Wall Catalyst Program | May 11

Thursday, May 11, 2023

The Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies and the UBC Emeritus College have assembled a cohort of Emeriti to participate in the 2022-23 PWIAS Catalyst Program.

The Wall Catalyst Emeriti cohort will meet monthly to share research experience and engage with guest lecturers on the topic of the "Climate and Nature Emergency".

For more information on this program and the list of participating Emeriti click here.

Members of the Emeritus College are invited to attend speaker lectures throughout the year. 

Tipping Points: Climate Change, History, and the North

In this talk, Langston explores tipping points, caribou/reindeer restoration, and the possibility of hope in the Anthropocene. In climate models, tipping points are critical thresholds that, if crossed, can lead to self-perpetuating, runaway warming in an ecosystem. Societies may contain social tipping points, where small changes in behavior can trigger—or possibly slow--runaway warming. Reindeer (which are the same species as caribou in North America) are critical partners in the effort to prevent runaway Arctic warming, because their browsing can reduce brushy shrubs, increasing albedo effects and cooling local climates. But now, across the Arctic, reindeer and caribou populations are crashing. They have retreated from roughly half their 19th century range, and their populations have dropped by 56% in the past decade. Restoring them across the north may be critical for resilience in a warming world. Langston examines the history of caribou/reindeer translocations across the global north as a controversial tool for a green transition. She argues that moving wildlife about the world has never been just about taking an individual or herd and putting is somewhere else. Rather, it has always involved questions of power, social relations, and visions of a desired future. Langston ultimately asks: what can we learn from the past to sustain our fellow creatures and ourselves in a warming, politically-fractured world?

Langston's most recent book is Climate Ghosts: Migratory Species in the Anthropocene (Brandeis University Press), based on her 2019 Mandel Lectures in the Humanities at Brandeis University. You can find more information on her work on her website.

FORMAT Zoom

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Co-sponsors

Emeritus College and Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies

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