Emily Yeh

CU �鶹ӰԺ scholars honored as 2024 Guggenheim Fellows

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 13:33:52 +0000

CU �鶹ӰԺ scholars honored as 2024 Guggenheim Fellows Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 06/17/2024 - 07:33

Rachel Sauer

Reprinted from the College of Arts and Science's Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine by Rachel Sauer (June 13th, 2024)

Researchers Emily Yeh and Brian Catlos are recognized for prior career achievements and exceptional promise

Two �鶹ӰԺ scholars have been named 2024 Guggenheim Fellows, recognizing not only their prior career achievements but also their exceptional promise.

Emily Yeh, a professor of geography and College of Arts and Sciences professor of distinction, and Brian Catlos, a professor of religious studies and director of the CU Mediterranean Studies Group, are among a group of scholars, scientists, artists and writers representing 52 scholarly disciplines and artistic fields, who “are meeting (humanity’s existential) challenges head-on and generating new possibilities and pathways across the broader culture as they do so,” noted Edward Hirsch, award-winning poet and president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, in announcing the fellowships.

The monetary award that accompanies the Guggenheim recognition will support Yeh in writing a book about global geographies of weather modification in the context of climate change adaptation and growing discussions about geoengineering.

t’s going to be an expansion of my previous research on cloud seeding,” Yeh explains. “Cloud seeding as a practice has been around since the 1950s, but a lot of people don’t really know that it happens.

“I think it’s really important right now for two reasons: One is climate change and drought, with cloud seeding being seen as a form of climate adaptation which is being adopted by countries around the world. The second is the growing interest in stratospheric aerosol injection, a form of geoengineering, for climate mitigation, and the public conflation of this with cloud seeding.”

Yeh, who has conducted a significant amount of her scholarly research in China and Tibet, first became interested in cloud seeding through a Chinese project called Sky River, or Tian He: “There were a whole bunch of reports about how the Chinese government was going to move water vapor from the Himalayas and channel it over the Tibetan Plateau to the north. I started following that issue, and through that realized that even though that idea of channeling water vapor itself isn’t a reality, some of the ideas behind it are very revealing of certain imaginations of nature that also underpin the Chinese state’s discourse of ‘ecological civilization.’”

She says that in some of the Tibetan villages she’s visited on the border of Sichuan and Gansu provinces, few safety precautions accompany cloud seeding measures, so that rockets can fall without warning on herders’ pastures. They experience cloud seeding as a form of injustice, she explains. At the same time, experiences raise questions about what cloud seeding operations claim versus what effects they have. “Overclaiming of results is leading to conspiracy theories, like the idea that recent flooding in the United Arab Emirates was caused by cloud seeding rather than climate change,” Yeh says.

�鶹ӰԺ, as a national and international center of cloud seeding research and technology, is an ideal place to study not only cloud seeding in the context of drought in the American west, Yeh notes, but also institutional and political economic contexts for cloud seeding research and practice globally.

Reassessing history

For Catlos, the Guggenheim recognition will support him in writing An Age of Convergence: Christians, Muslims and Jews in the Pre-Modern Mediterranean, a culmination of his scholarship to date showing when, how and why members of these three faith communities—which hail from Africa, the Middle East and Europe—together laid the foundations of Western modernity.

“Traditionally, the way we’ve conceived of the West has been this sort of western European, essentially Christian culture that coalesced in the Middle Ages and led to Anglo-European culture and society today,” Catlos explains. “That’s based on a lot of assumptions and perspectives that are rooted in 19th century ideas of how society works—some racist, some colonial, some rooted in notions that the fundamental building block of history is the nation.

“These are ideas that became popular in the 19th century, a great age of nationalism, racism and colonialization as well. When we look at data and pull back from presumptions and prejudices, what we see is that what became the modern West—western Anglo-European culture and society—emerged out of a much broader historical background.”

In 650 CE, as Islam began expanding from the area west of the Indus River to the Atlantic Ocean and all the way around the Mediterranean, a common telling of the history of that time holds that the area was uniformly Abrahamic in terms of faith and culture. “There’s this idea that the three religious cultures were divided and oppositional—and they were to certain degree—but they also were deeply enmeshed and influenced each other both through polemic and also through collaboration and shared knowledge.”

Another prevalent myth, Catlos says, is that there were distinct spheres: a Christian sphere, a Muslim sphere, “maybe a Latin-Christian sphere, a Christian and Byzantine sphere, a Christian and Muslim sphere, and they were somehow coherent, homogenous social, cultural and political entities in opposition with each other,” Catlos says.

“That’s not really the case. There were lots and lots of Muslims and Jews living in Christian lands and vice versa. The division was not really there except in certain contexts.

“Think about crusade and jihad, about Christianity and Islam, about this clash of civilizations. If we look at the political and economic history of the pre-modern period in the larger Mediterranean world, we see that both of these spheres are broken into a whole range of different kingdoms, city states, etc. that in fact are in competition with each other, for number of reasons, not the least of which is geography and how it impacted the way that resources appear and are accessed.”

Rather than a united front of Muslim states vs. Christian states, Catlos says, “we see competition between Muslim states with each other, Christian states with each other, Muslims and Christian principalities seeking alliances with each other against rivals of their own faith. Much of the history of the West that we are taught is distorted and needs to be reassessed.”

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Emily Yeh Named College Professor of Distinction

Anonymous — Mon, 01 Apr 2024 15:42:11 +0000

Emily Yeh Named College Professor of Distinction Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 04/01/2024 - 09:42

Emily Yeh has been named Professor of Distinction by the College of Arts and Sciences in recognition of her exceptional service, teaching and research. This revered title is reserved for scholars and artists of national and international acclaim who college peers also recognize as exceptionally talented teachers and colleagues. Honorees of this award hold this title for the remainder of their careers in the College of Arts and Sciences at CU �鶹ӰԺ.

Dr. Yeh will be honored on Friday, April 26th, 2024 in the annual Arts and Sciences Recognition Reception.

In addition to this prestigious award, Dr. Yeh has received the Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar award in 2023-2024, as well as other awards and honors in recent years such as the Campus sustainability award (2023) and the AAG-Kaufmann award for best paper for Geography and Entrepreneurship (2022). Dr. Yeh has served as the Vice President (2020-2021) and President (2021-2022) of the American Association of Geographers (AAG). We cannot wait to see what she will do next!

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Emily Yeh: Campus Sustainability Award and Phi Beta Kappa Society Visiting Scholar

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 23:55:02 +0000

Emily Yeh: Campus Sustainability Award and Phi Beta Kappa Society Visiting Scholar Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 04/20/2023 - 17:55

Emily Yeh Wins Campus Sustainability Awards and “Green Faculty” Title

The University of Colorado recognizes outstanding efforts toward continuing the leadership and legacy of sustainability at CU �鶹ӰԺ. Since 1997 the Annual Campus Sustainability Awards have recognized individuals, departments, and offices that have made a significant contribution to reducing the ecological footprint and increasing the resilience of campus infrastructure and improving social cohesion and equity in campus communities. Outstanding efforts make CU's successful and challenging approaches to attaining sustainability possible. The awardees exemplify CU's continuing efforts to become a sustainable institution and set an example for environmental stewardship and responsibility.  Some of the awardees have made groundbreaking efforts that will change the overall way CU operates, and others make an impact on the community and campus environment with their everyday actions.  The Awards happen every April in conjunction with the Campus Sustainability Summit.

Emily Yeh is selected as one of the 14 Phi Beta Kappa Society Visiting Scholars

Since 1956, the Phi Beta Kappa Society’s Visiting Scholar Program has offered undergraduates the opportunity to spend time with some of America’s most distinguished scholars. The purpose of the program is to contribute to the intellectual life of the institution by making possible an exchange of ideas between the Visiting Scholars and the resident faculty and students.
 
Each year, members of the Committee on the Visiting Scholar Program select top scholars in the liberal arts and sciences to visit universities and colleges where Phi Beta Kappa chapters are located. Visiting Scholars spend two days on each campus meeting informally with undergraduates, participating in classroom lectures and seminars, and giving one major lecture open to the academic community and general public.
 
The 2023-2024 Visiting Scholars will make over 100 visits during the academic year.

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Emily Yeh named Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar

Anonymous — Thu, 09 Mar 2023 23:32:48 +0000

Emily Yeh named Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 03/09/2023 - 16:32

CU �鶹ӰԺ geography professor to visit other campuses, join classroom lectures and seminars and give major lectures open to the host campus’ community

Emily Yeh, professor of geography at the �鶹ӰԺ, has been named a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar for 2023-24, the academic honor society has announced.

Yeh is among 14 scholars nationwide to win this recognition. As a visiting scholar, Yeh will visit universities and colleges where Phi Beta Kappa chapters are located. Visiting Scholars spend two days on each campus meeting informally with undergraduates, participating in classroom lectures and seminars, and giving one major lecture open to the academic community and public.

Yeh conducts research on nature-society relations and development, mostly in Tibetan parts of the People’s Republic of China. She has written about the political ecology of pastoralism, conflicts over access to natural resources, vulnerability to and knowledge of climate change, the cultural and ontological politics of nature conservation, and the conjunctural production of environmental subjectivities.

Emily Yeh's main research interests are on questions of power, political economy, and cultural politics in the nature-society relationship.

Her book Taming Tibet: Landscape Transformation and the Gift of Chinese Development explored the intersection of political economy and cultural politics of development as a project of state territorialization.

She is also co-editor of Mapping Shangrila: Contested Landscapes in the Sino-Tibetan Borderlands and of Rural Politics in Contemporary China, and author of more than 55 articles and chapters.

She regularly teaches classes on political ecology, development, environment and society geography, contemporary China and research design. She served as president of the American Association of Geographers in 2021-22.

Yeh recently answered five questions about her scholarship and research. The exchange appears below:

Question: You hold degrees in electrical engineering and computer science and in technology and policy from MIT, in addition to your PhD from the UC-Berkeley Energy and Resources Group: How does this academic training affect your research and scholarly work in geography?

Yeh: I was a math and science kid all the way through high school, which led me to study electrical engineering. What I do now is very different, but I think it gives me an appreciation for the interdisciplinarity of geography.

As an undergraduate, I enjoyed my coursework but realized after a summer internship in engineering that I wanted to do something that was more directly engaged with society and my growing interest in the environment. The Technology and Policy program attracted a lot of students like me—people who had studied engineering or physics but wanted to do something more policy and society oriented.

It gave a lot of freedom on coursework, and I took a class on Development and Underdevelopment in the Third World in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning from a geographer (Jesse Ribot) who had done his PhD at the Energy and Resources Group.

I realized immediately that this was the type of work I wanted to pursue, so I applied to ERG as well. That was also an interdisciplinary program that had begun in the 1970s focused on energy but which, at the time I was there, attracted students who wanted to work broadly on a range of human-environment issues.

I took classes in the geography department (as well as a lot of other departments) while there. A number of graduates have gone on to be geography professors—so my training there in political ecology and development geography is very much directly related to my current scholarship.

Q: You are an expert on the Tibetan Plateau, China and the Himalayas, where you conduct ethnographic research. What drew you to this disciplinary focus?

Yeh: My focus on Tibet was quite accidental. After I graduated from college with an engineering degree in 1993, my parents—who were born in China and grew up in Taiwan—sent me to Beijing University to study Chinese for the summer. While there, I met a couple of Japanese tourists over a weekend trip to Inner Mongolia who suggested we go to Xinjiang together.

However, there was flooding at the time, and we couldn’t get tickets. They suggested Tibet instead. That was during a brief window when entry permits weren’t necessary, and we were able to just buy plane tickets easily. I spent a week in Lhasa and Shigatse and was awestruck by the cultural landscape, as well as the majestic physical landscape, both of which were so different from anything I had seen before. That’s what sparked my initial interest in Tibet. Later, after my MS degree, I worked in Beijing for a year on sustainable development and was able to travel to Tibet again. I knew that I wanted to work on environment and development issues and had Chinese language skills, but also didn’t really enjoy living in Beijing.

When I was at the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley, I was able to secure a FLAS (Foreign Language & Area Studies) fellowship, which I used to study Tibetan in Lhasa for a year, which was an amazing and fascinating experience. I really fell in love with Tibetan culture and still find the Barkhor, a warren of shops and streets around the Jokhang Temple at the center of Lhasa, one of my favorite places in the world.

Q: Last year, you spoke during a Coloradan Conversations event focused on climate change and human rights; there, you made a case that the people most affected by climate change, such as Tibetan pastoralists, have the fewest resources to adapt to it and that, therefore, wealthier nations that are culpable for climate change should pay for this adaptation. Do you see any significant signs that such recompense is likely to occur?

Yeh: Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci famously used the phrase “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will,” which I think is relevant here. The promise of a Loss and Damage Fund at COP27 in Sharm-el Sheikh was a long-sought-after and important step in the right direction at the national scale, but there are still many things that need to happen for the fund to come to fruition.

Many questions remain, too, about whether the scale of eventual funding will come anywhere close to the scale of need. There are also no guarantees that the funds will be directed within countries to the most vulnerable. For example, Tibetan pastoralists live in China, a country that would not be a recipient of any Loss & Damage Funds (indeed some countries would like China to pay into the fund).

Nevertheless, “optimism of the will” means that we need to consistently work toward realizing visions of justice, even if they seem beyond grasp.

Q: If a group of middle-school students were to ask you why they should consider post-secondary studies in geography, how would you respond?

Yeh: I’d tell them: Geography is so much more than what you might think! A lot of the most important issues you hear about in the news—geopolitical conflict (for example, the war in Ukraine), borders and international migration, the effects of increasing wildfire on human health, the effects of climate change on melting ice sheets, on conflict, on disasters, the spatial patterns of the spread of pandemics, the declining snowpack in Colorado and its effects on vegetation, indigenous territory and human rights, the politics of nature conservation—just to name a few, are all things that geographers study.

Geography is so much more than what you might think! A lot of the most important issues you hear about in the news—geopolitical conflict (for example, the war in Ukraine), borders and international migration ... —just to name a few, are all things that geographers study.

We also use geospatial technologies, developed by geographers, every day in our smartphone apps. Many students these days are interested in a lot of different topics and thinking about them in an interdisciplinary way—which is exactly what geography does. It’s holistic and often referred to as the original interdisciplinary discipline. It’s about humans and the environment, and also about how different places got to be the way they are.

To get a sense of all the things geographers do, we can also think about the four geographers who were recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dawn Wright is the chief scientist of the Esri (Environmental Systems Research Institute), which makes popular GIS products. She played a leading role in creating the first GIS data model for the ocean floor.

Marilyn Raphael does research on climate change and variability in the high-latitude southern hemisphere and the interaction between Antarctic sea ice and the atmosphere. Marshall Shepherd works on remote sensing and climate and is the host of the Weather Channel’s Sunday talk show, Weather Geeks. Finally, Ruth Wilson Gilmore is a pioneer in the study of racial capitalism and the mass incarceration in the U.S.

Q: What reaction do you have to being named a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar?

Yeh: It was a complete surprise to be selected! I’m really honored and very much looking forward to all of the campus visits. It’s wonderful to have this opportunity to meet with students at different colleges and universities and share some of my research.

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COP27: Power and (in)justice in global climate governance

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Dec 2022 20:56:45 +0000

COP27: Power and (in)justice in global climate governance Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 12/07/2022 - 13:56

Geography PhD student Emma Loizeaux and professor Emily Yeh (photo R.) both attended the UNFCCC COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt in November 2022 as part of a collaborative event ethnography project on “Power and (in)justice in global climate governance.” Emma was there during Week 1 and Emily during Week 2.

Our goal was to focus on the role of China at COP27 in terms of climate discourses and the question of scale in climate (in)justice. In particular, we hoped to pay particular attention to advocacy of Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) and “nature-based solutions” (NbS); and positions on climate adaptation finance, and loss and damage. We generally began our days at the constituency meetings of RINGO (Research and Independent NGOs) to meet other researchers and orient ourselves toward the negotiations happening that day. We then divided our time between side events, particularly those at the China Pavilion, and observing negotiating sessions that were open to observers. We focused on negotiations on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement (on “cooperative approaches” to achieving Nationally Determined Contributions, including creating a global emissions market); the Global Goal on Adaptation; a financial mechanism for loss and damage; and in the last two days, heated negotiations over the text of the cover decision.

As was widely reported, numerous infrastructural problems plagued the conference. In its first few days, there was inadequate water to drink, food was outrageously priced within the isolated, fenced venue, participants spotted at least one sewage flood, and most observers could not watch sessions because there were far too few seats and security did not allow observers to sit on the floor. While most of these issues were resolved by the second week, sound systems remained a problem in the temporary structures that housed some of the negotiating rooms. Where headsets were not available, blowing fans, frequent airplanes flying overhead, and generally bad acoustics made it quite difficult to follow sessions in these rooms. Delegates also spent a lot of time complaining to session co-facilitators about not receiving draft negotiating texts with adequate time to review, and arguing about whether future working sessions on various agenda items should be in-person or hybrid, and on the merits of Word vs PDF documents for group work.

Because of our focus on negotiations and on China-related side events, we did not make it out to the Green Zone, the space for civil society and others without official badges. Though advertised as being “just across the street” from the official (“Blue Zone”) venue, it was in fact difficult to get there, and others reported that little was happening there beyond exhibits by local Egyptian artists and activities. Adjacent to the Green Zone was a designated “demonstration area,” a marker of the host country’s authoritarian approach to the tradition of significant street protests just beyond the COP gates. Because of the demonstration zone’s distance from the venue itself, most activist groups boycotted this space, instead focusing attention on winning UN approval for protests within the Blue Zone, where participants would be limited to those with conference badges but where visibility to negotiators, the media, and conference-goers would be higher. We witnessed Blue Zone protests that included singing and chants of “1.5 to stay alive!” “The people united will never be defeated!”, “System change, not climate change,” “Climate justice now!” and the ever-popular “Fossil of the Day” ceremony (awarded to countries who “are doing the most to achieve the least.”)

Despite the presence of activists and pavilions dedicated to Climate Justice and Indigenous Peoples, the larger pavilion space, which included both country and organization pavilions, was very corporate in message and feel. Greenwashing was prevalent. An unprecedented 636 fossil fuel lobbyists attended the COP – a greater number than all but one country delegation. The Business pavilion listed Chevron and Exxon-Mobil as being among its “partners.” OPEC had a pavilion and the Gulf States all had gigantic pavilions. Because of the expense of the pavilions, on the other hand, many sub-Saharan African states had pavilions with multiple sponsors – including oil companies.

The fact that there was finally an agreement, however vague, to establish a fund for Loss and Damage, was the only notably positive outcome – and one that was the culmination of years of activism. Although President Biden, in his plenary hall speech, apologized for the U.S. withdrawal from Paris and proclaimed that “the United States is meeting the climate crisis with urgency and with determination,”¹within the negotiating rooms U.S. delegates could be seen dragging their feet on numerous technical points. On loss and damage, they argued that existing funds should be used for this purpose, that more studies are needed on the issue, that a lengthy roll-out timeline will be necessary, and ultimately required that the text specify that the fund has nothing to do with “liability” or “compensation.” Such tactics were met with frustration and sometimes derision from other Parties. Representatives from Saudi Arabia, China, and other members of the Like-Minded Developing Country negotiating group argued against the 1.5 degree goal, and against any mention of fossil fuels. Although 1.5 fortunately remained, fossil fuels were omitted from the final cover decision. The intent is clear: to allow “mitigation” efforts to focus on CCUS and other technological solutions that allow continued extraction and burning of fossil fuels, despite high costs and uncertain mitigation benefits, instead of reductions in consumption and pursuit of the “just transition” that climate justice advocates at the COP so clearly called for. Actors from many countries, including the US, are pushing these technologies, arguing that “the math” says that it is the only option – despite much evidence to the contrary and despite activists’ arguments against false solutions.

¹https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/11/11/remarks-by-president-biden-at-the-27th-conference-of-the-parties-to-the-framework-convention-on-climate-change-cop27-sharm-el-sheikh-egypt/

Images of COP27 from Emily and Emma

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Emily Yeh & Emma Loizeaux to attend world’s largest climate conference

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 22:38:24 +0000

Emily Yeh & Emma Loizeaux to attend world’s largest climate conference Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 11/03/2022 - 16:38

Starting Nov. 6, representatives from 197 countries and hundreds of activists, scientists and industry representatives will gather in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, for the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference.

This year’s event, known as COP27 (27th annual Conference of Parties), marks the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992 by these 197 countries at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Four CU �鶹ӰԺ faculty—James Anaya, Colleen Scanlan Lyons, Max Boykoff and Emily Yeh—will join this year’s gathering to observe the negotiations and contribute valuable insights on the impact of climate change on human rights, the importance of forest conservation and trends in climate change communication. Also attending COP27 are Emma Loizeaux, doctoral student in geography, Emily Benton Hite, an affiliate faculty lecturer in continuing education and anthropology, and Rob Ross, project manager at the Consortium for Capacity Building.

James Anaya, CU Law

UN Human Rights and CU �鶹ӰԺ will host a news conference about the upcoming Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit on Nov. 8, led by summit co-chair James Anaya, Distinguished Professor and Nicholas Doman Professor of International Law at CU �鶹ӰԺ.

The virtual and in-person Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit on Dec. 1–4, 2022, will bring together experts on climate change and human rights, including youth activists, business leaders and journalists from around the world, to discuss tangible policy commitments and actions that people from all walks of life can take to address this global threat that disproportionately affects the world’s most vulnerable people.

“The Right Here, Right Now Summit and our participation at COP27 place CU �鶹ӰԺ at the center of the efforts to address the human rights impact of climate change,” Anaya said. “There are few issues as important as this one, and the summit will help to further commitments on a global scale to understand its multiple dimensions and forge solutions.”

Colleen Scanlan Lyons, environmental studies

Colleen Scanlan Lyons, associate research professor in environmental studies and project director for the Governors’ Climate and Forests Task Force, will attend COP27 for its second week (Nov. 13–18). The GCF Task Force, a project of CU �鶹ӰԺ’s Institute of Behavioral Science with a global secretariat hosted by CU �鶹ӰԺ and UCLA, facilitates subnational leadership to reduce deforestation and advance inclusive, equitable, low-emissions development in states and provinces and across entire regions. It’s the largest organization of its kind, working with 39 states and provinces in 10 countries.

As part of this work, Lyons is looking forward to meeting with newly elected government leaders at this year’s conference, including Indigenous leaders in Brazil and from around the world.

“We have a key moment to reach subnational governments, who can have quite a big impact on climate work,” Lyons said. “I'm super excited to sit down and engage with these governors and say: All right, you were just elected. Here's the (environmental) platform that you ran on. How are you going to put this into practice?”

Her biggest hope is that as a result of COP27, countries agree on concrete financing and policy solutions for forest conservation and livelihood generation.

Max Boykoff, environmental studies and CIRES

Max Boykoff, professor in environmental studies and fellow in the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), is leading CU’s delegation to COP27 this year and attending in person for its second week.

As a researcher of climate change communication and of media coverage of climate change as part of the Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO), Boykoff plans to observe creative communications and engagements associated with climate policy action, and develop research looking at the politics of “climate emergency.” He also plans to participate in a panel discussion hosted by 10 Billion Solutions, a global communications consultancy group that focuses on climate and sustainability communications.

Boykoff said he is hopes COP27 will be the “implementation COP,” as Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs H.E. Sameh Shoukry declared—where productive negotiations can directly connect with significant implementation and action.

“I also look forward to observing creative ways in which observer organizations, businesses, nongovernmental organizations and other social movements will be creatively communicating about climate change in the many events and activities that surround the negotiations,” Boykoff said.

Boykoff also said he is eager to sample Egyptian food and culture on his first visit to the country.

Emily Yeh and Emma Loizeaux, geography

Emily Yeh, professor of geography and faculty affiliate at the Center for Asian Studies, is attending COP27 for its second week along with Emma Loizeaux, doctoral student in geography, who will be attending the first week.

They are eager to attend their first United Nations Climate Change Conference as both of their research practices are centered around elements of international relations, people and climate change. Yeh has researched various aspects of climate change, including Indigenous knowledge about climate change and vulnerability to climate change on the Tibetan Plateau, and teaches a graduate seminar focused on climate justice from a political ecology perspective.

Loizeaux’s doctoral research is on market and technical solutions to climate change, with a focus on China and the U.S. She is interested in how particular technologies are prioritized in terms of how people in power approach climate challenges.

They are part of a Collaborative Event Ethnography project, spearheaded by affiliate faculty lecturer Emily Hite and several collaborators, which will study the conference itself as a site of global governance. Yeh and Loizeaux want to better understand the role and priorities of Chinese state and non-state actors, and are particularly interested in observing how they might promote various carbon mitigation strategies, interact with other countries in the Global South and advocate for elements of global climate justice.

COP26: How this climate summit was different, and what needs to happen next (Nov 16, 2021)

Context for COP27

COP27 comes at an increasingly crucial moment for reducing emissions and limiting the impacts of climate change on the planet and its most vulnerable people. A report released by the UN climate office on Oct. 26 warns that the world is “nowhere near” hitting important climate targets—such as the 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 Celsius) 2015 Paris agreement target—and that instead, estimates predict that temperatures will rise to 4.5 degrees F (2.5 C) above pre-industrial averages by the end of the century.

Since the formation of the UNFCCC, vulnerable nations at the forefront of climate change impacts have also been calling on developed countries to provide financial assistance that can help them address loss and damage—permanent loss or repairable damage caused by the manifestations of climate change. Yet, last year’s conference, COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, failed to meaningfully address loss and damage or meet expectations for funding. If it is added to the agenda at COP27, parties will discuss how to raise, manage and distribute money to pay for loss and damage.

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AAG Best Paper for Geography and Entrepreneurship

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 21:25:12 +0000

AAG Best Paper for Geography and Entrepreneurship Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 02/23/2022 - 14:25

Emily Yeh's paper was awarded “AAG-Kaufmann Best Paper for Geography and Entrepreneurship” for 2022.

The cultural politics of new Tibetan entrepreneurship in contemporary China: Valorisation and the question of neoliberalism

Abstract:

Over the past decade, new forms of Tibetan entrepreneurship have emerged and proliferated in China, at the intersection of a national push for entrepreneurship in response to a slowing economy, the closure of non-governmental organisations in Tibetan areas, declining state-sector employment, and state concerns about stability. This paper explores the rise of these new Tibetan entrepreneurs in relation to two inter-related concerns. First, it contributes to geographers’ calls for comparative studies of culturally specific meanings of entrepreneurship across the Global South. It explores the cultural politics of Tibetan entrepreneurship – active debates about what it means to be a proper Tibetan, in terms of religious commitments and cultural pride, in relation to money-making activities. Second, it analyses these in relation to critiques of neoliberal subjectivities associated with entrepreneurship. One of the key themes of Tibetan entrepreneurship is the effort to create economic value in the service of cultural value and a sense of self-worth for Tibetans living in rural areas. Thus, elements of the neoliberal self are sutured together with a sense of responsibility to Tibetan communities and historically sedimented idioms to form an entrepreneurial subjectivity that is broadly oriented to the project of revalorising Tibetan places and people.

Emily T. Yeh 2022. “The cultural politics of new Tibetan entrepreneurship in contemporary China: Valorisation and the question of neoliberalism”, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. 47(1): 139-152. https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/tran.12479

Thanks to a sponsorship from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the AAG announced two annual awards for promising research studying geography and entrepreneurship: one for best paper and one for best student paper. The purpose of this award program is to identify innovative research in business, applied or community geography that is relevant to questions related to entrepreneurs and their firms as well as to practitioners and policymakers. Research that has direct practical implications and that addresses pressing environmental, economic and/or social problems is especially appropriate for these awards. The awards will be presented at the AAG Annual Meeting.

Prizes

Two awardees receive a check for $1,500, complimentary meeting registration, and a complimentary ticket to the AAG Awards Luncheon. The runner up for each award will receive complimentary registration and a complimentary ticket to the AAG Awards Luncheon. Award winners and runners up will be invited to present their research in a session highlighting geography and entrepreneurship.

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American Association of Geographers

Anonymous — Fri, 10 Dec 2021 00:07:25 +0000

American Association of Geographers Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 12/09/2021 - 17:07

Emily Yeh

The American Association of Geographers (AAG) is the national scholarly association to which the most geographers – including professors, undergraduate and graduate students, and professionals - in the US belong. Founded in 1904, it has members from over 100 countries and its total membership has fluctuated over the past two decades between about 8000 and 12,000. In addition to publishing several journals and a monthly newsletter, the AAG hosts annual meetings, promotes discussion through more than sixty specialty groups, offers workshops and career information, provides support for its nine regional divisions, and advocates for geography in the public and policy realms. AAG is governed by a Council, which consists of elected regional and national Councilors, elected officers, the most recent past-president, and the executive director (ex officio). Day to day operations are run by Washington DC-based professional staff.

As of July 2021, I am serving a one-year term as President of the American Association of Geographers. This follows one year as Vice President and will be followed by an additional year on Council as the immediate Past President. I’m the third faculty member from the CU �鶹ӰԺ Geography Department to serve in this capacity (Ken Foote, now at the University of the Connecticut, was at CU while he was AAG president from 2010-11; and Risa Palm of Georgia State was AAG president from 1984-85, also while at CU). Due to the COVID19 pandemic, just about everything I’ve participated in to date has taken place virtually – two virtual national conferences, virtual regional conferences, and many, many other meetings! I have yet to meet AAG staff or Council Members in person. The one exception was in October this year, when I traveled to Lincoln, Nebraska to attend the meeting of the Great Plains Rocky Mountain region. Fortunately, with COVID19 vaccines widely available, including finally for younger kids, the annual meeting in February 2022 will be a hybrid virtual and in-person event in New York City.

Department Chair Jennifer Fluri asked me to write about what it’s like to be AAG president. In addition to attending Council Meetings to vote on numerous matters such as accepting slates of nominees and awardees and discussing broader strategic directions, the role entails writing monthly columns for AAG newsletter; participating in Regional meetings to give keynote addresses, attend business meetings, and in some cases, participating in Geography bowls; selecting a conference theme and organizing a presidential plenary (I’ve chosen climate justice as both my theme and topic of the plenary); and serving as a member of the Healthy Departments Task Force to provide assistance for departments facing institutional threats. Recently, for example, the executive director and I submitted a successful letter to oppose the carving out of GIS from Geography as a discipline to create a separate major in California Community Colleges. The role also includes answering emails from members on a wide variety of issues, and getting involved in specific targeted initiatives.

One initiative I’ve been deeply involved with is co-leading the AAG Climate Action Task Force to respond to a member petition to reduce the travel-related emissions of the association’s annual national meetings by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030. This has turned out to be a very complicated issue involving everything from contracts for large hotels that must be signed many years in advance, to finding alternative ways for students to gain opportunities for professional networking and mentoring, at a time when everyone is experiencing Zoom fatigue. I’ve also been closely involved in one of a number of pandemic rapid-response projects that AAG Council decided to implement, an initiative to help “Bridge the Digital Divide” by providing funding for wifi hotspots, chromebooks and laptops for underserved students in Geography classes at Tribal Colleges and Universities and Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Furthermore, I’m looking forward to working with Executive Director Gary Langham in his upcoming Membership initiative, to expand AAG membership, particularly for physical geographers, geographers at community colleges, and professional geographers. If you have ideas about how AAG can better serve you, particularly beyond the scope of an in-person annual meeting, please don’t hesitate to email me.

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Fair Redistricting and Community Engagement: How to get involved in Colorado’s Independent Redistricting Process

Anonymous — Mon, 30 Aug 2021 23:04:59 +0000

Fair Redistricting and Community Engagement: How to get involved in Colorado’s Independent Redistricting Process Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 08/30/2021 - 17:04

Panelists:

Moderator: Emily Yeh, Professor, Department of Geography and President, American Association of Geographers
Panelist 1: Scott Adler, Professor, Department of Political Science and Dean of the Graduate School, CU �鶹ӰԺ
Panelist 2: Julia Jackson, Public Information Officer and Redistricting Analyst, Colorado Independent Redistricting Commission
Panelist 3: Seth Spielman, Professor of Geography and Chief Data Officer, Office of Data Analytics, CU �鶹ӰԺ
Panelist 4: Amanda Gonzalez, Executive Director, Colorado Common Cause
Coordinator: Caitlin Ryan, Instructor and Geocivics Education Coordinator, CU �鶹ӰԺ

Abstract:

After 10 years with our country’s current congressional and state district maps, the time has come to redraw the lines, and it is imperative that constituents of every state have a seat at the table during the redistricting process. This panel, which is part of the American Association of Geographer’s series in redistricting will equip geographers (including undergraduate and graduate students, K-12 educators and GIS students) and others with the tools and knowledge needed to participate as Colorado's Independent Redistricting Commission draws new state legislative and congressional maps this fall. After the panel, attendees will be able to answer basic questions about Colorado's process, understand what is at stake in Colorado, how different redistricting criteria affect the outcomes of representation, and how local groups are leveraging "communities of interest" to advocate for greater minority representation in state politics. Attendees will also become familiar with online mapping groups available to the public to submit maps to Colorado’s Independent Commission. By activating our collective power as a community, we can set new expectations this year and show why geospatial thinkers are indispensable.

If not attending in person, online registration is available at:

AAG website secure platform

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Faculty News Spring 2021

Anonymous — Mon, 03 May 2021 23:20:08 +0000

Faculty News Spring 2021 Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 05/03/2021 - 17:20

Waleed Abdalati testified to Congress for the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.

Waleed Abdalati

On April 15, 2021, Professor Abdalati testified in a hearing held by the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. The hearing was titled “Making the Case for Climate Action: The Growing Risks and Costs of Inaction.”

While Dr. Abdalati spoke to the underlying physical mechanisms of climate change, their current expressions, and future implications, other witnesses included the city manager for Tybee Island in Coastal Georgia, who talked about the challenges they face in confronting sea level rise; a lawyer from Mississippi, who spoke to the ethnic and racial inequities associated with climate change; and an economist, who spoke to the social costs of climate change.

Dr. Abdalati remarked, "hearing these different perspectives on climate change really drove home the geographic dimensions of climate change in a very powerful way, as well as the critical role that geography serves in meeting these challenges.”

Also see information about the hearing and Dr. Abdalati's testimony

Holly Barnard

Holly Barnard Awarded �鶹ӰԺ Faculty Excellence in Leadership & Service Award for 2020-2021

Chosen from amongst many excellent nominees, Professor Holly Barnard was selected as a recipient of the BFA Faculty Excellence in Leadership and Service Award this year.

She was jointly nominated by the Department of Geography and the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) for her leadership in advancing justice, equity, diversity and inclusion in both units, across the CU campus, and beyond. In addition, Professor Barnard has also taken on numerous leadership roles in the discipline, through the American Geophysical Union and through her past service as Lead Program Manager for the Hydrological Sciences Program at NSF.

Additionally, Dr. Barnard was also recently honored for her efforts to promote diversity by the Arts & Sciences Council of the College of A&S.

Emily Yeh Winner of the 2020-2021 Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award

Emily Yeh

Dr. Yeh was chosen as a winner of the Graduate School's 2020-2021 Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award. Her nomination dossier was full of praise for providing help and encouragement to her advisees. She is well known for giving much of her time, energy, and intellect to support graduate students and the mission of graduate education.

Yaffa Truelove

Yaffa Truelove Wins Best Urban Studies Article 2020

The Urban Studies Best Article is awarded by the editors to the authors of the most innovative and agenda-setting article published in a given year. Eleven articles were shortlisted by the editors from those published in print copy in 2020. Urban Studies Journal is an international journal for research in urban and regional studies.

Dr. Truelove's article, Disambiguating the southern urban critique: Propositions, pathways and possibilities for a more global urban studies, has been voted by the editors as the Urban Studies Best Article for 2020. In agreement with the publisher, SAGE, they will be allowing Open Access to the article on the journal’s website.

Katherine Lininger

Professor Katherine Lininger was part of a team given a CU Outreach Award for the outreach proposal, “CU Restoration Ecology Experimental Learning Program”, by the CU �鶹ӰԺ Outreach Awards Committee. The effort was led by Tim Seastedt, professor emeritus of INSTAAR and EBIO, and also included Professor Sharon Collinge from the Department of Environmental Studies. The project builds on three years of work, partnering with the non-profit Wildlands Restoration Volunteers (WRV). WRV uses service-learning and education programs to help local youth build relationships with nature. Over 70% of the youth engaged in the program come from low-income, minority, or at risk populations. As a result, underserved youth will have access to the many benefits of a connection to nature and will be able to explore potential careers in environmental sciences and see their own capacity to make a positive impact.

Their team was selected from amongst a very competitive pool of 40 applications.

Morteza Karimzadeh

Morteza Karimzadeh awarded RIO Seed Grant

Morteza Karimzadeh and Terra McKinnish were awarded the CU RIO Seed Grant for the project entitled “Recovering from a Pandemic: Unraveling Neighborhood Geographic Disparities in Consumer and Business Behavior in 2021”.

They will use foot-traffic data to identify business patrons’ residence neighborhoods and the level of recovery in consumption by residents living in those neighborhoods as characterized by different sociodemographic, political and economic conditions.

The 2021 Research & Innovation Seed Grant program resulted in 16 new grants with approximately $700,000 being awarded to CU �鶹ӰԺ faculty across disciplines, with each grant providing up to $50,000 in funding.

Heide Bruckner

MeatOut Day: Heide Bruckner Interviewed on Colorado Public Radio

In February, word started to get out that Gov. Jared Polis has proclaimed the 20th as MeatOut Day. The day, which was started in 1985 by the Farm Animals Rights Movement, is meant to encourage non-vegetarians to consider moving toward a plant-based diet.

Heide Bruckner's research involves the intersections of food and identity. “Meat has always been politicized and meat-eating tied to a lot of perceptions of American identity and masculinity, especially here in the American West,” she said.

Dr. Bruckner favors the idea of a MeatOut Day, as a way to introduce people to the idea that they can reduce the amount of meat in their diet without becoming a full vegetarian.

“There is a large area in between that all-or-nothing approach that we really should explore,” she said. “Realistically, one day isn’t going to radically shift perception, change behaviors or reduce meat consumption. But I do believe it can provide an opening for some to consider the role that meat plays in their diet.”

The governor’s office notes that Polis issues numerous proclamations each year celebrating the state’s agricultural sector, including Colorado Ag Day, Farm Bureau Day, and Rocky Ford Cantaloupe Day. But that has not stopped the criticism. After word of the proclamation got out, several state Senators spoke out against MeatOut Day on the chamber floor.

John O'Loughlin: Ukrainian Resident’s Divided Views on the Donbas Conflict

John O’Loughlin

Two new articles from The Washington Post and Global Voices both feature research conducted by Professor John O’Loughlin of Geography and IBS's Program on International Development and his colleagues.

On February 12, 2015 the Minsk II accords left the Donbas region territorially divided with the Ukrainian government controlling the western side and two separatist entities controlling the eastern side. O’Loughlin and his research team conducted a survey on both sides and they found drastically different opinions regarding the war in Donbas.

On the eastern side, they found trust in the authorities to be higher among residents; however, on the western side, they found trust in the authorities to be much lower among residents. Their survey also shows that residents disagree on the future status of Donbas as an autonomous region.

The team also made a research presentation on the results at George Washington University’s Institute for European, Eurasian and Russian Studies in February; the video of the talk is available on Youtube.

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