Climate activist Anjali Appadurai believes that a cultural shift is needed to confront the current climate emergency. She advocates for a total reframing of our economy, one that prioritizes a different set of values into our decision-making. In his recent book, The Environmentalist’s Dilemma, environmental reporter Arno Kopecky explores the challenges we face as we try to find solutions (and hope) in the face of multiple environmental catastrophes. Do our individual choices matter (especially the ones that make our daily lives less comfortable) when we’re really facing a systemic problem? Can we cling to old ideas about prosperity and consumption and still care for the planet? What will it take to throw away our society’s consumerism and growth narratives? And what are the most urgent stories we need to tell (or tell differently) in order to undo decades of environmental inaction? Arno Kopecky and Anjali Appadurai unpack some of our environmentalist dilemmas and discuss what needs to change in our conversations on climate to really shift us away from our current patch towards extinction, and into climate action.
Hybrid events are held in person, you will also be able to watch it live streamed from our Youtube channel.
Location: Room C420, UBC Robson Square
Type: Panel
Sponsored by Vancouver Public Library
Moderator: Michelle Cyca
Panelists: Arno Kopecky, The Environmentalist’s Dilemma: Promise and Peril in an Age of Climate Crisis (ECW Press) | Anjali Appadurai
About The Moderator
Michelle Cyca is a freelance journalist and editor. She is the editor of Indigenous-led conservation coverage for The Narwhal, a contributing writer to The Walrus and contributing editor to Maclean’s. Her essays and journalism can be also found in The Guardian, Chatelaine, The Globe & Mail, The Tyee, and many other places. Her literary criticism regularly appears in Quill & Quire and the Vancouver Sun. Previously, she was the co-publisher and editor-in-chief of SAD Mag, a National Magazine Award-winning magazine celebrating Vancouver arts and culture. She is a member of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in Treaty 6, and she lives and works in Vancouver on the ancestral, unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ peoples.
About The Readers
Arno Kopecky is an environmental journalist and author. His stories can be found in The Walrus, The Globe and Mail, The Narwhal, Alberta Views, The Tyee, Canada's National Observer, and other publications. The Oil Man and the Sea, Arno's book about the fight to keep oil tankers out of British Columbia's central coast, was shortlisted for the 2014 Governor General's award and won the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Nonfiction. His most recent book is The Environmentalist's Dilemma, a collection of reported essays exploring the dissonance of living well amid widespread ecological collapse. He lives in Vancouver and surfs when he can.
Anjali Appadurai is a climate justice organizer and communicator. As a young activist she worked with youth movements from around the world to build a strong civil society voice at the UN Climate Convention and to ensure that social movements' demands were heard in the halls of power. Today, Anjali is passionate about making the links between climate change and globalization, colonization, and economic inequality. Anjali has also engaged with the electoral system, running as an NDP candidate in the 2021 federal election and as a candidate in the 2022 BCNDP leadership race. She runs the Padma Centre for Climate Justice, a project that brings together diasporic communities to build power around issues of climate and economic justice, and she works as Campaigns Director at the Climate Emergency Unit. Also a musician in her spare time, Anjali hopes to weave politics and art together to reflect the times we are living in and galvanize true collective action.
