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Loyola hosting annual climate change conference
This year’s conference, “Global Climate Change: Economic Challenges and Solutions,” will include conversations that examine the economic, ethical, and political challenges surrounding climate change.
Loyola University Chicago will host its third annual conference on climate change from Thursday, March 17 through Saturday, March 19, at the University’s Lake Shore Campus. This year’s conference, “Global Climate Change: Economic Challenges and Solutions,” will include conversations that examine the economic, ethical, and political challenges surrounding climate change. The three-day event is co-sponsored by Loyola’s Institute of Environmental Sustainability and the Gannon Center for Women and Leadership, along with the Alvin H. Baum Family Fund.
Author and activist Naomi Klein will present a keynote address on Thursday, March 17, which will also be celebrated as the Gannon Center’s annual Ann F. Baum Women in Leadership lecture. In the address, Klein will highlight how free trade, capitalism, and the North American Free Trade Agreement have accelerated greenhouse gas emissions.
“Our goal is to gather a group of scholars who can address the crucial concerns surrounding the care for our planet,” said Nancy Tuchman, PhD, founding director of the Institute of Environmental Sustainability. “Conference attendees—academics alongside community members and students—will be immersed in these issues to better understand the type of world we must move towards in order to combat climate change.”
The second day of the conference is devoted to a number of in-depth panel discussions that will examine a variety of important topics, including: Can We Switch to a Green Economy?, Beyond Paris and COP21: What’s Next?, Climate Justice—Path to a Just Future, Climate Action: What Can Individuals Do?, and more. Attendees will also be treated to a performance by University Chorale and dance students, as well as a research-centered poster session showcasing student research.
Day three of the conference features a collegiate biodiesel workshop, bringing together students, faculty, and staff from across the country to discuss best practices, lessons learned from established programs, and ways to leverage shared resources. The workshop will be hosted in Loyola’s award-winning Searle Biodiesel Lab and led by the University’s Biodiesel Lab Manager Zach Waickman.
Loyola, which was named the fourth greenest college campus in the country by the Sierra Club, is well positioned to host an important industry discussion like this on sustainability and the environment. In addition to its biodiesel lab, the Institute of Environmental Sustainability boasts a facility containing clean energy labs, a green house, aquaponics systems, an ecodome, and many sustainable features, including a geothermal heating and cooling installation, rainwater harvesting, and high-efficiency heat-recovery technology.
Conference attendees will leave the conference with tools and actionable next steps to take to their own communities. The keynote event on Thursday, March 17, and the panel discussions on Friday, March 18, are open to the general public. For more information, including costs and schedules, visit LUC.edu/climate.
