On September 27th, 2019, students, staff, and faculty members from the UBC Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES) participated in the Global Climate Strike. The department’s Statement of Support for the Global Climate Strike can be found here. UBC IRES Students began the day by making posters out of reused pizza boxes, attending the UBC Climate Strike and then marched in the Vancouver Climate Strike downtown.

Photo Credit: Rocio Lopez de la Lama

Photo Credit: Bri Della Savia

IRES students share their thoughts on the Global Climate Strike:

Stephen Chignell (PhD student)	Erika Gavenus (PhD student)	Narayan Gopinathan (MA student)

What does the climate strike mean to you?

Stephen: It’s embarrassing for me to admit, but the climate strike was the first time I’ve participated in a big public march for something I really care about.  I have strong opinions about a lot of issues, but I wasn’t raised to voice them in an overtly political way, so going out there with a sign and chanting demands for action was a new experience for me.  I found it very empowering to walk around the city with so many people, and I’m excited to do more things like that.

Erika: For me the Climate Strike was a demonstration of our collective understanding that the path we are on now isn’t tenable, and was a commitment to disrupt business as usual.

Narayan: The climate strike means that citizens around the world are uniting to speak up for climate action, and demand an end to business as usual.

What message are you hoping to share with others by participating in the climate strike?

Stephen: The world feels very heavy these days, and climate change looms over all of the other issues in a way that makes me feel very powerless at times.  I guess I want people–myself included–to feel like they have some agency to change things for the better.

Erika: Participating made me think about the many processes, like land dispossession and oppression, and systems, like patriarchy, that are all tied up together in “business as usual”. In marching I wanted to highlight the need to disrupt these aspects of the system as much as we need to transform our energy system.

Narayan: I am hoping to share with the world the message that we must unite in favor of climate solutions. We must phase out fossil fuels and decarbonize our energy systems as rapidly as possible, and we must do so in a way that brings everyone along.

Photo Credit: Rocio Lopez de la Lama

Photo Credit: Alejandra Echeverri

The Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability invites applications for the position of sessional lecturer/ post-doctoral teaching fellow for the January – April 2020 period to teach an undergraduate course focusing on an introduction to sustainability. The salary range for this position will depend on qualifications and experience.  Applicants must hold a PhD (or be enrolled in a PhD Program) in a related field and have demonstrated an interest in teaching at the undergraduate level.  Successful candidates will also have excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to work within a team environment.

ASIC 220:  This is an introductory review course, and as such it will provide a comprehensive introduction to sustainability. This means that the coverage of topics will be broad and encompass a number of disciplines including environmental science, economics, political science and psychology. Students are not expected to have a background in any of these disciplines.

 The course will explore questions related to the sustainability for which people may have strong opinions. These include:

• How and why do humans misuse and abuse the environment?
• What has a greater impact on the planet’s health: population or consumption?
• Are economic development and environmental protection incompatible?
• Can technological fixes solve environmental problems?
• How do you know if a product or action is ‘green’?
• Is economics the key? Can ‘getting the price’ solve environmental problems?
• Are there limits to growth? Can we leave the world better off for future generations?
• How might we live sustainably and equitably on the planet?

UBC hires on the basis of merit and is committed to employment equity. We encourage all qualified persons to apply. The position is subject to Canadian immigration requirements; priority will be given to Canadian citizens and permanent residents.

Applicants should submit a cover letter, curriculum vitae and names of two referees directly to  ires.applicants@ubc.ca

Deadline for complete applications is October 11th, 2019

UBC ecologist Claire Kremen has been awarded an honorary degree by the American Museum of Natural History.

Claire Kremen, a UBC ecologist and biologist whose research involves reconciling agricultural land use with biodiversity conservation, has been awarded an honorary degree by the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH).

Kremen received the degree Doctor of Science Honoris Causa from the AMNH Richard Gilder Graduate School in “recognition of her extraordinary contributions to science, education and society.”

“I’m deeply honored to follow in the footsteps of scientists I greatly admire who have received the Museum’s honorary degrees—including Rita Colwell, Alison Richards, EO Wilson and Jane Lubchenco,” said Kremen.

“Natural history museums around the world, including the American Museum of Natural History and Beaty Biodiversity Museum at UBC, play an essential and increasingly critical role in helping us better understand, and work toward preserving, our planet’s biodiversity.”

A professor with the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability and the Department of Zoology since January 2019, Kremen holds the UBC President’s Excellence Chair in Biodiversity. Her current research focuses on exploring whether diversified, agro-ecological farming systems can promote species dispersal and survival. Kremen is also part of UBC’s BeeHIVE Research Cluster, a multidisciplinary group dedicated to tackling the complex issues that affect the health of wild and managed honey bees, the Diversified Agroecosystems Research Cluster, which assesses linked social and ecological outcomes of diversified farming, and UBC’s Beaty Biodiversity Research Centre.

“We face great science-based challenges today, such as climate change and habitat and species loss, all exacerbated by a growing mistrust of science, evidence and expertise,” said Ellen V. Futter, President of the AMNH. “But we also live in a new golden age for science, with powerful new technologies, cross-disciplinary ways of working, and emerging fields that are yielding and will continue to yield new solutions and sustain humanity’s progress.”

Kremen has worked for over a decade for the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Xerces Society, designing protected area networks and conducting biodiversity research in Madagascar. She has won numerous honours—including a MacArthur Fellowship—for her contributions to ecology, agriculture and biodiversity. Prior to her current role at UBC, she held faculty appointments at Princeton University and then at the University of California, Berkeley, where she was founding faculty director for the Center for Diversified Farming Systems and the Berkeley Food Institute.

The American Museum of Natural History, founded in 1869, is one of the world’s preeminent scientific, educational and cultural institutions. The Museum encompasses 45 permanent exhibition halls, and is home to approximately 200 scientists. Researchers at the Museum draw on a collection of more than 34 million artifacts and specimens and on one of the largest natural history libraries in the world. The Richard Gilder Graduate School draws on the Museum’s world-renowned collections, distinguished faculty, and tradition of globe-spanning expeditions for its PhD program in comparative biology, which covers the origins, history and range of life on Earth.

See more:

• https://science.ubc.ca/news/ubc-ecologist-honored-american-museum-natural-history

Congratulations to the 2019/2020 recipients of the Canada Graduate Scholarships Master’s (CGS M) program!

About the Canada Graduate Scholarships Master’s (CGS M) Program:

The objective of the Canada Graduate Scholarships-Master’s (CGS M) Program is to help develop research skills and assist in the training of highly qualified personnel by supporting students who demonstrate a high standard of achievement in undergraduate and early graduate studies. The CGS M Program provides financial support to high-calibre scholars who are engaged in eligible master’s or, in some cases, doctoral programs in Canada.

Ilana Judah, IRES MSc Student

SSHRC Award Recipient

Research Summary:

Ilana’s research involves the development of an integrated building adaptation and mitigation assessment (IBAMA) framework to help policy-makers and industry professionals identify solutions that simultaneously address climate change adaptation and mitigation for urban multifamily buildings and their neighborhoods. IBAMA’s development draws from a wide range of existing literature, adaptation and mitigation policies and guidelines, and input from key adaptation and mitigation subject-matter experts. The framework is being created for BC Housing to incorporate into their building standards with the aspiration that it will influence future building practices in British Columbia and beyond. The research is being funded by the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions.

Bio:

Ilana Judah is an MSc Student at IRES supervised by Dr. Stephanie Chang. An architect for over 20 years, she was most recently the Director of Sustainability at FXCollaborative, an architecture firm in New York City known for their pioneering work on sustainable high-rises. Ilana has served on several task forces to address both climate mitigation and adaptation in buildings. A Certified Passive House Designer, she was the co-author of a research study on the feasibility of implementing the Passive House standard on tall residential buildings in New York. A native of Montreal, Ilana received her Bachelor of Architecture from McGill University.

Cameron Bullen, IRES MSc Student

NSERC Award Recipient

Research Summary:

The human-caused extinction of countless species has fundamentally altered ecosystems and geological processes worldwide. In the North Pacific, the extinction of the Steller’s sea cow – a giant herbivorous relative of the dugong – is one such extinction that may have had significant implications for ecosystem function. While it has been suggested that the Steller’s sea cow was a keystone species that likely played a critical role in the North Pacific, the consequences of it’s extinction remains poorly understood. The objective of Cameron’s masters research is to use ecosystem models to understand the role Steller’s sea cows played in kelp forests and assess how their extinction may have altered ecosystem dynamics and function. This research project hopes to expand our understanding of kelp forest dynamics and how they have been changed by millennia of human influence, with potential implications for fisheries and ecosystem management in BC.

Bio:

Cameron joined IRES in 2018 as a MSc student supervised by Dr. Kai Chan. Cameron is broadly interested in marine conservation, marine ecology, and changing ecosystem dynamics in the context of ecosystem function and contribution to people. Before beginning at IRES, Cameron worked on Marine Protected Areas in Canada with CPAWS-BC, conducted research on plankton adaptation to changing environments with Dr. Michelle Tseng, and worked as an environmental biologist with Azimuth Consulting Group. Cameron grew up in Vancouver and enjoys spending as much time outside as possible: running, climbing, and paddling

Bronwyn McIlroy-Young, IRES MA Student

SSHRC Award Recipient

Research Summary:

Bronwyn’s Master’s thesis looks at science for policy around messy issues in toxicology, specifically endocrine disrupting chemicals. The global scientific community is deeply divided over how to assess the risk posed by endocrine disruptors. This scientific controversy is impeding the development of regulatory frameworks for endocrine disruptors. Bronwyn’s work aims to better characterizing the debate within the scientific community through unpacking divergent values held by scientists on each side of the controversy.

Bio:

Bronwyn joined the Institute for Resources Environment and Sustainability in Fall 2018 to begin her MA under the supervision of Dr. Gunilla Öberg. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Waterloo in an interdisciplinary program called Knowledge Integration, where her honours thesis explored Canadian weathercasters’ role in communicating local climate impacts. Bronwyn’s research interests include science-communication, risk perception, and knowledge in the science-policy interface. Her current work explores science controversy in toxicology.

Narayan Gopinathan, IRES MA Student

SSHRC Award Recipient
Research Summary:

Narayan Gopinathan is currently pursuing his masters’ degree in UBC-IRES with Dr. Milind Kandlikar, and is comparing the greenhouse gas footprint of conventional and electric vehicles in India, under different scenarios for the power grid’s evolution, for his thesis. He spent the summer doing research at the Council on Energy, Environment, and Water in New Delhi through a MITACS Globalink fellowship, collecting data for this project.

Bio:

Narayan received his bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley in environmental economics and policy in 2016. In addition to being a student at IRES, he is also a student fellow at the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policy at Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, and has published peer-reviewed literature on the political economy of mid-century strategies for deep decarbonization.