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Conferences “Understanding and Acting” :
Saving Civilization is not a spectator sport
Lester Brown
Following a dynamics of exponential growth in a finite world, humanity today faces a number of unprecedented and tightly interlinked challenges. With a growing number of environmental limits being largely and irreversibly exceeded (GHG concentrations in the atmosphere, biodiversity loss, soil erosion, freshwater shortages...), social, economic, geopolitical, humanitarian (etc.) consequences are becoming more urgent than ever to address, while the threat of an uncontrolled global collapse is now more than a prospect. It is urgent to initiate deep, structural, socioeconomic changes on virtually all aspects of our increasingly global societies (economics, industrial and agricultural production, consumption, education, all requiring major new local and global policies).
In view of these facts, the STEEP research team has initiated in 2016 a series of conferences-debates entitled “Understanding & Acting” (“Comprendre et agir”) that examines these issues in order to help researchers and citizens to increase their awareness of the various issues at stake in order to initiate relevant individual and collective actions. From now on, the scientific community at large must realize that its duty also lies in helping citizens to better understand these issues. If the fraction of people in society whose privilege is to be paid to think about society's problems do not seize this opportunity in the critical times we face, who will? Researchers must become more involved in the search of socioeconomic alternatives and help citizens to implement them. The interactions between researchers and citizens must also to be reinvented.
The presentations of this series of conferences typically last between 30 to 45 minutes; they are followed by a 45 minute public debate with the audience. The presentations are captured on video and then made directly accessible on the YouTube Channel “Comprendre et Agir”. At the end of 2017 the YouTube channel reached almost 45,000 views with a rate of integral viewings re¬maining at above 25%.
Examples of conferences given in 2016-2017:
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“Why and how to recognize money as a common good?” by Jean-Michel Servet, Graduate institute of international and development studies (IHEID) at Genève.
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“What alternative to the crisis of representation?” by Loic Blondiaux, University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne.
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“Reinventing agriculture and food in the 21st century?” by Gilles Billen, CNRS.
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“Can the commons movement re-activate democracy? by Christian Laval, University of Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense.
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“Limiting climate change: Why do we not do it?” by Denis Dupré, University of Grenoble Alpes.
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“Understanding society collapses. What future for ours? ” by Emmanuel Prados, Inria.
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“Environment, economy, collapse: squaring the circle?” by Pierre-Yves Longaretti, CNRS.
Link to the web page of the series [program, abstracts, dates, complements etc.]:
https://team.inria.fr/steep/les-conferences-debats-comprendre-et-agir/
Link to the YouTube channel :
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJbcXCcOA63M8VMysAbmt_A
Other popularization activities :
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Emmanuel Prados gave a conference entitled “Understanding society collapses. What future for ours?” at the series of conferences “Understanding and Acting” (Grenoble, France, 9th of February, 2017). The video of the conference has been posted on the video-sharing website, YouTube. The conferences received around 30 000 YouTube views in 10 months.
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Pierre-Yves Longaretti gave a conference entitled “Environment, economy, collapse: squaring the circle?” at the series of conferences “Understanding and Acting” (Grenoble, France, 3rd of March, 2017). The video of the conference available on YouTube. The conferences received around 1700 views in 9 months.
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Emmanuel Prados participated in the round table “How to manage territories with the help of numerical models” held for the celebrated days for the 50th birthday of Inria (Paris, France, November 7th, 2017).
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Denis Dupré gave a conference entitled “Can ethical finance prevent from our civilization collapse ?” at the department of banking and finance of the University of Zurich (Zurich, Switzerland, the 29th of September 2017). The video of the conference available on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhFiks0RbMU
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Denis Dupré gave a conference entitled “How finance can help to manage vital goods in the coming collapse?” at the “Change Finance Forum” organized by Financewatch (Brussels, Belgium, 5th december 2017). The video of the conference available on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RyJTn0a-ZA
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Denis Dupré gave an interview at France Info, December 11, 2017. France Info is the radio network operated by the French public service radio broadcaster Radio France which provides continuous live news and information. Interview available online :