Climate change is the biggest challenge facing humanity. It stands to disrupt every aspect of our lives, including our cultural heritage. But how much do records, buildings, artifacts, or even traditions matter in the face of extreme weather and massive human displacement? Join this season’s host, Nicole Kang Ferraiolo, as she speaks to all seven of this season’s guests about the risks climate change poses to our cultural memory and why we should care. We’ll also get a sneak peak at the topics covered this season and what’s to come in the episodes ahead.
Note: The views expressed in the interview segments with Crystal Felima are hers and do not necessarily represent those of FEMA.
Sources and References
Sources for the narration:
- 5 Climate Change Facts to Scare You Into Action This Halloween (Earthday.org)
- World of Change: Global Temperatures (NASA)
- The Calm Before the Storm? Experts Predict Hurricane Season to Get Worse (Earthday.org)
- Drought and heat exacerbate wildfires (WMO)
- The 2018 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: shaping the health of nations for centuries to come (The Lancet)
- On Edge? It Might Be What’s In The Air (Earthday.org)
- Climate Change Threatens the World’s Food Supply, United Nations Warns (New York Times)
- NASA satellites reveal major shifts in global freshwater (NASA)
- Climate change and human health – risks and responses. Summary. (WHO)
- Climate change could displace up to 300 million people by 2050 (Business Insider)
- America’s Eroding Edges (project by Victoria Herrmann)**
- Our Heritage is abandoned: burning of Haitian church fuels anger at politicians (The Guardian)
- Mediterranean UNESCO World Heritage at risk from coastal flooding and erosion due to sea-level rise (Nature)
- Study Suggests Buried Internet Infrastructure at Risk as Sea Levels Rise (University of Wisconsin-Madison via Newswise)
- Are National Trust libraries at risk from climate change? (Carbon Brief)
- Bangladesh river eats up land and homes, trapping poor villagers (Reuters)
- No one owes their trauma to archivists, or, the commodification of contemporaneous collecting (writing by Eira Tansey)
Note: Sources marked by ** are initiatives and writings by the episode’s guests.
Anthropocene librarianship, Miskatonic University Press
Climate Change Syllabus, Project ARCC
Meet the Host
Nicole Kang Ferraiolo
Nicole Kang Ferraiolo is CLIR’s director of global strategic initiatives. She was previously a program officer for CLIR’s regranting and fellowship programs. Prior to that, Nicole worked at Columbia University where she oversaw several projects including an interdisciplinary research program on global governance that focused in turn on nuclear proliferation, pandemics, religious conflict, and climate change. She has worked in London as a radio news editor and in French Guiana, where she organized international exchanges for the Ministry of Education. She has an MA from Columbia University and an MSc from the London School of Economics, where she studied international history and disaster philanthropy. She received the Eric Hobsbawm Award for Best Dissertation for her work on relief efforts following the Hurricane of San Ciriaco in Puerto Rico, 1899. She grew up in Northern California and currently lives with her partner and two young kids in Takoma Park, Maryland.