Inuit Archives | Research & Innovation

91��ɫ-led research projects and graduate students awarded more than $19.5 million from SSHRC and partners

muellerm — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 08:00:00 +0000

Five 91��ɫ-led research partnerships have received $14.3 million through the (SSHRC) Partnership Grants program, Partnership Development Grants program and partnership contributions from external research partners participating in the projects. In addition, more than $5.2 million was awarded to 145 91��ɫ master’s and doctoral students to support scholarships and fellowships from SSHRC’s Talent Program.

Stephen Gaetz (right), professor and associate dean in the Faculty of Education, has received more than $2.5 million in funding over seven years to lead “Canadian Observatory on Homelessness”, with more than 27 researchers – including Professor Janet Mosher at Osgoode Hall Law School, Professor Valerie Preston in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS) and Professor Stan Shapson in the Faculty of Education − and 29 partner organizations. The project, a non-partisan research and policy partnership, aims to evaluate current policy directions and programmatic approaches to preventing and reducing homelessness, address key policy questions, and support the development and implementation of effective and sustainable solutions to homelessness in communities across Canada. The goal is to mobilize research on homelessness so it has a greater impact on policy and practice, leading to more effective solutions to homelessness. The project, which will also receive more than $2.5 million in matching funding and contributions from partnering organizations, will leverage the collaborative, research and knowledge mobilization capacities of participating individuals and organizations.

Anna Hudson (left), professor in the Faculty of Fine Arts, has received more than $3.5 million over six years to lead a major project titled “Mobilizing Inuit Cultural Heritage: a multi-media/multi-platform re-engagement of voice in visual art and performance”, with 10 researchers – including Professor Susan Dion in the Faculty of Education and Professor Angela Norwood from the Faculty of Fine Arts – and nine partner organizations. The goal of the project is to conduct collaborative research on the contribution of Inuit visual culture, art and performance to Inuit language preservation, social well-being and cultural identity. The project will address the current disconnect for Inuit today between orality – being the voice that defines the self in relation to others – and materiality – being the environment in which one lives well together through three primary objectives: access to advanced information and communication technologies, connection of Inuit voice to objects of Inuit cultural heritage and expanded creation of Inuit cultural capacity. It will receive an additional $1.9 million in matching funding and contributions from partnering organizations.

Leah Vosko (right), Canada Research Chair in the Political Economy of Gender and Work and political science professor, LA&PS, has received more than $2 million in funding over five years to lead a major national project with 33 researchers – including Professor Mark Thomas in the Department of Sociology and Professor Eric Tucker at Osgoode Hall Law School − and 16 partner organizations. The project, titled “Closing the Enforcement Gap: Improving Employment Standards Protection for People in Precarious Jobs”, will examine the role of employment standards enforcement in ensuring minimum conditions in areas such as wages, working time, vacations and leaves for workers in precarious jobs in Ontario, characterized by job insecurity, low income and limited access to regulatory protection. The objectives of the project, which will receive more than an additional $1.3 million in matching funding and contributions from partnering organizations, are to map the nature and scope of employment standards violations and document enforcement practices to identify regulatory challenges and develop alternative models of enforcement that may be applied in Ontario and other jurisdictions within Canada and internationally.

“We are delighted by the results of these recent SSHRC competitions, enabling 91��ɫ to maintain our track record in leading the country in the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada’s large-scale awards competitions valued at $1 million or more,” said Robert Haché, 91��ɫ’s vice-president research and innovation. “The projects led by 91��ɫ Professors Stephen Gaetz, Anna Hudson and Leah Vosko enable our researchers to work together with research partners to address persistent, social and economic challenges facing our society today. It will also enable our researchers and graduate students to make important contributions to our country’s knowledge base.”

Two 91��ɫ researchers were also awarded more than $397,000 in SSHRC funding through the Partnership Development Grants program. The program encourages applicants to work collaboratively with partners to develop research in the social sciences and humanities. This funding will support partnerships between 91��ɫ researchers and Canadian and international universities, a charitable organization and an international association.

Gary Goodyear, federal minister of state for science and technology, announced the funding on Friday, May 31, at the launch of the annual Congress of the Humanities & Social Sciences. In total, more than $63 million is being awarded over a period of seven years to support 78 research teams across the country through SSHRC’s Partnership Grants and Partnership Development Grants. An additional $104 million from SSHRC’s Talent Program will support more than 3,700 master’s, doctoral and postdoctoral scholarships and fellowships.

An analysis conducted by the Strategic & Institutional Research Initiatives Unit, in the Office of Research Services at 91��ɫ, revealed that between 2006 and 2013, 91��ɫ researchers received more SSHRC awards valued at $1 million or more than any other institution in Canada. SSHRC’s large-scale awards offered between 2001 and 2013 have included the Community-University Research Alliance (CURA), Major Collaborative Research Initiatives (MCRI), the Strategic Knowledge Clusters and the SSHRC Partnership Grants.

For a complete list of Partnership Grant and Partnership Development Grant awards, visit the website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin to research stories on the research website.

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IRIS and APECS host climate change workshop

fmaquito — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 08:00:00 +0000

A growing number of people are experiencing the effects of climate change in their daily lives, but those effects are not distributed equally. A workshop at 91��ɫ on Wednesday will discuss the issue of climate change and who it affects and how, the role of governments and what should be done.

The Climate Justice and Politics Workshop is part of the Climate Justice II Workshop Series, “Bringing a Democratic Canadian Perspective to the Climate Change Conference in South Africa: Taking Action on Climate Change.” The event will take place Oct. 26, from 1 to 4pm, 305 91��ɫ Lanes, Keele campus. It is hosted by 91��ɫ’s Institute for Research & Innovation in Sustainability () and Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (), and co-ordinated by Mihae Ahn, a student in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Environmental Studies (FES), and JP Sapinski, a PhD student at the University of Victoria.

The workshop will feature five student panelists with follow-up commentary by guest discussant 91��ɫ FES Professor Ellie Perkins. It will also be virtually available for those outside the University to participate. For instructions on how to connect, . The idea is to help spark discussion about people who are already marginalized – women, dispossessed classes, indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities and citizens of poorer countries – and who are bearing the brunt of the consequences of a warming world.

The workshop is just one of the events being organized by IRIS and APECS in advance of the United Nations climate change conference, , in Durban, South Africa, in November. It is an opportunity to meet and share ideas with like-minded climate justice activists and academics. It is also intended to solicit input from the audience to inform the work of the 91��ɫ delegates, some of whom will participate in an exhibit booth intended to highlight Inuit experiences and perspectives of climate change. "We are also waiting to hear about the approval of our side event, 'Bridging Knowledges: Communicating on Climate Change Experiences to Build Resilient Communities'," says Rachel Hirsch, a FES post-doctoral fellow and IRIS executive member at 91��ɫ.

Two of the delegates are youth from Arviat, Nunavut. It is important to have the voice of the Arviat youth at COP17, says Hirsch, as they are one of the groups most affected by climate change. The whole idea is to create dialogue. The booth is a joint effort between 91��ɫ, the Inuit Circumpolar Council and the Nanisiniq Project. “Bringing people to COP17 is one way to get people’s voices heard regarding climate change, but it has become a pan-Canadian initiative,” says Hirsch. The result is that “we all want this to be an ongoing network for continuing dialogue. It has become something so much bigger.”

The five panelists will discuss climate justice and politics from perspectives ranging from ethics and philosophy to critical discourse analysis to the political economy of global warming. FES student Aaron Saad will discuss, “Just and Unjust Solutions to Climate Change and Human Displacement,” Ahn will look at “Climate Change and Hybrid Ethics: A Review of Four Ethical Theories,” University of Toronto students Rachel 91��ɫ-Bridgers and Paul 91��ɫ will discuss “Animals and Climate Change,” Sapinski will talk about “Capitalism, Climate Change and the Discourse of Ecological Modernization” and University of Ottawa student Chris Bisson will look at “Resilient Cooperation – A (Re)new(ed) Alternative to Sustainable Development." Sapinski and Bisson will join the workshop virtually.

“Such a workshop is crucial because it challenges the way that climate change is currently addressed at the global level. The impacts of climate change on people force them to migrate to other countries or regions (climate refugees) or change their whole way of life (First Nations and Inuit people, especially in the North), among others,” says Sapinski. “However, the issue of climate justice is not limited to the impacts of climate change, as injustices and inequalities also come from the way governments deal with the issue.”

For more information on the workshop, its presenters and their abstracts, visit the website. For more information about the Arviat youth, visit the website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Professor Anna Hudson studies the new generation of northern artists

fmaquito — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 08:00:00 +0000

When “southerners” think about Inuit art, the classic images of soapstone carvings, beautiful prints and textile works depicting animals and traditional Inuit stories immediately come to mind.

Visual arts Professor Anna Hudson is currently researching the circumpolar cultural shift from the visual artwork created by generations past to feed a hungry collectors’ market in the south, to a new generation of artists who are using words, music and digital media to create work for northern audiences.

With support from the , Hudson's research project, “Breaking the Boundaries of Inuit Art: New Contexts for Cultural Influence”, addresses the gap between the established Inuit visual arts and the increasingly relevant time-based media, performance and autobiographical storytelling produced primarily for Inuit audiences.

“While there’s still a market for carvings and prints, and they’re an economic resource for the Inuit, they are also very resource-intensive,” said Hudson, who was the associate curator of Canadian art at the Art Gallery of Ontario prior to joining 91��ɫ. “In the past, many artists had access to these resources through co-ops, but such art centres are now fading away and it seems the next generation isn’t interested in continuing these market-based art practices.

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“Today, young artists in the north are working with everything from hip hop-influenced music and fashion to performance poetry, beat and throat boxing, and video. They’re disseminating their work by digital means. And they’re looking for opportunities to travel with it, to perform or create their work live – unlike the generations of visual artists whose work was shipped away while they remained at the co-op in their community.”

While the mediums these up-and-coming Inuit artists are exploring are common in the south, there is often a distinctly northern feel to what they create.

“Beat boxing has been combined with throat singing to become throat boxing,” said Hudson. “And the poetry, whether it’s written for spoken word or as lyrics to songs, is deeply connected to the artists’ personal experiences. Often, it’s very dark, reflecting on issues such as the extremely high suicide rate in the north.”

Hudson’s research award has allowed her to make several trips to communities in Nunavik and Nunavut in the Canadian north, and to bring northern artists south to Toronto and Ottawa. Most recently, she organized a four-day artists workshop and a two-day concert, co-produced by in Iqaluit, Nunavut to celebrate both National Aboriginal Day, June 21, and the end of term with School’s Out performances.

Aided by her graduate assistant Jean O'Hara, a doctoral student in theatre studies, Hudson arranged for throat singers and spoken word, rap, beat box, hip hop and folk performers from Nunavut, Greenland and Toronto to lead workshops for each other and the public, creating new collaborations and sharing the results in a free public concert.

Right: Jean O’Hara (left) and Anna Hudson soak up the scenery of the Frobisher Bay coastline

“It was a great experience and I was thoroughly impressed by the talent of all the artists,” said O’Hara. “I think 91��ɫ’s involvement was what made this collaborative approach possible. We created a space for Inuit and non-Inuit artists to inspire each other and create new works while also showcasing their own pieces. For example, we had throat singing combined with spoken word, a harmonica and beat boxing. Fusions like this allow for new imaginings and reflect northern life, which is filled with both traditional and contemporary art and music forms.”

The concert featured Greenland’s Nive Nielsen and the Deer Children, an award-winning Inuk indie band known as the “heirs to Arcade Fire”; Baker Lake rapper Shauna Seeteenak and her cousin, beat boxer Nelson Tagoona; harmonica master Mike Stevens; madeskimo DJ Geronimo Inutiq; and Toronto’s spoken word artist/rapper Ian Kamau.

Left: Harmonica master Mike Stevens (left) and beatboxer Nelson Tagoona collaborated at the “School’s Out” workshops

The entire program was documented by Philip Joamie of Inuit Communications and Jimmie Papatsie of the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation, with the intent to share it online.

“While there are similarities between producing a concert and curating an art show, this was my first time working with live performance, and I was very grateful to be collaborating with Jean,” said Hudson. “It was amazing to see the collaborations come together, watching older performers work with younger artists in front of a very intergenerational crowd.”

“Most of the research in the North centres on climate change, social sciences and ecology,” said Hudson. “But there’s also a very exciting arts revolution happening up there. I think one can facilitate positive change in communities that are struggling with massive challenges, but more importantly, non-Inuit can learn a lot from Inuit peoples about being engaged in a globalized world.”

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Professor Christine Jonas Simpson transforms son's stillbirth into groundbreaking research

fmaquito — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Stillbirths claim more lives each year than HIV-AIDS and malaria combined

When Christine Jonas-Simpson’s son Ethan was born, there was an eerie quiet in the delivery room, and then a piercing wail, wrote .

“The only cry I heard was my own,” she said somberly.

Ethan was dead, “born still” in the language of grieving parents; “stillborn” in the medical vernacular. The umbilical cord was constricted, essentially suffocating the baby in the womb, a condition impossible to detect with an ultrasound.

Jonas-Simpson, who was almost 38 weeks pregnant, knew her son was dead before she went into labour. When he was born, she held Ethan in her arms, stroking his shock of curly red hair. So did her husband.

The nurses were wonderfully supportive, even explaining to Ethan’s young siblings how his air tube was broken, something that could happen to an astronaut. The family was able to mourn on their terms.

(Jonas-Simpson, a professor of nursing at 91��ɫ [Faculty of Health], published a children’s book, , and produced a series of research papers and documentaries on stillbirth, the latest of which, Enduring Love: Transforming Loss, will .)

[You can also watch the channel.]

Unlike Ethan, most babies born still are quickly “disposed of” without being held, named or given a funeral. In much of the world, reproduction is central to a woman’s purpose, so there is profound stigma, and no small measure of blame falls on the mother when childbirth fails to produce a living child.

Newly published data show there are more than 2.6 million stillbirths worldwide each year. The deaths remain largely uncounted, the mothers unsupported and preventive measures understudied.

It is an epidemic – one that claims more lives each year than HIV-AIDS and malaria combined – that quietly unfolds far from the public eye.

The Lancet, in its Thursday edition, has published that aim to shatter the silence by examining the staggering toll of stillbirth – emotional, physical and economic – and proposing practical solutions.

A stillbirth, as defined by the World Health Organization, is one in which a baby dies after reaching at least 28 weeks gestation and weighing at least 1,000 grams. In a country like Canada with advanced medical care, it is 22 weeks at 500 grams. (Loss of a fetus before that time is considered a miscarriage or, if the pregnancy is terminated, an abortion.)

There is a common belief that babies who die in utero were never meant to live. Stillbirths have been seen as a form of natural selection, bad luck, the result of witchcraft – lame 17th-century explanations for a lingering 21st-century scourge.

The other myth is that most stillbirths occur early in the pregnancy. In fact, the opposite is true: The longer the gestation, the higher the risk.

The vast majority of stillbirths are preventable.

In wealthy countries like Canada, where high-tech obstetrics are the norm, stillbirths are linked to smoking, obesity, advanced maternal age, and abnormalities in the placenta and umbilical cord.

J0nas-Simpson's research was also covered by in a story about the prevalence and impact of stillbirths among Inuit communities.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Professors report back to Arctic communities on International Polar Year Research

fmaquito — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 10:00:00 +0000

For two weeks in January, two 91��ɫ professors bundled into parkas and flew to Arctic villages along the proposed Mackenzie Valley pipeline. They were delivering valuable cargo – the results of their International Polar Year (IPY) research.

Reporting back to the communities was a condition of receiving IPY research funding in 2007, and after three years ecologist and political scientist Gabrielle Slowey were ready to deliver. When the two arrived by bush plane, citizens in Fort Simpson and Inuvik crowded into local meeting halls to hear them. Some had helped do the research, all were curious to hear the results.

Right: Dawn Bazely in a plane back to Yellowknife from Fort Simpson

“They were never going to read a report. They need to hear things orally,” says Bazely, director of 91��ɫ’s Institute for Research & Innovation in Sustainability.

Bazely led the Canadian component of an IPY project called (GAPS), investigating the effect of oil and gas development on northern communities. She oversaw teams of natural and social scientists investigating invasive plant species, housing security and homelessness, mental health services and the advantages of self-governance in indigenous communities in the Yukon and Northwest Territories.

"What was really unique about our program was no other had natural and social scientists working so closely in tandem from the beginning," said Slowey. Oil and gas was the context, human security or the well-being of these communities was the framework. The collaboration worked really well and achieved real results, she said.

Above: Gabrielle Slowey in front of the igloo church, Our Lady of Victory, an Inuvik landmark

Normally, denizens of these northern communities pay little heed as scientists from the south come and go, and never return to share their findings, says Bazely. This time they were all ears. The research offers them a glimpse of what is in store for them and ways they can deal with change. “It’s empowering,” she says.

Slowey agrees. “We’re not just taking knowledge away, we’re giving it back and helping them.” She also presented her findings in Whitehorse.

For the past three years, Slowey has been comparing the ability of self-governing versus non-self-governing indigenous communities to cope with change wrought by oil and gas development and exploration. After surveying residents, community leaders and industry officials, she found self-governing communities, such as Old Crow, have more control over what happens to them. They can make their own decisions and negotiate directly with the territorial government over oil and gas development. Non-self-governing communities such as Tuktoyaktuk must deal with multiple levels of government to get anything done. “Self-government removes all those layers and gives more local empowerment.”

Left: Gabrielle Slowey

After her presentations in Whitehorse and Inuvik, people in communities such as Pelee Crossing, Yukon, and Sachs Harbour, Northwest Territories (NWT), sought Slowey's advice on how to proceed given mining exploration or oil exploration occurring in their area. "I highlighted not just onshore but offshore oil and gas development. It’s going to be huge."

Folks in the NWT were also curious about the potential impact of devolution (downloading of jurisdiction from Ottawa to the territories) on their self-government agreements and future development. It's a hot topic in the North and Slowey has pointed out in newspaper editorials how Ottawa bureaucrats are ill-prepared to make decisions about the North because they have no understanding of what life is like for the people who live there.

Moreover, she says, “we tend to think of people in the North as victims of policy instead of agents of change. I’m telling them they’re on the right track by pursuing self-government.” Do it now, she’s saying, before the territorial government embraces devolution. Yet it's not so easy, as local indigenous leaders scramble to keep up as Ottawa keeps changing the rules of the game.

Over the past three years, Bazely and her students have looked for evidence of invasive plant species in settlements from Fort Simpson, gateway to the Nahanni and home of the caribou, north to Norman Wells, Fort Good Hope and Inuvik. Oil and gas exploration and development has brought outsiders to the area and with them a foreign fungus that has infected the grass that caribou eat. Not good news for people whose diet depends on caribou meat. Bazely advised communities to revegetate the ground along the pipelines and roads with local seeds, not imported seeds. Doing so could lead to local – and sustainable – business opportunities, she told in Fort Simpson.

Above: The frozen Mackenzie River

The will be published in peer-reviewed academic journals, presented at conferences and spawn graduate theses, says Bazely. But the best value, she believes, comes from sharing it directly with local policy-makers and citizens.

By March, IPY research will be completed and next year the results will be shared at a Montreal conference, .

Bazely is editing a book, Environmental Change and Human Security in the Arctic, to which Slowey is contributing a chapter. By this fall, Slowey expects to finish editing a book, Rethinking Public Policy in the Northwest Territories, highlighting each of the Canadian GAPS subprojects.

The biologist and political scientist have embraced the IPY imperative to report back to the communities. They plan to share their IPY research findings with indigenous groups in northern Ontario and local groups in Pennsylvania, who are faced with shale-gas development.

By Martha Tancock, YFile contributor

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Professor Timothy Leduc: Include Inuit experience of climate change in Western debate

fmaquito — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 10:00:00 +0000

A 91��ɫ professor’s new book aims to integrate the Inuit experience of climate change with Western climate research, and includes an Inuktitut companion to the volume, making it accessible across cultures.

, released this week by University of Ottawa Press, calls for a shift in the debate surrounding climate change.

“I wanted to move the discussion away from the debates we’re constantly hearing in the news – the validity of climate science and the economic validity of a response,” says author �վ��ǳٳ��ܳ�, professor in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Environmental Studies.

“There is today an abundance of scientific research and policy options to develop climate change responses, but I believe what we are lacking is a spirited sense of our situation and the willpower to make significant cultural change. This is what these dialogues with Inuit allowed me to consider,” he says.

“Much of the current debate focuses on how to continue extracting all the resources we can while limiting the harm to the environment. These storylines reflect our cultural tendency to economize. It’s not that economizing in itself is wrong – but it holds too much power. As soon as any scientific research, cultural understanding or religious worldview conflicts with this perspective, it becomes marginalized from the corridors of power,” says Leduc.

Accordingly, Leduc believes all parties concerned must be part of the discussion. With this in mind, he created an Inuktitut companion to the book that presents the central ideas of Climate, Culture, Change for the Inuit who have been instrumental to this project. It is available to , free of charge.

“It’s important to note that I did not ‘give voice’ to Inuit, for their perspectives have been well represented in climate change research and policy circles by hunters, elders, groups like the Inuit Circumpolar Council and activists like Sheila Watt-Cloutier,” he says. “However, I feel this book has allowed me to open space for us to consider some alternative ways of thinking about climate change.”

Leduc notes that while it’s impossible to predict exactly how we’ll be affected in the future, the coinciding impact of climate shifts, environmental degradation and the end of oil will make that future significantly different than what we know today.

Left: Timothy Leduc

“Either we are proactive in envisioning a radical change of those cultural beliefs and practices that underlie our failed response to climate change, or we continue to deny our situation and thus lurch from crisis to crisis,” Leduc says. “Every step in that direction brings us closer to a future where we have less time and space to develop a humane, just and wise response.”

Leduc holds a PhD in Environmental Studies from 91��ɫ, and has worked for a number of years in northern indigenous communities.

91��ɫ’s Faculty of Environmental Studies is the first of its kind in Canada, and one of the first worldwide. It is one of the broadest interdisciplinary programs in the country, offering students an abundance of faculty interests and courses, allowing them to focus on a particular subject area while acquiring a breadth of knowledge.

Visit the blog for more information on the book.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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IRIS launches book calling for systemic changes to fight climate change

fmaquito — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

It's not enough to plant trees in exchange for carbon emissions in the fight to mitigate climate change, say 91��ɫ environmental studies Professor Anders Sandberg and 91��ɫ environmental studies master’s student in their new co-edited book Climate Change – Who’s Carrying the Burden?: The Chilly Climates of the Global Environmental Dilemma.

Nor is it enough to set up a supposed green company in the Global South to offset the spewing emissions of companies in the Global North. Without a substantial system change, an alternative way of living, climate change will continue unabated, says Anders Sandberg. “I don’t see any change, frankly. Carbon emissions are still increasing dramatically.”

When carbon emissions are traded or bought for offsets, such as planting trees, they are done so at the end of the carbon change cycle, rather than at the beginning. A lot of money continues to go into the development of more carbon sources. “From my perspective it’s not very positive,” says Sandberg. Much of the offset purchasing is by large multinationals in the Global South, where they set up green companies to offset pollution in the United States, but by doing so they displace many of the local people and their economic livelihoods.

In the book, the Sandbergs write, “The concept of climate change itself can be an oppressive force…hiding the historical connections of the carbon economy to colonialism, capitalism and rampant and exploitive resource extractions."

“We’re asking people to look at the climate change issues from a broader perspective, which could bring forth more ideas,” says Sandberg.

In , the third volume in the Our Schools/Our Selves book series, 2010, published by the , the Sandbergs look at who is most affected by climate change and the need for systemic change beyond capping and trading carbon emissions.

They don't believe that free markets, new green technologies and international agreements are enough to alleviate climate change. Despite green technologies, levels of consumption will likely remain high. Even if all the cars are electric, there will still be suburbs, roads and gridlock, potentially leading to an increase in the amount of electricity used and the building of more hydroelectric dams, which then affects the environment and the people who use it. “I think we need to look at and imagine other ways of living,” says Anders Sandberg.

Left: Anders Sandberg

Although climate change is a global issue, the solutions are not. What’s needed is a closer look at the origins of climate change and the areas it most impacts, he says. Areas such as the Tar Sands of Alberta, the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa, the Canadian north, the coastal regions of Bangladesh and the island states of the Pacific.

“We have to look at the people on the ground who are harmed by this. What we are trying to do is turn the prism from the global to the local. But we’re not just looking at the horror stories; we’re also looking at the hope and resiliency of these communities and whether they might have some answers to the climate change problem.” For one thing, it’s important to understand the vulnerabilities that have built up in these communities, explore their origins, call for reparations from those who are responsible and build on the resiliencies that remain.

One of the contributors to the book, 91��ɫ environmental studies master's student Jelena Vesic (BES Spec. Hon. '08), points to the polar bear as a symbol and a victim of climate change. There is now a threat to First Nations who harvest them because they are considered endangered, yet a closer look reveals that in some regions the polar bear is holding its own. Banning their harvest would affect First Nations communities that have hunted polar bears as part of their culture for centuries. The ban would also affect the local economy and the resiliency that’s built into the particular relationship between the Inuit and the polar bear.

Right: Tor Sandberg

Climate Change – Who’s Carrying the Burden? contains a collection of papers from prominent people such as Stephen Lewis, Canada's former ambassador to the United Nations, who looks at the health impact of global climate change; author and journalist Naomi Klein, who talks about paying the climate debt; and scholar and activist Vandana Shiva on the G8/20 summit and climate change. Green Party of Canada leader Elizabeth May explores shrinking ecological footprints and expanding political ones, while visiting Fulbright scholar at 91��ɫ Professor Noël Sturgeon challenges the family values and environmental practices that are tied to the carbon economy.

The majority of articles, however, are written by junior scholars and graduate students in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Environmental Studies who are passionate about climate justice. They write on a range of topics, including the recent climate-focused conferences in Copenhagen and Cochabamba, climate change-induced migration, Hurricane Katrina, the Niger Delta, the First Nations youth adoption of hip hop music to fight HIV/AIDS. the largest squatter settlement in Europe (the free town of Christiania in Copenhagen) and food policy in the Greater Toronto Area.

The Sandbergs discuss what they see as the dominant story – cap and trade and offsets –and the alternative story that calls for systemic change and climate justice, which emerged at the 15th United Nations conference on climate change they attended last December in Copenhagen.

Anders Sandberg is currently using Climate Change – Who’s Carrying the Burden? in his course – Environmental Studies 1200, Taking Action, Engaging People and the Environment.

The book will be officially launched by 91��ɫ’s (the Sandbergs were part of the institute's delegation to the climate change conference in Copenhagen) on Wednesday, Oct. 20, from 3 to 4:30pm at 305 91��ɫ Lanes, Keele campus.

The themes of the book will also be featured in a session titled “Climate Change, Climate Justice and Human Rights” during 91��ɫ’s Inclusion Day – Dialoguing Across Differences tomorrow.

For more information on the book, visit the website.

By Sandra McLean, YFile writer

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin

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