Ecologues:
A discussion series about the climate emergency
In partnership with News Decoder and the Climate Academy at the European School of Brussels, we’re delighted to announce Ecologues, a series of interactive webinars featuring experts on various aspects of the environmental crisis. Attached to The Writing’s on the Wall (WoW), a year-long project helping students across the world grapple with the climate crisis through journalism, activism, and art, the series will allow participants of all ages to deepen understanding, tackle disinformation and, ultimately, inspire change in their communities. Reconciling science and art, knowledge and action, pragmatism and hope, the conversations will stir curiosity and encourage participation.
About the 2023 Series
The 2023 series will unfold over six sessions, from 26 January to 29 June. Conversations will begin at 19h00 CET and run for ninety minutes. Conversations will be hybrid, taking place both in person at the American Library in Paris and online. Though participants are encouraged to join all six sessions for a holistic overview, the discrete and diverse nature of topics will allow audience members to attend based on interest. Alice McCrum, head of cultural programming at the American Library in Paris, will begin each conversation with brief opening remarks, before guiding an in-depth group discussion.
Please write to Alice McCrum at mccrum@americanlibraryinparis.org or Maria Krasinski, News Decoder’s Managing Director, at maria.krasinski@news-decoder.com with any questions or thoughts.
The Meetings: Click the links to sign up for each session.
Sign up for Meeting One: What is the Climate Crisis?
Thursday 26 January 2023
We find ourselves firmly in the Anthropocene, the period in which human activity is the dominant influence on the natural world. We wonder: what is happening to the earth, the sky, and the oceans? How did we get here, and where are we going?
About the speakers:
- Alister Doyle, author of The Great Melt, formerly reported on the environment for Reuters.
- Matthew Pye, founder of the Climate Academy, is a teacher, philosopher, and author.
- Rahmina Paulette, founder of Kisumu Environmental Champs, is an activist and conservationist.
Sign up for Meeting Two: Environmental Justice
Thursday 23 February 2023
If environmental justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies, then there is much to do. Where to start?
About the speakers:
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Marie Cohuet, spokesperson for Alternatiba, is a climate and social justice activist.
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Paul Spencer Sochaczewski, former head of creative services for WWF, is a writer, journalist, and lecturer.
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Floriane Marié specializes in climate education in Latin America and Africa.
Sign up for Meeting Three: The Energy Question
Thursday 30 March 2023
Volatile gas and electricity prices, accelerating energy diversification, and a cold winter ahead, the question of energy (and of the energy transition from fossil-based to zero-carbon by the second half of this century) is central to contemporary discussions about the environment.
About the speakers:
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Andreas Rüdinger, coordinates IDDRI’s, a think tank which facilitates the transition towards sustainable development, activities on the French energy transition.
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Tom Burke is the co-founding Director and Chairman of Third Generation Environmentalism, a climate change think tank.
Sign Up for Meeting Four: The Food Question
Thursday 27 April 2023
While half of the world’s habitable land is used to produce our food, fertilizers, sewage, and pesticides contaminate large swathes of the rest. How to feed the world, we might ask, without destroying the planet?
About the speakers:
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George Monbiot, author of Regenesis: Feeding the World without Devouring the Planet, is a columnist, filmmaker, and essayist.
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Sébastien Treyer is Executive Director of IDDRI, a think tank which facilitates the transition towards sustainable development.
- Emma Heiling is the Founder & CEO of ClimaTalk, a youth-led non-profit organisation demystifying climate policy and empowering young people in the fight for climate action.
Sign up for Meeting Five: Environmental Economics
Thursday 25 May 2023
Whether degrowth or green growth, the circular economy or the end of the capitalist economy as we know it, environmental economics, the study of how we use and manage finite resources, help us understand negative externalities, public goods, and market failures.
About the speakers:
- Bianca Getzel is a Research Officer in the Development and Public Finance Programme at global affairs think tank ODI.
- Marlowe Hood is Senior Editor at Agence France-Presse, covering science, environment, and the climate crisis.
- Rigo Melgar-Melgar is a PhD candidate in the Leadership for the Ecozoic (L4E) program at the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, and the Gund Institute for Environment at the University of Vermont.
- Timothée Parrique is an economist at the School of Economics and Management of Lund University and author of Ralentir ou périr : L’économie de la décroissance.
Sign up for Meeting Six: Legislating for the Future
Thursday 29 June 2023
How can we expand our sense of time to confront the long-term (and increasingly short-term) devastation of the climate crisis? How to, moreover, legislate against this devastation? And to legislate on behalf of who exactly? The rivers and the trees? The children of the future?
About the speakers:
- Tim Crossland, a former barrister, is the Director of Plan B, a foundation supporting strategic legal action to prevent catastrophic climate change.
- Rémi Parmentier, a founding member of Greenpeace International, helped to conceptualize and establish the Global Ocean Commission.
- Executive Director to Environment Now, Linda Sheehan guides Environment Now’s work to protect and restore California’s coastal, freshwater and forest ecosystems, for the benefit of all Californians.
The Writing’s on the Wall
At the intersection of activism, journalism, and art, the year-long project provides resources and strategies for schools worldwide to integrate climate education into their curricula. Through workshops and training sessions, interactive webinars and professional development meetings, the initiative will support media literacy, global citizenship education, as well as creativity and innovation. Though WoW focuses on secondary school students and teachers, all resources and strategies–gathered and preserved in an open access webspace–can be adapted to fit the needs of younger and older students, too.
About the Host Organizations
News Decoder
News Decoder is a global educational news service that nurtures young people to become savvy, active global citizens. Since 2015, our distinctive approach to media literacy has encouraged young people to think like journalists to deepen their understanding of global issues and develop skills as critical, informed media consumers and creators. We publish original news stories written for and by young people and facilitate interactions between youth and experts in journalism and global affairs.
The Climate Academy at the European School of Brussels
The Climate Academy at the European School of Brussels educates fifteen to eighteen-year-old European students in climate science and the systemic thinking that this provokes. Over a 2-year programme, young people develop their understanding and skills to transform their civic space. The Academy offers a free package of materials and guidance that can be plugged into any school. It can achieve a major impact across the whole school community by empowering a small number of change makers with the latest science and holistic vision.
The American Library in Paris
Established in 1920, the American Library in Paris is the largest English-language lending library on the European continent. Through its celebration of the written word and the life of the mind, as well as its evolving collections and innovative cultural programming, the Library promotes knowledge, inspires learning, and fosters community. It is home to the international, thoughtful, and curious in the center of Paris.
The Library’s contribution to this joint program is supported by the Florence Gould Foundation and the American Center for Arts and Culture.
