Christine Cuomo | Caring about Nature as Necessary for a Climate Solution

Even when we overcome climate change denial, the question of how to motivate ecological moral priorities remains. Many hold that high-consuming citizens’ ethical understanding of the extreme and present/future dangers of climate chaos for human wellbeing is sufficient to provoke effective climate action. However, without intense ethical caring about nature itself, the motivation to effectively address climate change will elude us. What forms of ethical caring are needed to combat the very real dangers of global climate change, and what can help cultivate them?

About the Speaker

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Christine J. Cuomo is Professor of Philosophy and Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Georgia, and an affiliate faculty member of the Environmental Ethics Certificate Program and the Institute for African-American Studies. She is the author and editor of many articles and several books in feminist, postcolonial, and environmental philosophy. Cuomo also served as Director of the Institute for Women's and Gender Studies from 2006–2009. Her book, The Philosopher Queen, a reflection on post-9/11 anti-war feminist politics, was nominated for a Lambda Award and an APA book award, and her work in ecofeminist philosophy and creative interdiciplinary practice has been influential among those seeking to bring together social justice and environmental concerns, as well as theory and practice. She has been a recipient of research grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Ms. Foundation, the National Council for Research on Women, and the Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy, and she has been a visiting faculty member at Cornell University, Amherst College, and Murdoch University in Perth, Australia.