Seminars

  • Founded
    2011
  • Seminar Number
    743

For AY2022-2023, The University Seminar on Complexity Science, Modeling and Sustainability, will focus on the neglected nexus between Eco-Climate Crisis, Public Health and Equity. Ecosystem and biodiversity protection can support both human health and help address carbon emissions. Climate change is also impinging on ecosystems and biodiversity, so addressing climate change, in turn, will help mitigate ecosystem and species loss. The pathways we choose to address the eco-climate crisis have large impacts on already deep inequities that exist at local and global scales. For example, current decarbonization pathways, often imply deepening extraction and use of Global South resources as well as biodiversity destruction. Thus, we must be able to build approaches that grapple with these complexities. Finally, links between these dynamics and ongoing public health challenges need more discussion given that the inter-related dynamics of biodiversity loss, habitat destruction and climate change (eco-climate nexus) are linked to increasing zoonotic diseases and other public health challenges that have deeply inequitable effects. This year, we plan to work on these themes by inviting researchers and policymakers who can help us think through how to escape silos and work in frameworks that embrace this complexity in our research, education and action. 


Co-Chairs
Joshua Fisher
jf2788@columbia.edu

Jacqueline Klopp
jk2002@columbia.edu

Christoph Meinrenken
cjm2177@columbia.edu

Rapporteur
Christina Lee
sl5211@columbia.edu

Meeting Schedule

12/01/2022 Faculty House, Columbia University / Zoom
7:00 PM
Feeding 8 billion in a changing climate: Challenges and Choices
Lewis Ziska, Columbia University




02/07/2023 Faculty House, Columbia University / Zoom
6:00 PM
How We Live in Harmony with Nature" and "Legacies of Human Land Use and their Lessons for Resilience and Sustainability
Fangyi Wang, Columbia University

Dylan S. Davis, Columbia University



04/18/2023 Faculty House, Columbia University
6:00 PM
The impossibility of sustainability in simplified systems: The criticality of biodiversity
Shahid Naeem, Columbia University