Climate Change & The Many Faces of Denial

This is a conversation from the Victoria Forum. A collaboration between the Senate of Canada and the University of Victoria. I was asked to moderate this plenary session, "Bridging Environmental Divides: Shifting our relationship with the natural world from extractive to regenerative." This conversation analyzes our quest to shift our relationship with the natural world from extractive to regenerative by bridging environmental divides and exploring the many conversational ecosystems that come along with them. Our panel consists of Balgis Osman Elisha, Senator Rosa Galvez, Wendy Smith, and Kresse Wesling.You can watch all of the sessions from this 3 day event at thevictoriaforum.caHeartfelt thanks to Saul Klein, Natalie Slawinski, and the organizers for permission to bring this to our campus and community radio stations.

In this episode from another conversation, we talk about the power of paradox and how it impacts the work we do including climate change.

Professor, author, poet, and lecturer, David Talks about the conversational nature of reality. That place between where who we think we are and what we expect of the world and what others think and expect of us is the only place that's real. We talk about his family and his work. One of my favorites!

Dr. Scranton is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, where he teaches creative writing and environmental humanities. Roy is an essayist, novelist, literary critic, and climate philosopher, best known for his work on war, war literature, and the Anthropocene. He is the author of five books and has written widely for publications such as the New York Times, Rolling Stone, MIT Technology Review, the Yale Review, and elsewhere. At the time of this interview, Learning to Die in the Anthropocene had just been released. One of the more sobering conversations I've had over the years and one I always return to!

Marketing guru and former CEO of the David Suzuki Foundation. We talk about climate change and as well as pollution in the public square, where a toxic smog of adversarial rhetoric, propaganda, and polarization stifles discussion and debate, creating resistance to change and thwarting our ability to solve our collective problems.In this second edition of I'm Right and You're an Idiot , James Hoggan grapples with this critical issue, through interviews with outstanding thinkers and drawing on wisdom from highly regarded public figures. Featuring a new, radically revised prologue, afterword, and a new chapter addressing the changes in the public discourse since the 2016 United States election, his comprehensive analysis explores:

Naomi Oreskes is a Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. A world-renowned geologist, historian and public speaker, she is a leading voice on the role of science in society and the reality of anthropogenic climate change.

Al Gore is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He is an environmental activist whose work in climate change activism earned him the Nobel Peace Price with the IPPC in 2007. This was recorded in Seattle during our Climate Reality Project training.

Andrew J. Hoffman is a professor of sustainable enterprise at the University of Michigan. He is a leader in using organizational networks and strategic analysis to assess the implications of environmental issues for business. He has published over 16 books and over 100 articles. The last time we met in Vancouver Andy was on sabbatical and we were able to spend some time talking about his latest book How Culture Shapes the Climate Debate. Our conversation focused on culture, ideology and building social consensus on climate change.

John Englander is an oceanographer, multi-book author, and international speaker on climate change and Sea Level Rise (SLR). Located in Boca Raton, FL, John frequently travels for both science and business. In this episode, we talk about what Vancouver is doing to get prepared. John is joined by Brad Badelt, Assistant Director, The City of Vancouver Sustainability Group.

Director, Writer, and Producer of Secrets From the Ice, a documentary, tells us about what got him into film-making and enticed him about this project which offers a look at some never seen artifacts that recently ‘released themselves’ from the melting ice in the Yukon.

Mark Maslin is a Professor of Earth System Science at UCL. Maslin is a leading scientist with particular expertise in understanding the Anthropocene and how it relates to the major challenges facing humanity in the 21st century.

Katharine Hayhoe is an atmospheric scientist who studies climate change. She teaches political science at Texaz Tech Univerisity where she is the Director of the Climate Science Center. In her role as Chief Scientist, Katharine is responsible for the TNC’s wider portfolio of global climate advocacy and adaptation work.Katharine has served as lead author on the Second, Third, and Fourth National Climate Assessments. She also hosts and produces the PBS Digital Series, Global Weirding, and serves on advisory committees for a broad range of organizations including the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, the Earth Science Women’s Network, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Chad Frischmann is the CEO and Founder of Regenerative Intelligence (RegenIntel), a global ecosystem superpowered by a network of world-class system thinkers and doers creating a virtuous cycle of collaborative intelligence, that enables the effective implementation of the highest impact ‘system of solutions’ for the planet and for people at scale.From 2014-2022, prior to launching RegenIntel, Chad was the co-author the New York Times best-seller Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming. At the time I spoke with Chad Frischmann, he was Project Drawdown’s Vice President and Research Director.

Eric Peterson of the Hakai Institute discusses their research in climate change and the recent discovery of a 14,000- year-old village of the BC coast.

Co-Founder and Executive Director of One Earth.

Gabrielle Hecht is a Professor of Nuclear Security at CISAC, Senior Fellow at FSI, Professor of History, and Professor (by courtesy) of Anthropology.Her current research explores radioactive residues, mine waste, air pollution, and African Anthropocenes.

Kelly Oliver is an American philosopher specializing in feminism, political philosophy and ethics. She is W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. She is also a founder of the feminist philosophy journal philoSOPHIA. We spend much of our time discussing Animal Lessons, how they teach us to be human.

Director of Graduate Studies for Environmental Studies, Associate Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies with the University of Oregon. A specialty of Karis is living with denial. Other interests in Interests: Gender, Place and Environment, Social Psychology and Interaction, Sociology of Culture, Theory Knowledge Science, Qualitative Approaches.

Connie Zweig, Ph.D., is a retired therapist, writer, Climate Reality Leader, and Citizens Climate Lobbyist. Known as the Shadow Expert, she is co-author of Meeting the Shadow and Romancing the Shadow and author of Meeting the Shadow of Spirituality and a novel, A Moth to the Flame: The Life of Sufi Poet Rumi.

Brian Stafford, MD, MPH is a depth psychiatrist, wilderness guide, poet, essayist, and agent of human and cultural transformation. Previously, he was an academic pediatrician, and an adult, adolescent, child, perinatal, and infant psychiatrist with numerous clinical, research, and educational publications as well as many institutional, state, and national awards.