Thomas Homer-Dixon was keynote speaker at the annual conference
On Feb. 1, the University of Guelph hosted its 20th annual Environmental Sciences Symposium. The theme of the day was “collaboration between science and activism.” Despite heavy snow throughout the day, many students and others braved the weather to attend the event held at Rozanski Hall.
The symposium began at 8 a.m. and featured numerous speakers over the course of the day, culminating in a networking social for all those in attendance. The problem of climate change was the main focus throughout.
The keynote speaker for this year’s symposium was Dr. Thomas Homer-Dixon from the University of Waterloo. Homer-Dixon holds the Centre for International Governance Innovation Chair of Global Systems at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and is best known for his research on the links between environmental stress and violent conflict.
He is also the award-winning author of several books on the subject of climate change. He plans to have another book out within the next two years, specifically regarding the actions the human race needs to take the meet the challenges to come in the future.
In his keynote speech, Homer-Dixon warned about the geopolitical consequences inherent in a future climate crisis, such as rising global food prices.
To meet the challenges of the future, Homer-Dixon maintains that technology will help the earth’s population confront threats posed by climate change. He calls this progressive shift a “general purpose technology transition,” noting that in the future, our whole society will be reoriented around combating climate change. While he believes climate change to be “almost an existential threat for the human race,” he argues that if we take the proper steps to adapt and meet these challenges, there will be tremendous opportunity for innovation in the future.
Rob Shirkey, a lawyer and executive director of Our Horizon, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting climate change, also spoke at the symposium. Our Horizon is currently campaigning to put warning labels on gas pumps across Canada to speed the transition away from overreliance on fossil fuels. Shirkey and his organization propose that warning labels would effectively “problematize the consumption of gas,” which he argues is a polluting activity that has wrongfully become normalized. Shirkey also stressed the importance of youth involvement and social media as a way of making people feel more connected to the issue of climate change.