"Narratives and Building Environmental Responsibility" - A conference of Pr. J. Baird Callicott - Opportunities - Our Actions

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by | 29-05-2012 10:50 Comments 2 recommendations 0

"Narratives and Building Environmental Responsibility" - A conference of Pr. J. Baird Callicott

Date: 04/Jun/2012 to 04/Jun/2012 Type: Online

"Narratives and Building Environmental Responsibility" - A conference of Pr. J. Baird Callicott

The American philosopher J. Baird Callicott, one of the founders of environmental ethics and philosophy, will give a presentation on the foundations of our moral responsibilities towards the environment. This will be followed by a debate, in the afternoon, with specialists in the history of natural sciences, philosophers, journalists and representatives of UNESCO working on the social dimensions of climate change. The conference is organized in partnership with the French Museum national d'Histoire naturelle.

The conference will start with the presentation by Professor Callicott of the foundations of our moral responsibilities towards the environment, especially in view of climate change. He will seek to reply to a number of questions: Why moral responsibility for Nature? For what parts of Nature are human beings responsible? What is the content of this responsibility and what are its limits? Who should benefit? How should our environmental responsibility be built and promoted through discourse and other narratives in order to attain its aims?

The second part of the conference will include debates with the participation of J. Baird Callicott and specialists in the history of natural sciences, philosophy, and ethics of the environment and environmental protection; mass media representatives; and representatives of UNESCO working on issues of global environmental change. The conference will be moderated by John Crowley who is leading the Team of Global Environmental Change in the Sector of Social and Human Sciences of UNESCO.

J. Baird Callicott is University Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy and formerly Regents Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Texas. He is co-Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy. In his early years of work in the University of Memphis, he participated in the American civil rights movement and in the activities of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference lead by Martin Luther King. Later he became interested in environmental philosophy and he held the position of Professor of Philosophy and Natural Resources at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point from 1969 to 1995. There he taught the world?s first course in environmental ethics in 1971. From 1994 to 2000, he served as Vice-President and then as President of the International Society for Environmental Ethics. His other distinguished positions include visiting professor of philosophy at various universities, including Yale University, the University of California, the University of Hawai?i, and the University of Florida.

J. Baird Callicott further developed the Land Ethic of Aldo Leopold as presented in his book entitled From the Land Ethic to the Earth Ethic: Aldo Leopold in the time of Climate Change. He developed a philosophy of conservation and conservation values and ethics, based in part on the recent paradigm shift in ecology from what he calls the ?balance of nature? to the ?flux of nature?. In his book The Great New Wilderness Debate (1998), Callicott claims that wilderness areas should not be closed to humans but instead should serve purposes of biological conservation and should be reconceived more fittingly as ?biodiversity reserves?. As part of his comparative philosophy analysis, J. Baird Callicott studied the influence of various cultures on the formation of environmental philosophy and ethics and was interested in the narratives about relationship between mankind and Nature in different religious traditions.

Type of Event	Category 7-Seminar and Workshop
Start	04.06.2012 10:00 local time
End	04.06.2012 17:00 local time
Focal point	Crowley, John
Organizer	UNESCO
Contact	i.zoubenko-laplante@unesco.org
Country	France
City	Paris
Venue	UNESCO Headquarters
Street	1, rue Miollis
Room	Room XIV
Language of Event	English
Estimated number of participants	60
Link 1	J. Baird Callicott
Link 2	Global Environmental Change in UNESCO
Link 3	Programme
Link 4	J. Baird Callicott explains why he now turns back to James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis.