JUNE CHOI · YANNAI KASHTAN & BELINDA RAMIREZ

JUNE CHOI · YANNAI KASHTAN & BELINDA RAMIREZ

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Coalition for a True School of Sustainability

In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu speaks with June Choi, Yannai Kashtan, and Belinda Ramírez from the Coalition for a True School of Sustainability. Amidst great fanfare, Stanford University created the Doerr School for Sustainability, which immediately said that it would accept funding from the fossil fuel industry. June, Yannai, and Belinda are helping lead the movement of students pushing back to dissociate from such funds. David asks what drives them and sustains them in building a True School of Sustainability.

LIZA FEATHERSTONE

LIZA FEATHERSTONE

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Journalist · Essayist · Author · Teacher
Columnist Jacobin Magazine · New Republic

We have passed the Build Public Renewables Act which mandates and requires the state's power authority the New York State Power Authority to build its own publicly funded renewables: renewable energy, wind, and solar. And this was a long, long hard hard-fought victory. And to say how it happened, we need to think back to the early Bernie days just after the Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign. Obviously, people were very disappointed that Bernie Sanders didn't win, but a lot of people were also very politicized by that campaign and by that moment. And so a lot of people were joining DSA (Democratic Socialists of America). At the same time, a lot of young people were becoming very aware and very anxious, disturbed, and deeply depressed by the climate crisis.

LESLEY HUGHES

LESLEY HUGHES

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Lead Author of IPCC 4th & 5th Assessment Reports
Director & Councillor of Climate Council of Australia

It's certainly not the case that scientists should be the only people communicating. We have to have everybody in this mix because we're all in this together. So we have to have good science that's communicated. We have to have smart engineers who can work on the technological solutions. We have to have lawyers who are undertaking climate litigation. We have to have creative artists who can tell stories and appeal to people's emotions. No one group should have a responsibility to solve the climate crisis. It's got to be all of those groups bringing what they call the time, the talent, and the treasure to work together on this. We are all in this together, and we've all got a suite of different skills that have to be harnessed to solve this problem.

TIM HEWLETT

TIM HEWLETT

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Co-founder of Scientist Rebellion · Climate Activist · Astrophysicist

I think the more pernicious aspect is the way that science as a set of institutions fits into a paradigm that is doomed from the outset. For instance, if you look at the framing of the science within the IPCC reports and how that informs the construction of policy related to the climate around the globe, well, it's foundationally dishonest. If you frame an entire report around the need to keep temperatures below 1.5 degrees or 2 degrees, and all of the efforts that societies are going to make to do that, and you omit from the public discussion the fact that we have no chance whatsoever of achieving those goals.

MARK HOWDEN

MARK HOWDEN

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Director of the Climate Change Institute at The Australian National University
Vice Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Co-recipient of the 2007 NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

We live in a diverse world, and we're in a funny time where we sometimes see the best of humanity and the worst of humanity. And I think what we need to do is be very strong in wanting to lift the game of each other and ourselves. And so I think that's one of the sort of key things. Particularly, young people should be more demanding that we behave better towards each other and care more about each other and the world that we live in. In terms of these heatwaves, droughts, and fires that the world is seeing, which we thought were going to hit us in 2050 or 2070, are hitting us now in 2023. So, those risks are coming much faster and harder than we thought they were going to come. And so, in many cases, we're unprepared for the severity of these changes.