Kent Environmental Council is sponsoring a talk by an Oberlin expert on climate change
The Kent Environmental Council will host an online Fall Forum entitled “Yes, We Can! How to talk about climate change to inspire action and fight despair.” The event is at 7 p.m. Thursday.
The guest speaker for the event is Cindy Frantz, a social and environmental psychologist at Oberlin College. Frantz will provide concrete ideas on how to talk about climate change in a way that motivates action and fights despair.
Frantz has extensive experience applying insights from behavioral research to create positive behavior change in individuals and communities for a variety of environmentally sustainable projects. The overarching goal of her professional work is to help drive transformation towards a more sustainable future for everyone.
Frantz directs the Community Based Social Marketing Research Lab at Oberlin College, a collaborative research program to develop, test, and promote student, faculty and staff behavior change programs that reduce Oberlin College’s carbon emissions. The lab’s mission is to promote sustainable behavior on campus. She plays a central role in assessment activities at the Lab to ensure that the predicted outcomes of the project are rigorously evaluated and approaches improved.
Oberlin College is known for its commitment to sustainability — it was one of the first institutions in higher education to sign the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). It is also the home base for Environmental Dashboard, an electronic monitoring system, developed by students and professors at the College, that measures resource use (electricity, water and solar) in buildings and cities, collecting data that can inform decision making.
The city of Oberlin is home to the Oberlin Food Hub, a food wholesale and retail business that is sourced by local and regional farmers in a seven-county region that sells to organizations (e.g., hotels, grocery stores), individuals and public schools that are interested in purchasing local food. The Hub was incubated at the College to stimulate the local food economy and contribute to food security in the region.
To successfully achieve Oberlin’s stated goal of carbon neutrality by 2025, the city and college’s Climate Action Plan describes a number of infrastructural and technological improvements that must be made, estimating that at least 10 percent of carbon reductions will come from changes in behavior in the local population. This will require the development of a community culture that embodies sustainability at every level and Frantz is one of the central professionals involved in this mission at the college.
