The Carleton Climate Commons invites you to participate in a new initiative: Teach-In’s for climate action called “Noons for Now.” As the name suggests, we’re taking our lead from the model of the school strike introduced by Greta Thunberg. Starting in September 2018, Thunberg sat on the steps of Swedish parliament each Friday at noon to strike for climate action. Sometimes she was alone. Sometimes one or two classmates were with her. But slowly this small action created a movement. We take heart from this action and the possibility we all have to effect change in response to the climate crisis. The Teach-In action we’ve chosen speaks to our role as faculty and students at a university. Each week we will bring together one to three speakers, in addition to a moderator, to discuss some facet of the climate crisis. Sometimes it might be just this small group. Sometimes more people might attend. Whatever the case, we invite you to join us anytime, to participate in the conversation or only to listen, to come for part of the hour or the entire thing, to come with friends or on your own. At first this event will likely be somewhat improvisational but we always welcome suggestions, feedback, and participation. The goal is to hold space for climate conversation, ideas, and action on a weekly basis until our country—and, we hope, others too—meets the climate crisis with policy and action commensurate to its urgency.
“In order to set our institutions firmly on the path of future knowledges, we need to reinvent a classroom without walls in which we are all co-learners; a university that is capable of convening various publics in new forms of assemblies that becomes points of convergence of and platforms for the redistribution of different forms of knowledges.” – Achille Mbembe
Up Next:
The Noons for Now Teach-In’s will break for the summer but we will resume again on Thursday 15 September.
In the meantime, we’re planning our Fall line-up of speakers and we’d appreciate any suggestions you have on what you’d like to discuss, as well as speakers that you’d like us to bring in. You can use the form on this post to let us know your ideas.
Upcoming speakers planned for the Fall include Warren Cariou, Veronika Kratz, Merlyna Lim, and Imre Szeman.
Past Events:
Click on each of our past event pages for resource lists, blogs, and more.