[Air-L] "Bringing Climate Politics Home" SSN Seminar with A/Prof Jessica Lehman and Prof Abby Kinch

[Thao Phan]

Please join us for this online seminar hosted by the Deakin Science and
Society Network <https://scienceandsocietynetwork.deakin.edu.au/> (SSN).
You can join the conversation on Twitter by following us at @SSNDeakin and
using the hashtags #SSNseminar

*Register here: https://ssnseminar-lehmanandkinchy.eventbrite.com.au
<https://ssnseminar-lehmanandkinchy.eventbrite.com.au/>*


*Title:*Bringing Climate Politics Home: Lived Experiences of Flooding and
Housing Insecurity in a Natural Gas Boomtown


*Abstract:*Shale oil and gas development has transformed many North
American communities into boomtowns, created new environmental health
risks, and generated a rise in greenhouse gas emissions. In public policy
and research, these social and environmental transformations are typically
addressed separately--even though people often experience them together. In
this paper, we develop a framework for examining lived connections between
fossil fuel extraction and climate change. We propose the concept of carbon
mobilization to describe the multiple stages of fossil fuel extraction and
combustion that may be experienced separately (as an economic boom, climate
disaster, or air pollution, for example) or simultaneously, in locally
distinctive combinations. We explore lived experiences of carbon
mobilization in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, a community that, in the
last decade, has gone through a shale gas boom and bust and has twice
suffered from severe flooding. Interviews with social service providers and
county leaders indicated that connections between the fossil fuel industry
and climate disaster manifested most saliently around housing
security—particularly the loss of housing due to floods as well as economic
insecurity related to boom-bust cycles. Economic changes that gas
development brought to the community made flood resilience more challenging
for some, and easier for others. In the county, there were “double losers,”
for whom economic changes combined with climate changes to create major
housing hardships. At the same time, the natural gas industry was a “double
winner”--benefitting from climate disaster by gaining a reputation for
helping the community recover from the floods. This case suggests that
while global climate discourse may not resonate locally in communities
where fossil fuels are produced, people make locally-salient connections
between different stages of carbon mobilization, and these connections have
important public policy and social justice implications.

*About the speakers:*

*Jessica Lehman* is Assistant Professor of Geography (Human-Environment) at
Durham University. Her research focuses primarily on international
environmental politics. She is especially interested in marine geographies,
environmental knowledge production, and resource politics.

*Abby Kinchy* is a Professor in the Department of Science and Technology
Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She studies environmental
politics and writes about conflicts involving science, social movements,
and controversial new technologies. Most recently, she co-authored Science
by the People: Participation, Power, and the Politics of Environmental
Knowledge (Rutgers, 2019).

*About the discussants:*

*Kirsty Howey *is a Research Fellow at Deakin University where she is
conducting research on environmental risk and the regulation of onshore
hydraulic fracturing industry in the Northern Territory. A former lawyer,
her PhD research ethnographically examined practices of native title and
land rights agreement-making. She lives in the boom/bust city of Darwin.

*Watch the seminar:*

Seminar will be available to stream on YouTube live. Access using the live
link: https://youtu.be/5z6ye9BkNsE

 Date/time: Tuesday 15th September, 10am - 11:30am (Australian Eastern
Standard Time, GMT+10)

 Q&A with the speaker to follow. To send questions/participate in the chat,
you'll need to sign-in using a YouTube account
<https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-comment-on-youtube?r=AU&IR=T>.

The seminar will be recorded and available to watch on the SSN YouTube
channel after the Livestream.

If you have any questions, please send to ssn-info at deakin.edu.au