Climate justice and problems of scale

The proposed Global Humanities Institute on Climate Justice and Problems of Scale will explore climate change as a social, historical, and cultural force that transforms all lives, but does so in an uneven and often unequal fashion.

The Institute is underpinned by the premise that problems of scale make it difficult to understand the differing ways in which climate change affects individual lives, specific communities, and the earth. Comprehending climate change and acting to mitigate its damages demands a major cognitive stretch in several dimensions.

Accordingly, Climate Justice and Problems of Scale is designed to develop what Zach Horton refers to as “scale literacy”. By building on the interdisciplinary scalar turn to cultivate scale literacy, the Institute will generate more nuanced and holistic understandings of the relationship between the effects of climate change and the intensification of injustices in the social, political, and cultural spheres.

The Institute is being developed in partnership with The Consortium of Humanities Centres and Institutes, University of Texas, Arizona State University, Carnegie Mellon University, American University Beirut and University of Pretoria.

Contributors: Professor David Schlosberg, Assosciate Professor Thom van Dooren, Dr Christine Winter