The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 27) is just around the corner so get inspired and join UBC students and faculty this Thursday as they share their work to combat climate change.
Featuring a keynote speech by Severn Cullis Suzuki, executive director of the David Suzuki Foundation, UBC climate researchers will share how their ongoing work contributes to the global struggle for our future in PechaKucha-style, seven-to-12-minute talks at VanDusen gardens, including:
- Creating a bioplastic made from grass that could be used for food packaging, called 'Grasstic'
- How packing a truck with evacuation essentials every morning while surrounded by wildfires became normal for one student, who wrote the Elephant Hill fire review as the landscape burned around her
- How to create decolonized maps for climate change adaptation projects that focus on what a community values
- How a documentary in Patagonia highlighted 'paper parks', marine protected areas that are protected on paper only, and how their mismanagement affects communities
In addition, Chief Ninawa Huni Kui, hereditary Chief of the Huni Kui Indigenous people of the Amazon, will discuss Indigenous land rights and resistance in the fight to protect the Amazon region with Gert-Peter Bruch, director of the documentary Terra Libre. A short version of the film will also be screened.
Event: Climate Stories from UBC
Date/Time: Thursday, October 27, 5:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Location: VanDusen Botanical Garden, 5251 Oak St, Vancouver, BC V6M 4H1 (map)
Parking: The VanDusen Botanical Garden parking lot is located on West 37th Avenue, just off of Oak Street (more)
Interview opportunities
Emerging scholars:
- Amanda Johnson (she/her), UBC doctoral student, 'Grasstic: A plastic made from grass'
- Fiona Beaty, UBC doctoral student, 'Transforming how we map to address the effects of climate change on life in and around the Salish Sea'
- Sarah Dickson-Hoyle (she/her), UBC doctoral student, 'Indigenous leadership in wildfire management'
- Veronica Relano, UBC alumna, COP 27 delegate, 'SOS we are oceans'
- Max Cohen, UBC doctoral candidate, 'Geographies of delay: From Shetland's oil era to the UK's first green energy island'
- Rachel Stern (she/her), UBC Masters student, 'Housing justice in a climate emergency'
- Paroma Wagle, UBC postdoctoral fellow, 'Urban climate justice from below'
Other interview opportunities:
- Severn Cullis Suzuki, executive director of the David Suzuki Foundation
- Chief Ninawa Huni Ku, Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies international Indigenous scholar
- Gert-Peter Bruch, Terra Libre director
- Chief Gidansda (Guujaaw), Haida Nation
Assignment editors: Pre-interviews are available with various scholars. Opening remarks will begin at 5:15 p.m., and keynote speech at 5:30 p.m. Please arrive by 5:00 p.m. to set up cameras
