Universities on Fire: Higher Education in the Climate Crisis
by Bryan Alexander
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Description
"Scientists agree that we are on the precipice of a global climate crisis. How will it transform colleges and universities? In 2019, intense fires in the San Francisco Bay Area closed universities and drove afflicted people to shelter at other campuses. At the same time, extraordinary fires ravaged eastern Australia. Several universities responded by promising material and research support to damaged businesses while also hosting refugees and emergency response teams in student residence show more halls. This was an echo of the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina on Tulane University in 2005.In Universities on Fire, futurist Bryan Alexander explores higher education during an age of unfolding climate crisis. Powered by real-world examples and the latest research, Alexander assesses practical responses and strategies by surveying contemporary programs and academic climate research from around the world. He establishes a model of how academic institutions may respond and offers practical pathways forward for higher education. How will the two main purposes of education-teaching and research-change as the world heats up? Alexander positions colleges and universities in the broader social world, from town-gown relationships to connections between how campuses and civilization as a whole respond to this epochal threat.Current studies of climate change trace the likely implications across a range of domains, from agriculture to policy, urban design, technology, culture, and human psychology. However, few books have predicted or studied the effects of the climate crisis on colleges and universities. By connecting climate research to a deep, futures-informed analysis of academia, Universities on Fire explores how climate change will fundamentally reshape higher education"-- "This book connects climate research to a deep, futures-informed analysis of academia. It starts with a small focus, a given campus, then gradually expands its view to the level of how academia as a whole interacts with civilization's broadest movements. Each chapter is powered by real world examples and current research"-- show lessTags
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Author Information
4+ Works 96 Members
Bryan Alexander is an internationally known futurist, researcher, writer, speaker, consultant, and teacher. A senior scholar at Georgetown University, he is the author of The New Digital Storytelling: Creating Narratives with New Media, second edition, and Gearing Up for Learning beyond K-12.
Awards and Honors
Awards
Common Knowledge
- Epigraph
- Our project is acknowledging that a future is coming when nature is no longer fully natural. - Ruth Gates
We heard calls for community education and engagement in schools and across all sectors to increase understanding of climate science, the impacts of climate change, and what people can do. People wanted to see climate change ... (show all)education made compulsory. - He Pou a Rangi (New Zealand) Climate Change Commission
As a result of our inaction, we have three options: mitigation, adaptation, and suffering. - Lonnie Thompson - Dedication
- To the next generation of students, faculty, and staff, who must keep the academic flame alive amid the rising storm.
To the current generation of academics: may we prove to be better ancestors. - Blurbers
- McKibben, Bill; Crow, Michael M.; LeBlanc, Paul J.; McCowen, Tristan; Kamenetz, Anya
Classifications
- Genres
- Science & Nature, Nonfiction, Art & Design
- DDC/MDS
- 363.7 — Society, Government, and Culture Social problems and social services Public Safety - Police, Crime Investigation Environmental Issues - Pollution, Recycling, Global Warming
- LCC
- GE70 .A44 — Geography, Anthropology and Recreation Environmental Sciences Environmental sciences Environmental education
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 9
- Popularity
- 2,297,910
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 2
