livestream available
Robyn Eckersley
View the recording of the Possible Worlds lecture by Robyn Eckersley on the UCLA College YouTube channel. Explore previous Possible Worlds lectures at humanities.ucla.edu/lecture/possible-worlds.
Robyn Eckersley is Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor in Political Science at the University of Melbourne and a fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. She has published widely in the fields of environmental political theory and international relations, with a particular focus on ecological democracy, the greening of states, and the ethics, politics and governance of climate change. Her books include Environmentalism and Political Theory (SUNY Press, 1992); The Green State: Rethinking Democracy and Sovereignty (MIT Press, 2004); Political Theory and the Ecological Challenge (Cambridge University Press, 2006, co-edited with A. Dobson); The State and the Global Ecological Crisis (MIT Press, 2005, co-edited with J. Barry); Special Responsibilities: Global Problems and American Power (2012, co-authored with five others); Globalization and the Environment (2013, co-authored with P. Christoff); and The Oxford Handbook of International Political Theory (2018, co-edited with C. Brown). She received a Distinguished Scholar Award (Environmental Studies Section) at the International Studies Association Annual Convention in Toronto in 2019.
Climate Emergency and the Future of Democracy
This lecture critically explores two contradictory claims: that the climate emergency movement is a threat to democracy and will summon a future climate emergency state, and that the climate emergency movement is a potential savior of democracy because it seeks to safeguard the fundamental socioecological conditions for the survival of democratic states.
Featuring a discussion with moderator Alex Hall
Alex Hall is a professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Director of the UCLA Center for Climate Science at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, and Interim Director of the UCLA Sustainable LA Grand Challenge. His research is aimed at predicting and understanding climate change impacts at scales relevant to decision-makers, especially in the state of California and the western U.S. Alex and his team are currently studying the future of wildfire in California and are working with water management agencies in the Los Angeles region to ensure sustainability of water resources under climate change.
Alex co-founded the Climate & Wildfire Institute, a non-profit org, to tackle the rapidly-emerging threat of megafire in the Western U.S. He is a contributing author on the upcoming Fifth U.S. National Climate Assessment and was also a Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 5th Assessment Report’s chapter on regional climate change, a Contributing Author to its chapter on climate model evaluation and Coordinating Lead Author of the Los Angeles Region Report, part of California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment. In 2022, Alex received the UCLA Public Impact Research Award, and in 2019, he was awarded the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Future Horizons in Climate Science Turco Lectureship.