The following appeared in the Thursday, October 27th edition of YFile.

The sixth annual Faculty of Environmental Studies (FES) Awards Gala marked an evening of firsts as FES Dean Barbara Rahder welcomed award recipients, presenters and friends to a packed Gladstone Hotel ballroom last Thursday night, Oct. 20.

A new certificate program and several inaugural awards were just some of the items on the evening’s agenda. Rob Tiffin, vice-president students, extended his congratulations to all of the award recipients, saying he was happy to have the opportunity to recognize and honour “some of the best and brightest students in FES, and…some of Canada’s future leaders.”

Tiffin applauded the Faculty in its efforts to position itself as a major centre for teaching and research, specifically recognizing FES’ recent developments in sustainable energy education. He said he was excited about the upcoming Certificate in Sustainable Energy, to which he remarked, “It will be a unique qualification for York graduates, in a very high-demand field.”

Left: From left, councillor Mike Layton, Ian Rice, who received the Jack Layton Prize for Environmental Research & Action, and Barbara Rahder

The first of the evening’s new awards was the Charles Caccia Award in Sustainable Development, spearheaded by Caccia’s wife Iva and friend Jim MacNeill. The award was financially established by dozens of individuals who wanted to commemorate Caccia in a way that would make him proud, by supporting student achievement and education in environmental sustainability. The inaugural recipient, PhD student Jennifer Mills, was amazed by Caccia’s contributions and dedication to environmental and social justice causes, noting that his example teaches us, “As Canadians, we cannot rest on our laurels. We must always strive to improve environmental policy and the quality of life for everyone.”

Right: From left, Robert Sirman presents the Molson Prize to Peter Victor with Brent Herbert-Copley and Barbara Rahder

Another award inaugurated with anticipation was the Jack Layton Prize for Environmental Research & Action. Layton’s son, Toronto Councillor Mike Layton, presented the award and shared the personal connection that he and his father had to the Faculty. Mike attributed his decision to come to York ultimately to his father, soliciting advice from him to help decide his graduate school. Jack had advised Mike to “talk to policymakers… to find out how they got to where they wanted to be.” Mike noted a recurring theme as he approached “top minds in the field, and influential players”; they pointed him to the Master in Environmental Studies (MES) program at York. The inaugural recipient of the Jack Layton Prize was Ian Rice, who recently completed his MES degree and now works on climate change policy for the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. When asked about his aspirational ties to the prize’s namesake, Rice responded, “I’m definitely a politically engaged person. I could see myself getting into politics. It would be a good profession to have where I could make a real difference.”

FES Professor Peter Victor was also recognized that evening with a special addition to the festivities. Victor was presented with the Molson Prize, an award administered annually by the Canada Council for the Arts (CCA) and the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). The award is bestowed upon two distinguished Canadians per year in recognition of not only past contributions, but to encourage continued contributions to Canada’s cultural and intellectual heritage.

Left: From left, Anita McBride, receipient of the Friend of the Faculty Award, with friends and donors Guy Burry and Susan and Ted Spence

Past recipients include Canadians such as Margaret Atwood, Marshall McLuhan and Glenn Gould. Robert Sirman, director of the CCA, was on hand to co-present the award to Victor alongside Brent Herbert-Copley, SSHRC’s vice-president research capacity. Sirman remarked that Victor was their ideal choice, particularly in light of his latest book, Managing Without Growth – Slower by Design, Not Disaster. The book had considerable resonance for the CCA, shadowing its own values which Sirman identified, “There needs to be a major paradigm shift in societal values, away from the concept of humankind as a ‘consumer,’ to something closer to humankind as an ‘expresser’… The existing paradigm has been very negligent in not recognizing the conflict and tension between expression and consumption.”

The final award of the night was not new to the FES Awards Gala, but it garnered possibly the most palpable emotion. The Friend of the Faculty Award, established in 2005, is awarded annually to recognize and celebrate the generous contributions and outstanding support provided to the Faculty in the pursuit of its vision. This year’s recipient was Anita McBride, former director of the FES student programs office.

As the first recipient of an honorary MES degree at her retirement in 1999, McBride’s involvement with the Faculty extended beyond her 25 years of service at York. She continues to be a devoted and generous supporter of the Faculty, keeping in touch with MES alumni to help them network with current students. “I just loved the students when I was working, and I still keep in touch with a lot of them… and with their children,” said McBride. Rahder offered a sincere and appreciative hug to McBride, noting that without FES’ generous supporters and donors, the successes celebrated that evening would not be possible.

Submitted by Alicia Brown, FES media/communications coordinator

The following appeared in the Wednesday, October 26, 2011 edition of YFile.

Glendon has a rich history, including a forest containing some rare trees – one of which was brought over from China and once thought to be extinct. Professor Stuart Schoenfeld and Helen Psathas, senior manager, Environmental Design & Sustainability, will talk campus sustainability tomorrow at the launch of the Glendon Campus Project website.

“Environmental History of the Glendon Campus & Forest: Challenges of Conservation & Sustainability in the 21st Century,” part of the Institute for Research & Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS) Speaker Series, will take place Oct. 27, from noon to 1pm, in the Senate Chamber, Glendon campus. Light refreshments will be served.

Right: A path through the Glendon campus forest

Schoenfeld will provide an overview of the website, while Psathas, a senior fellow at IRIS, will provide an update on the forest.

“The project was designed with two goals. First, to share the knowledge about our campus more widely. Second, to document the history and current state of environmentalism at Glendon,” Schoenfeld writes in an introductory note on the website.

“The project is intended to be a contribution to the common culture of those who work and study here. We are the custodians of a remarkable place. Knowing more about it, we can better appreciate the gift we have been given of working and studying here. We can also appreciate that the Glendon campus has been taken care of, and that responsibility continues.”

One of the things the new website offers is an overview of how conservation issues and environmental issues have become part of the local culture and how Glendon is responding to the current challenge of sustainability. It has taken much work to keep the upper portion of the Glendon campus landscaped and to perverse the forest in the valley, as well as introduce new environmental practices.

For more information, visit the Glendon Campus Project website.

The following appeared in the Monday, October 24, 2011 edition of Y-File:

A growing number of people are experiencing the effects of climate change in their daily lives, but those effects are not distributed equally. An workshop at York on Wednesday will discuss the issue of climate change and who it affects and how, the role of governments and what should be done.

The Climate Justice and Politics Workshop is part of the Climate Justice II Workshop Series, “Bringing a Democratic Canadian Perspective to the Climate Change Conference in South Africa: Taking Action on Climate Change.” The event will take place Oct. 26, from 1 to 4pm, 305 York Lanes, Keele campus. It is hosted by York’s Institute for Research & Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS) and Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS), and co-ordinated by Mihae Ahn, a student in York’s Faculty of Environmental Studies (FES), and JP Sapinski, a PhD student at the University of Victoria.

The workshop will feature five student panelists with follow-up commentary by guest discussant York FES Professor Ellie Perkins. It will also be virtually available for those outside the University to participate. For instructions on how to connect, click here. The idea is to help spark discussion about people who are already marginalized – women, dispossessed classes, indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities and citizens of poorer countries – and who are bearing the brunt of the consequences of a warming world.

The workshop is just one of the events being organized by IRIS and APECS in advance of the United Nations climate change conference, COP17, in Durban, South Africa, in November. It is an opportunity to meet and share ideas with like-minded climate justice activists and academics. It is also intended to solicit input from the audience to inform the work of the York University delegates, some of whom will participate in an exhibit booth intended to highlight Inuit experiences and perspectives of climate change. "We are also waiting to hear about the approval of our side event, 'Bridging Knowledges: Communicating on Climate Change Experiences to Build Resilient Communities'," says Rachel Hirsch, a FES post-doctoral fellow and IRIS executive member at York.

Two of the delegates are youth from Arviat, Nunavut. It is important to have the voice of the Arviat youth at COP17, says Hirsch, as they are one of the groups most affected by climate change. The whole idea is to create dialogue. The booth is a joint effort between York University, the Inuit Circumpolar Council and the Nanisiniq Project. “Bringing people to COP17 is one way to get people’s voices heard regarding climate change, but it has become a pan-Canadian initiative,” says Hirsch. The result is that “we all want this to be an ongoing network for continuing dialogue. It has become something so much bigger.”

The five panelists will discuss climate justice and politics from perspectives ranging from ethics and philosophy to critical discourse analysis to the political economy of global warming. FES student Aaron Saad will discuss, “Just and Unjust Solutions to Climate Change and Human Displacement,” Ahn will look at “Climate Change and Hybrid Ethics: A Review of Four Ethical Theories,” University of Toronto students Rachel York-Bridgers and Paul York will discuss “Animals and Climate Change,” Sapinski will talk about “Capitalism, Climate Change and the Discourse of Ecological Modernization” and Carelton University student Chris Bisson will look at “Resilient Cooperation – A (Re)new(ed) Alternative to Sustainable Development." Sapinski and Bisson will join the workshop virtually.

“Such a workshop is crucial because it challenges the way that climate change is currently addressed at the global level. The impacts of climate change on people force them to migrate to other countries or regions (climate refugees) or change their whole way of life (First Nations and Inuit people, especially in the North), among others,” says Sapinski. “However, the issue of climate justice is not limited to the impacts of climate change, as injustices and inequalities also come from the way governments deal with the issue.”

For more information on the workshop, its presenters and their abstracts, visit the Climate Justice and Politics Workshop website. For more information about the Arviat youth, visit the Nanisiniq: Arviat History Project website.

As the climate warms, many species’ habitats are expected to shrink, shift, or otherwise change quicker than some species populations can adjust, leading to loss of biodiversity.  One possible response to this problem is assisted migration—intentional translocation of species outside their historic ranges to mitigate biodiversity losses caused by climate change.  While this idea has been around for decades, it has recently become the subject of a fierce debate in the academic literature.  An interdisciplinary team of IRIS researchers has just published a ground-breaking study that takes stock of the burgeoning academic literature on this topic and identifies possible avenues toward scholarly consensus on how to address what might otherwise become an intractable ethical and policy problem.

Assisted migration is seen by many scholars as pitting two conservation goals against each other: the preservation of a single species against extinction versus the protection of ecological communities against the risks posed by introduced species.  While assisted migration might help to save individual species, trans-located species might have impacts similar to invasive alien species including uncontrolled population growth and negative impacts on resident species.  Assisted migration also conflicts with established conservation approaches favouring in situ management and maintenance of existing species ranges.

Lead author Dr. Nina Hewitt (a biogeographer and IRIS Senior Fellow) and her coauthors conducted a bibliometric study of the existing academic literature on assisted migration, classifying it in terms of study methods, geographic and taxonomic (species) focus, and degree of knowledge transfer from the natural sciences to other academic disciplines and non-academic sectors.  They show that the volume of scholarly writing on assisted migration has exploded in the past three years, addressing a wide range of regions and species.  Much of it, however, takes the form of commentary rather than original scientific research, and the rate of knowledge transfer to the social sciences and humanities appears low.

The article’s main contribution is to analyze the scholarly debate about the desirability and feasibility of assisted migration as a response to climate change.  At a general level, a majority of the papers reviewed were generally supportive of using or at least considering assisted migration, but a closer examination shows that the debate is intensifying.  To make sense of the variety of positions in the debate, the article distinguishes between arguments about the direct ecological and socio-economic benefits and risks of AM, on one hand, and arguments or counter-arguments addressing other issues such as knowledge gaps, uncertainties, planning and implementation, on the other.  It presents all of these arguments and their key inter-relations schematically in a one-page, easy to read figure.

The coauthors argue that conceptualizing the debate in these terms puts the focus on what is ultimately at stake—the relative benefits and risks of assisted migration—and provides a common basis for both proponents and opponents to navigate the key issues.

While recognizing that the assisted migration debate raises difficult ethical, political and scientific challenges, the article identifies several recommendations with potential to advance the debate.  The most innovative of these recommendations is the suggestion that people on both sides of the debate might be able to agree that the urgency of the climate change problem demands a proactive approach that could combine risk-averse, in situ strategies such as habitat creation at range margins with unconventional, risk-tolerant strategies such as assisted migration.

The research was funded by the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences.  Aside from Dr. Hewitt, the co-authors were Dr. Nicole Klenk (IRIS Senior Fellow), Dr. Andrea Smith (IRIS Senior Fellow), Professor Dawn Bazely (IRIS Director and York University Biology Department) Professor Norman Yan (IRIS Core Faculty and York University Biology Department), Professor Stepan Wood (IRIS Acting Director and Osgoode Hall Law School), Dr. James MacLellan (IRIS Senior Fellow and York Faculty of Environmental Studies), Professor Carla Lipsig-Mummé (Director of IRIS-affiliated Work in a Warming World program and York University Social Science Department) and Irene Henriques (IRIS Core Faculty member and Schulich School of Business).

The article, “Taking Stock of the Assisted Migration Debate,” appears in the latest issue of Biological Conservation (volume 144, pages 2560-72).

Photo: Shawn Berry/Telegraph-Journal

Professors Andrew Secord, left , and Joan MacFarland, both of the economics department at St. Thomas University, along with Tom Mann of the New Brunswick Union of Public and Private Employees, second from right, and David Coon of the Conservation Council of New Brunswick, are among the participants in Work in a Warming World, an international forum to be held this week at St. Thomas University.

Labourers, environmentalists and academics will gather at St. Thomas University later this week in the hopes of demonstrating that being a good steward of the environment doesn't have to mean bringing the economy to a crashing halt.

Joan MacFarland, a professor of economics and gender studies at STU who is a co-organizer of the conference, has heard the criticism that environmental protection is a job killer.

"We're hoping that there can be another way," MacFarland said.

"What's happening to the planet is so important and we think there are ways of saving the planet and creating jobs in New Brunswick."

Work in a Warming World, a forum involving participants from Atlantic Canada and New England, takes place at the Fredericton university Thursday and Friday.

It is set to focus on inspiring stories like that of the TrentonWorks plant in Nova Scotia that closed in 2007 after decades of producing rail cars. It is now producing towers for use in the wind energy industry - a project expected to create 500 jobs over three years.

It will also look at how organized labour is recognizing and embracing the need for change.

Tom Mann of the New Brunswick Union of Public and Private Employees, is one of the participants. He says moving our economy into emerging green markets has to be a priority for everyone.

"These have to be significant jobs. There has been a long historical tendency for jobs and labour to follow fossil fuel-based industry. We're at that turning point in the development of the economy and jobs.

"...?Together we have to look towards a sustainable economic base that will provide good-paying jobs."

Andrew Secord, a professor of economics also organizing the forum, said the event aims to bring people and ideas together in the hopes of spurring greater progress here in New Brunswick.

"From an economic point of view, green jobs are the future," he said.

"Most governments recognize this. It's a question of whether we work together to make that transition or whether we get left behind."

David Coon of the New Brunswick Conservation Council said the focus needs to be on fostering development of the green economy.

"In the future, jobs that are based on increasing production or consumption of fossil fuels aren't going to be available. We've clearly exceeded the limits of growth in the fossil-fuel sector because we have climate change underway.

"We have to talk about the policies and fiscal measures needed to turn our economy the other way."

William Kees, a world-renowned ecological economist whose work focuses on sustainability in an era of accelerating ecological change, will offer a public lecture Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in Kinsella Auditorium.

His lecture is entitled Confronting Ecological Change: What Would an Intelligent Species Do?

In his talk, Rees will argue that global ecological change is a dangerous reality and he will explain why the policy response to date springs less from reason than it does from emotion and instinct.

He will suggest changes to the structure of society, the economy and employment that should be implemented immediately in order to reduce the impacts of ecological change and the possibility of societal collapse.

The Work in a Warming World project is funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council and is affiliated with the Institute for Research and Innovation in Sustainability at York University.

The following appeared in the Tuesday, September 27, 2011 edition of Y-File.

What strikes York biology Professor Dawn Bazely, ensconced for the next six months at Harvard University’s Harvard Forest, a National Science Foundation long-term ecological research site, is the absolute isolation combined with the knowledge that she’s only 15 minutes away from a Wal-Mart.

Bazely is at Harvard Forest, part of the US Long Term Ecological Research Network, on a prestigious Charles Bullard Fellowship in Forest Research, one of only six awarded the fellowship out of dozens who applied. The Fellowship is given to people in mid-career who show promise of making a major contribution to forests and forest-related subjects.

“Everything I need is quite nearby, but it seems so isolated because I am surrounded by forest,” says Bazely, who is living in a house on the Harvard estate that was built before 1820. “I keep explaining to people here, that when you drive eight hours to Ontario, the landscape is completely different. It’s industrial and urbanized, with very little forest cover, and that’s Southern Ontario. I keep thinking, where do you find this kind of forested landscape in Ontario? Well, you would have to go north to the Boreal Forest.”

Right: Forest Road leading into Harvard Forest

Bazely is at Harvard Forest to finish her book on conservation biology in Southern Ontario, which she started in 1999, long before she became director of the Institute for Research & Innovation in Sustainability. It’s taken awhile for the book, she admits, but then, she says, everything happens for a reason, and much of what she has learned from her social sciences and humanities colleagues at York will inform her writing.

At the Harvard Forest site, established in 1907, there is a rich archive, as well as the wealth of libraries for her to use while interacting with top researchers who’ve been studying there for years. This will give her the opportunity to compare and contrast the conservation/ecology experience in New England with that of Southern Ontario.

“I’m here to learn as much as I can about the New England states, particularly Massachusetts, and their land use history, policies and politics,” says Bazely. They are doing a great deal of work on invasive species, such as the Asian long-horn beetle, and climate change at the Harvard Forest, she says, and that will play into her finishing of the book, which helps to answer the question: What do we know about biology and conservation management in southern Ontario?

Left: Nicky Lustenhouwer (left), a Dutch graduate student and Harvard Forest visitor from the European Erasmus Mundus master's program in evolutionary biology, with Dawn Bazely in front of a display of Dutch elm disease at Harvard Forest

“Most people in Canada live within 100 miles of the Canada-United States border,” says Bazely. “This why Southwestern and Southeastern Ontario is the most urbanized, industrialized and intensely farmed area in all of Canada. It has the highest number of endangered and threatened species in the country, and remaining natural cover is less than three per cent in some areas.” And that has Bazely concerned. How do we conserve the natural environment, especially when there are so many competing demands on our land base and resources?

“It’s really a sustainability issue with its population and intensive land use and climate change challenges. With climate warming, we are going to be seeing more species migrating northwards from the US and what are they going to hit – well a lot of concrete.”

Left: The house on the Harvard Forest estate, built before 1820, where Dawn Bazely is staying for six months

In New England, even though the forests were razed and sheep were grazed, after the settlers left and went west, the forests rejuvenated. These landscape changes are illustrated in the famous dioramas of the Massachusetts landscape found at Fisher Museum. There is now a rich diversity of plant and animal life, and lush forests, which is so different from the Southern Ontario experience, she says.

“We’ve been going down in terms of natural habitat cover. So what does it mean if we want to preserve and conserve and restore, if we are to protect the natural habitat in this pressure cooker of conflicting land uses?”

These issues are the same everywhere, she says. But it’s how communities deal with them that makes the difference.

After she finishes this latest book, Bazely is set to complete Environmental Change and Human Security in the Arctic, which she is co-editing. Then she is off to Oxford University for four months to write yet another book, related to her International Polar Year project that recently wound up; this one about oil and gas and local communities.

“It all has to do with sustainability,” says Bazely.

By Sandra McLean, YFile writer