About this Event
If you are a Columbia/Barnard affiliate with campus access, please use your Columbia/Barnard email when registering.
Each attendee must have their OWN registration and email address.
Registration for external guests closes at 4PM on November 11. Registration will automatically close at that time. Columbia/Barnard affiliates may register at the door.
Event Description
This roundtable invites scholars, activists, and scholar-activists to discuss successful strategies and ongoing challenges in catalyzing and scaling up climate action.
Series Description:
This series of events aims to re-energize interdisciplinary conversations at Columbia about the climate emergency, at a moment when confronting the urgent and ever-growing challenges posed by global warming feels extraordinarily difficult. In the context of diminished funding for climate science and other federal actions that aim to roll back or obstruct climate action, it’s easy to be shocked into silence and despair, or to be burned-out to the point of wondering, what’s the point? In this difficult moment, what are we not talking about, and why? Given the scientific consensus about human-caused climate change, this war on climate action seems, at best, extraordinarily stupid. How can we counter arguments that climate concern is “woke” or that climate action is “radical” or economically harmful? What can we learn from previous environmental setbacks? How can we reckon with climate change without being overwhelmed by climate anxiety? What modes of intelligence—in the university and beyond—can help us to counter these tendencies toward silence, stupidity, and despair? How can we forge a new common sense about the necessity and possibility of climate action?
About the Speakers
Leel Dias is an Environmental Science major at Columbia University. Active across a variety of environmental advocacy efforts, Leel is a member of the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led organization dedicated to environmental activism, serves as a research assistant in the Schaefer Cosmo Lab at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, and is a fellow at the Columbia Climate School’s Environmental and Climate Justice Project. Looking ahead, Leel plans to remain committed to advancing environmental justice, with a focus on ensuring that climate legislation addresses the needs of marginalized communities.
Dana R. Fisher is a dynamic speaker and author. She studies democracy, civic engagement, activism, and climate politics. Her most recent books are (Columbia University Press 2024) and (Columbia University Press 2019). In 2024, she delivered a TED talk about being an apocalyptic optimist. She has published seven books and more than 80 chapters and peer-reviewed articles, including in Nature, Science Advances, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Fisher currently serves as the Director of the Center for Environment, Community, & Equity (CECE) and a Professor in the School of International Service at American University. She is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow with the Governance Studies program at The Brookings Institution. She regularly writes for the media and hosts the Apocalyptic Optimist Podcast. She has presented her work to the US National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, federal agencies, foundations, presidential campaigns, and other political organizations. Fisher served as a Contributing Author for Working Group 3 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Review (IPCC AR6) writing about citizen engagement and civic activism. For more information, go to www.danarfisher.com
Caroline Levine is Ryan Professor of the Humanities at Cornell University and author of four books. The most recent, The Activist Humanist: Form and Method in the Climate Crisis, lays out ways for people to use formalist methods to engage in collective action to make meaningful change. Levine was part of the team responsible for divesting Cornell’s endowment of fossil fuels in 2020 and is now a coordinating member of TIAA-Divest and Plastic Free Cornell.
Michael Paulson is a climate organizer, campaign strategist, and policy advisor committed to winning the world we deserve through collective action. As Associate Director of Sane Energy Project and co-chair of the Public Power NY coalition, he helps lead public power organizing in New York State, where he has worked to pass and implement the landmark Build Public Renewables Act. He has previously served as campaign manager for Democratic Socialist Assemblymember Sarahana Shrestha in the Hudson Valley and advised other electoral and climate campaigns. He holds a PhD in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University, where he helped organize the Student Workers of Columbia and taught as a lecturer in the Core Curriculum.
Please email [email protected] to request disability accommodations. Advance notice is necessary to arrange for some accessibility needs. This event will be recorded. By being present, you consent to the SOF/Heyman using such video for promotional purposes.
Event venue & nearby stays
Heyman Center for the Humanities, East Campus Residence Hall, New York, United States
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.