Past Events

While people have been working across the Columbia River Basin to restore salmon habitat, these ecosystems are being heavily impacted by a changing climate. How does the restoration community deal with these compounding challenges? In this talk, Dr. Shana Hirsch will outline the scientific infrastructure of salmon restoration in the basin in order to show how it shapes the way ecologists adapt to and imagine a future environment.

About the speaker: Dr. Shana Lee Hirsch is a research scientist in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering and the Associate Director of the University of Washington's division of the Pacific Marine Energy Center (PMEC).

Climate Crisis as Public Health Crisis: A regional Perspective - Fall 2021

The effects of climate change on health are many – directly, such as poor air quality from wildfire smoke, to indirectly, such as increasing rates of zoonotic infections, and food insecurity with variations in regional agriculture. The Inland Northwest will need to adapt to these inevitable changes, and this presentation will provide both existing challenges as well as possible solutions.

About the speaker:Bob Lutz, MD, MPH, is a Board-Certified Family Medicine physician, and holds adjunct faculty positions with the University of Washington School of Medicine and Washington State University Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. He received his medical degree from Temple University in 1988, and a Master of Public Health from the University of Arizona in 2003. Upon moving to Spokane, WA in 2004 with his wife, Amy, he served on the Spokane Regional Health District’s Board of Health for eight years, until being appointed as the Health Officer for Spokane County, WA from 2017-2020. He currently serves as the Health Officer for Asotin County, WA, is a member of the Washington State Board of Health, representing local public health, and is the Medical Advisor for the COVID-19 Response for the Washington Department of Health.

Thomas Berry’s Vision for the Earth Community - Fall 2021

Thomas Berry was a historian of both western and Asian cultures who created a unique history of religions program at Fordham University. After decades of study, Berry developed a comprehensive understanding of history - human, Earth and universe. From this perspective he offered a comprehensive context for revisioning education in a time of ecological and climate challenges.>

About the speaker:Mary Evelyn Tucker teaches at Yale University where she is co-director of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology. Her special area of research is East Asian religions, especially Confucianism. She worked closely with Thomas Berry for three decades, edited his books, and is his literary executor. She wrote his biography with John Grim and Andrew Angyal.

The Rights of Nature: Saving the Planet or Harmful to Humanity? - Fall 2021

A moderated debate hosted by Brian G. Henning, Director of the Gonzaga Center for Climate, Society, and the Environment, Professor of Philosophy and Environmental Studies.

Proponents of the rights of nature argue that the environmental regulatory system – which treats nature as merely property to be owned – has failed to protect nature and our own life support systems, and that a radical change in the law is needed which re-positions humanity in the role of a guardian or trustee of the best interests of those natural systems.

Opponents of this approach see recognizing the rights of nature as inappropriate and ultimately demeaning to the special dignity of the human person – undermining a rights-based system of law which makes humans exceptional.

The leading proponent and opponent will come together to debate this important issue. The Rights of Nature: Saving the Planet or Harmful to Humanity?

Climate Girl Effect - Fall 2021

We will discuss our recent book: Fridays, Flint, and Fire: The Climate Girl Effect that explores girls’ technofeminist activism in the climate justice movement. This activism takes the form of apps and video games, letters, protest, funktivism, launching non-profits, and lawsuits. In the current moment, girl activists challenge traditional gender boundaries as they fight for a livable future.

About the speakers:Carolyn Cunningham and Heather Crandall have been researching, publishing, teaching, and presenting together for years on topics of gender, technology, and social media activism. They have a chapter in the book, Social Media for Social Justice: Cyberfeminism in the Digital Village, they won a top paper award for their paper on hashtag activism that later became a journal article in Explorations in Media Ecology. They both are affiliate faculty in the Women’s and Gender Studies program at Gonzaga. As educators, Dr. Cunningham and Dr. Crandall designed and taught a course on Women, Communication and Leadership that turned into their edited collection, Gender, Communication, and the Leadership Gap (2017). Dr. Cunningham and Dr. Crandall are excited to share insights from their new book, Fridays, Flint, and Fire: The Climate Girl Effect (forthcoming May 2022).

The civilization we have known is dying. Sadly, it is not transforming itself into something that could survive. Accordingly, the death of the civilization will also be the death of billions of people as well as the extinction of thousands of species. Given that it is too late to prevent losses, what can we do? My judgement is that we can build sustainable local communities many of which can survive. If we made this global policy, even now, our losses would be greatly reduced.

About the speaker: John B. Cobb, Jr. was born of Methodist missionary parents in Japan in 1925. His schooling was interrupted by 42 months of military service in World War II. When separated, he attended the University of Chicago, completing a PhD in the Divinity School, where he was introduced to neo-naturalism and especially to the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. From 1958 to 1990 he taught theology at the Claremont School of Theology. Together with David Griffin he founded the Center for Process Studies in 1973, and through this and other organizations, he has promoted the study of Whitehead and of the ecological civilization Whitehead’s thought calls for.

To the mark the 51th anniversary of Earth Day and the 6th anniversary of Pope Francis' landmark encyclical on climate change and environmental ethics, Laudato Si', Gonzaga welcomes Daniel P. Horan, OFM, Ph.D., to campus to offer a lecture entitled, Beyond Laudato Si': Embracing the Challenge of Franciscan Eco-Spirituality in the Age of Pope Francis.

About the Lecture

From the beginning of his papal ministry, Pope Francis has sought to bring together two rich heritages: the Ignatian tradition of his Jesuit formation and identity with the Franciscan legacy of his papal namesake and inspiration. As we celebrate the fifth anniversary of his landmark encyclical letter Laudato Si', which inaugurated renewed commitment among Jesuit entities to “collaborate in care for our common home,” this lecture considers some of the ways that a Catholic Jesuit University might embrace the challenge of Franciscan eco-spirituality initially signaled in Laudato Si', but that have remained generally underdeveloped. In this way, we might not only appreciate the beauty, wisdom, and pastoral urgency in the papal document itself, but also build on it in the spirit of both the Ignatian and Franciscan traditions.

Daniel P. Horan, OFM, PhD is a Franciscan friar of Holy Name Province (NY), assistant professor of systematic theology and spirituality at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, a columnist for the National Catholic Reporter, and the author of several books including All God’s Creatures: A Theology of Creation (2018), Catholicity and Emerging Personhood: A Contemporary Theological Anthropology (2019), and Reading, Praying, Living Pope Francis’s Rejoice and Be Glad (2019). He is currently working on a book about the Incarnation and is also co-host of The Francis Effect Podcast.

Co-sponsored by
Office of Mission & Ministry
Environmental Studies Department
Religious Studies Department
Catholic Studies Program

In honor of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day in April 2020, Attorney General Bob Ferguson launched an Environmental Justice Initiative for his office, including plans to convene an Environmental Justice Symposium with Gonzaga University to discuss the environmental justice issues affecting various communities around our state, and the work being done to address them.

In addition to bringing together academics, scientists, legislators, and legal professionals, the Symposium will aim to give a platform to communities that have been disproportionately impacted by structural racism and to shine a light on the hard work these communities across our state are doing to pursue environmental justice.

Gonzaga University Environmental Studies Department invites guest speaker Grace Hope, the PNW Regional Organizer with 350.org, to present on the matter of environmental justice in trying times.

What does it mean to be an organizer for climate justice during a pandemic, the uprising for black lives, unprecedented wildfire smoke, and political crises? Global climate chaos is a threat multiplier deeply linked to systems of racial violence and oppression, and calls on each of us to step into meaningful action today.

There’s overwhelming scientific evidence that global warming is happening and humans are the cause. However, there’s also a mountain of misinformation designed to confuse the public about climate change. How do we respond to the firehose of falsehoods? One way to effectively neutralize the influence of misinformation is inoculation. This takes the idea of vaccination and applies it to knowledge—we can build immunity to misinformation by exposing people to a weakened form of misinformation. In other words, expose the misleading techniques used in misinformation. Not only does this approach neutralize the influence of science denial, it can turn misinformation into an educational opportunity and improve critical thinking. Dr. John Cook will outline his psychological and critical thinking research into countering misinformation and demonstrate with visual examples.

Is our system working to protect the natural environment? Isn’t it time to find one that does?

Host Thomas Linzey, an environmental lawyer with the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights, for a presentation and discussion around a new movement for environmental protection: one that recognizes enforceable legal rights for nature and ecosystems.

Co-sponsored by
Environmental Studies Department
Gonzaga Center for Law, Ethics & Commerce

Gonzaga University Environmental Studies Department is happy to host Derick Lugo, author of "The Unlikely Thru-Hiker".

The Unlikely Thru-Hiker is the story of a young black man setting off from the city with an extremely overweight pack and a willfully can-do attitude. What follows are lessons on preparation, humility, race relations, and nature’s wild unpredictability. Through it all, Derick (Mr. Fabulous) refuses to let any challenge squash his inner Pollyanna, persevering with humor, tenacity, and an unshakeable commitment to grooming that sees him from Georgia to Maine.

Co-sponsored by: Friends of Scotchman Peaks Wilderness, The Lands Council, & Washington Trails Association