(quiet music)
>>Climate change is, without a doubt,
one of the defining challenges of the 21st century.
While global climate change itself is nothing new,
the rapid warming trend we are currently experiencing
is a direct result of human activities.
By burning fossil fuels, clearing forests,
and using synthetic fertilizers,
humans have raised atmospheric concentrations
of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses
to levels not seen at any time
since the emergence of our species.
According to NASA, global average surface temperatures
warmed roughly 0.87 degrees Celsius from 1880 to 2015.
With melting ice caps and glaciers,
sea levels have risen an average of eight inches since 1880
and are expected to rise another one to four feet by 2100,
even if mitigation measures are taken.
Worldwide, approximately 100 million people
live within three feet of sea level.
Meaning that tens of millions of people
will be displaced in the coming decades,
including some here in the United States.
In fact, in January 2016,
the federal government released $1 billion in grants
to help communities in 13 states adapt to climate change,
including one community in Louisiana
that had to be relocated.
Headlines deemed them the quote
first American climate refugees, unquote.
In Bangladesh, the capital city receives 2000 migrants
from rural areas on a daily basis,
many of them displaced by climate related effects
on their livelihoods.
Some small island states,
such as the Marshall Islands and the Maldives,
may be completely submerged.
And of course, the consequences of climate change
do not stop with coastal flooding and erosion.
Some of the carbon we emit is absorbed by the oceans,
resulting in acidification that threatens the viability
of many marine life forms,
to say nothing of the dramatic effects
that warming waters have on marine ecosystems.
Weather patterns are also changing
with increasingly severe and unseasonal heat waves,
cyclones, droughts, blizzards and floods
predicted in many parts of the world.
Needless to say,
these patterns exacerbate displacement and poverty,
particularly in the developing world.
I'll leave it to you to educate yourselves in greater depth
on the human and ecological costs of climate change.
Our main focus in this unit is on the question of equity
as it relates to climate change
and in particular, as it relates
to what some climate activists call climate justice.
The Transnational Climate Justice Movement,
which has been led chiefly by activists
from the global south and by indigenous peoples,
begins from a relatively straightforward claim.
Those who today suffer the most from climate change
are descended from those who have benefited the least
from greenhouse gas emissions.
There is, they argue, an inverse relationship
between responsibility and vulnerability
and for this reason, they seek accountability
from those who are most responsible and least vulnerable.
By making uneven levels of responsibility
and vulnerability explicit,
climate justice activists also lay bare
differences of power.
Those who are most affected by climate change
tend to be not just those who are least responsible for it,
but also those with the least power
to enforce accountability
or influence policy at the national or international level.
Their visions of accountability vary,
but many climate justice activists
have criticized UN climate negotiations,
including the 2015 Paris Agreement
for favoring wealthy governments
over the very marginalized constituencies
whose lives and livelihoods are most affected
by a change in climate.
For example, activists have demanded more robust
and immediate support for climate adaptation.
And some have even called
for what they call climate reparations.
Another point of controversy you'll encounter in this unit
concerns whether people displaced by rising sea levels
and other climate related disasters
should be classified as refugees under international law.
Some see this as a way to protect their rights.
But many who face displacement resist the refugee label
because they see how refugees are currently treated
and demand a better alternative,
such as mitigation and adaptation measures
that prevent their displacement in the first place.
As you examine the materials for this unit,
I encourage you to reflect on how differences of wealth
and power figure into climate change,
both as a geophysical phenomenon and a political issue.
What, if anything, do you think should be done
to address the concerns of the Climate Justice Movement?
What are the economic and political road blocks
to more equitable climate policy?
I also encourage you to maintain a critical awareness
of how climate change comes to us
in environmental narratives that are often oversimplified.
For example, can we say that a complex,
multifaceted conflict like the Syrian Civil War
is caused by climate change?
The fact that drought exacerbated the conflict
has led some to make this claim,
but what do such narratives leave out
and with what consequences?
And finally, a quick note on climate denial.
I presume that you're all familiar
with the so-called climate deniers or climate skeptics
who have been misled by corporate PR efforts
that manufacture doubt about the antipyrogenic nature
of climate change.
If you're not familiar with these efforts,
let me know and I'll be glad to direct you
to reputable sources
exposing how these campaigns have worked.
But what you may not be conscious of
is the denial that almost all of us exhibit
in our daily lives.
That is, when we're faced with the prospect
of a global ecological crisis
that's a direct result of how we feed,
transport, and entertain ourselves,
why do most of us take little meaningful action
to change how we live?
This is what social psychologists refer to
as implicatory denial.
The act of behaving as if something weren't known
even when it is.
Implicatory denial to me is one of the greatest challenges
facing efforts to address climate change.
And I'd be interested in hearing from you
on how you think this challenge can be overcome.
(quiet music)