Nature, Ecology and Society
Promoting Inter-disciplinary Collaborative Research at CUNY

Come join us! Be part of a community-wide network of people interested in environmental studies

Colloquium

Last year's colloquium, "Scales of Environmental Justice," fostered a unique space for discussing issues of justice on levels of varying scale. Considering the local and global, from New York and beyond, provided a lens for seeing the issues from the ground up considering the relationship to equity and justice. Keynote address was delivered byTom Angotti, Center for Community Planning and Development, Hunter College.

Friday, March 7, 2008
10:00 am to 4:00 pm
The Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue
Segal Theatre
Free

download the colloquium poster here

Schedule
*click name for abstract

10:00 – 10:15 Welcome
David Chapin, Jason A. Douglas, and Tsai-Shiou Hsieh, PhD Program in Environmental Psychology, GC, CUNY

10:15 – 10:30 Opening Remarks
Tom Angotti, Center for Community Planning and Development, Hunter College

10:30 – 11:30 Educating for Just Stewardship - This session will explore how CUNY faculty are teaching concepts of environmental sustainability, stewardship, and ethics in interdisciplinary courses across our urban campuses. Presenters will focus on: 1) CUNY's "sustainability curriculum" a project of the CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities; 2)courses that draw on literature and film in environmental humanities to show the power of representations in teaching stewardship and environmental justice ethics, and 3)courses on food and agricultural practices that engage with feminist theory to examine connections between the social, political and educational aspects of urban food environments.

Chair: Cheryl Fish, English, Borough of Manhattan Community College
William D. Solecki, CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities, Hunter College
Annette Williams, B.E.S.T. Program Director, Sustainable South Bronx
Kimberly Libman, Environmental Psychology, Graduate Center

11:30 – 11:45 Break and View Research Posters

11:45 – 12:45 Environmental Justice New York - This panel discusses environmental justice issues in New York City in the context of possibilities for collaboration between grassroots activists and academics. Each presenter will briefly describe their efforts to improve environmental injustice in NYC, and explain how those efforts are complemented by fruitful activist/academic collaborations.

Chair: Judith Kimerling, CUNY School of Law, Queens College
Juliana Maantay, Environmental, Geographic, and Geological Sciences, Lehman College
Philip Silva, Campaign Coordinator, Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance
Tom Angotti, Center for Community Planning and Development, Hunter College

12:45 – 1:30 Lunch & Discussion
Global Identity: How to Encourage Concerns on a Planetary Level / Leanne Rivlin, Environmental Psychology, Graduate Center
Human Dimensions of Climate Change / Janis Roze, The Americas Center, Graduate Center
Curriculum Development in Sustainability at CUNY / William D. Solecki, CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities, Hunter College
Sustainable CUNY / Yehuda Klein, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Graduate Centerbecca
Environmental Regulation, Pollution Trading Schemes and Social Justice / Rebecca M. Bratspies, CUNY School of Law, Queens College

1:30 – 1:45 Student Comments on the Research Posters*

1:45 – 2:45 Just Climate - Climate change is having/will have significantly greater deleterious impacts on the already most disadvantaged in the world, and the most advantaged will face harder to find adaptations to preserve, enhance and defend their situations/way of life. The "Just Climate" session will examine national and international scenarios along with historical perspectives on climate change to understand the dynamic as inputs to policy-making as we move into the post-Bali phase of the process.

Chair: Hari K. Pant, Environmental, Geographic, and Geological Sciences, Lehman College
Radley Horton, Center for Climate Research, Columbia University
Cecilia McHugh, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Queens College
Jingwu Wang and Hari K. Pant, Environmental, Geographic, and Geological Sciences, Lehman College

2:45 – 3:00 Break and View Research Posters

3:00– 4:00 Constructing Green - Constructing Green considers the social and physical construction of what it means to be green, both in our local NYC area and beyond. In considering this construction, the panel will examine conceptions, definitions, and practices of 'green' building and living. The speakers often negotiate between these conceptions of "green" and the realities of when it is applied.

Chair: Elizabeth Housley, Environmental Psychology, Graduate Center
Kenneth Gould, Sociology, Brooklyn College
Peter Marcotullio, Geography, Columbia University and Hunter College
Rob Crauderueff, Sustainable Alternatives Coordinator, Sustainable South Bronx

Research Posters

Jennifer Brisbane, Lehman College, EGGS Dept., CUNY Graduate Center, EES Program, Ph.D. Student
Environmental Justice Analysis of Excessive Noise from Elevated Trains in New York City

Jullinnar Cooper, Lehman College, EGGS Dept., GISc Program
Evaluating the Staten Island Bluebelt: An Innovative Program for Stormwater-Management and Flood Control

Amanda Huron, CUNY Graduate Center, EES Program, Ph.D. Student
Mapping Noise in Ft. Greene Park, Brooklyn, New York

Cesar Marin, Lehman College, Biology Dept., CUNY Graduate Center, Biology Program, Ph.D. Candidate
Fire Risk Assessment in an Andean Forest in Colombia

Andrew Maroko, Lehman College, CUNY, EGGS Dept., Graduate Center EES program, Ph.D. student
Using the Cadastral-based Expert Dasymetric System to Estimate Population Impacted by Flood Hazards in New York City

Andrew R. Maroko and Juliana A. Maantay, Lehman College EGGS Dept., and EES Program, the Graduate Center.
Residential Segregation and Health Disparities in New York City: A Spacio-statistical Exploration of AIDS, TB, and the Distribution of People

Brian Morgan, Lehman College, CUNY, EGGS Dept., Geography Major and GISc Program
Neighborhoods in Transition: The Gentrification of Greenpoint and Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY

Brian Morgan, Lehman College, CUNY, EGGS Dept., Geography Major and GISc Program
Re-Mapping FEMA: A Study of the 2006 Flood Plain Rezoning and the Potential Impact on Economic Development Project Sites

Lesley Patrick, CUNY Graduate Center, EES Program, Ph.D. Student
The inequitable distribution of street trees in Brooklyn : Who gets the trees and how do they benefit?

Shaky Sherpa, Lehman College, CUNY, EGGS Dept., GISc Program
Using GIS to Analyze the Impact of Tourism in the Deforestation of the Everest Region

Research project supported by NOAA-CREST and NIEHS:
Jun Tu1, Andrew Maroko2, and Juliana Maantay3, Lehman College, CUNY, EGGS Dept., and Graduate Center EES Program, 1Ph.D. Candidate; 2Ph.D. student; 3Associate Professor
Loose-coupling an air dispersion model and a geographic information system for studying air pollution and asthma in the Bronx, New York City

Jingyu Wang and Hari K. Pant , Lehman College, CUNY, EGGS Dept., 1Ph.D. Candidate and 2 Associate Professor
Phosphorous dynamics in the Bronx River

Natalia Zakharova, CUNY Graduate Center, EES Program, Ph.D. Student
Analysis of Carbon Dioxide Geologic Sequestration Opportunities in the USA