Being Sustainabe comes with constant learning and trying to understand the issues in the world as well as potential solutions. It’s important to get different perspectives and understand the different opinions on sustainability topics such as social justice, envrionment, equality and economy.
From August to Octobre there are absolutely amazing events happening in Australia on burning topics as part of National Science Week and Social Science Week and other major events. Since we are in lockdown in several states, these events are held online which means you can attend them from anywhere in the world! Just make sure to check the time, we are in the Southern Hemisphere here on AEST (or AEDT from Octobre). Some events give you the opportunity to sign up for the recording. After the event, you will receive the link!
1. The Future of Food
Monday 16 August – 6:30 PM AEST
Online recording option is available when you register for this event if you can’t attend the event at the time described above. They will send you an email of the recording after the event has happened.
Food is essential for life, but the global systems we rely on to feed us have become increasingly complex and industrialised. Sometimes it’s hard to know where our food comes from, what’s in it and how healthy or ethically produced it is.
Paradoxically, as a global community we face major challenges based on both too much food, causing obesity and waste, and too little food, resulting in hunger and malnutrition. Adding to this are long-term questions about the impact of our diets on both human and planetary health. Not to mention the issues surrounding the treatment, transport and slaughter of animals.
Join food and health expert Johannes le Coutre in conversation with journalist Joanna Savill as they explore the future of food. As we take our first tentative steps into the paradigm shifting world of lab-grown and no-kill meat, will 21st century science save the day, or are the solutions to our biggest problems a combination of the old and the new?
This event is presented by the UNSW Centre for Ideas and supported by Inspiring Australia as a part of National Science Week.
2. Justice for the Oceans
Saturday 21 Aug 2021 – 3:00 PM AEST
Online recording option is available when you register for this event if you can’t attend the event at the time described above. They will send you an email of the recording after the event has happened.
How can we make a Blue New Deal?
Healthy oceans are fundamental to a healthy planet. From phytoplankton, the tiny ocean plants that produce the oxygen we breathe, to the rich diversity of other ocean plants and creatures, we depend on our oceans to survive and thrive.
But our oceans are both under threat and pose a threat. Pollution, overfishing and the destruction of coral reefs are killing them from within, while the impacts of climate change – rising sea levels and storm surges – are transforming the ocean from friend to foe for the many millions who live on the coast.
Globally-renowned ocean defender Dr Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is clear: saving the oceans is key to fighting the climate crisis. Join us for a conversation between Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and leading Australian marine scientist Emma Johnston.
They will explore how these issues are playing out in Australia and internationally, the future of the oceans in the age of climate change, how to mobilise support for a Blue New Deal and how women leaders are pioneering global climate action.
This event is presented by the UNSW Centre for Ideas and UNSW Science, and the Powerhouse Museum for the 2021 Sydney Science Festival. Supported by Inspiring Australia as a part of National Science Week.
4. Creative Destruction
Thu 9 Sep 2021 – 6:30 PM AEST
Online recording option is available when you register for this event if you can’t attend the event at the time described above. They will send you an email of the recording after the event has happened.
Capitalism is in crisis. Inequality is rising and climate change means we need to make drastic changes to the way we do business. The COVID-19 pandemic, too, has exposed numerous flaws in our current systems.
But is capitalism dead, or can we re-imagine it in a way that will keep society prosperous, promote social justice and re-green our planet?
As calls for radical change grow, French economist Philippe Aghion believes that we don’t need to throw the baby out with the bath water. He argues it’s possible to create a better capitalism by harnessing the power of creative destruction – the process by which new innovations continually emerge and render existing technologies obsolete.
Join him in conversation with UNSW economist Richard Holden as they discuss how the transformation of capitalism can achieve a more sustainable and inclusive prosperity, and how this might impact on politics and democracy.
This event is presented by the UNSW Centre for Ideas and UNSW Arts, Design & Architecture as part of Social Sciences Week. Head here to see the full UNSW program.
3. Future Medicine
Wednesday 1 September – 6:30 PM AEST
Online recording option is available when you register for this event if you can’t attend the event at the time described above. They will send you an email of the recording after the event has happened.
Necessity is the mother of invention. The supersonic development of several highly-effective COVID-19 vaccines has shown what can be achieved.
So why, despite today’s researchers, clinicians and innovators having so many powerful tools at their disposal, do so many promising breakthroughs take so long to reach the doctors’ consulting rooms?
From the tangible impact of genomics and big data, and the huge potential of personalised medicine, to the creative use of new technology, hear from a panel of world class medical experts – Anushka Patel, Louisa Jorm, Anand Deva and Joseph Powell with Vlado Perkovic – as they discuss key discoveries, and what the future of medicine could look like for us all.
This event is presented by the UNSW Centre for Ideas and UNSW Medicine & Health, and supported by Inspiring Australia as a part of National Science Week.
5. The law and climate: the view of the courts
Wed 25th Aug 2021 – 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm AESTIn May Justice Bromberg of the Federal Court described climate change as the greatest inter-generational injustice ever inflicted by one generation of humans upon the next. In a class action brought by school age youngsters against the Minister for the Environment over Whitehaven Coal the court declared the minister had a duty to avoid a degradation in the conditions of life caused by carbon emissions. In Germany legal action from environmentalists persuaded the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe to reject as inadequate the country’s current statutory framework on climate. In Holland climate action before the courts resulted in a wholesale re-writing of government programmes on climate. How are arguments about climate being treated in Australian jurisdictions? What are the limitations? How quickly might things develop? Is it setting the pace for governments and corporations? |
6. 'New South Wales Renewable Energy Transition: What are the benefits for Aboriginal land holders?'
Wednesday Aug 18 – 12:00 PM AEST
The NSW Government has advanced the Electricity Infrastructure Roadmap (EIR), a plan to convert the state’s power stations to renewable energy within the next two decades. The NSW Government has flagged greater support for clean energy projects and ‘Renewable Energy Zones’ (REZs) have been identified in the Western-Orana (pilot site), North England, South-West, Hunter-Central Coast, and Illawarra where infrastructure will be built increase to capacity for energy generation, transmission, and storage across the state. This seminar explores what Aboriginal land holders may seek to gain from engagement with the renewable energy sector.
We ask, how have Aboriginal land holders been engaged, how they might be engaged, what options for involvement are possible and how do these options align with Aboriginal aspirations of land and community? We will also consider what models have worked for Indigenous communities elsewhere, and what policies and alliances are necessary.
7. COVID, Green Energy, Social and Natural Environments
Friday 10 September – 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM AEST
The causes and effects of COVID-19 are environmental and social, national and international. This panel from Sydney University’s School of Social and Political Science examines the tangle of COVID-19 with the raw materials and production of energy (fossil fuel and green energy) in Australia. The Australian government is promoting a ‘gas lead’ economic post-COVID recovery, a recovery that depends on opening new fossil fuel extraction projects in areas dedicated to less toxic use of land and water. Simultaneously, private companies are eyeing off Australia’s ‘green energy’ mineral reserves, developing new mines to feed materials to a largely unregulated green energy supply chain. Further along the decarbonisation path communities are adjusting to the transition from fossil fuel to renewable energy production: here our interest turns to ways in which renewable energy projects build and fragment social cohesion and social goods as people adjust also to the social, economic and political fall-out from COVID-19.
8. It’s 2021 and we're still talking about consent.
Wed, 8 Sep 2021, 6:30 PM AEST
Online recording option is available when you register for this event if you can’t attend the event at the time described above. They will send you an email of the recording after the event has happened.
For as long as women have sought autonomy over their bodies, those in positions of power have dismissed them as hormonal, hysterical, irrational and crazy. But now that dialogues around consent have infiltrated our newsfeeds, our classrooms, our workplaces and even the corridors of Parliament, we may have reached a tipping point. To create real social change, it’s important we demystify the challenges around seeking consent and determining our personal boundaries and believe it or not, that doesn’t have to be awkward.
Join activist Chanel Contos, author and broadcaster Yumi Stynes and journalist Avani Dias for a conversation that is curious and unapologetic as we learn how to navigate the yes, no and everything in between.
9. Emerging frontiers:climate and environmental justice
15 September – 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm EAST
From sea level rise to increased frequency and intensity of storms, climate change is projected to generate increasingly significant impacts on coastal livelihoods. This seminar discusses the impacts of climate change on coastal livelihoods from a range of thematic and geographic perspectives, including the intersection of climate change impacts with other drivers of coastal livelihood change in Southeast Asia, and the relationship of climate change to coastal food systems, gender relations and equity in the Pacific.
Speakers:Michael Fabinyi, CJRC/Fisheries Social Science group; Jacqueline Lau, James Cook University; Federico Davila-Cisneros, Institute for Sustainable for Futures; Kate Barclay, Fisheries Social Science group.
Seminars will be via Zoom on this link unless otherwise notified closer to the event.
10. ‘Micro-chips, big pharma, 5G, the virus escaped the lab’: the conspiracy theories and misinformation of COVID-19
Tuesday 7 September – 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM AEST
As the COVID-19 pandemic worsens, the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories has intensified. Like the virus itself, the theories spread quickly and contain multiple variants. While conspiracy theories are often attributed to marginal or fringe populations, COVID has shown the spread of such theories to be more prevalent and accepted across the mainstream population.
This panel unpacks some of the theory behind how attitudes and beliefs manifest, but also how to build resilience or resistance to the spread of ‘fake news’ and conspiracy theories. Can we develop an antidote for conspiracy influences that are increasingly present in advertising, media – including online and social media – governance platforms and in familial and community networks. What are the short and long-term impacts on our socio-political landscape? And will the conspiracy theories outlive the virus?
11. How can we nurture innovation and creativity in order to rise to the challenges of the 21st century?
Thu, 7 Oct 2021, 6:30 PM AEDT
Online recording option is available when you register for this event if you can’t attend the event at the time described above. They will send you an email of the recording after the event has happened.
How can we nurture innovation and creativity to rise to the challenges of the 21st century, and allow space for creative thinking? Hear from visionary artists, authors and filmmakers on how they use creative problem solving to meet challenges in their life and work.
Internationally renowned author and Professor of Education Policy at UNSW Sydney, Pasi Sahlberg’s work looks at the importance of play in learning.
Emmy award-winning Australian filmmaker Lynette Wallworth works on the cutting-edge of media technology. In 2016, Wallworth was named one of Foreign Policy magazine’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers.
Author and poet Jessie Tu’s debut novel A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing won the 2021 ABIA award for Literary Fiction Book of the Year.
Presented by the UNSW Centre for Ideas and the Faculty of Arts, Design & Architecture as part of Vivid Sydney.a
12. Critical Race Theory: Transforming Knowledge in the Australian Social Sciences and Humanities
Friday 10 September – 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM AEST
A 2021 Social Sciences Week event from Borders and Diversity Research Program of the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University, this virtual panel discussion on Critical Race Theory in the social sciences and humanities features leading Australian critical race scholars Alana Lentin (WSU), Aileen-Moreton Robinson (RMIT), Debbie Bargallie (Griffith), Sherene Idriss (Deakin) and Andrew Brooks (UNSW).
Critical Race Theory (CRT) has had high profile media attention in both the US and Australia this year, with Sky News, the Daily Telegraph and the Australian echoing calls from the US to ‘ban’ CRT. The Senate passed a motion to ‘reject’ CRT in the national curriculum. Beyond this moral panic, Australian social science and humanities scholars are yet to fully grapple with how critical race perspectives potentially challenge and transform disciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledges in a settler colonial context. This panel, scheduled to align with the national 2021 Social Sciences Week programming, will engage in these debates in a vibrant panel discussion with leading Australia researchers from across the humanities and social sciences.
13. Politics of bad behaviour – anti-vaxxers and the anti-science backlash
Monday 6 September – 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM AEST
The use of masks and vaccines to control and prevent the spread of the coronavirus have been a political flash point over the past year. Studies have shown that attitudes towards mask use, vaccination and other public health measures have become a symbol of struggle between individual autonomy and social responsibility. How did it come to this and is there a way to go about it?
This panel discussion will bring together leading social scientists and public health experts to discuss how the calls to combat the pandemic turned into a show of political attitude.
Speakers
• A/Professor David Smith (Department of Government and International Relations and United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney)
• Dr Katie Atwell (University of Western Australia)
• A/Professor Lesley Russell (Menzies Centre for Health Policy, University of Sydney)