Sustainability News by Date
listings 1-2 of 2
October 2020
10-18-2020
Ohio-based artist Julia Christensen ’00 talks to Gabrielle Schwarz about how a visit to an e-waste processing center in India sparked an obsession with our throwaway culture, and how that has fed into a book and an exhibition titled Upgrade Available: “The concept that I’m working with, what I call ‘upgrade culture,’ is this sort of relentless notion that we constantly have to upgrade our electronics and media to remain relevant. I became interested in this, how this was culturally happening, because I visited, by a crazy chain of events, an e-waste processing centre in India several years ago. It was the first time I was faced with this global aggregate of e-waste, mountains of old computers and printers, etc. As a member of the consumer public I just had never thought about what happens when I take my computer to the recycling centre to be recycled. And of course I’m a media artist. I use a camera, I have a phone. I am part of this whole thing, so I began to think critically about what it means [to participate in upgrade culture]. It’s hard to connect the little phones in our pockets to this larger global issue, which is what it is. We are enacting a planetary crisis right now with electronics.”
Photo: Tapes from Pearson's Basement (2014), from the series Hard Copy, Julia Christensen. Photo: courtesy the artist
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Bardians at Work,Division of the Arts,Environmental/Sustainability |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Bardians at Work,Division of the Arts,Environmental/Sustainability |
10-08-2020
Bard’s Felicia Keesing and Rick Ostfeld of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies address the topic of infectious disease spillovers, and talk about the pathogens that cause diseases like COVID-19. Preserving and promoting biodiversity—including reducing carbon pollution, consuming fewer animal products, and supporting science-based decision-making—is key to preventing disease transmission from animals to humans, the scientists say. “This is a really pivotal election in the United States for thinking about whether we want to have science and science-based decision-making playing a role as we go forward and rebuild—the sort of ‘build back better’ theme I think is important to bring in here,” says Keesing. “We are going to need to rebuild our economy in different ways, our energy infrastructure, our employment infrastructure, our health infrastructure, and our environmental infrastructure as we come back from this. If we’re wise, and informed by this experience, we can do a better job so that we make this less likely to ever happen again.”
Photo: Rick Ostfeld and Felicia Keesing. Photo by Stephen Reiss for NPR
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Biology Program,Division of Science, Math, and Computing,Environmental/Sustainability,Global Public Health Concentration | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Biology Program,Division of Science, Math, and Computing,Environmental/Sustainability,Global Public Health Concentration | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
listings 1-2 of 2