Prof. Balkan and English Major Autumn Bryan in Breezeway Dialogues on 2/23 @ 12pm

 

Join us in the Social Science Building (SO) Rotunda on Wednesday, February 23rd from noon to 1pm for a breezeway dialogue—"Did Capitalism Cause Climate Change, and Is “Green Capitalism” The Solution?"

Dr. Stacey Balkan (Professor of English and Environmental Humanities in the Department of English) will discuss with Dr. Colin Polsky (Professor of Geosciences and Director of the Center for Environmental Studies).

The event will be moderated by one of our own star English majors, Autumn Bryan (Honors English & Honors Creative Writing).

Climate change is a problem that is implicated in virtually all of the sectors of the global economy. Greenhouse gas emissions are embedded in most if not all of our daily production and consumption activities: well beyond the automobile, modern agricultural and industrial projects are producing unsustainable levels of atmospheric carbon. The fact that many “green capitalist” ventures, initiated by capitalist nations that are responsible for the highest emissions globally, are now failing to meet their aims begs an important question: “Is a capitalist approach to resolving the climate crisis likely to work if capitalism is implicated in generating the problem in the first place?"