Bill McKibben, the founder of 350.org, the first planet-wide, grassroots climate change organization, and Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, a marine biologist, policy expert, and strategist discussed the current climate movement. The conversation addressed changes that have taken place since the movement began, what the future may look like, and the most promising solutions for our current climate crisis.
Cooper Union X Climate Week 2019 is a student-led series of events that provides space for The Cooper Union and its broader community to explore and engage in themes, across a variety of disciplines, which examine the many facets of the climate crisis.
This event took place in The Great Hall, in the Foundation Building, 7 East 7th Street, between Third and Fourth Avenues.
Bill McKibben is an author and environmentalist who in 2014 was awarded the Right Livelihood Prize, sometimes called the ‘alternative Nobel.’ His 1989 book The End of Nature is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change, and has appeared in 24 languages; he’s gone on to write a dozen more books. The Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he was the 2013 winner of the Gandhi Prize and the Thomas Merton Prize, and holds honorary degrees from 18 colleges and universities. Foreign Policy named him to their inaugural list of the world’s 100 most important global thinkers, and the Boston Globe said he was “probably America’s most important environmentalist.” A former staff writer for the New Yorker, he writes frequently for a wide variety of publications around the world, including the New York Review of Books, National Geographic, and Rolling Stone.
Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine biologist, policy expert, and Brooklyn native. She is founder and CEO of Ocean Collectiv, a strategy consulting firm for conservation solutions, and founder of Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank focused on coastal cities. As executive director of the Waitt Institute, Ayana co-founded the Blue Halo Initiative and led the Caribbean’s first successful island-wide ocean zoning effort. Previously, she worked on ocean policy at the EPA and NOAA, and was a leader of the March for Science. Ayana earned a BA from Harvard University in environmental science and public policy, and a Ph.D. from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in marine biology. She is a passionate advocate for coastal communities, and builds solutions for ocean justice and our climate crisis.
The Cooper Climate Coalition, an open body of students, faculty, and staff at The Cooper Union, facilitates conversations, events, and student projects within the institution that center the Climate Crisis and its intersections with races, classes, genders, sexualities, histories, economies, political structures and more.
Along with organizing Cooper Union’s Climate Week programs and events in the fall, the Climate Coalition takes responsibility for fostering interdisciplinarity throughout The Cooper Union in support of environmental action.
