Climate & Society Weekly Reflections

Taking advantage of my employee tuition benefits, I have been taking classes part-time in addition to my full-time job to complete the Master of Arts in Climate & Society program at The Climate School, Columbia University. This series is a weekly blog assignment for my Spring 2023 course, Applications in Climate & Society. The series captures my thoughts and reflections based on the provided prompts.

Week 2 - Jan 30

Prompt: Post reflections on your blog about today’s class and readings. What emerging narratives are important in science and activism and how can the two compliment each other? What narratives were missing from class today that you think are important?

We had the privilege to hear from youth climate activist Alexandria Villaseñor and senior climate research scientist and activist Gavin Schmidt in class. It was an interesting pairing of multiple contrasts: age, generation, stage in life, experience, professional expertise, and education.

While I have known of Gavin Schmidt in the public sphere, it was enlightening to see his framework of politicized science and scientized politics that stemmed from and continue to drives his activism. This is a useful structure for recognizing whether and evaluating how someone is advocating for their cause, belief, or interest. Gavin made an excellent point that scientists have always been natural advocates of their own research, so the belief that all forms of activism threatens the objectivity of science lacks introspection and awareness. My experience in academia has shown that a scientist’s career-track success is frequently measured by attendance in conferences and meetings, presentation of their work in a public setting, the amount of times their work is shared/discussed/cited, their involvement and participation in projects, groups, and institutions, etc. It is hardly the case that scientists can quietly conduct their work in an isolated setting and the results will magically enter the public sphere and become applied contextually and widely.

Moreover, science through time has inherited and perpetuated all biases and inequalities of the society in which it was conducted, like racism and sexism against non-white, non-male scientists, study participants, and even nonconsenting subjects. In my work, I have learned that to attempt to treat and resolve the issues of climate impacts as “neutral” or “discrimination-free” is to perpetuate the inequalities and injustices already in place.

I also admired Alexandria’s enormously crucial and hard work and appreciated her insightful take on burnout, emphasizing the importance of finding community and trusting that if you ever need to take a break there is still a whole movement that continues.