In this Berkeley Voices episode, Bree Rosenblum, a professor of global change biology at UC Berkeley, talks about why we need to stop blaming each other for the environmental crisis that we’re in, and instead confront its root causes and expand our ideas of what it means to be human on our planet. “I really think that if we’re not addressing culture at a really deep level, that we cannot address climate change,” said Rosenblum. “Do we want humanity to mean what it has meant in the past, or do we want to create a new meaning for our species and our purpose?”
This is the first episode of a two-part series about how to resist the feeling of doom that many of us experience when thinking about climate change. The second episode features student Hope Gale-Hendry who shares how she discovered her deep interconnectedness with all living things, and why she decided to study the American pika.
Bree Rosenblum is a professor of global change biology at UC Berkeley and author of the 2021 textbook Global Change Biology: The study of life on a rapidly changing planet. (Photo courtesy of Bree Rosenblum)
Read a transcript of Berkeley Voices episode 97, ‘Biologist confronts deep roots of climate despair.’
Bree Rosenblum: I really think that if we’re not addressing culture at a really deep level, that we cannot address climate change.
Anne Brice: Bree Rosenblum was hired at UC Berkeley in 2012 to lead a research and teaching program in global change biology.
Bree Rosenblum: And it rapidly became kind of my favorite thing. It’s just such a compelling area of study and also one that requires a lot of thoughtfulness about how to engage students on a topic that could be so demoralizing and depressing, and how to do it in a way that’s honest, but also inspiring.
Anne Brice: Global change biology addresses how living systems are responding to the complex threats they face right now, like habitat destruction, the homogenization of biodiversity and climate change.
Bree Rosenblum: This generation of students has been bombarded by climate doomsday thinking from the time they were very young. In my experience, in the American culture — not to overreach into other cultural streams on our planet — but at least in mainstream American culture, I think this has had an enormous impact on the psyches of young people.
Anne Brice: This is Berkeley Voices. I’m Anne Brice.
This is the first episode of a two-part series about how to resist the feeling of doom that many of us experience when thinking about climate change.
A new Berkeley News series examines how the campus community is confronting the climate crisis.
In this episode, Rosenblum — a professor of global change biology in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management — talks about why we need to stop blaming each other for the environmental crisis that we’re in, and instead confront its root causes and expand our ideas of what it means to be human on our planet.
[Music fades]
I’m joined by a colleague of mine, Kara Manke, a science writer for Berkeley News in the Office of Communications and Public Affairs. Kara is leading a series that explores how the campus community is creating innovative climate solutions and implementing them in ways that ensure a more equitable future for our planet. Hi, Kara. Welcome to Berkeley Voices.
