Hey, folks! This newsletter/blog space has been a long time coming…
This is where I’ll share details about upcoming events — along with tidbits that respond to things you’ve wondered during our monthly conversations and in the Low-Carbon Wayfinding Workshops.
If you know someone who’d like to be involved or who has a low-carbon skill to share, please forward this post or direct them to my Low-Carbon Wayfinding web page for more information.
Details — April 18 — Low-Carbon Conversations
As usual, the sessions run for 90 minutes:
30 minutes for participants to share who we are, what we’re doing, and any low-carbon achievements, concerns, conundrums and workarounds
30–45 minutes for low-carbon making/doing, where guests share skills, knowledge, and inspiration
Session #1 — Decarbonising Research Policy
Join us for a session with Postdoctoral Research Fellow Ashley Cahillane, who will share her experiences: “Decarbonising Research Policy: Reflections on a Series of Events.”
See “More information” (below) for Abstract and Bio.
Join Session #1 Zoom (ID 814 4945 6200 Pwd: 497099)
(8:00 AM New York / 13:00 PM Dublin)
Session #2 — What might your low-carbon CV look like?
Join us for a continuation of Session #2 conversations we began in March:
Could a low-carbon CV be used to shift thinking and practices? How might we make these “count” in our jobs? We’ll look at some examples of elements people have included in their CVs to signal a low-carbon ethic in the ways they think and work.
Join Session #2 Zoom (ID 850 1410 2027 Pwd: 835128)
(20:30 PM New York / 9:30 AM Tokyo **April 19th in some time zones)
Coming in May…
Join us on May 14 — Information & formation of distributed self-hosted server networks. Stay tuned for details about the session, including ways to get more involved with small-scale server networks.
More Information: 18 April 2024 - Session #1
Abstract: Decarbonising Research Policy: Reflections on a Series of Events
Navigating the tensions between environmental research and its carbon footprint poses a critical challenge for scholars committed to environmental care. In this talk, I reflect on my engagement with decarbonisation efforts within academia, drawing from insights gleaned through Environmental Humanities scholarship. Over the period of 2022-2024, I co-organised a series of workshops, panels, and policy presentations in Ireland aimed at catalysing discussions on decarbonising research practices across disciplines.
Inspired by Deborah Bird Rose et al.'s (2012) call for the Environmental Humanities to embrace a “difficult space of simultaneous critique and action”, as well as the Low-Carbon Methods Group's focus on social justice within academic transitions to sustainable methods, these events served as platforms for both critique and constructive dialogue. They advanced action by producing policy recommendations that were communicated to decision makers at national and international levels. Through this reflection, I emphasise the importance of the Environmental Humanities and policy advocacy in realising a more sustainable and equitable research ecosystem.
Bio
Ashley Cahillane is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at University College Dublin (UCD), working on the Horizon Europe-funded project: Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning leading to Ecosystem Services (MARBEFES). Ashley’s role is to study the cultural implications (in terms of sense of place and well-being) of coastal and marine biodiversity crises across Europe. Prior to joining UCD, she gained her PhD from the University of Galway for a world literature project on twenty-first-century climate change novels from Australia, Ireland, the United States, and South Africa. This was funded by a Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship.