Environmental Studies Association of Canada – l'Association canadienne d'études environnementales

Theme: Sustainability in a Changing World
Location: Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec
May 31st – June 1, 2010
The Environmental Studies Association of Canada (ESAC) invites you to participate at its 2010 conference, as part of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences Congress, at Concordia University. Academics (faculty and students), practitioners, the policy making community, NGOs and community groups are all welcome to attend and participate actively.

Keynotes include:

Camilla Toulmin is the Director of the International Institute for Environment and Development. Her academic background is in Economics and current and future policy thinking on all aspects of the environment and development agenda, particularly building alliances with those in the frontline of sustainable development; land rights in Africa and all regions. She will speak to ESAC about climate change in Africa.

Bina Agarwal is a Professor of Economics at the University of Delhi, in India. Agarwal writes and researches on various subjects: land, livelihoods and property rights; environment and development; the political economy of gender; poverty and inequality; law; and agriculture and technological change. She will speak to ESAC about gender and forest management in Asia on Tuesday June 1st.

Desiree McGraw, Executive General of the Jeanne Sauve Foundation is a public policy professional with a background in international affairs. She has more than 20 years of experience as a consultant, researcher, reporter, senior political advisor and spokesperson in the field of sustainable development, and has been described by the national media as “one of Canada’s ten most influential people on environmental issues.” Desiree will speak to ESAC about the climate change following Copenhagen on Monday, May 31st.

For more comprehensive information on the ESAC 2010 conference, including themes, registration information and travel grant applications, please click here.

Keynote speaker biographical information from International Institute of Environment and Development, Wikipedia, and Climate Project Canada.

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CALL FOR PAPERS (deadline extended to March 31, 2010)

“The Good Life—Imagining Alternative Futures”
“Men form states to secure a bare subsistence, but the ultimate
object of the state is the good life.”  – Aristotle, Politics

Historians and other chroniclers of the past have depicted the
twentieth century in a variety of terms. Some refer to it as the
‘age of extremes’, others as the ‘age of anxiety’, and still others
as ‘the age of science’ or the age of ‘analysis’; but none have been
foolish enough to call it the ‘age of the good life’ and compose
eclogues in praise of it, and for very good reasons that need not be
rehearsed here. There is growing public awareness, though it’s far
from reaching any consensus on specific solutions, that the
institutional structures of the present are not providing “the good
life” for too many people. And the global ecological crisis is
compelling evidence that the Enlightenment project of the
“perfection of humanity” has utterly failed to produce even a shadow
image of the “good life”.

This conference is a forum to discuss competing but ecologically
grounded conceptions of “the good life.” We are calling for panels,
papers, and posters from those who find value in collaboration and
view the biophysical world as a unifying element in that
collaboration. Preference will be given to contributions that
represent interdisciplinary approaches to defining “the good life”
in environmental terms from the widest range of disciplines,
including environmental studies, philosophy, theology, history,
geography, anthropology, sociology, political science, economics,
psychology, cultural studies, urban studies, women’s studies,
ecofeminism, eco-socialism, etc.

Email registration form and your abstract as MS Word attachment to
Dr. Robert Chapman, Department of Philosophy & Environmental Studies
and Dr. Judith Pajo, Department of Anthropology & Sociology (piers@pace.edu).
The deadline for submission has been extended to March 31, 2010.
Abstracts will be reviewed anonymously; please omit personal
information from the abstract. Notices will be sent mid-April, 2010.

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS

John Cronin
Director and Chief Executive Officer, Beacon Institute for Rivers
and Estuaries
Senior Fellow for Environmental Affairs, Pace Academy for Applied
Environmental Studies, Pace University

Andrew Revkin, M.A. Columbia
Senior Fellow for Environmental Understanding, Pace Academy for
Applied Environmental Studies, Pace University
New York Times Reporter on the Environment for 15 years before
joining Pace University

Rik Scarce, Ph.D. Washington State University
Associate Professor of Sociology, Skidmore College
Author of Eco-Warriors: Understanding the Radical Environmental
Movement (Left Coast Press, 2006).

DORM ROOMS

Pace University is making dorm rooms available for our conference
participants in Maria’s Tower, June 2-6, 2010.

The cost for housing is $60/night for a single room and $48/night
per person for a double room. (You may select your roommate or we
will assign you a same gender person with whom you will share a
bath.) There is a minimum of two nights stay. Linens will be
provided. Free wireless internet access is available but must be
reserved in advance.

To reserve a dorm room, email your request, specifying type of room,
dates of arrival and departure, and optional internet access to piers@pace.edu. Please mail payment to PIERS Office, 41 Park Row, 7th floor, New
York, NY 10038.
The deadline for reserving a dorm room is April 30, 2010.
Cancellations cannot be honored after that date.

TICKETED DINNER
The cost for the dinner is $50. To get a ticket, please email your
request, specifying your preference for fish, chicken, or a
vegetarian dinner, to piers@pace.edu. Please mail payment to PIERS  Office, 41 Park Row, 7th floor, New York, NY 10038.

CONFERENCE WEBSITE

To register for the conference, please visit the PIERS 2010
conference website at http://www.pace.edu/pace/dyson/research-and-resource-centers/academic-centers-and-institutes/piers/summer-2010-conference/

CONTACT US

PIERS Office
Institute for Environmental and Regional Studies
41 Park Row, 7th floor
New York, NY 10038
piers@pace.edu
www.pace.edu/piers

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From 7-25 June, the University of PEI is offering “Settling and
Unsettling Spaces: Environmental History & PEI” an intensive,
three-week course in the field. Upper-level undergraduates and Master’s students will draw from a range of disciplines in lectures, seminars, and primary research. They will
also investigate the Island behind the tourism brochures, through field trips that explore how PEI’s environment and communities have changed over time. If you have questions, contact Josh MacFadyen, jmacfady@uoguelph.ca

As part of that course, students will also participate in the second
event, the 13-18 June “Time and a Place: Environmental Histories,
Environmental Futures, and Prince Edward Island” (see attached
poster). Local, national, and international participants will come
together to develop PEI’s environmental history and explore, more
broadly, the value of islands in crafting plans for sustainability.
The event, organized by UPEI and NiCHE, will include workshops, field
trips, public lectures (by Finis Dunaway, Daniel Pauly, Harriet Ritvo,
Donald Worster, and Graeme Wynn), and, undoubtedly, lobster. Thanks
to a SSHRC Environmental Issues grant, the registration costs are very
reasonable, and registration and travel support will be available to
some students. If you are interested in attending, please apply
online at http://niche-canada.org/pei2010 by 15 February. Space is
limited! You will be notified by 15 March if your application has
been accepted, and you will be asked to pay registration by 1 May. If
you have any questions, please contact me, amaceach@uwo.ca
_____________________________
Alan MacEachern
Associate Professor, Department of History ~
http://history.uwo.ca/faculty/maceachern
Director, NiCHE: Network in Canadian History & Environment ~
http://niche-canada.org
The University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5C2

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3rd Biannual Conference of

ASLEC-ANZ

The Association for the Study of Literature, Environment, Culture–

Australia and New Zealand

University of Tasmania

Launceston

20, 21, 22 October 2010

Sounding the Earth: Music, Language, Acoustic Ecology

‘All of the sound we hear is only a fraction of all the vibrating going on in our universe’ (ecologist and composer David Dunn, Nature Sound). ‘Since each thing is made differently, each form of life hears a slightly different multiverse’.

ASLEC-ANZ invites papers, performances, photo/phonographics—on music, language, sound, the earth—that reflect the multiversity of human and non-human worlds; that investigate music’s power as intrinsic language to ‘transcend social and cultural barriers’; that examine the process of remixing, recycling, renewing in sound and the environment.

The proposed theme, Sound and the Environment. actively engages with the aural (human and non-human), and thus seeks to bring into encounter human and non-human aural expressions and aesthetics; conservatory and architecture; drama and legislation; arts and industry sustainability.

Among the topics that presenters will take up are: soundscapes and environmental awareness; music modeled on nature; music performed collaboratively with nature; the power of song (human and non-human) to change the way humans think and act; Indigenous ’singing up’ as a mode of resilience and joy. We envisage an extension of the theme that includes the politics of sound and air.

Topic suggestions include but are not limited to:

* nature writing / nature singing / inherited language

* noise as pollutant

* silence as extinction

* noise as environmental aesthetic

* popular / classical / sacred music and ecology

* Music as environmental ‘bandaid’

* ‘silence’ in environmental art, film, literature and philosophy

* auditory perception; extra-human acoustic ecologies

* capturing sound / Unsound practices

The conference is to be held at the School of Architecture at Inveresk. This is the site of the Academy for the Arts, and the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, and is situated on the North Esk, in Launceston. Accommodation in town is within Zimmer frame walking distance from the venue.

Submission deadline is 15 July 2010. Abstracts should be no more than 250 words, and should state IT requirements. Selected papers will be published in the inaugural ASLEC-ANZ refereed journal. Registration information, venue and accommodation details will be posted to the ASLEC-ANZ website at the end of May. In the meantime abstracts and questions should be directed to

Dr CA Cranston

President ASLEC-ANZ http://www.asle-anz.asn.au/

CA.Cranston@utas.edu.au

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For more information see: www.healthycities.ca
Email: urban@uwo.ca

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Please consider presenting a paper on the topic of “Environment and Health” as part of the 2010 Canadian Sociology Association annual conference . This will be held at Concordia  University, Montreal, May 31st to June 4th 2010 inclusive. The deadline for abstract submission has been extended to February 19 2010.

This session emphasizes how the varied interconnections between environmental, social and health issues may be approached from a sociological perspective, with the particular aim of understanding environmental health issues assituated within the local and/or global political economic context.  We will consider both empirical and theoretical treatments of the sociological implications of the environment-health relationship. Examples of possible topics include: the sociology of risk and disease; the politics of environmental health, including the role of social movements, the analysis of the social determinants of health, social epidemiology and inequality and the social distribution of risk; environmental disaster research; contested diseases such as multiple chemical sensitivity, endocrine disruption, fibromyalgia; environmental justice, climate justice and case studies on specific environmental health issues as well as the spread of infectious diseases (e.g HIV/AIDS, Influenza A/H1N1, Tuberculosis etc).

Please contact Dr. Harris Ali for more information,

Harris Ali, B.Eng., Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Faculty of Environmental Studies
York University
4700 Keele Street
Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3

hali@yorku.ca

Tel: (416) 736-2100, Ext.22608
Fax: (416) 736-5679

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In this, the International Year of Biodiversity, the 2010 RCEN Annual General Assembly is focusing on biodiversity across Canada and our planet. The RCEN’s 2010 Annual General Assembly and Conference will be held in Montreal, from September 17th-19th.

Biological diversity – or biodiversity – is the term given to the variety of life on Earth and the natural patterns it forms. It is this combination of life forms and their interactions with each other and with the rest of the environment that has made Earth a uniquely habitable place for humans.

Yet over the last 50 years, humans have had more impact on ecosystems than at any other time in history. Loss of both species and ecosystem diversity has occurred as a result of habitat loss and alteration, over-exploitation, climate change, and the spread of invasive species into pristine environments. The current rate of species extinction is 1,000 times greater than the normal background rate that has existed since life evolved on Earth.

This is more than an academic issue. We are now starting to understand what the consequences of this loss might be. Biodiversity is crucial to the survival of humankind—indeed, of all life on Earth. It supports us with free ecological goods — such as food (including fish, seafood, game, wild foods, spices, crops), water, medicines, lumber and fuels, and free ecological services — such as air and water purification, decomposition of waste, pollination of crops, seed dispersal, pest and disease control, climate and flood regulation, ecotourism, and cultural, educational and spiritual inspiration.

For example, healthy biodiversity provides us with the continued existence of bees to pollinate food crops, or maintains the health of a marsh ecosystem to absorb flood waters and filter out pollution so fish and other organisms continue to survive. Biodiversity also creates and supports human cultures and our spiritual needs. Imagine, for instance, how First Nations cultures on the Pacific coast would have evolved without salmon, the principal iconic species. Our cultures—our values—are a direct result of our environment.

What are the costs of losing these free ecological goods and services — to life, to our cultures and to our economic systems? How can the concept of ecological goods and services help create solutions that will slow down the current rate of biodiversity loss? Can putting a price on ecosystem services protect and restore biodiversity?

Speakers with local, regional, provincial, national, and international perspectives will explore these questions, present examples of successful interventions that have led to the survival of species and habitats and will discuss the priority areas where practices, policies, strategies, and programs must be developed.

This conference will provide specific opportunities for attendees and speakers to engage and exchange on their experiences and challenges and help enhance the informal networks on this important topic.

Information taken from the RCEN website.

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Theme: Sustainability in a Changing World
Location: Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec
May 31st – June 1, 2010
The Environmental Studies Association of Canada (ESAC) invites you to participate at its 2010 conference, as part of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences Congress, at Concordia University. Academics (faculty and students), practitioners, the policy making community, NGOs and community groups are all welcome to attend and participate actively.
This conference aims at exploring a large range of issues that include climate change, food security, natural resources, millennium development goals, environmental health and environmental literacy. We particularly seek to include delegates from different disciplines – political sciences, anthropology, sociology, economics, international development and geography. ESAC expects this conference will stimulate a critical and constructive dialogue among its participants. As such, we encourage you to submit paper and panel proposals relevant to the theme of this conference.
Suggestions for certain themes of interest this year are:

• Gender and the environment
• Climate change
• Environmental health
• Food resources, food security or food sovereignty
• Environmental literacy and environmental education
• Sustainable Livelihoods
• Greenwashing
• Environmental Management Systems
• Ecoproducts and ecoservices (e.g., ecotourism)
• Consumption
• Waste or Zero waste
• Millenium development goals
• Documentaries, participatory video and photovoice regarding sustainability issues.
Abstract submissions (300 words) should be sent in by December 21st 2009. The abstract should include a description of your object of study, your theoretic frame, your methodology of research, your conclusions and the importance of this area to sustainability. All papers will be evaluated by a ESAC conference committee and acceptance emails will be sent out in early February.

You must be an ESAC member in good standing to present a paper or panel at the conference. Travel grants will be available to student ESAC panel participants (see travel grant form). You must fill out and submit the form before the due date to be eligible for a travel grant.

Cost of Attendance

Member: $60
Non-Member: $90
Retired Member: $40
Retired Non-Member: $50
Student Member: $30
Student Non-Member: $40
Unwaged Member: $30
Unwaged Non-Member: $40

Banquet: $35

To complete your registration, go to the following link:
https://www.fedcancongress.com/index.php Please note that to be eligible
for the early bird discount for Congress registration, the deadline is March
31st.

When you register for Congress, one of the drop-down options will be to
attend our banquet at the Spanish Club, scheduled for the evening of June
1st, that includes tapas and the choice of paella or lamb or vegetarian
option with a band and late night party with Canadian Association of Studies
in International Development (CASID) for a cost of $35. This is an excellent
opportunity for you to network and/or socialize with student and faculty
colleagues.

Dr. Shirley Thompson,
Natural Resources Institute, University of Manitoba,
70 Dysart Rd.,
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2N2
phone: (204) 474-7170 fax: 204-261-0038
e-mail: s_thompson@umanitoba.ca
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~thompso4/

ESAC ACEE call for proposals

ESAC ACEE 2010 Paper Proposal Form

ESAC-ACEE-2010-Panel-proposal-form

Travel Grant Application

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When: February 2010
Number of ENGO Delegates sought: 1 Researcher-Writer and 1 Editor
Deadline to apply: February 1st, 2010

The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade has invited the RCEN to coordinate the development of a Canadian ENGO Priorities Paper in advance of the eighteenth session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-18) from 3-14 May 2010. The RCEN is seeking one Researcher-Writer and one Editor to complete the paper during the month of February.

The paper will explore, from a Canadian ENGO perspective and through a sustainable consumption and production lens, gaps and best practices related to the CSD-18/19 thematic cluster of transport, chemicals, waste management, mining and the 10 Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production.

This paper will be presented to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade’s Sustainable Development Division to inform the Government of Canada’s Priorities Paper for CSD-18.

The ENGO Researcher-Writer will be compensated $750 and the ENGO Editor will be compensated $250.

To apply, please complete the online delegate application form. Please indicate in your form if you are applying for the Researcher-Writer or Editor position and any previous relevant experience.

For more information on the Commission on Sustainable Development, please visit www.un.org/esa/dsd/csd/csd_csd18.shtml.

For more information, please contact Sarah Heiberg, National Caucus Coordinator, at 514-833-9810 or at sarah@cen-rce.org.

Selection Criteria

• Experience and proven ability to work professionally, constructively and collaboratively in a multi-stakeholder setting;
• Previous involvement and/or a solid understanding of the CSD Process
• Ability to bring a national and strategic perspective to the Table; particularly in the areas of transport, chemicals, waste management, mining and the 10 Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production
• Senior representative of an ENGO
• Ability to reach out to constituent community;
• RCEN member in good standing; and
• Commitment to the process.

Researcher-Writer Delegate Expectations

• Consult with the wider ENGO community to gather views and ENGO best practices related to the CSD-18/19 thematic cluster
• Research and review preparatory material
• Participate in relevant ENGO teleconferences
• Adequately reflect the views of Canadian ENGOs
• Submit the draft ENGO CSD Priorities Paper by February 17, 2010

Editor Delegate Expectations

• Assist the Researcher-Writer in developing the paper
• Participate in relevant ENGO teleconferences
• Edit the ENGO CSD Priorities Paper prepared by the Researcher-Writer
• Submit the final ENGO CSD Priorities Paper by February 25, 2010

Background Information
The Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) emerged from Agenda 21, the programme of action for sustainable development adopted in June 1992 by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the “Rio Earth Summit.” Agenda 21 called for the creation of the CSD to ensure effective follow-up of UNCED, enhance international cooperation, and examine progress in the implementation of Agenda 21 at the local, national, regional and international levels. Initial CSD meetings focused on all aspect of Agenda 21. More recently, a decision was made to focus on thematic areas in a two-year cycle. The first year of the cycle is considered a “review” year, focusing on information sharing and dialogue that sets the stage for the second, “policy” year. During the policy year, countries attempt to negotiate commitments that are not legally binding but aim to ensure the implementation of Agenda 21.

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CALL FOR PAPERS
The Fifth International Conference on Ecological Discourse
December 16-18, 2010
Tamkang University, Taipei County, Taiwan

Ecocriticism in Asia:
Reorienting Modernity, Reclaiming Nature?

Deadline for submission of abstracts: March 9, 2010
Response to submissions: April 15, 2010

Contributions are invited for Tamkang University’s Fifth International
Conference on Ecological Discourse. We invite papers that address
Asian interests and contexts in terms of diversely contested
approaches to modernity and nature. Papers that are
cross-disciplinary in purpose and scope are especially welcome. Such
papers would intersect with a broad range of Asian environmental
issues and concerns not limited only to texts treated by scholars
working in the arts and humanities, but also ecocritical projects and
initiatives that intersect with biology, chemistry, economics,
government policy, industry and technology, the social sciences, and
the natural sciences. The conference aims to be representative of the
many arguments emerging in ecocritical discourse, including debates
within specialized fields of study as well as larger issues engendered
by the crisis of human-caused climate change affecting various places
in Asia. In addressing issues of modernity and nature in Asia, what
can we gain by reassessing the conceptual tools in the arts,
literature and philosophy that have been abandoned during centuries of colonialism and modernization? Are there places and communities in Asia that provide new models for development that could release the earth from the expanding hegemony of global capital?

TOPICS

We welcome proposals which reconsider modernity and nature in
ecocriticism from an Asian-centered perspective. Possible topics
include (but are not limited to) the following:

-ecocritical readings of Asian art, literature and film
literature, philosophy and religion and Asian ecologies
-ecofeminism in Asia
-ecology (Asian ecosystems, invasive species/native species, toxicity, etc.)
-the impact of global warming in Asia
-economic and demographic studies addressing climate change, food, and species loss in Asia
-animal trafficking and animal rights in Asia
-bio/ecocentric public policy and political action in Asia
-ecocomposition and writing ecologies
-environmental justice/social justice/ecomarxism in Asia
-space, place, and globalisation
-biosemiotics
-ecotourism and ecopornography in Asia
-posthumanist readings of Asian art, literature and film including the
applications of cyborg theory.

The conference is organized by the English Department at Tamkang
University with the support of the Chemistry Department and the
recently formed Association of the Study of Literature and Environment
of Taiwan (ASLE-Taiwan).

ABSTRACT SUBMISSIONS

Proposals for individual papers and proposals for panels are both
invited. Presenters are asked to prepare 20-minute (3,000-word)
papers. Please submit your abstract in English or Mandarin (approx.
200 words). Send submissions in Mandarin or English to the organizing
committee: miracle@mail.tku.edu.tw.

Proposals in languages other than English will be considered if we can
group these together in one or more panels.

ACCOMMODATIONS
The historical town of Danshui is one of the Taiwan?s most famous
tourist destinations, known for its winding brick roads and sunsets at
the mouth of the Danshui River. Accommodations will be reserved for
guests at Tamkang University’s Hwei-wen Hall guesthouse, a one-minute
walk from dozens of coffee shops, restaurants and grocery stores, and
local markets selling fresh produce, and a fifteen-minute walk to the
Danshui MRT to downtown Taipei. The campus is just forty minutes by
taxi from the international airport.

OTHER
Costs of registration and accommodation: these will be announced in
April 2010. (Funding is currently being sought for bursaries to
provide for some of these costs.)
Excursions: two optional, one-day excursions.

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