Future Ecologies

Future Ecologies presents: The Right to Feel (Part 1 — Climate Feelings)

Jul 17, 2024

Naomi Klein, a renowned author and filmmaker focused on climate change and social justice, joins series producer Judee Burr to discuss the emotional realities of the climate crisis. They explore how Klein's graduate seminar transformed students' feelings about climate change into evocative narratives. The conversation reveals poignant student reflections on grief, resilience, and the personal connections that intertwine with academic pursuits. They emphasize the urgent need for deeper emotional understanding in the face of ecological challenges.

58:16

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Episode guests

Judee Burr

Naomi Klein

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Quick takeaways

The podcast highlights how acknowledging emotional responses to the climate crisis can enrich students' scholarly work and resilience.

Through creative writing exercises, students explore loss and hope, envisioning alternative futures that motivate advocacy for environmental justice.

Deep dives

The Interplay of Art, Science, and Journalism

The podcast delves into the intersection of art, science, and journalism, emphasizing the importance of objectivity in both fields. It highlights how the observer's perspective shapes the understanding and impact of their observations, particularly in climate research. This recognition raises questions about the emotional and psychological effects on scientists and journalists who engage with intense and often heartbreaking subjects like climate change. The discussion invites listeners to consider how these emotional experiences can inform and enrich their work, rather than detract from it.

Intro

3min

Emotional Landscapes of Climate Change

10min

Climate Change and Social Justice: Emotional Connections

35min

Finding Sanctuary in Nature and Community

3min

Revisiting Creation Narratives: Chaos, Light, and Ecology

3min

The Interplay of Colonial Legacies and Ecological Futures

3min

Future Ecologies presents "The Right to Feel," a two episode mini-series on the emotional realities of the climate crisis.

This first episode, “Climate Feelings,” is a collection of students’ non-fiction essays and reflections on their personal realities of living with and researching the climate crisis. The first episode opens with an introductory conversation between Naomi Klein and series producer Judee Burr that contextualizes how this class was structured and the writings it evoked.

Over a two-year period, associate professor of climate justice and co-director of the UBC Centre for Climate Justice Naomi Klein taught a small graduate seminar designed to help young scholars put the emotions of the climate and extinction crises into words. The students came from a range of disciplines, ranging from zoology to political science, and they wrote eulogies for predators and pollinators, alongside love letters to paddling and destroyed docks. Across these diverse methods of scholarship, the students uncovered layers of emotion far too often left out of scholarly approaches to the climate emergency. They put these emotions into words, both personal reflections and fictional stories.

“The Right to Feel” was produced on the unceded and asserted territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples.

Find a transcript, citations, credits, and more at www.futureecologies.net/listen/the-right-to-feel

— — —

Part 1: Climate Feelings

2:38 — Introduction by Judee Burr and Naomi Klein

19:05 — Connection to Jericho Willows by Ali Tafreshi

22:27 — Connection to the Water by Foster Salpeter

27:06 — Connection to Family and Land by Sara Savino

31:01 — Scientists and Feelings by Annika Ord

36:00 — Biking away from the Smoke by Ruth Moore

39:32 — Climate Sensitivity on the Bus by Nina Robertson

43:13 — Grief and Climate Change Economics by Felix Giroux

46:36 — The Age of Sanctuary by Melissa Plisic

52:04 — Age of Tehom by Maggie O’Donnell

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