Events
Climate Conversations
Speaker series
Climate Conversations aims to engage the UCalgary campus community and Albertans in transformative conversations on climate action. By mobilizing climate change expertise from diverse perspectives and worldviews that are critical for implementing impactful and equitable climate solutions, this speaker series aspires to empower participants to take meaningful action in their own ways and to connect with the climate action community.
The theme for the 2022-2023 speaker series is climate justice. Conversations will explore the interconnections between equity, human rights and climate change; just energy transitions in Alberta and Canada; the role of art in bringing together many voices for climate action; and the connection between climate justice and reconciliation.
We are honoured to host outstanding speakers who are leading the way in climate action and climate justice. We welcome you to join us for the Climate Conversations speaker series.
Upcoming events
Climate Conversations
left to right: Dr. Melanie Kloetzel, Alana Bartol, Chantal Chagnon and Nicole Martens.
Climate Justice & Artistic Practices
Date: March 8, 2023
Time: 3–4:30 p.m.
Location: Virtual (Zoom)
Climate Conversations speakers series brings to you its 3rd keynote panel session.
Learn from an amazing panel of artists and discover the ways artistic practices are making an impact in how we talk about climate change, implement climate action, and imagine a healthy future. Understand ways artistic practices can bring together diverse voices, stories and experiences to:
- support transformative conversations,
- support community,
- influence wider cultural conversations on climate change to advance climate justice, and
- empower people to take action.
Speakers:
Chantal Chagnon is a Cree/Métis singer, drummer, artist, storyteller, actor, educator, workshop facilitator, social justice advocate and activist with roots in Muskeg Lake Cree Nation, Saskatchewan. She shares Traditional Indigenous songs, stories, culture, history, arts, Indigenous Craftsmanship and teachings. A Two Spirit single mother of two boys and twin girls, Chagnon has been an activist for more than 25 years, advocating for marginalized voices, including Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, Girls and Two Spirit (MMIWG2S), Women’s Rights, Racial Inequity and Environmental Initiatives. Chagnon is passionate about building awareness and sharing understanding of Indigenous culture, spirituality, social justice and political issues.
Alana Bartol (she/her), MFA, BFA, is an artist and educator working at the intersection of art and ecology. She creates individual and collaborative site-responsive artworks that examine our relationships with the earth, the elements, and what are colonially known as “natural resources”. In 2019 and 2021, Bartol was long-listed for Canada’s Sobey Art Award representing Prairies and North. Spanning video, performance, drawing, sculpture, photography, environmental and socially engaged art, her work has been presented in in Germany, Hong Kong, Belgium, Romania, Argentina, Turkey, Colombia, Mexico, United States of America, and throughout Canada. Of mixed-European ancestry, Bartol is a white settler Canadian based in Treaty 7 Territory in Mohkínstsis/Calgary, Alberta where she teaches at Alberta University of the Arts.
Nicole Martens (she/they), is an artist and educator of Grebo, Mennonite and Celtic heritage. They are the founder of Plein Air Outdoor Arts, a nature-based art program, and co-founder of The General Store, an ongoing performative installation questioning economics. Martens makes use of pedagogy to explore relationships within self, within community, and with the more-than-human world. She gratefully recognizes the people, flora, fauna, funga and elements of Treaty 7 as her adopted home.
Moderator:
Dr. Melanie Kloetzel, MFA, PhD, is a settler performance maker, scholar and educator based in Treaty 7 territory (Moh’kinsstis/Calgary). Director of the dance theatre company kloetzel&co. and co-director of the art intervention collective TRAction that produces the Climate Art Web, Kloetzel has created films, events, workshops and encounters that have been shared in theatre spaces, alternative venues, spaces of public assembly, and online environments across four continents. Kloetzel is a professor of dance at the University of Calgary.
Melanie Goodchild
Melanie Goodchild
Date: April 4, 2023
Time: 12–1:30 p.m.
Location: Virtual (Zoom)
Join us to listen and learn from Melanie Goodchild sharing a presentation titled Niigani Miinigowiziiwin (We Give These Gifts to the Future). Goodchild will describe how to heal self and systems through a dibaajimowin (story), and about her apprenticeship with complexity anchored in the principle of gidinawendimin (we are all related). She will be discussing an Anishinaabe approach to systems thinking and complexity science.
This event is hosted in partnership with the Office of Indigenous Engagement's Indigenous Knowledge Lecture Series.
Speaker:
Melanie Goodchild is moose clan Anishinaabekwe (Ojibway woman) from Biigtigong Nishnaabeg and Ketegaunseebee First Nations in northern Ontario. She is a PhD candidate in Social & Ecological Sustainability at the University of Waterloo. Melanie is a systems thinking and complexity science scholar. She lives with her family in Baawaating (the place of the rapids) in Three Fires Confederacy territory, currently known as Sault Ste Marie. She is on faculty with the Wolf Willow Institute for Systems Learning, the Academy for Systems Change, and the Presencing Institute and teaches part-time at the University of Vermont.
Past events
Mobilizing Alberta Climate Conversations speaker series brings you its second keynote panel session — Sharing Diverse Perspectives on Just Energy Transitions.
Explore what just energy transitions can look like from diverse perspectives, worldviews and Knowledge Systems. Panelists will discuss ways just energy transitions can support climate justice in Alberta and Canada, how they can influence climate policy, current challenges and solutions to implementing just energy transitions, and ways one can support just energy transitions.
Speakers:
Jacob Crane is a citizen of the Tsuut'ina Nation, Alberta, Canada. He is the Community Engagement Coordinator for Indigenous Climate Action, an Indigenous women-led organization dedicated to creating a world with sovereign and thriving Indigenous Peoples and cultures leading climate justice for all.
Dr. Julie Drolet, PhD, professor in the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Calgary and Project Director of Transforming the Field Education Landscape partnership. She leads an international social work research program to advance knowledge in the fields of social work and social development.
Dr. Jennifer Winter, MA'07, PhD'11, is an associate professor in the Department of Economics and the School of Public Policy, University of Calgary. Winter’s research evaluates climate policies and examines the effects of government regulation and policy on energy development and the associated consequences and trade-offs.
Moderator:
Sarah Winstanley, BSW'11, MSW'15, is an instructor in the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Calgary. She is a feminist social worker who specializes in community development and has spent a decade working with girls and women leaders in Calgary and across the UK.
Nov. 22, 2022 12:30–2 p.m.
Exploring the Intersections of Human Rights, Equity & Climate Change
Kicking-off the Mobilizing Climate Conversations Speaker Series with our first keynote panel session. We will discuss what climate justice means from diverse perspectives, worldviews and knowledge systems, and what it is to decolonize climate change dialogues. We will explore how tackling racism, discrimination and structural inequities are all essential to advancing climate justice, and share meaningful actions to support climate justice.
Speakers:
Dr. Deborah McGregor is the Canadian Research Chair in Indigenous Environmental Justice at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. Her research focuses on Indigenous knowledge systems and their various applications in diverse contexts, including water and environmental governance, environmental justice, forest policy and management, and sustainable development.
Dr. Deb L. Morrison works at the intersection of justice, climate science, and learning. She is a climate and anti-oppression activist, scientist, learning scientist, educator, mother, locally elected official, and many other things besides. Deb works in research-practice-policy partnerships from local community to international scales.
Larissa Crawford is the founder and managing director of Future Ancestors with expertise in anti-racism, climate justice, race-based data collection, public policy and governance, restorative practices and conflict resolution, global development, youth engagement, Indigenous engagement and decolonization.
Oct. 25, 2022 12:30–2 p.m.
Individual & Community Well-Being in the Era of Climate Change
It can be difficult to talk about climate change, process our complex emotions around it and connect with and support others feeling the same way. In this workshop, we will support each other in facing and processing our climate grief, share and practice using various climate grief tools to develop our personal grief toolkits and connect you with additional community resources. Sharing grief and practices that cultivate resilience can help us grow beyond our comfort zones, shift our consciousness, and have a positive influence. It also helps us move into better relationships with self, community and planet by recognizing our interdependence with the living planet and all of the earth community.
Jodi Lammiman, founder of Refugia Retreats and Alana-Dawn Eirikson, Sustainability Partnerships & Events Coordinator with the Office of Sustainability, UCalgary, have mindful conversations about climate grief.
Nov. 4, 2022 1–3 p.m.
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