November, 2022

Pre-recorded Online Event

ASL Interpretation

The Guelph Institute for Environmental Research (GIER) and The Eden Mills Writers’ Festival present:

How to Be a Climate Optimist: Blueprints for a Better World

with author Chris Turner

Host: Catherine Bush, author of Blaze Island and Affiliate Faculty Member of the Guelph Institute for Environmental Research

Age: This event is suitable for a high-school aged audience  

Chris Turner has reported from the places where the sustainable future first emerged—from green islands in Denmark and green office parks in southern India, to solar panel factories in California and idealistic intentional communities from Scotland to New Mexico. Here, he condenses the first quarter century of the global energy transition into bite-sized chunks of optimistic reflection and reportage, telling a story of a planet in peril and a global effort already beginning to save it. How to Be a Climate Optimist moves past the despair and futile anger over ecological collapse and harnesses that passion toward the project of building a twenty-first century quality of life that surpasses the twentieth-century version in every way. 

Join Chris Turner as he discusses How to Be a Climate Optimist, what he hopes the book can accomplish, and the role of young people in building a better future.

This event will include ASL interpretation.



Thank you to the Kitchener Waterloo Community Foundation – The Musagetes Fund, and the Guelph Institute for Environmental Research for making this event possible.

The Guelph Institute for Environmental Research (GIER) is an interdisciplinary institute at the University of Guelph tackling the world’s environmental problems through innovation and interdisciplinary collaborations. In this Environment Bound series, GIER transcends the boundaries between creativity and critical thinking, inviting creative writers (writing in any genre) to speak on their work at the nexus of research and writing in any aspect of the environment.

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