the Spring Creek Project Mission:
The challenge of the Spring Creek Project is to bring together the practical wisdom of the environmental sciences, the clarity of philosophical analysis, and the creative, expressive power of the written word, to find new ways to understand and re-imagine our relation to the natural world.
Upcoming Events
Friday, October 23, 2009
Vandana Shiva
Earth Democracy: Women, Justice, and Ecology
10 am – 5 pm OSU Memorial Union rooms 211 and 213
Seminars and workshops on the intersection of environmental justice and women’s lives
7 pm, LaSells Stewart Center -- Dr. Vandana Shiva, “Earth Democracy”
Vandana Shiva is the Director of The Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy. She was the recipient of the 1993 Right Livelihood Award, commonly known as the "Alternative Nobel Prize". A contributing editor to People-Centered Development Forum, she has also authored many books, including The Violence of the Green Revolution; Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge; Monocultures of the Mind; Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit, and Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in Age of Climate Crisis.
Sponsored by The Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature and the Written Word; the Hundere Endowment for Religion and Culture; the Horning Endowment; and the Student Sustainability Initiative. The evening presentation and all conference sessions are free and open to all students, faculty, and community members. For more information, please contact Charles Goodrich, Program Director, Spring Creek Project, Charles.Goodrich@oregonstate.edu, 541-737-6198.
News
The Columbia River Quorum: Bringing Science and Moral Imagination Together to Communicate about Climate Destabilization
Climate scientists warn us that environmental degradation and climate destabilization are fast exceeding society’s rate of response. But the bare facts have not moved people to significant action. Can we do a better, more effective job of alerting the public to both the physical, cultural dangers of environmental degradation, and our moral responsibilities to the future by combining the power scientific information with the moral values that are embedded in a culture’s literature and worldviews?
That question was the impetus for the Columbia River Quorum, convened in March 2009 by the Spring Creek Project with support from the US Forest Service. Held at Menucha Retreat Center in the Columbia River Gorge, the gathering of sixteen environmental scientists, social scientists, philosophers, communications experts, and creative writers explored possible synergies between the world of the environmental sciences and the moral world as it is expressed in a culture’s literature and its moral philosophy. The symposium was organized by OSU philosopher Kathleen Dean Moore and marine biologist Mark Hixon. Other OSU participants included atmospheric scientist Andreas Schmittner, forest sociologist John Bliss, and Forest Service geomorphologist Fred Swanson.
Conference participants’ ongoing efforts will focus in these areas:
New Partnerships:
- Increase the role of the arts in climate communication
- Engage philosophers in articulating the “Second Premise”—the place of values—in shaping climate responses
New Messages:
- Find effective language for discussing climate disruption
- Create new metaphors and stories to promote new social arrangements
- Tell the stories of ordinary heroes
New Methods:
- Understand how ‘framing’ can help transcend polarities
- Use new media such as eco-wikis, social networking, and web portals to reach broader audiences.
Through specific initiatives the Quorum participants hope to create a new context for climate education work, one that provides new leadership, new collaborations, and new conduits for funding.
Back row: Bob Frodeman, Scott Russell Sanders, Steve Vanderheiden, Andreas Schmittner, Hank Green, Fred Swanson, Charles Goodrich
Front row: Kathleen Dean Moore, Carly Johnson, Michael Nelson, Pam Sturner, Alison Deming, Kathie Olsen, Michaela Hammer, John Bliss, Mark Hixon
