Climate change outcomes, like other disaster outcomes, are linked to historical inequities which unfold and build up over time. In Shishmaref, Alaska significant climate changes, linked to GHG emissions, make sea ice loss, permafrost thaw, larger storms, and sea level rise risky and threatening to Arctic residents; but it is the long history of violence, genocide, and theft of Indigenous Arctic lands and ways of life that also shape the experiences of residents during this era of change. This talk will discuss real climate change justice as a radical departure from the histories of injustice between settler and Indigenous peoples. We will focus on where there have been successes in making inroads into climate justice, and where vulnerabilities and injustices are still woven into the fabric of policy and decision-making.

Elizabeth Marino is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Sustainability at Oregon State University, Cascades. She is interested in the relationships among climate change, vulnerability, slow and rapid onset disasters, human migration, and sense of place. Her research focuses on how historically and socially constructed vulnerabilities interact with climate change and disasters – including disaster policy, biophysical outcomes of disasters and climate change, and disaster discourses. She is also interested in how people make sense and meaning out of changing environmental and social conditions; and how people interpret risk. Elizabeth is an author on the forthcoming National Climate Assessment, has worked with the Humboldt Forum in Berlin on representations of climate change and disasters, and has worked with the Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law on issues of environmental refugees and displaced peoples. She has also worked with the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) on migration, climate change, and humanitarian crisis issues. Her book "Fierce Climate, Sacred Ground: an Ethnography of Climate Change" was released in 2015.   

This event is part of the seminar series "Climate Change and Social Inequality" organized by the University of Maryland College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, Climate and People Initiative.  Students and faculty are welcome to join us. For further information contact mpaoliss@umd.edu.