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Conflict, Displacement, and Health In Haiti

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On February 29th, a series of attacks were carried out across Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, by heavily armed criminal gangs. Since that moment, thousands of Haitians have been displaced or rendered homeless. According to the UN, over 1500 people have been killed. Food insecurity has spiked across the country, with severe nutritional impacts, particularly on children. Limits to movement and personal safety have threatened the functioning of the health system and other essential services, resulting in a rapidly changing systemic social crisis. The current events are also occurring within a longer-term crisis in Haiti of weak governance, inequality, and systemic disruptions. New data on population mobility and conflict dynamics helps shed light on how the violence impacts communities across the island and the need for practical and sustained local civil society and health system response efforts. Please join us for an in-depth discussion of the current and evolving violence in Haiti as it continues to impact health and humanitarian needs.

Harvard Speaks on Climate Change: Federal Climate Rules – A Status Report

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The Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability and the Vice Provost Office for Advances in Learning present Harvard Speaks on Climate Change, a series featuring Harvard faculty working on different dimensions of the climate challenge. In this session, Professor Jody Freeman will discuss the EPA’s greenhouse gas rules for the auto, power, and oil and gas sectors and the SEC’s final rule on climate-related financial risk. Professor Freeman will also explore if these rules were weaker than expected and what lies ahead in the courts. Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability and Director of the Salata Institute, Jim Stock, will host.

The Greener Gender: Women Politicians and Deforestation in Brazil

CGIS South, S216 +1 more

This paper examines the impact of women’s political representation on deforestation rates in Brazil. Using close election regression discontinuity design, we show that women, when elected to office, are more likely to drive improved environmental outcomes due to factors such as reduced access to corrupt networks that influence the enforcement of environmental laws at the local level. Altogether, our findings demonstrate that women’s political representation significantly reduces deforestation rates in the Brazil.

Event Series Religion in Times of Earth Crisis

Religion in Times of Earth Crisis: Reflecting on Religion in Times of Earth Crisis

Zoom

This session will be a discussion among presenters reflecting upon the insights shared throughout the series. In addition to identifying themes and throughlines among sessions, we will return to the overarching questions that framed this collaboration: What can an expansive understanding of religion provide in these times of Earth crisis? What is the role of the study of religion in times of catastrophe?

Panelists: Mayra Rivera, Dan McKanan, Teren Sevea, Matthew Ichihashi Potts, Terry Tempest Williams
Moderator: Diane L. Moore, Diane L. Moore, Associate Dean of Religion and Public Life

Event Series Climate Change Science Lecture Series

Climate Change, National Security, and International Cooperation

Zoom

Climate change poses unprecedented threats to global security. What natural resources are most in danger from international security tensions? How can the United States minimize resource conflicts? Can international cooperation be leveraged to mitigate security risks and increase equitable access to scarce necessities?

National security expert and interdisciplinary research scientist Swathi Veeravalli will address how complex crises are prompting more multidisciplinary cooperation across disparate government agencies and between national governments.

Landscape Sketching

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Landscapes are an appealing subject for drawings, but it can be difficult to know where to start. In this program we will learn how to select a landscape, create a sense of depth and volume, and use a variety of marks to capture a dynamic variety of textures.

Event Series Religion in Times of Earth Crisis

Religion in Times of Earth Crisis: The Practice of Wild Mercy: Something Deeper Than Hope

Zoom

Can personhood be granted to mountains, lakes, and rivers? What does it mean to be met by another species? How do we extend our notion of power to include all life forms? And what does a different kind of power look like and feel like? Wild Mercy is in our hands. Practices of attention in the field with compassion and grace deepen our kinship with life, allowing us to touch something deeper than hope. Great Salt Lake offers us a reflection into our own nature: Are we shrinking or expanding?

Speaker: Terry Tempest Williams, HDS Writer-in-Residence
Moderator: Diane L. Moore, Diane L. Moore, Associate Dean of Religion and Public Life

Harvard Speaks on Climate Change: Green Building Design in the Age of Renewables

Zoom

The Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability and the Vice Provost Office for Advances in Learning present Harvard Speaks on Climate Change, a new series featuring Harvard faculty working on different dimensions of the climate challenge. In this upcoming session, Harvard Graduate School of Design Professors Holly Samuelson and Jonathan Grinham will discuss how green building design is adapting and evolving in the context of renewable energy sources. The faculty will explore how renewable energy sources are integrated into building design to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and minimize carbon emissions. Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability and Director of the Salata Institute, Jim Stock, will host. This series is part of the collection of VPAL Signature Events and is co-sponsored by the Harvard Alumni Association.

Event Series Religion in Times of Earth Crisis

Religion in Times of Earth Crisis: Apocalyptic Grief: Reckoning with Loss, Wrestling with Hope

Zoom

Human-caused climate change already contributes to manifold global disasters. As the planet inevitably continues to warm, these disasters will be routine and unrelenting. Addressing the reality of loss must become a basic spiritual task of our climate present and future, along with summoning the resolve to respond to all our losses. In this session, Matthew Ichihashi Potts will consider the apocalyptic roots of the Christian tradition in order both to diagnose how Christianity has contributed to the present crisis, as well as to suggest possibilities for a different way forward. Through particular attention to grief and hope as religious categories, and with specific reference to various moments and movements from within the Christian tradition, Potts will reflect upon the spiritual crisis at the heart of climate catastrophe and suggest the potential for a religious response.

Speaker: Matthew Ichihashi Potts, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church
Moderator: Diane L. Moore, Diane L. Moore, Associate Dean of Religion and Public Life

Young Adult Literature Authors and Climate Justice: Discussion with Nnedi Okorafor

Zoom

Literature can move people of all generations, including students and educators, as well as scientists, policy makers, journalists, and the public. In this program, award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor will converse with “Massachusetts Super Librarian” Liz Phipps-Soeiro on how writing, reading, and teaching books and comics with themes of climate change and climate justice can encourage young people to learn and think about these issues, while demonstrating the powerful impact of the arts and literature in our communities.

Young Adult Literature Authors and Climate Justice: Discussion with Nnedi Okorafor

Zoom

Literature can move people of all generations, including students and educators, as well as scientists, policy makers, journalists, and the public. In this program, award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor will converse with “Massachusetts Super Librarian” Liz Phipps-SoeiLiterature can move people of all generations, including students and educators, as well as scientists, policy makers, journalists, and the public. In this program, award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor will converse with “Massachusetts Super Librarian” Liz Phipps-Soeiro on how writing, reading, and teaching books and comics with themes of climate change and climate justice can encourage young people to learn and think about these issues, while demonstrating the powerful impact of the arts and literature in our communities. ro on how writing, reading, and teaching books and comics with themes of climate change and climate justice can encourage young people to learn and think about these issues, while demonstrating the powerful impact of the arts and literature in our communities.

Event Series Religion in Times of Earth Crisis

Religion in Times of Earth Crisis: Animal Stories, in Crisis

Zoom

Across the Indian Ocean world, communities have shared stories while encountering legacies of modern state-centrism, colonial capitalism, post-colonial environmental destruction and religious reform. Muslim communities, among others, have shared stories of religious environments and animals that were inherited, transmitted, and reinterpreted in light of evolving ecological crises. These stories of multispecies ancestors and colonizers, Islamic conceptions of the environment, and narrative traditions of Islamic ecological care have confronted cycles of crises with visions of pasts and futures. In this session, Teren Sevea will discuss the question, “Can listening to these stories compel us to re-evaluate our academic approaches to religion and environments and the relationship of religious pasts and presents, in our time of crisis?”