Dying Glaciers & Thirsty People: Reframing Climate Research Around Social Justice

Mark Carey is Associate Professor of History and Environmental Studies at the University of Oregon. His research focuses on glaciers and water in mountain regions as a vehicle for critiquing the conversation about climate change. Carey argues that discussions about glaciers can obscure thinking about social and environmental justice, turning water problems into an environmental issue, one of warming temperatures and melting glaciers, instead of social inequality and power imbalances. Carey's talk provides examples of how melting glaciers in mountain regions have affected and continue to affect local societies. Along the way, Carey discusses the agency of nature, apocalyptic environmental narratives, and the hegemony of science and models in environmental discourse and policymaking.

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