The Need For Speed: What it Will Take to Save Our Planet, with James Engell '73

James Engell AB ’73, PhD ’78, Gurney Professor of English Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature, Inaugural Member of the Faculty Advisory Committee for the Salata Institute

Please join us for the second of ClassACT HR73 Environmental & Climate Change Workgroup’s “Learn at Lunch” series of seminars. Classmate Jim Engell will discuss how values from his field, the humanities, are changing traditional environmental economics and altering concepts of international and national energy security. Significant transformations in several fields are needed to avert additional tragic consequences of an energy transition that is too slow.  

Slashing emissions, taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, and, yes, geoengineering are all required, but essential to their success is a broad mass movement of the kind that propelled civil rights, women rights, and the rights of labor. In addition, central to formulating all climate policies is an awareness of the glaring moral inequalities of climate disruption—wealth inequalities both among and within each nation, as well as issues of intergenerational justice. 

Following Jim’s introductory remarks, there will be time for Q/A and discussion.

Here are some resources that Jim recommends:

• The Climate Book compiled by Greta Thunberg. “I know of no single book more comprehensive and accessible on almost all aspects of the climate crisis.” 
• Laudate Deum, a short, pointed 2023 version of the Papal Encyclical of 2015.
• Article by Nicholas Stern, Joseph Stiglitz & Charlotte Taylor on new approaches to environmental economics

 contact information:  jengell@fas.harvard.edu