14.5 million acres of Arkansas’s land resources are considered active farmland. One of the state’s most important economic drivers, agriculture, is also directly connected to Arkansas’s natural environment. In this session, the panel will discuss two issues, water and the herbicide dicamba, that illustrate how agricultural activities impact the state’s natural resources.
“Doughnut Economics: How to Think Like a 21st Century Economist”, by Kate Raworth
Sunday Sept 5, 1:30 pm, presenter Gladys Tiffany.
It’s clear now that neoliberal economics has been a major driver of climate chaos, but what do we do to repair the damage wrought and seek a better way? British economist Kate Raworth presents a breakthrough framework into building world economic systems that are sustainable and just that provide a new direction. Learn more on Sept 5.
June 6th,at 1:30 Climate Change Forum will present on “Revolutionary Power” by Shalanda Baker, the new Deputy Director of Energy justice at the DOE:Program Description: Changing weather patterns due to climate change are expected to have an adverse impact on wetland ecosystems. At the same time, these vulnerable habitats help sequester greenhouse gases while also mitigating the detrimental effects that extreme weather can have on society. Join Eric Fuselier of the Society of Wetland Scientists who will discuss the interplay between wetlands and climate change, and why the preservation and restoration of these unique features of the landscape are important goals to consider as our region continues to grow and develop.
Speaker Bio: Eric Fuselier, PWS works with engineers, architects, and urban planners as a certified Professional Wetland Scientist (PWS) to minimize the impacts to wetlands from the projects they design. Eric is also a Certified Wetland Botanist, and volunteers his time assisting researchers from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) with collecting field data for their research on the effects of climate change on the wetlands of the Mississippi River alluvial valley. Eric also serves on the Executive Board for the Society of Wetland Scientists’ South Central Chapter, which is a professional organization whose mission is “to promote the understanding, conservation, protection, restoration, science-based management, and sustainability of wetlands.”
“OMNI CCBF April 2021
For April 4, OMNI Climate Change Forum will return to Pluriverse, A Post-Developmental Dictionary. We began reviewing this multi-faceted book in February, and will now do the final chapters. Shelley, Alberto, Jeanne and Lolly will present. Here’s an overview:
“Pluriverse challenges the belief held by many in the West that all the nations of the world can benefit by “catching up” to the Western way of life through “development.” Though once upon a time the industrialized West seemed to offer promise to the other nations of the world, now the West is unable even to meet the United Nation’s basic Sustainable Development Goals. The book’s five editors, who bring perspectives from several continents, are concerned with going to the roots of the problem of development including capitalism and economic growth, the idea of progress, sexism, the idea that production is always good, and state domination. Although this book focuses on “post-development” it is completely relevant to the climate crisis. After all, development has involved the purposeful spread of a way of life based in high energy use and consumerism to the middle classes of the global South. Many of the short articles in the book directly address climate.
The book includes three sections. In the short first section scholar-activists from each continent (including Vandana Shiva) give their critique of the concept of ‘development’. In the second section a number of proposed solutions to the climate-development crisis are criticized. These are all reformist proposals primarily originating in the global North and include climate-smart agriculture, earth system governance, ecomodernism, ecosystem service trading, geo-engineering, green economy, neo-extractivism, reproductive engineering, and smart cities.
The final section of Pluriverse is the longest and, by far, the most important. As the editors explain: “this main section of the book is a compendium of worldviews and practices, old and new, local and global, emerging from indigenous, peasant and pastoral communities, urban neighborhoods, environmental, feminist , and spiritual movements.” While development has attempted to create a world monoculture, a single “uni-verse”, the “pluri-verse” gives us a glimpse into dozens of creative solutions to the world’s ecological and social problems coming from every corner of the globe.
Because we in the West center the dominant globalizing patriarchal and capitalist society, we are inclined to think that solutions to the climate crisis will come from this dominant culture of ours. But, what if there are many ways – a pluriverse of ways – out of this deadly box we are in? What if you have to get out of the mindset of the dominant culture to be able to create solutions that will work? Pluriverse is a book that provides hope for everyone and that is a feat in these times.”
Continuing from the website: “Recycle. Fly less. Eat less meat. These are some of the ways that we’ve been told can slow climate change. But the inordinate emphasis on individual behavior is the result of a marketing campaign that has succeeded in placing the responsibility for fixing climate change squarely on the shoulders of individuals.
Fossil fuel companies have followed the example of other industries deflecting blame (think “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”) or greenwashing (think of the beverage industry’s “Crying Indian” commercials of the 1970s). Meanwhile, they’ve blocked efforts to regulate or price carbon emissions, run PR campaigns aimed at discrediting viable alternatives, and have abdicated their responsibility in fixing the problem they’ve created. The result has been disastrous for our planet.
In The New Climate War, Mann argues that all is not lost. He draws the battle lines between the people and the polluters-fossil fuel companies, right-wing plutocrats, and petrostates. And he outlines a plan for forcing our governments and corporations to wake up and make real change, including:
· a common-sense, attainable approach to carbon pricing- and a revision of the well-intentioned but flawed currently proposed version of the Green New Deal;
· allowing renewable energy to compete fairly against fossil fuels
· debunking the false narratives and arguments that have worked their way into the climate debate and driven a wedge between even those who support climate change solutions
· combatting climate doomism and despair-mongering
With immensely powerful vested interests aligned in defense of the fossil fuel status quo, the societal tipping point won’t happen without the active participation of citizens everywhere aiding in the collective push forward. This book will reach, inform, and enable citizens everywhere to join this battle for our planet.”
February 2021
Although this book focuses on “post-development” it is completely relevant to the climate crisis. After all, development has involved the purposeful spread of a way of life based in high energy use and consumerism to the middle classes of the global South. Many of the short articles in the book directly address climate.
The book includes three sections. In the short first section scholar-activists from each continent (including Vandana Shiva) give their critique of the concept of ‘development’. In the second section a number of proposed solutions to the climate-development crisis are criticized. These are all reformist proposals primarily originating in the global North and include climate-smart agriculture, earth system governance, ecomodernism, ecosystem service trading, geo-engineering, green economy, neo-extractivism, reproductive engineering, and smart cities.
The final section of Pluriverse is the longest and, by far, the most important. As the editors explain: “this main section of the book is a compendium of worldviews and practices, old and new, local and global, emerging from indigenous, peasant and pastoral communities, urban neighborhoods, environmental, feminist , and spiritual movements.” While development has attempted to create a world monoculture, a single “uni-verse”, the “pluri-verse” gives us a glimpse into dozens of creative solutions to the world’s ecological and social problems coming from every corner of the globe.
Because we in the West center the dominant globalizing patriarchal and capitalist society, we are inclined to think that solutions to the climate crisis will come from this dominant culture of ours. But, what if there are many ways – a pluriverse of ways – out of this deadly box we are in? What if you have to get out of the mindset of the dominant culture to be able to create solutions that will work? Pluriverse is a book that provides hope for everyone and that is a feat in these times.”
Although this book focuses on “post-development” it is completely relevant to the climate crisis. After all, development has involved the purposeful spread of a way of life based in high energy use and consumerism to the middle classes of the global South. Many of the short articles in the book directly address climate.
The book includes three sections. In the short first section scholar-activists from each continent (including Vandana Shiva) give their critique of the concept of ‘development’. In the second section a number of proposed solutions to the climate-development crisis are criticized. These are all reformist proposals primarily originating in the global North and include climate-smart agriculture, earth system governance, ecomodernism, ecosystem service trading, geo-engineering, green economy, neo-extractivism, reproductive engineering, and smart cities.
The final section of Pluriverse is the longest and, by far, the most important. As the editors explain: “this main section of the book is a compendium of worldviews and practices, old and new, local and global, emerging from indigenous, peasant and pastoral communities, urban neighborhoods, environmental, feminist , and spiritual movements.” While development has attempted to create a world monoculture, a single “uni-verse”, the “pluri-verse” gives us a glimpse into dozens of creative solutions to the world’s ecological and social problems coming from every corner of the globe.
Because we in the West center the dominant globalizing patriarchal and capitalist society, we are inclined to think that solutions to the climate crisis will come from this dominant culture of ours. But, what if there are many ways – a pluriverse of ways – out of this deadly box we are in? What if you have to get out of the mindset of the dominant culture to be able to create solutions that will work? Pluriverse is a book that provides hope for everyone and that is a feat in these times.”