Our Common Goal: Towards a Global Climate-Change Community

Photo by: Shadia Fayne

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Climate change is a challenge that calls for a global community of empowered individuals collaborating to find solutions. The idea of forming such a community would have been dismissed as an impossibility a couple of decades ago. Yet this community exists today and seems to be expanding into traditionally resistant demographics, thanks in part to Web 2.0 and social media tools. The marriage between free global networking tools and modern grassroots mobilization has produced a global network of activists, businesses, community leaders and local governments keen on addressing the issue of climate change. The citizens involved in this global network will have to confront the challenge of maintaining integrity and cohesion of their new community within a changing political, economic and media landscape.

These issues will be the focus of the plenary session of the CC iConference 09, Our Common Goal: Towards a Global Climate-Change Community, which will take place in Irvine Auditorium at 2:45 PM PT on November 20th, and live @ Communicators4change.org. The panel will feature James Hanusa founder of Change SF, Michael Leifer CEO of influenceXchange and Alli Chagi-Starr Senior Community Engagement Strategist at Green for All; and will be moderated by MIIS professor Dr Lyuba Zarsky.

Following are some of the questions that the panel will address:

What is the scope and landscape of the global climate-change network?

What anchors this network?

What role has social media played in the formation of this network? And what role do these these communications technologies play in maintaining this network?

How do we ensure its inclusivity and representativeness?

Would reframing the issue of climate change make it more universally acceptable?

What would this alternative framing look like?

What projects are you currently involved in that aim to incorporate more voices in the global conversation on climate change?

What hopes and challenges do you foresee in the coming years as the politics of the coming green energy bubble and the “green revolution” begin to affect the discourse on climate change and energy alternatives?

How can we as students and empowered citizens contribute to the global climate change community?

How do we go about plugging our local communities into this network?

For a complete schedule of the conference, click here.

CC iConference 09 is brought to you by Communicators for Change (CC@MIIS), The Monterey Institute of International Studies, MIIS Teaching and Learning Collaborative (TLC), and MIIS Student Council.