FEATURING AN EXCEPTIONAL SPEAKER LINEUP
from the Vatican, industry, NGOs, governments and academia
Agriculture
Architecture
Biology
Business
Climate
Economics
Engineering
Environmental Studies
Health Sciences
Law
Political Science
Public Administration
Theology.
Dr. Christoph Stückelberger
FOUNDER
Globethics.net
Cultivate and Conserve
Towards a Sustainable Development Paradigm
Date: January 30, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
Sustainable development enables a life in dignity of present generations of human and non-human beings without endangering a life in dignity of future generations of human and non-human beings.
Transformation in the world and inner spiritual transformation have to go hand in hand.
Faith and Spirituality are drivers of transformation
Cardinal Peter Turkson
Prefect
Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development
The Essential Message of Laudato Si
Date: September 25, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
" We must engage in honest, transparent, constructive dialogue based on the principles of solidarity, subsidiarity, working for the common good, universal destination of goods, and preferential option for the poor and for the earth. Particular interests must not hijack the negotiations. We must transcend ourselves in solidarity."
Guilermo Kerber, Ph.D.
Theologian, Uruguay/Switzerland
Atelier Oecuménique de Théologie
Global Call for Climate Action
The Ecumenical Background of
and Reactions to Laudato Si'
Date: October 16, 2018 at 1:00pm EST
Laudato Si’ had a strong impact well beyond the Catholic church. At its presentation in the Vatican, a representative of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople welcomed the encyclical and reminded a long way had been done on the topic by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and his predecessor Dimitrios. The World Council of Churches (WCC), a fellowship of more than 300 Protestant, Orthodox and Pentecostal churches, has, for decades, linked care for creation with justice and peace. While encouraging and supporting member churches to protect the integrity of creation, the WCC has strongly advocated at the United Nations (UN) forums, especially since 1992, the UN Earth Summit and at the Conferences of Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
John Dominic Crossan
Professor emeritus at DePaul University
and bestselling author
The Challenge of Jesus
Date: February 6, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
Here, then, is our present challenge from Jesus’ vision of God’s Kingdom on earth. A sustainable earth requires many difficult decisions, plans, and actions. But, above all else, a sustainable earth demands a peaceful earth, and a peaceful earth demands a just earth with a fair distribution of all its resources among all its peoples. For we are in the image and likeness of a nonviolent God (Genesis 1:26-27) whose sun rises alike for all and whose rain descends alike on all (Matthew 5:45).
Andrew Simms
Author, analyst and co-director of the
New Weather Institute
The Possibility of Rapid Transition
Date: February 13, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
We are told that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than a change to the current economic system. Yet the lessons of history and current innovation tell a different story. As societies we have repeatedly experienced dramatic, rapid transitions. These have been in response to external shocks and pressures, like economic, environmental and political shocks. But they have also resulted from technological and demographic shifts. What can we learn about the conditions under which rapid, progressive transition can happen in order to make it more likely today? And, can we do so in a way that matches the scale and speed of necessary changes?
Stewart Wallis
Chairman
Wellbeing Economy Alliance
A Wellbeing Econony:
Why, What and How To make It Happen
Date: November 27, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
Stewart Wallis has long been an advocate for transition to a new economic system. With experience ranging from private industry, the World Bank and Oxfam, he has come out of retirement to voluntarily help to run Wellbeing Economy Alliance. Next week he will talk about how the predominant economic system has become addicted to GDP growth at all costs and has lost sight of the larger goal of sustainable wellbeing, what we need to do and what is being done.
Bill McKibben
AUTHOR and Founder of 350.org
Why 350 Is A Magic Number
Date: March 20, 2018 at 1:00pm EST
The battle over carbon emissions has so far been fought mainly between big and powerful players. In countries like Australia, the coal industry has battled environmentalists and taken on solar power entrepreneurs, while on the international stage the major players — the EU, the US, China — have driven the negotiations. Most of the talk has been about what’s preferable from the point of view of the leadership of these strong forces. But the first victims of climate change have become increasingly assertive as their predicament becomes more apparent. Facing climate disaster, African countries are calling for a fast greenhouse gas reduction to 350 parts per million ahead of the global climate protests
Mark Z. Jacobson, Ph.D.
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program
Stanford University
Transitioning the world to 100% clean, renewable energy
Date: February 13, 2018 at 1:00pm EST
Global warming, air pollution, and energy insecurity are three of the most significant problems facing the world today. This talk discusses the development of technical and economic plans to convert the energy infrastructure of each of the 50 United States and 139 countries of the world to those powered by 100% wind, water, and sunlight (WWS) for all purposes, namely electricity, transportation, industry, and heating/cooling, after energy efficiency measures have been accounted for. Results showing the ability of the grid to remain stable at low cost under 100%. WWS conditions are also provided.
Gernot Wagner, Ph.D.
Financial Times Prize-winning author
Research Associate and lecturer
Environmental Science and Public Policy
Harvard School of Engineering & Science
Climate Shock: It’s not over ‘til the fat tail zings
Date: February 20, 2018 at 1:00pm EST
If you had a 10 percent chance of having a fatal car accident, you’d take necessary precautions. So if we know the world is warming and there’s a 10 percent chance this might eventually lead to a catastrophe beyond anything we could imagine, why aren’t we doing more about climate change right now?
Climate Shock helps readers zero in on the unknown risks that may yet dwarf all else. It also shows how the economic forces that make sensible climate policies difficult to enact can make radical would-be fixes like geoengineering all the more probable.
Sanjoy Mukherjee, Ph.D.
Professor
Sustainability, CSR and Business Ethics
Rajiv Gandhi Indian Institute of Management
Sustainability Ethics:
Ecology, Economy & Ethics
Date: t.b.a.
Sustainable Development" is the goal 2015-2030 of the global community of states, adopted by the United Nations. Ecology, economy and ethics are all needed to reach these goals. Understanding a concept like ‘sustainability' requires an understanding not only of what we are seeking to ‘sustain', but also how man's activities and needs are implicated in and can threaten the future of these biological systems. This lecture reflects upon one of the key countries of the world, India, whose population represents almost 20% of the world's population. Questions surrounding economic development and environmental sustainability are fundamental to understanding the country's future, and how it will tackle difficult issues, like the eradication of poverty.
Ndidi Nnoli-Edozien Ph.D.
Award-winning Nigerian social entrepreneur
Corporate sustainability and responsibility
Founder - Growing Businesses Foundation
Bottom of The Pyramid Empowerment
Date: t.b.a
The bottom of the pyramid, bottom of the wealth pyramid or the bottom of the income pyramid is the largest, but poorest socio-economic group. In global terms, this is the 2.7 billion people who live on less than $2.50 a day. To address the need for sustaiable development at the bottom of the pyramid, Nnoli-Edozien founded the Micro-enterprise Development Co-operation. MDC is a platform for evaluating international best practices in micro-finance for building self-reliant and sustainable financial intermediaries that nurture and grow small businesses into viable and socially responsible service providers.
Joseph Romm
Founding Editor, ClimateProgress.org
Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
Author, "Climate Change: What Everyone Needs To Know
Climate Change Solutions: What You Thought You Knew Is Obsolete
Date: March 6, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
Historically, even the most respected newspapers have fallen into the trap of giving the same credence – and often the same amount of space – to a handful of U.S. scientists, most receiving funds from the fossil fuel industry, as they give to hundreds of the world's leading climate scientists. No surprise that much of the public has ended up with a misimpression about the remarkable strength of our scientific understanding and the need for action. More and more pieces are being written by senior political reporters, who know very little about global warming. Scientists and politicians need to be more effective communicators about climate change.
Kate Raworth, Ph.D.
Author
Senior Visiting Research Associate
Environmental Change Institute
University of Oxford
Humanity's Compass for the 21st Century
(or why doughnuts could turn out to be good for us)
Date: March 20, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
At the start of the 21st century, amidst social and ecological crises, humanity urgently needs a radically renewed sense of progress and a compass for charting the journey ahead. The Doughnut of social and ecological boundaries offers such a compass. Kate will introduce the concept and explore its implications for business, for urban design, for economics, and for each of us.
Norman Kurland
Executive Director
Center for Economic & Social Justice
The Just Third Way: Creating Green Growth, Widespread Prosperity, and Global Peace
Date: November 27, 2018 at 1:00pm EST
Humanity in the 21st Century conquered the bonds of earth’s gravity and left our footprints on the moon, escaping the bonds of earth’s gravity. We have developed fossil-free energy, manufacturing and communications technologies that would enable us to feed, clothe, shelter, educate and empower every global person.
What’s missing? A paradigm that addresses inequality, poverty, racism, climate change, and war: The Just Third Way (“JTW”) or “Personalism.” Norman will discuss a model to ensure that all people have equal opportunity, full access and full participation in the free market as workers and capital owners.
Marie Venner
Chair, Transportation Research Board
Climate Change Special Task Force
National Academies of Science & Engineering
What is pro-life and well-being? Surprising recent findings on the health effects of pollution from traffic and fossil fuels
Date: March 26, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
More people die from the air quality effects of traffic every year than from accidents. Now researchers have found that health effects are much worse than previously thought, touch everyone, and permanently impact many people. How shall we respond? Clean air is possible, practical and affordable. The set of health impacts we’ve known about for decades (stroke, early death, asthma, lung disease, emergency room visits) by themselves justify serious action; health savings alone would cover the additional investment that renewable energy used to require. The new set of diseases and impacts that are known make action worthwhile many times over. Alternatives are now available and they are economical, so it is a question of values and priorities.
Mark Campanale
FOUNDER
Carbon Tracker Initiative
Sustainable finance as a driver for the energy transition; what are the risks of investing in the fossil economy?
Date: October 23, 2018 at 1:00pm EST
The Carbon Tracker Initiative is a London-based not-for-profit think tank researching the impact of climate change on financial markets. The Carbon Tracker Initiative popularized the notion of a carbon bubble, which describes the incompatibility between the continued development of fossil fuel projects and combating climate change.
This lecture will look at how the energy transition is disrupting demand for fossil fuels, particularly how electric cars is effecting oil demand and solar & gas the demand for coal in power. It will look at the science of carbon budgets and the need to keep most fossil fuels in the ground to secure the Paris agreement of limiting warming to no more than 2 degrees and preferably 1.5 degrees.
Rev. Fletcher Harper
Executive Director
Greenfaith
GreenFaith – Belief into Action for the Earth
Date: April 3, 2018 at 1:00pm EST
More than ever before, people of diverse faiths globally are putting their beliefs into action for the Earth, by praying, protesting, marching, and changing their lifestyles. At the same time, the dire urgency of the climate and environmental crises means that action is needed at orders of magnitude greater than presently in place. Addressing this gap with spirituality, joy and conviction is GreenFaith’s mission, and its director, Fletcher Harper, will describe the evolution of the religious environmental movement on an international, multi-faith perspective and introduce two new efforts – a global, multi-faith sustainable living initiative and a local faith-based environmental organizing initiative – designed to meet these challenges.
Richard Wilkinson, Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor of Social Epidemiology
University of Nottingham Medical School
Inequality and Dysfunctional Societies
Date: April 10, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
If you look at rich countries and compare life expectancy, mental health, homicide rates, child well-being, teenage birth rates, imprisonment, drug abuse, obesity rates, levels of trust, the educational performance of school children, or the strength of community life, you find that countries which tend to do well on one of these measures tend to do well on all of them, and the ones which do badly, tend to do badly on all of them. What accounts for the difference?
The key seems to be the amount of inequality in each society. The picture is consistent whether we compare rich countries or the 50 states of the USA. The more unequal a society is, the more ill health and social problems it has.
Rev. Jerry Cappel, Ph.D.
Province IV Environmental Network Coordinator
The Center for Religion and the Environment
University of the South
Fellowship, Reconciliation and Celebration: Restoring Faith as a Foundation of Environmental Action
Date: April 10, 2018 at 1:00pm EST
A key contribution of Laudato Si’ is in how Pope Francis gives voice to the truth that fundamental environmental challenges and solutions stem not only from the sciences, but also in the bible and tradition; not only economics, but faith and faithfulness. The scientific realities of climate change, extinctions and pollutions are pointers that also expose a misfit faith. The facts and figures of consumerism and eco-injustice expose the same. This session will revisit the Christian witness through the voice of Laudato Si’, challenging dualistic and anthropocentric interpretations of the faith and explore a path forward through an integral ecology and a gospel of right relationship with all creation.
Christopher Laszlo, Ph.D.
Executive Director, Fowler Center for Business as Chair, Fowler Professor of Organizational Behavior
Weatherhead School of Management
Case Western Reserve University
Quantum Leadership:
New Consciousness in Business
Date: April 17, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
By the end of the webcast you will be able to understand how transforming consciousness is the highest lever for a new leadership orientation toward prosperity and flourishing. You will explore practices of connectedness for greater personal and professional fulfillment. You will begin to discover your own commitment to positive social impact. What can you do in your lifetime? What do you want your legacy to be? What is the impact that you want to have on the world?
Amory B. Lovins
Co-founder and Chief Scientist
Rocky Mountain Institute
How Big is the Energy Efficiency Resource?
Date: April 24, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
Most economic theorists assume that energy
efficiency is a limited and dwindling resource whose adoption, driven by policy and price, will deplete its potential and raise its cost. Influenced by that model, most traditional analysts and deployers of energy
efficiency see and exploit only a modest fraction of the worthwhile efficiency resource, saving less and paying more than they should.
With energy efficiency as its cornerstone and needing its pace redoubled, climate protection depends critically on seeing and deploying the entire efficiency
resource. This opportunity requires focusing less on individual technologies than on whole systems (buildings, factories, vehicles, and the larger systems embedding them), and replacing theoretical assumptions about efficiency’s diminishing returns with practitioners’ empirical evidence of expanding
returns.
Jochem Wermuth
FOUNDER Partner and Chief Investment Officer
Wermuth Asset Management GmbH
ASSET ALLOCATION WITH POSITIVE IMPACT IN THE GREEN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
Date: October 2, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
How investors can play a key role in slowing climate change while enhancing risk return profiles
Green Industrial Revolution: Moving the trillions needed to stop climate change profitably
The green industrial revolution is here – its turning point has arrived. Emerging markets is where much of the growth will take place. Disruptive technologies mean that even mature markets can sometimes be seen as emerging markets.
Michael Pirson, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Area Chair (Interim)
Organizational Behavior
Fordham University
Humanistic Management Manifesto
Date: April 17, 2018 at 1:00pm EST
We believe that market economies hold a substantial potential for human development in general. To promote life-conducive market activities, we want to complement the quantitative metrics, which hitherto define managerial and economic success with qualitative evaluation criteria that focus on the human dignity and well-being of every woman and every man.
In business as well as in society, respect for human dignity demands respect for human freedom. Collective decision-making, in corporations just as in governments, should hence be based on free and equal deliberation, participation or representation of all affected parties. Concerns of legitimacy must, in economics like in politics, precede questions of expediency ...
George Marshall
C-Founder, Director of Projects
Climate Outreach
Breaking the Silence: Talking about Climate Change with People of Faith
Date: April 3, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
Our attitudes to climate change are determined by values, identity and socially-transferred narratives. Faith provides an opportunity for reframing climate change around a set of common ethical values that can be shared across political and cultural boundaries. Along with recognising a common commitment to spiritual values, George will acknowledge the shared values of people of faith and the vital contribution their voice makes to climate change - especially in establishing the moral basis for action.
Robert Brecha, Ph.D.
Professor of Physics and Renewable and Clean Energy
University of Dayton
Energy Access and Sustainable Development
Date: October 9, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
The paradox of development has been that wealthy countries used fossil fuels over the past century, but the resulting changes to Earth’s climate threaten mainly the least wealthy parts of the globe. However, many around the world have not yet had access to modern energy systems. Sustainability requires us to consider the interconnectedness of the planet's natural systems and with human societies globally and in the future. One key to enabling sustainable development lies in a dramatic increase in deployment of renewable energy, technologies either currently available or advancing rapidly. This talk will be a presentation of some current realities, as well as very real difficulties in making the transformation to a sustainable world energy system.
Mary Christina Wood, J.D.
Philip H. Knight Professor of Law
University of Oregon School of Law
Atmospheric Trust Litigation Around the World
Date: October 16, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
This presentation will describe the ongoing, youth-led litigation campaign invoking the ancient public trust principle to force governments to reduce carbon dioxide emissions before the planet passes irrevocable climate thresholds into runaway heating. The public trust concept in law parallels covenants of stewardship announced in the major religions of the world and calls for fiduciary care towards common resources, like the air we breathe and the atmosphere that controls our climate system.
David Bollier
Writer and Activist
Director - Reinventing the Commons Program
Schumacher Center for a New Economics
Reinventing the Commons
Date: October 9, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
One of the most devastating and recurring problems that virtually every commons faces is market enclosure – the privatization and marketization of shared resources by businesses, investors and speculators, often in collusion with government. What's really remarkable is that legislatures and courts so often declare that enclosures are legal because they supposedly contribute to economic growth, progress and freedom.
All of this got me to thinking: What would it look like if commoners could invent their own types of law, consistent with state law, to reliably protect their commons? What if there were a more rigorous Law for the Commons?
Michel Bauwens
Founder - Foundation for Peer-to-Peer Alternatives
External expert at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences (2008, 2012)
The role of the Commons
in the Coming Transformation
Date: October 23, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
Most approaches for social change are still focusing on re-balancing the market-state dichotomy, but the commons are a vital third sector that is historically linked to situations of ecological overshoot. In this presentation, we will introduce commons-based peer production, the rapid expansion of urban commons in every area of human provisioning, and the necessary adaptation of state forms (public-commons partnerships) and markets (regenerative markets) in a commons-centric political economy, the only one that is capable to drastically diminish human footprints while guaranteeing the equitable predistribution of wealth.
Mt. St. Mary College
Thomas Fitzmaurice, Ph.D. - Finance
Michael Fox, J.D. - Business Law
Tracey Niemotko, JD, CPA, CFE - Accounting
Anthony Scardillo, DM, MBA - Marketing
Moira Tolan, Ph.D. - Management
Veronica McMillan, RN, JD - Healthcare Management
Faculty Members from the Mount Saint Mary College
School of Business
Seeing God in the Workplace
How Business Firms Can Elevate Society by Engaging in Sustainable Business Practices
Date: October 30, 2018 at 1:00pm EST
Michael Shuman
Author, Professor, Speaker, Advocate
Cutting Edge Capital
Post Carbon Institute
Investing Locally
Date: October 30, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
Distributed renewable energy on a sustainable grid may be antithetical to large scale corporate organization. Want to move your money from Wall Street to Main Street?
Michael reviews the latest tools available for investors who want to put their money into local business, for businesses who want to get financed by their customers and neighbors, and for financial professionals who want to start new local-investment institutions. These are the 25 financial tools we will need to accelerate the adoption of cost-competitive renewable energy systems on a sustainable grid.
John Odhiambo Onyango, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Architecture
University of Notre DAME
Climate Change and the Built Environment
Date: December 3, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
John’s research primarily focuses on Sustainability in the broad sense that takes holistic approaches to the creative practices at the building and urban design levels that is both interdisciplinary as well as multidisciplinary in collaboration with other colleagues in the allied fields such as engineering, sociology, healthcare, and IT communications. The CIB working paper for “W108: Climate Change and the Built Environment” suggested future research should focus on two main hazards: floods and heat waves.
Marissa Vertrees
Director of Organizing
Global Catholic Climate Movement
Organizing Locally for Laudato Si'
Date: November 13, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
The Global Catholic Climate Movement is global network of 650+ Catholic organizations in all continents, with a constituency of nearly 1 million
Catholic individuals, working to care for creation by responding to climate change.
GCCM supports the Catholic Church to bring Laudato Si’ to life through their Season of Creation flagship project, the Eco-Parish program to reduce the carbon footprint, the Divest-Reinvest program to shift Catholic financial assets from dirty fossil fuels to clean renewable energy and public advocacy in the halls of power and in the media.
Marissa will talk about how to engage your parish, diocese, and local community in living out Laudato Si’ and identifying places of local change and local advocacy.
https://catholicclimatemovement.global
Sylvia Lindinger-Sternart, Ph.D.
Director & Assistant Professor Counseling
M.S. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling
University of Providence
Date: November 6, 2018 at 1:00pm EST
Holistic Sustainability
The effect of climate change and increasing societal injustice compels humankind to answer the question what we can do to strengthen sustainability and ethics across the world. What about creating sustainable and ethical communities that can be a household, village, city, nation, or globe. Such a community is creative, compassionate, ecologically wise and spiritually satisfying, with values that leave no one behind and considers all living creatures on this planet. Embracing the interconnection of all living beings will help us to realize that we are all part of a giant living organism. It is only by transforming our own personal living that we can become real change agents. Holistic sustainability must manifest at the physical, mental, social, and spiritual level.
Meg Stapleton Smith
Ph.D. Student
Theological and Social Ethics Program Fordham University
Date: November 20, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
How Catholic universities can implement and embody the central teachings of Laudato Si
Meg is a PhD student in the Theological and Social Ethics program at Fordham University. Her lecture will address how Catholic universities can implement and embody the central teachings of Laudato Si’. Through theological reflection of Laudato Si’ as well as critical analysis of sustainability efforts already in place at Jesuit universities, this paper responds to the following questions: what would the structure of a Catholic university look like if it took Global Climate Change seriously? How do we calibrate our universities toward the global common good? In the absence of leadership from Washington on climate change, how does the mission and task of a Catholic university change? How do students across disciplines work towards liberation for the oppressed, and for the planet?
Julia M. Puaschunder, Ph.D.
Professor of Behavioral Economics
Schwartz Center for Social Research
The New School for Social Research
Date: November 13, 2018 at 1:00pm EST
Climate justice and intergenerational solidarity as a pathway to sustainable development
Julia will be presenting a 3-dimensional climate justice approach to fairly sharing the burden of climate change within society. First, climate justice within a country should pay tribute to the fact that low- and high income households share the same burden proportional to their dispensable income, for instance enabled through a progressive carbon taxation. Secondly, fair climate change change burden sharing between countries argues that those countries benefiting more from a warmer climate, should also bear a higher burden of climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts. Thirdly, climate justice over time is proposed in an innovative bonds climate change burden sharing strategy.
Héctor Julio Cobello
Professor of Geography and History
Catholic Movement World of Fight Against Desertification
Of Land Degradation and Poverty (MCMLDP)
Date: November 6, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
Laudato Si and Processes of Desertification, Lands Degradation and Poverty
The processes of desertification, land degradation and poverty are advancing at silent steps and in different ways throughout many countries of our planet. Desertification is not an isolated problem, but is fully related to climate changes, the conservation of biodiversity and the need for the sustainable management of natural resources. The problem of desertification is a symptom of a broken balance between the system of natural resources and the socio-economic system that exploits them. This is the spirit in which Laudato Si is written.
Fall 2019
Thomas Smith, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor in Environmental Geography
London School of Economics
The Hazy Shade of Palm Oil
Date: October 16, 2018 at 1:00pm BST
LIVE from the London School of Economics
Thomas will discuss wildfire driven haze pollution in Southeast Asia; a man-made environmental disaster. Naturally, the tropical rainforests of Malaysia and Indonesia are fairly drought-resistant, storing moisture in deep peaty soils. Yet, vast swathes of this unique ecosystem, home to Sumatran tigers and orang-utans, are being badly degraded by unsustainable illegal logging and conversion to plantations by the palm oil and paper industries. The loss of forests and the draining of soils by networks of canals drastically increases landscape susceptibility to fire. During long dry seasons, such as the exceptional dry season of 2015, fires burn and smoulder their way through the exposed peatlands that were once protected by forests. It is these fires that lead to dangerous air quality across the Southeast Asian region.
The talk will explore some of Dr Smith’s personal experiences tracking down fires across Malaysia and Indonesia over the past few years, and investigate links between pollution and intensified unsustainable agriculture in the region.
David Bollier
Writer and Activist
Director - Reinventing the Commons Program
Schumacher Center for a New Economics
Reinventing the Commons
Date: October 9, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
One of the most devastating and recurring problems that virtually every commons faces is market enclosure – the privatization and marketization of shared resources by businesses, investors and speculators, often in collusion with government. What's really remarkable is that legislatures and courts so often declare that enclosures are legal because they supposedly contribute to economic growth, progress and freedom.
All of this got me to thinking: What would it look like if commoners could invent their own types of law, consistent with state law, to reliably protect their commons? What if there were a more rigorous Law for the Commons?
Michel Bauwens
Founder - Foundation for Peer-to-Peer Alternatives
External expert at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences (2008, 2012)
The role of the Commons
in the Coming Transformation
Date: October 23, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
Most approaches for social change are still focusing on re-balancing the market-state dichotomy, but the commons are a vital third sector that is historically linked to situations of ecological overshoot. In this presentation, we will introduce commons-based peer production, the rapid expansion of urban commons in every area of human provisioning, and the necessary adaptation of state forms (public-commons partnerships) and markets (regenerative markets) in a commons-centric political economy, the only one that is capable to drastically diminish human footprints while guaranteeing the equitable predistribution of wealth.
Mt. St. Mary College
Thomas Fitzmaurice, Ph.D. - Finance
Michael Fox, J.D. - Business Law
Tracey Niemotko, JD, CPA, CFE - Accounting
Anthony Scardillo, DM, MBA - Marketing
Moira Tolan, Ph.D. - Management
Veronica McMillan, RN, JD - Healthcare Management
Faculty Members from the Mount Saint Mary College
School of Business
Seeing God in the Workplace
How Business Firms Can Elevate Society by Engaging in Sustainable Business Practices
Date: October 30, 2018 at 1:00pm EST
Michael Shuman
Author, Professor, Speaker, Advocate
Cutting Edge Capital
Post Carbon Institute
Investing Locally
Date: October 30, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
Distributed renewable energy on a sustainable grid may be antithetical to large scale corporate organization. Want to move your money from Wall Street to Main Street?
Michael reviews the latest tools available for investors who want to put their money into local business, for businesses who want to get financed by their customers and neighbors, and for financial professionals who want to start new local-investment institutions. These are the 25 financial tools we will need to accelerate the adoption of cost-competitive renewable energy systems on a sustainable grid.
John Odhiambo Onyango, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Architecture
University of Notre DAME
Climate Change and the Built Environment
Date: December 3, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
John’s research primarily focuses on Sustainability in the broad sense that takes holistic approaches to the creative practices at the building and urban design levels that is both interdisciplinary as well as multidisciplinary in collaboration with other colleagues in the allied fields such as engineering, sociology, healthcare, and IT communications. The CIB working paper for “W108: Climate Change and the Built Environment” suggested future research should focus on two main hazards: floods and heat waves.
Marissa Vertrees
Director of Organizing
Global Catholic Climate Movement
Organizing Locally for Laudato Si'
Date: November 13, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
The Global Catholic Climate Movement is global network of 650+ Catholic organizations in all continents, with a constituency of nearly 1 million
Catholic individuals, working to care for creation by responding to climate change.
GCCM supports the Catholic Church to bring Laudato Si’ to life through their Season of Creation flagship project, the Eco-Parish program to reduce the carbon footprint, the Divest-Reinvest program to shift Catholic financial assets from dirty fossil fuels to clean renewable energy and public advocacy in the halls of power and in the media.
Marissa will talk about how to engage your parish, diocese, and local community in living out Laudato Si’ and identifying places of local change and local advocacy.
https://catholicclimatemovement.global
Sylvia Lindinger-Sternart, Ph.D.
Director & Assistant Professor Counseling
M.S. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling
University of Providence
Date: November 6, 2018 at 1:00pm EST
Holistic Sustainability
The effect of climate change and increasing societal injustice compels humankind to answer the question what we can do to strengthen sustainability and ethics across the world. What about creating sustainable and ethical communities that can be a household, village, city, nation, or globe. Such a community is creative, compassionate, ecologically wise and spiritually satisfying, with values that leave no one behind and considers all living creatures on this planet. Embracing the interconnection of all living beings will help us to realize that we are all part of a giant living organism. It is only by transforming our own personal living that we can become real change agents. Holistic sustainability must manifest at the physical, mental, social, and spiritual level.
Meg Stapleton Smith
Ph.D. Student
Theological and Social Ethics Program Fordham University
Date: November 20, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
How Catholic universities can implement and embody the central teachings of Laudato Si
Meg is a PhD student in the Theological and Social Ethics program at Fordham University. Her lecture will address how Catholic universities can implement and embody the central teachings of Laudato Si’. Through theological reflection of Laudato Si’ as well as critical analysis of sustainability efforts already in place at Jesuit universities, this paper responds to the following questions: what would the structure of a Catholic university look like if it took Global Climate Change seriously? How do we calibrate our universities toward the global common good? In the absence of leadership from Washington on climate change, how does the mission and task of a Catholic university change? How do students across disciplines work towards liberation for the oppressed, and for the planet?
Julia M. Puaschunder, Ph.D.
Professor of Behavioral Economics
Schwartz Center for Social Research
The New School for Social Research
Date: November 13, 2018 at 1:00pm EST
Climate justice and intergenerational solidarity as a pathway to sustainable development
Julia will be presenting a 3-dimensional climate justice approach to fairly sharing the burden of climate change within society. First, climate justice within a country should pay tribute to the fact that low- and high income households share the same burden proportional to their dispensable income, for instance enabled through a progressive carbon taxation. Secondly, fair climate change change burden sharing between countries argues that those countries benefiting more from a warmer climate, should also bear a higher burden of climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts. Thirdly, climate justice over time is proposed in an innovative bonds climate change burden sharing strategy.
Héctor Julio Cobello
Professor of Geography and History
Catholic Movement World of Fight Against Desertification
Of Land Degradation and Poverty (MCMLDP)
Date: November 6, 2018 at 12:00pm EST
Laudato Si and Processes of Desertification, Lands Degradation and Poverty
The processes of desertification, land degradation and poverty are advancing at silent steps and in different ways throughout many countries of our planet. Desertification is not an isolated problem, but is fully related to climate changes, the conservation of biodiversity and the need for the sustainable management of natural resources. The problem of desertification is a symptom of a broken balance between the system of natural resources and the socio-economic system that exploits them. This is the spirit in which Laudato Si is written.