Green week keynote speaker Paige West speaks at the Overby Center Wednesday. (DM Photo | Kayla Beatty)
Paige West of Columbia University discussed the relationships between different societies and their unique environments in Ole Miss’ Earth Day keynote speech at the Overby Center Wednesday.
Her discussion “Imagining Pacific Futures: Climate Change, Local Livelihoods and International Environmentalist Rhetorics,” examined the country of Papua New Guinea and how climate change has affected and continues to affect the livelihood of the indigenous people and the residents of the coastal communities.
“Academically, I’m kind of a terrestrial girl,” said West, who has worked with the indigenous people of Papua New Guinea.
Papua New Guinea is home to eight million residents and is responsible for 10 percent of the total species of the world. The country is experiencing many of the effects of climate change.
“I feel like you guys are the people who are going to make the decisions about this,” said West to the students in the audience. “We get fatigued from all the bad stuff that’s in the news. It’s just exhausting to see all that stuff, and I feel that too. This is happening to people just like us, and these people have lives that are just as important to them as our lives are to us.”
Along with her academic work, West is also the co-founder of the Papua New Guinea Institute of Biological Research. The institute is a small non-profit organization dedicated to creating academic research opportunities in Papua New Guinea among Papua New Guineans.
Assistant professor of anthropology Marcos Mendoza co-organized West’s visit.
“Climate change is the greatest environmental threat facing global society in the twenty-first century,” Mendoza said.
The environmental studies faculty has been fundraising and working out the logistics to support this lecture all year long.
“I attended this event because I think that it is important to be knowledgeable about climate change,” junior integrated marketing communications major Heather Fletcher said. “I hope that other students will be inspired by Dr. West’s presentation.”
Students learned about climate change and its impacts on the planet.
“We hope to bring greater attention to the socio-environmental impacts of global climate change already materializing across the planet,” Mendoza said. “Dr. West’s current research on climate change in Papua New Guinea provides an excellent opportunity to raise awareness and stimulate public debate.”
Mendoza said that people cannot afford to ignore these issues and expect everything to turn out well.
“We reject this naive, Panglossian attitude,” Mendoza said.
Mendoza commented on the role this lecture played in combating that idea.
“The lecture provided an engaging, student-focused opportunity to hear how climate change is already impacting Pacific Island nations,” Mendoza said.
