Tag Archives: Climate Change

Scholars’ Circle – Book Author interview – North : Future of Post climate America – November 23, 2025

November 24, 2025 host

Climate change will lead to climate migration. There has been a renewed interest in adaptation strategies. Mitigation efforts seek to limit the amount of greenhouse gases in the environment to slow climate change. But adaptation recognizes that the climate has changed and we as a society and as a planet must adapt to these rising temperatures and the changing ecosystem. We will explore some of the challenges for adaptation.

We Interview Jesse M.Keenan author of the book North: Future of Post Climate America. He surveys places which are vulnerable to climate change effects and what are the state and regional implication of migration North in America. [ dur: 26mins. ]

Jesse M. Keenan is Favrot II Associate Professor of Sustainable Real Estate and Urban Planning at the School of Architecture and the Built Environment. His research advances the interdisciplinary fields of sustainable real estate and infrastructure finance and development. He is the author of the book North: Future of Post Climate America.

How is climate change affecting place, where we live, who can move off the coasts, and who is immobile despite living in climate-threatened zones? And what does it mean for the well-being, the economy, politics and for the regions themselves? [ dur: 32mins. ]

Jesse M. Keenan is Favrot II Associate Professor of Sustainable Real Estate and Urban Planning at the School of Architecture and the Built Environment. His research advances the interdisciplinary fields of sustainable real estate and infrastructure finance and development. He is the author of the book North: Future of Post Climate America.
Matt Hauer is Charles B. Nam Associate Professor, Department of Sociology – Center for Demography and Population Health at Florida State University. He is the author of Sea-level rise and human migration.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian, Sudd Dongre and Anna Lapin .

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Trump’s anti-green energy policies ; ICJ climate change ruling for all affected states – October 19, 2025

October 23, 2025 host

Green energy shunned by the Trump Administration, we examine how this affects US economy, energy costs and green technology leadership. [ dur: 22mins. ]

Shannon Gibson is Associate Professor of Political Science, International Relations, and Environmental Studies at the University of Southern California. She’s also the author of Climate Change or Social Change? Environmental and Leftist Praxis and Participatory Action Research and State-led social boundary change: Transnational environmental activism, ‘ecoterrorism’ and September 11.
Dr. Kelly Twomey Sanders is an Associate Professor in the University of Southern California’s Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. She is the co-author of Integrating Sociodemographic, Health, and Environmental Data to Assess the Spatiotemporal Trends of Vulnerability to Heatwaves in California .

International Court of Justice (ICJ ) made decision on behalf of Vanuatu in July 2025 Recognizing the “urgent and existential threat” facing the world, granting those harmed by human-caused climate change may be entitled to “reparations”. [ dur: 35mins. ]

Johanna L. Gusman Regional Adviser for Human Rights and Social Development at the Pacific Community (SPC) based in Suva, Fiji. She has authored Pacific Island Countries Make Historic Submissions to the International Court of Justice Climate Change Advisory Opinion.
Dr. Justin Sobion Lectures on Environmental Law at University of Auckland, New Zealand. He has contributed chapter to Reflections on Earth Trusteeship. Mother Earth and a new 21st-century governance paradigm.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.

Environment, Politics and Activism, Climate Change, Renewable Energy, Governance / Law

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Safe drinking water delivery in US ; Floods and aftermath in Ellicott City, Maryland – July 20, 2025

July 22, 2025 host

Although Access to safe drinking water is a human right, millions of people in the United States do no have access to safe water. Lead in the pipes is the most well-known cause but there are many others. What can be done to fix the nation’s water delivery systems? What have we learned from the Flint case? [ dur: 34mins. ]

Newsha Ajami is Chief Development Officer for Research at the Earth and Environmental Sciences Area, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. She is the co-author of Building water resilience in the face of cascading wildfire risks and Infrastructure and the Digital Economy: Reinventing Our Role in the Design, Financing, and Governance of Essential Services for Society.
Benjamin J. Pauli is Associate Professor of Social Science at the Department of Liberal Arts at Kettering University in Flint, Michigan. He is the author of Flint Fights Back: Environmental Justice and Democracy in the Flint Water Crisis.

photo of flooding of the main street in Ellicott City, Maryland. Tile shown, After the Floods - The Search for Resilience in Ellicott City by Ken Conca.

Segment 2: Why did Ellicott City flood not once, but twice in 22 months (July 2016, May 2018)? How can “once in a thousand years’ rainfalls happen so close to one another? How do cities respond to extreme weather? We speak with Ken Conca author of After the Floods: The Search for Resilience in Ellicott City.[ dur: 22mins. ]

Dr. Ken Conca is Professor of environment, development, & health at American University. He is the co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Water Politics and Policy and his recent book After the Floods: The Search for Resilience in Ellicott City.

Music clip by Sam Cooke – Change is going to come

Poetry by Rachel Dillon – Dead whale can feed an entire ecosystem

This show was originally published Oct. 2023

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Maria Armoudian, Ankine Aghassian, and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations ; Building opposition to anti-science propaganda – March 30, 2025

April 1, 2025 host

The Russian invasion and war in Ukraine is now over three years old. The new Trump Administration is trying to negotiate a cease fire and peace in the war. Why has an agreement been so elusive? [ dur: 20mins. ]

Robert English is Associate Professor of International Relations and Co-Director of the Central European Studies Program at the University of Southern California (USC). He is the author of Russia and the Idea of the West.

anti-science propaganda has driven ignorance-fueled decisions that are driving us to ecological collapse. What are the costs of the spread of this mal-information? Who is spreading it? For what end? And how can it be overcome? [ dur: 38mins. ]

Eve Darian-Smith is the professor of Global Studies, Law, Anthropology, and Criminology Law & Society, at University of California Irvine. She is the author of Global Burning – Rising Antidemocracy and the Climate Crisis.
Stuart McNaughton is the professor of Faculty of Arts and Education at The University of Auckland in NZ.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars’ Circle – Sober view on Wildfire mitigation and adaptation – January 12, 2025

January 11, 2025 host

Western US is ablaze with intense and widespread fires. What role does climate change, forest management, overpopulation, and resource management play in the increasingly devastating fire seasons worldwide? How can climate mitigation and adaptation complicate forest management? [dur: 58mins. ]

George Perry is a Professor at the School of Environment at the University of Auckland. He studies the effects of humans on forest ecosystems. He is the co-author of many publications including, Positive Feedbacks to Fire-Driven Deforestation Following Human Colonization of the South Island of New Zealand, Pyrodiversity is the coupling of biodiversity and fire regimes in food webs, and Green firebreaks as a management tool for wildfires: Lessons from China.
Peter Ward is Professor of Biology and Professor of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington. He is the co-author of the best-selling Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe, the author of many books including, Out of Thin Air: Dinosaurs, Birds, and Earth’s Ancient Atmosphere, Under a Green Sky: Global Warming, the Mass Extinctions of the Past and What They Can Tell Us About Our Future, and The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive? which was listed by the New York Times as one of the “100 most important ideas of 2009.”
Beverly Elizabeth Law is Emeritus Professor and was previously Professor of Global Change Biology and Terrestrial Systems Science in the Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society at Oregon State University. She is an American Geophysical Union Fellow and Aldo Leopold Fellow. She is an author or co-author of over 200 peer-reviewed publications including Drivers of Future Ecosystem Change in the US Pacific Northwest: The Role of Climate, Fire, and Nitrogen and Tree biomass mortality from fires, bark beetles, and timber harvest during a hot, dry decade in the western United States.
William Moomaw is Emeritus Professor of international environmental policy and founding director of the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at The Fletcher School. He is the co-founder and current co-director of the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts. Professor Moomaw has been a lead author of five Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Reports. He is the author of Intact Forests in the United States: Proforestation Mitigates Climate Change and Serves the Greatest Good and Scientist Diplomats or Diplomat Scientists: Who Makes Science Diplomacy Effective?

This panel was recorded in September 2020.

This program is produced by the following team members: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars’ Circle – COP29 , its outcome and looking ahead – December 1, 2024

December 2, 2024 host

COP 29 in Azerbaijan has just ended. These annual meetings are intended to advance the cause of combating climate change. And while the meetings did result in an agreement, there has been intense criticism both within the attendees and critics from outside the halls of the meetings about this agreement. And of course the United States just elected a President who considers climate change to be a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. On this show, we explore what developed at COP 29, and what this means for global action on climate change. [ dur: 58mins. ]

Shannon Gibson is Associate Professor of Political Science, International Relations, and Environmental Studies at the University of Southern California. She’s also the author of a recent article in the Conversation Throwing soup on a Van Gogh and other ways young climate activists are making their voices heard over Egypt’s climate summit protest suppression and State-led social boundary change: Transnational environmental activism, ‘ecoterrorism’ and September 11.
Amy Below, Associate Professor of International Relations and Comparative Politics at California State University East Bay. She specializes in environmental and climate politics and foreign policy with a regional emphasis in the Americas. She is author of Environmental Politics and Foreign Policy Decision Making in Latin America Ratifying the Kyoto Protocol and The Missing Link: Regionalism as a First Step Toward Globalizing U.S. Environmental Security Policy.

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars’ Circle – Urban Flooding its causes and mitigation explored; Book author interview on Land Back Movement in Indonesia – April 7, 2024

April 8, 2024 host

We look at how to sustainably mitigate urban flooding in the mist of climate crisis.
Altering how we think of hardscape in urban design to manage water drainage. [ dur: 30mins. ]

Gary Brierley is Professor of Environment at University of Auckland, NZ. He is the author of River restoration as a sociocultural process: A case study from the Waimatā Catchment, Aotearoa New Zealand and Truths of the Riverscape: Moving beyond command-and-control to geomorphologically informed nature-based river management
Timothy Welch is a senior lecturer on Architecture and Planning at University of Auckland, NZ.

Then we look at Land Back movement to repossess land by local farmers taken by corporations and state. Book author David E. Gilbert interview of his book Countering Dispossession, Reclaiming Land – A Social Movement Ethnography. Specifically, looking at Land Back effort in Casiavera village on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia. This is one of many Land Back movements in the world. [ dur:28mins. ]

You can find other land back movements at La Via Campesina website, which supports Food Sovereignty among Pheasant Farmers.

David Gilbert is postdoctoral research fellow in the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelonais. He is an environmental anthropologist with a special interest in social movements, ecological change, and post-development theory.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars’ Circle – Corporations not willing to taking bold actions against greenhouse gas emissions by their businesses – February 11, 2024

February 11, 2024 host

Climate Change is an existential threat that demands bold action and a transformation of how humanity uses its resources. Concepts like “net zero” and “carbon offset” have done little toward decreasing the amount of greenhouse gases we emit into the atmosphere. Is the current legal and voluntary structure adequate to meet the challenge of climate change? Are we up to the challenge? [ dur: 58mins. ]

William Moomaw is Emeritus Professor of international environmental policy and founding director of the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at The Fletcher School, Tufts University. He is the co-founder and current co-director of the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts. Professor Moomaw has been a lead author of five Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Reports. He is the author of Intact Forests in the United States: Proforestation Mitigates Climate Change and Serves the Greatest Good and Scientist Diplomats or Diplomat Scientists: Who Makes Science Diplomacy Effective?
LeRoy Westerling is Professor of Management of Complex Systems at Ernest and Julio Gallo Management Program at the University of California, Merced. He is the co-author of Greater Temperature and Precipitation Extremes Intensify Western U.S. Droughts, Wildfire Severity, and Sierra Nevada Tree Mortality.
Christopher Wright is Professor of Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney Business School. He is the co-author of Climate Change, Capitalism, and Corporations: Processes of Creative Self-Destruction.
Prue Taylor is the Deputy Director of the New Zealand Centre for Environmental Law. She is Senior Lecturer in the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of Auckland. She is the author of Opportunity within Failure: Can the Global Pact for the Environment Learn from Responsibility to Protect? and a book chapter on Responsibility for the Ecological Integrity of the High Seas: The Role of Natural Law.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars’ Circle – Knowledge of politics in a democracy and Insight into trees as a way to mitigate CO2 in the atmosphere – December 31, 2023

December 30, 2023 host

Why do people seem to know so little about politics? And what does that mean for democracy? We speak with Arthur Lupia author of Uninformed: Why People Know So Little About Politics and What We Can Do About It. [ dur: 27mins. ]

Arthur Lupia is the Gerald R Ford Distinguished University Professor at the University of Michigan. His research clarifies how people make decisions and form or break coalitions in complex, political environments. He is the co-author of The Democratic Dilemma: Can Citizens Learn What They Need to Know?, Elements of Reason: Cognition, Choice, and the Bounds of Rationality and the author of his latest book Uninformed: Why People Know So Little About Politics and What We Can Do About It.

Governments and others have advocated to offset carbon emission by planting more trees. But is this really the long term solution? Our experts say it won’t be enough. And in some cases, in can make matters worse. [ dur: 31mins. ]

George Perry is Professor of Ecology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He is the co-author of Green firebreaks as a management tool for wildfires: Lessons from China and Gametophyte niche differences among sympatric tree ferns.
Kevin Trenberth is Professor of Physics at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He is the author of The changing flow of energy through the climate system.
Cate Macinnis-Ng is Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. She is the author of
Forests for a Better Future: Sustainability, Innovation and Interdisciplinarity and Current knowledge and potential impacts of climate change on New Zealand’s biological heritage.

This program is produced by Maria Armoudian, Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian and Sudd Dongre.

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The Scholars' Circle Interviews

Tag Archives: Climate Change

Scholars’ Circle – Trump’s anti-green energy policies ; ICJ climate change ruling for all affected states – October 19, 2025

Scholars’ Circle – Safe drinking water delivery in US ; Floods and aftermath in Ellicott City, Maryland – July 20, 2025

Scholars’ Circle – Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations ; Building opposition to anti-science propaganda – March 30, 2025

Scholars’ Circle – Sober view on Wildfire mitigation and adaptation – January 12, 2025

Scholars’ Circle – COP29 , its outcome and looking ahead – December 1, 2024

Scholars’ Circle – Urban Flooding its causes and mitigation explored; Book author interview on Land Back Movement in Indonesia – April 7, 2024

Scholars’ Circle – Corporations not willing to taking bold actions against greenhouse gas emissions by their businesses – February 11, 2024

Scholars’ Circle – Knowledge of politics in a democracy and Insight into trees as a way to mitigate CO2 in the atmosphere – December 31, 2023

By Maria Armoudian