[PSCI] Panel: Climate Change and Coronavirus
For Earth Week 2020, we partnered with the Princeton Environmental Activism Coalition, the Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI), and the Pace Center for Civic Engagement hosted a discussion on environmental policy in the age of the novel corona-virus on April 24.
In this panel, we’re asking questions such as:
How can we rebuild our economy after this economic downturn in a more sustainable way? Is this an opportunity to shift away from fossil fuel use following the epidemic?
What are the ethical implications related to health for both climate change and COVID-19?
What role does the media we consume play in how we view both of these existential threats?
In the panel, we hear from Stephen Pacala, Frederick D. Petrie Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University and co-director of the Carbon Mitigation Initiative administered by the Princeton Environmental Institute. Professor Pacala is also the chair of the National Academies effort to create alternative policies needed to implement sustainable technologies and to mitigate adverse societal impacts of climate change, especially in light of the coronavirus epidemic.
We also hear from Kian Mintz-Woo, Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University in the University Center for Human Values and lecturer in the Princeton Environmental Institute. He discusses the social cost of carbon and why now, during the COVID-19 crisis, might be the best time to implement a price on carbon.
We also have Meera Subramanian, the 2019-20 Currie C. and Thomas A. Barron Visiting Professor in the Environment and the Humanities in the Princeton Environmental Institute. Subramanian is a US-based journalist who writes about culture and the environment for newspapers and magazines around the world and is the President of the Society of Environmental Journalists.
We are joined by two Princeton alums from the Great Class of ‘72, Ruby Huttner and Skip Rankin, as co-moderators for the event. Dr. Huttner is a physician and Rankin is a lawyer who works in renewable energy.
Check out the recording below:
In addition, check out the article featured in the Daily Princetonian here.