: Ecologists Look to Nature for Strategies to Stay Afloat in Turbulent T |
Oct 4 | Thomas Fry The Nature Conservancy |
"Managing the Unavoidable: Mainstreaming Climate Adaptation in Public Policy" |
Oct 11 | Lance Gunderson Department of Environmental Studies, Emory University |
"Resilience and Adaptation: Linking Theory and Practice for Ecosystem Management" |
Oct 18 | Byron "Ken" Williams Chief, Cooperative Research Units, USGS |
"Sustainability, Resilience and Adaptive Management of Renewable Resources" |
Oct 25 | Line Gordon Stockholm Resilience Center, Sweden |
"Interactions of Water and Agriculture: Implications for Resilience at Local to Global Scales" |
Nov 1 | Bill Sharp and Tina Clark Transition Town Initiative |
"Transition Towns: Coming Together in a Time of Challenges and Change" |
Nov 8 | Steward Pickett Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
"Toward Ecological Resilience for Baltimore: Mechanistic and Synthetic Approaches to the Science of Urban Ecology" |
Nov 15 | Don Nelson Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia |
"Systems in Motion: Looking Backward to Move Forward" |
Nov 29 | Maggie Zraly Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, National University of Rwanda |
"Resilience Apparently: Kwihangana among Youth Heads of Household in Post-Genocide, Urban Rwanda" |
Dec 6 | Elena Bennett Department of Natural Resource Sciences and McGill School of Environment, McGill University |
"Modeling and Managing Ecosystem Service Interactions for Resilient Social-Ecological Systems" |
Co-sponsored by the Earth & Environmental Systems Institute and Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment