By Rosie Finnegan, JRN 111 Student
It’s easy to see climate change as all “doom and gloom,” says Moraine library chair Troy Swanson, but while the problem is urgent, it is still solvable.
That will be the theme of a talk Tuesday morning by earth science faculty member Jana Svec as part of the One Book One College program hosted by the library. The event is “Climate Reality: Catalyzing Solutions to the Climate Crisis.” Students and faculty can register online for the live presentation.
Svec will be discussing the effects of climate change as well as potential solutions.
“We’ve been doing our One Book program since 2004,” Swanson said. “Every year the library picks a different book. This year we have a book called ‘All We Can Save.’ The whole goal of the book is an underlying feeling of hope.”
The book is made up of 65 essays from individual authors that all identify as women. It focuses on climate change and how we can build sustainable communities.
“It includes activists, scientists, lawyers, and community developers,” Swanson said. “All these people have all these different perspectives and different backgrounds.”
The book was chosen for several reasons, he said: Climate change is something that affects all humans, each author is a woman, so it gives voices that are often spoken over a better platform to be heard, and the book is accessible to a variety of people.
“We wanted something that was readable,” Swanson said. “One of the advantages of this book is that it’s made up of essays, so it’s really adaptable to the classroom. Reading that as an extra textbook would be a lot, but a faculty member could pick five essays and really engage with those.”
The ebook is available to read for free on the library’s website.
Svec has been trained by The Climate Reality Project, which trains experts on how to address climate change in communities.
“I sent out an email to faculty members and [Jana] replied back to me right away and said ‘I’m trained in this special talk about climate change and I would love to be able to give it as part of this event,’” Swanson said.
Registration is online for Tuesday’s talk, which is open to the community at large via WebEx. Once registered, participants will receive a link to the event.
Swanson said having the event online is nice because “it’s super convenient. You can be at home and turn it on and listen while you’re doing the dishes.”
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