What Is Climate Change and What To Do About It?

Balsillie School of International Affairs

October 25-26, 2013

This two-day workshop involved about ten speakers from a diverse array of disciplines. On the first day, each gave a short presentation addressing the question "what is climate change?" On the second, each addressed the question "what should we do about it?" Other scholars discussed these presentations, and each afternoon there was a roundtable discussion where participants answered questions from the audience.

A program and list of participants is below. Here are slides and/or summaries of some of the presentations:

John Baez, Department of Mathematics, U. C. Riverside.
- What is Climate Change?
- What To Do About Climate Change?

Sarah Burch, Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo.
- What Do We Do About Climate Change? Crowd-Sourced Solutions, and a Sustainability Framing of Desired Solutions.

Mike Hulme, Professor of Climate and Culture, School of Social Science and Public Policy, King's College, London.
- What is Climate Change?

Radoslav Dimitrov, Department of Political Science, Western University.
- A Climate of Change.
- Global Climate Change Negotiations. (Summary by John Baez.)

Jatin Nathwani, Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy, University of Waterloo.
- Climate Change: Paths to Global Energy Transition. (Slides.)
- Climate Change: Paths to Global Energy Transition. (Notes.)
- Global Energy Transitions: Coming to Terms with Inter-generational Burdens, paper with Niels Lind and Zhewen Chen.

Vanessa Schweizer, Centre for Knowledge Integration, Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo.
- What is Climate Change? Constructs of a Global Problem.

Program

Friday 25 October: What is Climate Change?

9:00-9:30 Introductory remarks.
John Ravenhill, Director, Balsillie School of International Affairs.
Dan Scott, University of Waterloo, Interdiscipinary Centre for Climate Change.
Simon Dalby, Balsillie School of International Affairs.

9:30-10:45 Presentation Session 1.
Chair: Sara Koopman, Balsillie School of International Affairs.
John Baez, University of California (Mathematics) Jean Andrey, University of Waterloo (Geography).
Byron Williston, Wilfrid Laurier University (Philosophy).

11:15-12:30 Presentation Session 2.
Chair: Marisa Beck, Balsillie School of International Affairs.
Chris Russill, Carleton University (Communications).
Mike Hulme, Kings. College London (Climate Science).
Radoslav Dimitrov, Western University (Political Science).

1:30-2:30 Presentation Session 3.
Chair: Matt Gaudreau, Balsillie School of International Affairs.
Jatin Nathwani, University of Waterloo (Engineering).
Sarah Burch, University of Waterloo (New Social Media and Education).

3:00-5:00 Roundtable 1 (all presenters).
Chair: Lucie Edwards, Balsillie School of International Affairs.
Discussant: Vanessa Schweizer, University of Waterloo.

5:00-5:15 Wrap-up.
Dan Scott and Simon Dalby.

Saturday 26 October: What Should We Do About It?

9:00-10:15 Presentation Session 4.
Chair: Matt Gaudreau, Balsillie School of International Affairs.
Radoslav Dimitrov, Western University (Political Science).
Mike Hulme, Kings. College London (Climate Science).
Jean Andrey, University of Waterloo (Geography).

10:45-12:00 Presentation Session 5.
Chair: Lucie Edwards, Balsillie School of International Affairs Jatin Nathwani, University of Waterloo (Engineering).
Sarah Burch, University of Waterloo (Environmental Education).
Chris Russill, Carleton University (Communications).

1:00-2:00 Presentation Session 6.
Chair: Marisa Beck, Balsillie School of International Affairs.
Byron Williston, Wilfrid Laurier University (Philosophy).
John Baez, University of California (Mathematics).

2:30-4:30 Roundtable 2 (all presenters).
Chair: Sara Koopman, Balsillie School of International Affairs.
Discussant: James Orbinski, CIGI Chair in Global Health.

4:30-5:00 Wrap-up.
Dan Scott and Simon Dalby.