The climate crisis has inspired a new generation of thinkers and advocates. The CEOAS Earth Day lecture was launched in 2022 to celebrate the voices of those on the front lines of creating climate solutions, imagining hope, and strengthening our resiliency in the face of enormous planetary and societal change.

2024 Earth Day Lecture: Bold Solutions, Better Planet

April 25, 2024

Speakers challenge the notion that disasters are "natural” and address how deeply divided societies understand, prepare for, and cope with environmental change and disasters. Viewers will learn how humans’ relationship with their communities and natural environments affect how they experience climate change, and how engaging and empowering vulnerable communities in decision-making can address health inequalities and prevent disasters.

Watch Recording

 

Moderated by Tuba Özkan-Haller, dean of the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences.

Featured Speakers

Arwen Bird (M.S. '13) has worked to support community health, resilience, and adaptation throughout her career. After completing her Marine Resource Management degree at OSU, Arwen worked through Affiliated Tribes of NW Indians and NW Climate Science Center (now NW Climate Adaptation Science Center) to provide training coordination and evaluation for graduate students, communities, tribes, and municipalities as they honed research, and built climate plans and programs. As she listened to people all over the world talk about climate related health impacts, such as increased respiratory diseases due to wildfire smoke inhalation, she realized she wanted to return to direct service to help people survive climate change. Arwen is now working toward her career goal of providing primary healthcare as a physician assistant.

 

Laura E. R. Peters (Ph.D. '20) is an Assistant Professor of Geography at Oregon State University (OSU) researching how deeply divided societies build knowledge about and act upon contemporary social-environmental changes and challenges, including those related to climate change, disasters, and health. Peters leads the Disasters in Divided Societies Lab, and she is the Research Director of Stema, a disruptive research group pioneering new approaches to global health challenges. Her applied research on disaster risk reduction and environmental peacebuilding seeks not just to reduce and mitigate risks but also to co-develop explicit strategies that strengthen social-environmental sustainability and justice, support community and planetary health and wellbeing, and build durable peace.

 

Melva Treviño Peña (Ph.D. ‘18) is a human geographer and an Assistant Professor at the University of Rhode Island whose research examines various changes in the environment and how they affect people — the intersection of human and natural relationships. She is particularly interested in how different aspects of people’s identities impact their ability to navigate nature and environmental change, as well as how humans develop cultural, emotional, and spiritual relationships to coastal and marine environments, and identifying how losing access to these natural spaces can impact different groups of people.

 

Past Earth Day Events

  • 2023: Bold Solutions, Better Planet - Panel discussion by Oregon State University alumni Julie Pullen (Ph.D. '00), Margaret Leinen (M.S. ’75), and Rick Spinrad (M.S. ’78, Ph.D. '82) moderated by Tuba Özkan-Haller, dean of the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences.
    • Julie Pullen (Partner and Chief Scientist at Propeller, a climate technology investor) works at the intersection of climate resilience and climate solutions to enhance the life-support and human security of our planet. Her unique perspective has enabled her to spearhead the boldest, most unique solutions to planetary change.
    • Margaret Leinen (Director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego) is an award-winning oceanographer and distinguished national and international leader in ocean science, global climate and environmental issues. Her research in paleo-oceanography and paleo-climatology focuses on ocean sediments and their relationship to Earth's history.
    • Rick Spinrad (U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator) is an oceanographer who served as NOAA’s Chief Scientist under President Barack Obama, and was Senior Adviser to the Vice President of Research at Oregon State University. Prior to joining NOAA, Dr. Spinrad held leadership positions at the U.S. Office of Naval Research and Oceanographer of the Navy, where he was awarded the Distinguished Civilian Service Award — the highest award given by the U.S. Navy to a civilian.
  • 2022: Climate crisis, climate hope: Alumni on the cutting edge - Panel discussion by Oregon State University alumni Guido Corno (Ph.D. '06), Jeremy Hoffman (Ph.D. '16), and Julia Rosen (Ph.D. '14) moderated by Tuba Özkan-Haller, now of the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences.

 

Brought to you by the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences and the OSU Alumni Association.

For accommodations, please contact Des Anderson.