Nov 7, 2012
1:30 - 3:00 pm
280A York Lanes
York University, Toronto

To mark the recent release of Environment and Citizenship in Latin America: Natures, Subjects and Struggles, join us as we host one of the book’s editors, CERLAC Associate Fellow Alex Latta, for a talk emerging from the central themes of the collection.

Drawing on the contributions to the book, as well as related literature and his own research, Dr. Latta will explore the ways nature becomes constituted as a resource, an object of knowledge, a target of governance and a focus for political struggle in Latin America. How are human political subjectivities simultaneously implied, activated, contested and reinvented in these constitutive moments, spaces and processes? Beyond a concern for the rights and responsibilities of “environmental citizens”, the talk will reach for a conception of citizenship that is fundamentally relational across dynamic assemblages of human and non-human elements.

Alex Latta is Associate Professor in the Department of Global Studies and the Balsillie School of International affairs, at Wilfrid Laurier University. His research considers the politics of water, energy and environmental justice in Latin America, with a recent focus on conflicts over hydroelectric development in Chile.

Everyone welcome

More info: cerlac@yorku.ca

CERLAC presents

How to Present a Conference Paper

a workshop with
CERLAC Fellow Judy Hellman
(Professor of Political Science, Social and Political Thought, International Development Studies and Women's Studies, York University)

Back by popular demand, Judy Hellman will animate a workshop for graduate students on how to present a conference paper in an engaging and effective manner.

Thurs, Nov 15, 2012
3 – 4:30 pm
303 Founders College
York University

More information email cerlac@yorku.ca or click here

Join us NEXT TUESDAY, November 6 for THE CARBON RUSH, a unique and powerful documentary that reveals the dirty and unjust reality of carbon trading schemes. Director Amy Miller will be in attendance and lead a discussion after the projection. This screening is co-presented with the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition Toronto.

THE CARBON RUSH
This commanding doc effectively counters the propaganda around carbon-trading by featuring the voices of those most affected.

Amy Miller / Canada / 2012 / 84 ' / English - Spanish / S.T. English

WHAT: Screening of THE CARBON RUSH
WHEN: Tuesday, November 6, 6:45PM
WHERE: Bloor Hot Docs Cinema, 506 Bloor Street West, Toronto
COST: Suggested donation $2-$10
INFO: cinemapolitica.org/bloor
SOCIAL MEDIA: Facebook event

SYNOPSIS: Incinerators burning garbage in India. Hundreds of hydroelectric dams in Panama. Biogas extracted from palm oil in Honduras. Eucalyptus forests harvested for charcoal in Brazil.

What do these projects have in common? They are all receiving carbon credits for offsetting pollution created somewhere else. But what impact are these offsets having? Are they actually reducing emissions? And how are they affecting the people who live in these countries?

THE CARBON RUSH takes us around the world to meet the men and women on the front lines of carbon trading. So far their voices have gone unheard in the cacophony surrounding this multi-billion carbon industry, nicknamed "green gold" by its beneficiaries. Indigenous rain forest dwellers are losing their way of life. Waste pickers at landfills can no longer support themselves. Dozens of Campesinos have been assassinated.

THE CARBON RUSH travels across four continents and shows the connection between these tragedies and the United Nations' Clean Development Mechanism. This groundbreaking documentary feature reveals the true cost of carbon trading and shows who stands to gain and who stands to lose.

Click this link to view the trailer for the film and read more.

CERLAC & YCISS present

Changing Places: Brazilian Migration to the Rupununi, Guyana.

a talk by
Katherine MacDonald
PhD candidate, Department of Geography, York University
CERLAC Research Associate

Thursday, Nov 8, 2012
1 - 2:30 pm
764 York Research Tower
York University

Recent Brazilian migration through the Amazon region and across the Guyanese border may be part of a larger geopolitical program emerging from Brazil, one that sees the Brazilian Government implementing a program of development and protection of their northern territory. This migration threatens to increase pressures on Makushi and Wapishana territories within Guyana, resulting in the annexation of traditional ancestral lands and potential losses of subsistence and livelihood practices, as well as disturbances to traditional cultures and ways of life. I believe these migration trends may be part of a larger intraregional geopolitics emerging out of Brazil, wherein development of the northern Amazon frontier is being encouraged primarily through regional colonization. I suggest that Guyana is unknowingly enmeshed within the larger geopolitical concerns of the region, and that the migration of Brazilian miners, businesspeople, and rice producers from across the border may in part be traced directly to evolving legislature, political action, and program and project implementation within the Brazilian Amazon.

More info: hender@yorku.ca

Join us on
Nov 6, 2012 from 11:30 to 1:00 pm
as David Clarry from Hudbay Minerals will discuss:

how socially responsible performance links to business success in the resource industry,
some key stakeholders and emerging issues driving CSR related priorities
considerations on how decisions are made within companies and how social responsibility initiatives are managed
frameworks that guide socially responsible business performance in the extractive sector

To register: http://www.schulich.yorku.ca/COERBregistration

Today, more than half of the world’s population lives in cities that comprise diverse residential, commercial and industrial activities. Increasing concern about climate change and energy security are driving the development of clean, efficient and sustainable energy solutions. Cities will shape the future of the energy sector and they have the opportunity to be effective engines for change. Meeting this challenge will require innovative approaches to urban planning, development and infrastructure, and collaboration between government, business, and academia.

Brought to you by IRIS and the Undergraduate Political Science Council.

Click here to watch the video. 

David's Bio

David Miller is Counsel, International Business and Sustainability at Aird & Berlis LLP. In that role, he assists the firm  in the development of its international clean tech and renewable energy practices.

David is a leading advocate for the creation of sustainable urban economies. In addition to being a strong and forceful champion for the next generation of jobs through sustainability, David advises companies – and governments – on practical measures to make this happen.

David Miller was Mayor of Toronto from 2003 to 2010. Under his leadership, Toronto became widely admired internationally for its environmental leadership, economic strength and social integration.

As Chair of the influential C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group from 2008 – 2010, David Miller was instrumental in demonstrating the practical and real change cities are already making and can continue to make as they fight climate change and create sustainable employment. He continues that work today with the World Bank, OECD, UNEP and other national and international organizations to strengthen the capacity of City governments worldwide to act. David is the Future of Cities Global Fellow at Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly). He is a member of the David Suzuki Foundation Board, an Honorary Director of Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) and Chair of Cape Farewell North America. Most recently, David was appointed by the Canadian Counsel of Academies to Chair an Expert Panel on “The Potential for New and Innovative Uses of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) for Greening Canada.”

David Miller is a Harvard trained economist and professionally a lawyer. He and his wife, lawyer Jill Arthur, are the parents of two children.

The 22nd Annual Harold I. Schiff Lecture - Faculty of Science and Engineering

Presented by: A.R. Ravishankara

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration, Boulder

Friday, November 2nd, 2012
2:30 PM

103 Life Science Building
York University

Abstract:  Ozone layer depletion due to man-made emissions, mostly chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and some bromine containing chemicals, have been recognized and addressed via the Montreal Protocol (MP).  The successful phase out of ozone depleting substances, listed but not defined by the MP, led to the use of other chemicals that do not deplete the ozone layer. Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) were one such class of compounds that have found increasing use over the years.  The Montreal protocol has been credited with helping the climate change issue by phasing out, CFCs, many of which are also powerful greenhouse gases. Many HFCs are also potent greenhouse gases and their increasing use can offset the benefits gained to date.  Lastly, all chemicals that can deplete the ozone layer are not necessarily included in the MP and raise the question regarding inclusion of other chemicals in the protocol. A prime example is nitrous oxide, which we argue is the most important ozone depleting gas that is being emitted today.  I will discuss the phase in of HFCs, in place of CFCs, and its impact on climate as well as the role of nitrous oxide as an ozone depleting gas.  I will discuss the atmospheric science of these chemical as well as their implications to decision making.

October 24, 2012, 6:00 p.m.- 8:00 p.m., Aboriginal Student Centre, 246 York Lanes

In 1992, the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan, the only federally recognized Algonquin reserve in Ontario, launched a comprehensive land claim. The claim drew attention to the reality that two-thirds of Algonquins in Canada have never been recognized as Indian, and have therefore had to struggle to reassert jurisdiction over their traditional lands. Fractured Homeland is Bonita Lawrence's stirring account of the Algonquins’ twenty-year struggle for identity and nationhood despite the imposition of a provincial boundary that divided them across two provinces, and the Indian Act, which denied federal recognition to two-thirds of Algonquins. Drawing on interviews with Algonquins across the Ottawa River watershed, Lawrence voices the concerns of federally unrecognized Algonquins in Ontario, whose ancestors survived land theft and the denial of their rights as Algonquins, and whose family histories are reflected in the land. The land claim enabled many Algonquins to openly speak about their identities for the first time; however, it also heightened divisions as those who launched the claim failed to develop a more inclusive vision of Algonquinness. This path-breaking exploration of how a comprehensive claims process can fracture the search for nationhood among First Nations also reveals how federally unrecognized Algonquin managed to hold onto a distinct sense of identity, despite centuries of disruption by settlers and the state. Bonita Lawrence (Mi’kmaw), Equity Studies, York University.