How we talk about the climate crisis: Ecosystem approaches to health, the climate and narratives

Developed by CoPEH-Canada

Objectives

• To increase student awareness of the direct and indirect health impacts of the climate crisis.
• To provide a framework for students to approach and talk about climate and health challenges.
• Ecosystem approaches to health as framework
• To enhance understanding and empathy for climate realities through narratives.
• To inspire students to consider applying the principles and narratives to their practice through action and speaking out.

Welcome, Overview

Where have you encountered ecosystems, climate and health?

Photo: Jena Webb

Encounters

“Like the river itself, Houle’s The Grand River Watershed suggests how seemingly jumbled, separate parts in fact exist in a web of relationships. For Houle, the best hope we have of comprehending the complexities of a phenomenon like the Grand River is rooted in our accumulated encounters with, and our collective articulation of, the river’s countless aspects over time, not in any one measurable part or moment of it.”

Houle, 2019

“Climate change is often described as a “wicked problem.” One of its wickedest aspects is that it may require us to abandon some of our most treasured ideas about political virtue: for example, “be the change that you want to see.” What we need instead is to find a way out of the individualizing imaginary in which we are trapped.

When future generations look back on the Great Derangement they will certainly blame leaders and politicians of this time for their failure to address the climate crisis. But they may well hold artists and writers to be equally culpable - for the imagining of possibilities is not, after all, the job of politicians and bureaucrats.”

-Amitav Ghosh, 2016

The Great Derangement

p. 135

Climate Change is a reality

• Consensus among scientists that climate change is real and human caused
• The Synthesis Report (SYR) of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) provides an overview of the state of knowledge concerning the science of climate change (2023)
• Special reports on Oceans, Land and Cities

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https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-cycle/

Climate Crisis: an environmental issue

• Climate ‘change’ has been seen as a threat primarily to ecosystems.

Image: Andreas Weith,  Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

Climate Crisis: a human issue

• Both the scientific literature (Romanello et al., 2023) and traditional media are pivoting to place greater emphasis on the human impacts of the climate emergency.

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Climate Crisis: a human AND ecosystem issue

• Challenge is to not lose sight of the impacts of the climate crisis on ecosystems and wildlife
• AND the impacts that deteriorating ecosystems will have on us
• In addition to the direct impacts of the climate crisis on human health

HEALTH IMPACTS OF THE CLIMATE CRISIS

Direct and indirect, vice versa

Climate and health: direct impacts

• Extreme weather conditions (storms, heatwaves): In 2018, there were 831 climate-related extreme events and a record ­breaking 220 million additional exposures to extremes of heat (Watts et al. 2019)
• Wildfires -> ↓air quality, asthma, damage to property
• Air pollution -> damages to heart, lungs, and every other vital organ

Photo: Hurricane Helene, 2024

Climate and health: indirect impacts

• Food production and food security decreases -> undernutrition
• Increased diarrhoeal disease (e.g. longer season for Vibrio)
• Increased vector borne diseases (e.g. Globally, Dengue; Locally Lyme reaching farther north)
• Neglected diseases of poverty (water related e.g. dysentery and scabies)

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Climate and health: indirect impacts

• Migration
• Poverty exacerbation
• Violent conflict
• Mental illness
• Stress
• Ecoanxiety/solastalgia
• Overburdened health care system
• Work hours lost (e.g. due to heat)

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Photo: Nicolas Mainville

Health care: impacts

• Health care sector is responsible for 4-6% of global greenhouse gas emissions (Watts et al. 2019)
• Health care becomes both a healing process and complicit in aggravating health problems related to the climate crisis
• Health care also contributes significantly to pollution through provisioning and waste management practices (Ali et al. 2017), especially in LMICs
• Health Care Climate Challenge http://healthcareclimatechallenge.org/

Photo: Mstyslav Chernov, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Climate and health activity

Suggestions:

• The negotiating health activity presented in the CoPEH-Canada health module can be adapted for a climate example
• Inspiration could be taken from Carpenter and Dinno’s (2024) roleplay exercise based on Octavia Butler’s story “Speech Sounds” described in Episode 4: “Doing” Science Fiction & Public Health of their podcast series.

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ECOSYSTEM APPROACHES TO HEALTH AND THE CLIMATE CRISIS

Transdisciplinarity, Social and Gender Equity, (Ecosystem) Sustainability, Complexity and Systems Thinking, Participation, Knowledge to Action

Summary

Ecosystem approaches to health demand a view of humans as nested within ecosystems, calls for integrated consideration of environmental and social factors, and highlights system characteristics such as complexity, emergence, and feedback loops

Ecosystem approaches to health and wicked problems

To answer the questions raised by complex and wicked problems at the intersection of health, environment and society, such as the climate crisis.

Because we have to abandon the quest for simple solutions to complex problems.

Because complex problems are systemic problems.

Rittel and Webber, 1973

ECOSYSTEM APPROACHES TO HEALTH AND THE CLIMATE CRISIS

Transdisciplinarity, Social and Gender Equity, (Ecosystem) Sustainability, Complexity and Systems Thinking, Participation, Knowledge to Action

Climate crisis and health from a transdisciplinarity perspective

• The coming together of people with different points of reference and frameworks around a common issue:
• “A transdisciplinary approach enables researchers from different disciplines and key actors to develop a common vision, while preserving the richness and strength of their respective areas of knowledge.” (Lebel, 2003:13)
• Often, certain reference points are privileged…

CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) and is freely available online at http://lj.uwpress.org

Climate crisis and health from a transdisciplinarity perspective

• Transdisciplinarity is a complex response to a complex system, such as climate.
• It enables a better understanding of wicked problems and, as a result, the identification of relevant and sustainable interventions.

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Image: David Ing, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Pohl and Hirsh Hadorn; 2008: St-Cyr-Bouchard et al. 2014; Wright et al. 2015

Etuaptmumk/Two-eyed seeing

• In Elder Albert Marshall's words "Two-Eyed Seeing refers to learning to see from one eye with the strengths of Indigenous ways of knowing and from the other eye with the strengths of Western ways of knowing and to using both of these eyes together” (Bartlett, Marshall, & Marshall, 2012, p. 335).  

Etuaptmumk/Two-Eyed Seeing 

The gift of multiple perspectives:

“The kneeling figures are a gentle reminder that, from this vulnerable position, you cannot be seen as a threat, and rather a humble servant, learning from other perspectives, overcoming the notion that humans are superior, seeing we are all intimately connected, and honouring the sacredness of the world, our home.”  

(Elder Albert Marshall, Unama’ki, Mi'kmaq Territory, Nova Scotia, Canada)

http://www.integrativescience.ca/Principles/ExchangeOfStories/

Climate crisis and health from a transdisciplinarity perspective: focus-narratives

• Integrating narratives into natural science, social science, education, legal or policy practices/research on ecosystems and health is in and of itself transdisciplinary
• Further, many books integrate multiple perspectives in a transdisciplinary exercise.
• For example, Houle’s poetry collection weaves history and scientific citations into verse.

Houle, 2019

Climate crisis and health from a transdisciplinarity perspective: focus-narratives

Why narratives?

• As a way to engage with ethics
• Inquiry into the meaning of change
• Empathy/emotional response
• Diverse voices, including the more-than-human
• Keen observations
• Research required to write a convincing story
• Solution-focused potential

Raghavendran et Wood, 2023; Bal & Veltcamp, 2013; Kuchta, 2022; Van Beek and Versteeg, 2023; Kaur, 2023

Climate crisis and health from a transdisciplinarity perspective: focus-narratives

Why narratives?

• Collective nature of storytelling, antidote to individualism
• Broaden plausible climate futures for policy analysis
• Potential to spur readers into action
• As a way to handle complexity, especially relational complexity
• As a methodology or framework

Image: Lyza; CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Raghavendran et Wood, 2023; Bal & Veltcamp, 2013; Kuchta, 2022; Van Beek and Versteeg, 2023;

Kaur, 2023; Marić et al., forthcoming

NARRATIVES ON TRANSDISCIPLINARITY AND CLIMATE

Illustrations and reflections

• In the novella A Psalm for the Wild-built, the main character, Dex, meets a robot, Mosscap, in a post-climate crisis world in which humans and robots have gone separate ways.
• The robot has been tasked by its community to figure out “What humans need,” a question that the human finds near impossible to answer.
• The human guides the robot through their sustainable world.

Chambers, 2021

Illustrations and reflections

In the novella A Psalm for the Wild-built, the main character meets a robot in a post-climate crisis world in which humans and robots have gone separate ways.

• In what ways do the hurdles that the two main characters have in understanding each other resemble transdisciplinary encounters?
• What can we learn from the way that the human and the robot navigate their encounter?

Chambers, 2021

Illustrations and reflections

• In the novel Flight Behaviour, climate change shifts the wintering grounds of monarch butterflies to Tennessee and multiple stakeholders get involved.
• The poor farmer who discovers them interacts with migrants from the monarchs’ original wintering grounds in Mexico, faith leaders, loggers, aspiring tourist guides and scientists, each with vested interests in the land and the phenomenon, all while navigating her life as a mother.

Kingsolver, 2013

Illustrations and reflections

In the novel Flight Behaviour, climate change shifts the wintering grounds of monarch butterflies to Tennessee and multiple stakeholders get involved.

• How does each actor (scientist, journalist, farmer, church) come at the event from a different angle?
• How do the ecologist and the local farmer who discovered the flock work together to discover why?
• What barriers do they face in their collaboration?

Kingsolver, 2013

Transdisciplinarity activity

Suggestions:

• If you are carrying out the book club activity described in CoPEH-Canada’s Narratives module, you could hold the discussion here.
• Play the The 1975's song "The 1975" (featuring Greta Thunberg) (you can find it on spotify or youtube). Discuss the merit of mixing arts and climate messages.
• Provide arts materials and ask the learners to create a work reflecting health and climate.
• Have the learners compose a poem on health and climate.

ECOSYSTEM APPROACHES TO HEALTH AND THE CLIMATE CRISIS

Transdisciplinarity, Social and Gender Equity, (Ecosystem) Sustainability, Complexity and Systems Thinking, Participation, Knowledge to Action

Climate crisis and health from an equity perspective

• Inequality influences people’s exposure to climate related risks (storms, vector-borne diseases, infections) through poor health, limited infrastructure, and ecosystem degradation
• Intersectionality
• Strength-based approach

Manderson, 2018

Image: Emerik Mainville, 9 ans

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Climate crisis and health from an equity perspective

Postal code influences health status

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Image 1: Rouyn Noranda, Québec (La fonderie Horne by poilaumenton; CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)

Image 2: Tar sands, Alberta (photo (cc) Dru Oja Jay, Dominion; CC BY 2.0)

Image 3: BC forest fire (CC0 1.0)

Climate crisis and health from an equity perspective: focus-gender equity

“Climate change is especially bad for women, largely because they are overrepresented among the world’s poor and are thus more exposed to these dangers. What’s more, climate change will itself make it harder for people to escape poverty.”

Manderson, 2018,

Image: UN Women/Mohammad Rakibul Hasan, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/

Climate crisis and health from an equity perspective: focus-gender equity

• Women are more likely to be exposed to mosquito-borne diseases through their daily activities (e.g. water collection and food harvesting)
• Women typically provide care, which increases exposure and also erodes their economic productivity.

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Manderson, 2018

Climate crisis and health from an equity perspective: focus-gender equity

• Food insecurity disproportionately affects women and girls:
•  Greater requirements than men and boys for some nutrients,
• Sometimes culturally women eat last,
• Women will more likely forego other essential items such as medicines, to feed their family.

Manderson, 2018,

Image: Amazon Frontlines

Climate crisis and health from an equity perspective: focus-gender equity

• Women are most often responsible for water collection
• As sources become scarce or contaminated, they have to go further distances to collect water, which is:
• physically damaging, and
• reduces women’s participation in income-generating activities and education
• Alternately, women use financial resources to buy safe water

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Manderson, 2018, Carney et al. 2020, IUCN, 2020, (Wright et al., 2018)

Image: Amazon Frontlines

Climate crisis and health from an equity perspective: focus-gender equity

• Violence against women and girls increases under situations of social disruption and environmental degradation.

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Carney et al. 2020, IUCN, 2020

Climate crisis and health from an equity perspective: focus-gender equity

• Women are at the forefront of community land-defense and climate justice initiatives
• Josephine Mandamin, “Grandmother Water Walker,” was a Anishinabek Nation Chief Water Commissioner and world-renowned water-rights activist
• Autumn Peltier follows in Mandamin’s footsteps and is a leading global youth environmental activist
• Mères au front is a Québec based climate activist group led by mothers, grandmothers and allies.
• And so, so many more…

Photo: Nicolas Mainville Mères au front vigil, 2020, Rosemère, Québec (banner translation: “For our children’s future”)

NARRATIVES ON CLIMATE JUSTICE

Illustrations and reflections

• In the novel What Strange Paradise, a boy, the sole survivor of a capsized boat of climate refugees, washes up on a southern European Island.
• The refugees are fleeing a war, but the boy’s father points out that all wars are based on scarcity and their scarcity was bought on by drought.
• Another character likens people to either engines or fuel: some people will only ever be fuel in the eyes of the engines.
• The way the refugees are boarded, with the darker-skinned people blow decks, is an example of lateral violence.

El Akkad, 2021

Illustrations and reflections

In the novel What Strange Paradise, a boy, the sole survivor of a capsized boat of climate refugees, washes up on a southern European Island.

• On the boat, Maher says “You thought away was enough. But it’s not. It never is” (p.124) suggesting that the migrants will be unsuccessful in their efforts to find a better life. What do you think of this statement?
• The author has said that climate “is a load-bearing beam of being human” (like grief). Discuss in the context of the book.

El Akkad, 2021, London Public Library, 2024; Raghavendran et Wood, 2023

Illustrations and reflections

• In the novel Salvage the Bones, a poor, motherless, Black family in Mississippi prepares for the arrival of hurricane Katrina.
• Their struggle is juxtaposed against the relative ease of their White neighbours.
• The main character, Esch, a teenage girl, navigates not only the racial injustice of poverty, but also the hardships of being pregnant in a climate-related extreme weather event.

Ward, 2012

Illustrations and reflections

In the novel Salvage the Bones, a poor, motherless, Black family in Mississippi prepares for the arrival of hurricane Katrina.

• How has racial and class inequity impacted the Batiste family’s vulnerability to hurricane Katrina and the scope of their coping mechanisms?
• In what ways does the book point to the inequity between contributions to greenhouse gas emissions and impacts?
• How does the fact that Esch is facing her pregnancy alone influence her experience?

Ward, 2012

Equity activities

Suggestions:

• Adaptation of Activity 1: Introductions Through Sharing Positionality in CoPEH-Canada’s Decolonization, Equity + Climate Transformation module (adapt this activity so that it is not an introduction, but a sharing of a place)
• From the same module:
• Activity 2: Current State - The Reality of the Climate Crisis
• Activity 3: How Did We Get Here? Examining the values, structures, and systems that got us here
• Activity 4: Decolonial, Equity, and Climate Transformation in Action, Individual Reflections (Journaling Exercise)

ECOSYSTEM APPROACHES TO HEALTH AND THE CLIMATE CRISIS

Transdisciplinarity, Social and Gender Equity, (Ecosystem) Sustainability, Complexity and Systems Thinking, Participation, Knowledge to Action

Climate crisis and health from an ecosystem sustainability perspective

Climate crisis and health from an ecosystem sustainability perspective

Climate crisis and health from an ecosystem perspective: focus-green spaces

• The interconnectedness of human health, more-than-human health, ecosystems and climate create opportunities and challenges
• Opportunity to promote the simultaneous health and climate benefits of green spaces
• Natural/green/blue spaces are threatened by urbanisation, industry and resource extraction

Photo: Jena Webb

Climate crisis and health from an ecosystem perspective: focus-green spaces

Urbanisation:

• Urban sprawl -> fewer green spaces
• Densification -> green spaces farther away
• Increased risk to green spaces posed by infection, pollution, and bad management
• Vulnerability to climate change and extreme weather
• Decreased water quality
• Obesity, cardiovascular disease, allergy, inflammatory diseases, and depression
• Gentrification and equity

Climate crisis and health from an ecosystem perspective: focus-green spaces

Green spaces can:

• Mitigate climate change by capturing carbon
• Decrease vulnerability to climate change (water retention, cooling effect, etc.)
• Purify the air, water
• Increase food sovereignty
• Slow down biodiversity loss
• Provide spaces to be active
• Positive impact on mental health
• Invigorate communities

Target of the Kunming-Montréal Global Biodiversity Framework

30% protected area by 2030

https://www.cbd.int/gbf

Climate crisis and health from an ecosystem perspective: rights

Human health

• Right to a Healthy Environment, Canadian Environmental Protection Act
• La Rose et al. v Her Majesty

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Ecosystems

• Countries have given personhood to rivers - Ecuador, New Zealand, Colombia, movement in Québec (Saint-Lawrence)
• Ecocide a crime in 10 countries
• Movement to make it an international crime

Photo: Enoch Leung, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

NARRATIVES ON ECOSYSTEMS AND CLIMATE

Illustrations and reflections

• In the creative nonfiction book Ice Walker, Nanu, a polar bear, struggles to survive in the changing arctic.
• Through a full year we journey with Nanu as she hunts, nests, and navigates rising temperatures.
• After a first pregnancy that yields stillbirths due to a deficient diet, Nanu gives birth to two pups.
• Nanu teaches her young how to survive on the ice…what is left of it.

Raffan, 2020

Illustrations and reflections

In the creative nonfiction book Ice Walker, Nanu, a polar bear, struggles to survive in the changing arctic.

• How much did you know about the land on which the book takes places before reading the book? Does the story change your perception of life on that land and the plight of the people and animals who live there?
• Did the author argue that animals, ecosystems and humans are interconnected? How? Is a historic relationship of interconnection shown, and if so, how?
• How does the ecosystem (or components of it, in this case snow and ice) become a character in the story?

Raffan, 2020

Illustrations and reflections

• In the memoir Life in the City of Dirty Water, Clayton Thomas-Müller tells his story of becoming an Indigenous climate activist and of healing.
• From a childhood of abuse stemming from the residential school system, through various ecosystems ravaged by oil and gas extraction, Thomas-Müller looks towards our strengths, the land and love to move past anger in order to live up to our responsibility to the Earth.

Thomas-Müller, 2022

Illustrations and reflections

In the memoir Life in the City of Dirty Water, Clayton Thomas-Müller tells his story of becoming an Indigenous climate activist and of healing.

• How are strengths based on connection to the land balanced with anger at their destruction in this memoir?
• Part of this memoir takes place in urban spaces. What differences did you notice about Thomas-Müller’s telling of his time on the land and in cities.

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Thomas-Müller, 2022

Ecosystem sustainability activity

Suggestions:

• Do one of the activities in the CoPEH-Canada module ‘Upstream is a place’
• If going outside is not possible, watch one of the videos in the notes and discuss
• Kuchta (2022) provides three activities based on the wild pedagogies movement to combine with classes on ecocriticism: Sensory engagement, Deep listening, and Cosmology diary.

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ECOSYSTEM APPROACHES TO HEALTH AND THE CLIMATE CRISIS

Transdisciplinarity, Social and Gender Equity, (Ecosystem) Sustainability, Complexity and Systems Thinking, Participation, Knowledge to Action

Climate crisis and health from a complexity and systems thinking perspective

Summary

• Conceptualizes poor health and health inequalities as emergent properties of a complex system of interdependent factors
• Encourages a shift in thinking away from simple, linear, causal models toward understanding the processes of adaptation and systems change

Climate crisis and health from a complexity and systems thinking perspective

Climate crisis and health from a complexity and systems thinking perspective

Complicated

• Several elements whose arrangement is difficult to understand, but which can be disassembled and reassembled.
• E.g.: assembling an aircraft or a solar plant is complicated
• A model (plan) can be used to assemble, disassemble and reassemble.

Complex

• Several elements whose arrangement is difficult to understand, and which cannot be disassembled and reassembled
• Ex. The arrangement of vegetables in a salad, bringing up children, climate, etc.
• A model (theory) is used to understand the phenomenon and guide action.

Photos: Activ Solar, CC BY-SA 2.0

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center from Greenbelt, MD, USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Vertical block diagram

RCraig09, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Spaghetti diagram

Climate crisis, health and complexity: focus-extreme weather and displacement

Climate crisis, health and complexity: focus-extreme weather and displacement

Climate crisis, health and complexity: focus-extreme weather and displacement

NARRATIVES ON COMPLEXITY AND CLIMATE

Illustrations and reflections

• In the novel Greenwood, an event in the near future, called the ‘Great Withering,’ a fungal blight, has decimated forests and threatens the climate.
• The book traces a family’s relationship to trees back through four generations.
• We then move again to the future through the four generations like the rings of a tree.
• Trees, forests and families are woven together in a complex story with twists.

Christie, 2020

Illustrations and reflections

In the novel Greenwood, an event in the near future, called the ‘Great Withering,’ a fungal blight, has decimated forests and threatens the climate.

• How is the ‘Great Withering’ both a cause and an effect? What feedback loops are involved?
• How does history weave into these complex webs?
• In what ways are trees, forests and families all systems?

Christie, 2020

Illustrations and reflections

• In the novel The Fifth Season, tectonic events plunge a world into perpetual dark season and humans with the power to control underground movements, Orogenes, have been enslaved.
• Population numbers have plummeted and everyone is trying to survive the eternal winter.
• The main character, an orogen, is on the run, trying to find her lost daughter and hiding her special powers.

Jemisin, 2016

Illustrations and reflections

In the novel The Fifth Season, tectonic events plunge a world into perpetual winter and humans with the power to control underground movements have been enslaved.

• Author N.K. Jemisin has built an immensely complex world. Discuss.
• In what ways are talking about similarly complex events in other worlds beneficial for our understanding and engagement with climate issues?

Jemisin, 2016

Climate crisis, health and complexity: activity

Activity

• Ask the students to draw a spaghetti diagram on large paper in groups. You can make four groups each with a different focus: health and either floods, storms, drought or wildfires
• Make a spaghetti diagram together as a group on this Miro page. Use the mouse to move (scroll) to a new part of the canvas. Title your diagram and indicate who created it. Have a look at the other maps that have been made, but don’t modify them. Take a picture of your diagram once you are done (in case it gets modified or deleted by accident).

Climate crisis, health and complexity: activity

• The bus methodology or the SMDR compass are good tools for discussing the complexity of our responses to the climate crises:
• https://decolonialfutures.net/portfolio/the-bus/
• “ if we cannot sit with our own complexity and indeterminacy, we will not be able to sit with the complexity and indeterminacy of the world around us.”
• https://decolonialfutures.net/notes-on-the-smdr-compass/
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ECOSYSTEM APPROACHES TO HEALTH AND THE CLIMATE CRISIS

Transdisciplinarity, Social and Gender Equity, (Ecosystem) Sustainability, Complexity and Systems Thinking, Participation, Knowledge to Action

Climate crisis and health from a participation perspective

“[W]e have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.”

ENCYCLICAL LETTER

LAUDATO SI’

OF THE HOLY FATHER

FRANCIS

ON CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME

2015

Rio Declaration, 1992

Climate crisis and health from a participation perspective

Success factors

• Common purpose
• Focus on strengths and opportunities (not challenges and barriers)
• Listening
• The community as project lead

Waorani women drawing map of their territory, Photo: Amazon Frontlines

Climate crisis and health from a participation perspective

• The participation paradox:
• Not a neutral context
• Rarely apolitical
• Power relations recognised, but rarely resolved
• Lack of direct link between >information and >action
• Discussions about participation are normative, rarely operational

Hügel and Davies (2020)

Climate crisis and health from a participation perspective: Storytelling

• Digital storytelling (3 to 5 minutes)
• Complementarity between ecohealth and Indigenous holistic approaches
• Culturally appropriate approach
• Reversal of power dynamics
• Constant validation
• Scale

Climate crisis and health from a participation perspective: Gender

Jost et al., 2014

Climate crisis and health from a participation perspective: Multi-stakeholder forums

How to increase participation?

1. Importance of commitment (to the people, the process and its aims);
2. Inclusion of civil servants and other people responsible for implementation (of on-site intervention);
3. Openness to listening to stakeholders;
4. Design and implementation of processes capable of adapting with the necessary time and resources.

Sarmiento Barletti et al. 2020

Climate crisis and health from a participation perspective: Adaptive Pathways

• Adaptive Pathways (AP) planning is designed to manage complexity and uncertainty (magnitude, speed of change), but not ambiguity.
• Ambiguity cannot be resolved with more information, but rather with dialogue
• The ‘how’ is as important as the ‘what.’

Bosomworth and Gaillard (2019).

Image: Minneapolis 2040; CC BY-SA 2.0

Climate crisis and health from a participation perspective: Adaptive Pathways

Adaptive Pathways (AP)

• Inclusion of diverse voices
• Framing the issue
• Developing and using scenarios
• Identification of thresholds
• Identification of ‘courses of action
• Time and resources

Image: Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun (b. 1957), New Climate Landscape (Northwest Coast Climate Change); CC BY-ND 4.0

NARRATIVES ON PARTICIPATION AND CLIMATE

Illustrations and reflections

• In the novel The Ministry For the Future, a near-future UN body is charged with creating programmes to protect future generations.
• A heat wave that kills millions in India changes the course of climate action.
• Policy and technological solutions are explored through the eyes of their inventors.
• The impacts of climate deregulation are also seen from the point of view of people suffering through them.

Robinson, 2020

Illustrations and reflections

In the novel The Ministry For the Future, a near-future UN body is charged with creating programmes to protect future generations.

• In what other arenas have you seen the “voiceless” given a say? How?
• In what contexts do we consider future generations? When?
• How does the structure of the book, in which vignettes from a number of people provide different perspectives, help us understand the climate crisis?

Robinson, 2020

Illustrations and reflections

• In the novel Empire of Wild, a character is manipulated to provide religious events that double as forums for convincing Indigenous communities to accept a pipeline in their territory.
• An argument between Joan, a Métis woman, and her husband, Victor, breaks out over what to do with the land she inherited on the Georgian Bay.
• Victor disappears and while looking for him Joan discovers a mysterious and corrupt world.

Dimaline, 2017

Illustrations and reflections

In the novel Empire of Wild, a character is manipulated to provide religious events that double as forums for convincing Indigenous communities to accept a pipeline in their territory.

• Can you think of examples where this is not fiction but fact?
• What does this narrative say about the “participatory” process?
• What safeguards can be put in place to ensure that participation is not corrupted?

Dimaline, 2017

Participation activities

Suggestions:

• Activities 2 (Schematic diagram of concerns) and 3 (Negotiating participation) in our Implementing Participation module can be built around a climate crisis case study

ECOSYSTEM APPROACHES TO HEALTH AND THE CLIMATE CRISIS

Transdisciplinarity, Social and Gender Equity, (Ecosystem) Sustainability, Complexity and Systems Thinking, Participation, Knowledge to Action

Climate crisis and health from an Knowledge to Action perspective

“ [The] simultaneous consideration of how societal contexts influence scientific knowledge production, and how the resulting knowledge can be better applied to protect the health of communities facing environmental injustice.” (Brisebois et al. 2017)

Climate crisis and health from a Knowledge to Action perspective

• The relationship between knowledge and action is not unidirectional.
• Simply disseminating/translating scientific knowledge does not generally lead to action.
• Implementing action is just as complex as the issue itself:
• At what scale should action be taken (ecological, administrative, temporal)?
• What global effect could local action have (and vice versa)?

Climate crisis and health from a Knowledge to Action perspective

How to design sustainable interventions:

• Look for opportunities to increase sustainability rather than simply reducing negative impacts
• Pay attention to the links between different aspects of an intervention
• Think about scale: local, regional, national, global
• Respect the context of the setting
• Anticipate the unexpected by working flexibility and adaptability into the intervention
• Explicitly name compromises
• Look for co-benefits
• Work of systemic/root causes

Climate crisis and health from a Knowledge to Action perspective

Compound solutions, or interventions with co-benefits, are adapted to complex, or wicked problems.

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Webb, 2022

Climate crisis and health from a Knowledge to Action perspective

Webb, 2022

Climate crisis and health from a Knowledge to Action perspective: focus-youth

Globally, young people have become politically active and are demonstrating that they are uniquely effective at generating public attention and mobilizing social movements which pressure decision makers to take political decisions to avert the climate crisis.

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Lawson et al., 2018; Sabherwal et al., 2021

Climate crisis and health from a Knowledge to Action perspective: focus-youth

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This generation is advancing equity-oriented change and harnessing technology to build collaborative and coordinated actions which connect social and environmental justice issues in ways not as rigorously understood by previous generations.

Huttunen & Albrecht, 2021; Trott, 2022

Climate crisis and health from a Knowledge to Action perspective: focus-youth

For climate change and biodiversity efforts, intergenerational approaches have the potential to create novel pathways for transformation as key stakeholders, decision makers and experts can work together to accelerate climate actions which are characterized by long term commitments to achieving equitable futures as imagined through the Sustainable Development Goals, the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, and the COP26.

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Dennis, 2021

Photo: Jena Webb, 2019 climate march, Lago Agrio, Ecuador

NARRATIVES ON KNOWLEDGE-TO-ACTION & CLIMATE

Illustrations and reflections

• In the novel The Marrow Thieves, a métis boy, struggling to survive in a world devastated by climate change, meets a group of Indigenous people fleeing marrow harvesting.
• As he travels with them he listens to Story and learns the history of their people and the world they now live in.
• He becomes involved in an operation to rescue their storyteller who has been kidnapped for marrow.

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Illustrations and reflections

In the novel The Marrow Thieves, a métis boy, struggling to survive in a world devastated by climate change, meets a group of Indigenous people fleeing marrow harvesting.

• What role does Story play in the main character’s development?
• What knowledge is transmitted through the encounters?
• How does this knowledge contribute to him taking action?

Illustrations and reflections

• In the alternate history novel The Future, a group of children living in French speaking Detroit try to eek out a living despite ecosystem breakdown.
• Meanwhile a grandmother comes looking for her grandchildren and finds a community of people ready to help each other.
• In the final section, the group of children and adults meet and work out a tenuous, mutually beneficial relationship.

Illustrations and reflections

In the alternate history novel The Future, a group of children living in French speaking Detroit try to eek out a living despite ecosystem breakdown.

• How is this book similar to and how is it different from the classic The Lord of the Flies?
• What elements help people collaborate toward solutions in the book?
• What does the imperative of ‘having a future’ mean for action?

Knowledge to Action activities

Suggestions:

• Climate Action Venn Diagram, Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
• Create Breakout rooms and challenge groups to choose an ACTION that could be used to reduce the health impacts of forest fires - in your specific context (local, regional, national/international).
• position the “action” along the spectrum from discredit to disrupt (see Plamondon, 2020)
• identify barriers to implementation of this action and generate ideas to overcome them.
• Reporting back: What is your action, how did it rank on the equity spectrum? Describe one main barrier and solutions to overcome that barrier

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How we talk about climate - spheres

• Natural sciences
• Health sciences
• Social sciences
• Journalism
• Law
• Economy
• Spirituality
• Traditional knowledge
• Arts and humanities
• Education
• In our networks

Image: CoPEH-Canada course, UQAM, 2022

Webb et al., 2023

Storytelling

How we talk about climate - solutions

• Less than 3% of climate coverage in the media discusses solutions
• Ecoanxiety, solastalgia (ecogrief), climate-doomism
• Evidence-based hope
• the power of our mindsets to shape reality,
• the resilience of nature, and
• the transformative possibilities of individual and collective action
• Activism
• protection against negative feelings associated with climate crisis
• part of the solution to the climate crisis
• Links between polycrises: climate, biodiversity, pollution, land rights/use
• Decolonisation as a meta-solution

Kelsey, 2020; Webb, 2022

UN Interconnected Disaster Risks report: Turning Over a New Leaf

Rethink waste: From trash to treasure

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Realign with nature: From separation to harmony

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Reconsider responsibility: From me to we

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Reimagine the future: From seconds to centuries

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Redefine value: From economic wealth to planetary health

Speaking out and taking action

• Activity 3: Writing and sharing HealthPunk short stories (in CoPEH-Canada module Transversal activities, narratives)
• Activity 2: The network of actors involved in a particular health issue…and elucidating the influence of its structure on efforts to mobilize (in CoPEH-Canada module ‘Working with Partners for a Healthy Environment’)
• Role playing games such as Activity 1: Define and negotiate health (in CoPEH-Canada module ‘Health - from multiple perspectives to an ecosystem approach’)
• Climate Action Venn Diagram, Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

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Where have you encountered ecosystems, climate and health?

“The best arguments in the world won’t change a person’s mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.”

- Richard Powers

The Overstory (p.336)

MERCI! THANK YOU

Contact us: copehcanada@gmail.com

References

• Ali, M., W. Wang, N. Chaudhry and Y. Geng (2017). "Hospital waste management in developing countries: A mini review." Waste Management & Research 35(6): 581-592.
• Bal, P. Matthijs et Veltkamp, Martijn. (2013). How Does Fiction Reading Influence Empathy? An Experimental Investigation on the Role of Emotional Transportation. PLoS ONE, 8(1), e55341. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0055341
• Bartlett, Cheryl, Marshall, Murdena et Marshall, Albert. (2012). Two-Eyed Seeing and other lessons learned within a co-learning journey of bringing together indigenous and mainstream knowledges and ways of knowing. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 2(4), 331‑340. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-012-0086-8
• Bratu, Andreea, Card, Kiffer G., Closson, Kalysha, Aran, Niloufar, Marshall, Carly, Clayton, Susan, Gislason, Maya K., Samji, Hasina, Martin, Gina, Lem, Melissa, Logie, Carmen H., Takaro, Tim K. et Hogg, Robert S. (2022). The 2021 Western North American heat dome increased climate change anxiety among British Columbians: Results from a natural experiment. The Journal of Climate Change and Health, 6, 100116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joclim.2022.100116
• Brisbois, B., & Shmelev, S. (2017). Ecosystem approaches to health and knowledge-to-action: Towards a political ecology of applied health-environment knowledge. Journal of Political Ecology, 24(1). https://doi.org/10.2458/v24i1.20961
• Carney, et al. (2020). Gender-based violence and environment linkages Gender-based violence and environment linkages : the violence of inequality; IUCN, Geneva
• Cai, Wenjia, Zhang, Chi, Zhang, Shihui, Bai, Yuqi, Callaghan, Max, Chang, Nan, Chen, Bin, Chen, Huiqi, Cheng, Liangliang, Cui, Xueqin, Dai, Hancheng, Danna, Bawuerjiang, Dong, Wenxuan, Fan, Weicheng, Fang, Xiaoyi, Gao, Tong, Geng, Yang, Guan, Dabo, Hu, Yixin, … Gong, Peng. (2022). The 2022 China report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: leveraging climate actions for healthy ageing. The Lancet Public Health, 7(12), e1073‑e1090. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(22)00224-9

References Cont’d

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• Dennis, B., Kaplan, S., Bellack, M., Patel, K., & Adam, K. (2021). At COP26, 100,000 march for climate justice. The Washington Post.
• Doucette, M.B. et Castleden, H. (2023). Storywork in Action for Collaborative Planning: CEPI Two-Eyed Organizing . Scopus. Dans A World Scientific Encyclopedia of Business Storytelling Set 1 (In 5 Volumes): Corporate and Business Strategies of Business Storytelling (p. 121‑142). https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811273513_0006
• Les meilleurs arguments du monde ne feront pas changer d'avis une personne. La seule chose qui puisse le faire est une bonne histoire.
• Gislason, Maya K. (2015). Climate change, health and infectious disease. Virulence, 6(6), 539‑542. https://doi.org/10.1080/21505594.2015.1059560
• Gislason, Maya K., Morgan, Vanessa Sloan, Mitchell-Foster, Kendra et Parkes, Margot W. (2018). Voices from the landscape: Storytelling as emergent counter-narratives and collective action from northern BC watersheds. Health & Place, 54, 191‑199. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2018.08.024
• Gislason, M.K., Kennedy, A.M. et Witham, S.M. (2021). The interplay between social and ecological determinants of mental health for children and youth in the climate crisis. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(9). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18094573
• Huttunen, J., & Albrecht, E. (2021). The framing of environmental citizenship and youth participation in the Fridays for Future Movement in Finland. Fennia, 199(1).
• Jost, C., Ferdous, N. et Spicer, T. D. (2014). Gender and inclusion toolbox: participatory research in climate change and Agriculture. CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). https://cgspace.cgiar.org/bitstream/handle/10568/45955/CCAFS_Gender_Toolbox.pdf?sequence=7
• Kaur, R. (2023). Envisioning New Modes of Solidarity: Climate Change, Kinship, and the Uncanny in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island. Global South, 16(2), 114‑134. https://doi.org/10.2979/gbs.2023.a908605
• Kelsey, Elin. (2020). Hope matters: why changing the way we think is critical to solving the environmental crisis. Greystone Books.
• Kennedy, Angel M, et Maya K Gislason. « Intergenerational approaches to climate change mitigation for environmental and mental health co-benefits ». The Journal of Climate Change and Health 8 (2022): 100173.
• Kennedy, Angel M., Tsakonas, Kiera, Berman-Hatch, Forrest, Conradi, Sophia, Thaysen, Max, Gillespie, Manda Aufochs et Gislason, Maya K. (2024). Promoting community health and climate justice co-benefits: insights from a rural and remote island climate planning process. Frontiers in Public Health, 12, 1309186. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2024.1309186

References Cont’d

• Kuchta, Estella Carolye. (2022). Rewilding the Imagination: Teaching Ecocriticism in the Change Times. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 190‑206.
• Lawson, D. F., Stevenson, K. T., Peterson, M. N., Carrier, S. J., Strnad, R., & Seekamp, E. (2018). Intergenerational learning: Are children key in spurring climate action? Global Environmental Change, 53, 204–208.
• Lebel (2003) Health: An Ecosystem Approach. IDRC. Ottawa
• Manderson, L. (2018) Climate change, water and the spread of diseases: connecting the dots differently. The Conversation. Retreived Feb. 13 2020
• Nassauer, Joan Iverson. (2023). Transdisciplinarity and Boundary Work for Landscape Architecture Scholars. Landscape Journal, 42(1), 1‑11. https://doi.org/10.3368/lj.42.1.1
• Plamondon, K. M. (2020). A tool to assess alignment between knowledge and action for health equity. BMC Public Health, 20(1), 224.
• Prescott, Susan L., Logan, Alan C., Bristow, Jamie, Rozzi, Ricardo, Moodie, Rob, Redvers, Nicole, Haahtela, Tari, Warber, Sara, Poland, Blake, Hancock, Trevor et Berman, Brian. (2022). Exiting the Anthropocene: Achieving personal and planetary health in the 21st century. Allergy, 77(12), 3498‑3512. https://doi.org/10.1111/all.15419
• Raghavendran, R et Wood, M. (2023). Ep. 3. Omar El Akkad: A Story of Climate Change Refugees, Assimilation, and Identity. Podcast in Futureverse series.
• Rio Declaration (1992). Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, in the Report of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. UN Doc. A/CONF.151/26 (Vol. 1), 12 August 1992.
• Rittel, H. W. et Webber, M. (1973). Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning. Policy Sciences, 4, 155‑169.
• Romanello, Marina, Napoli, Claudia Di, Green, Carole, Kennard, Harry, Lampard, Pete, Scamman, Daniel, Walawender, Maria, Ali, Zakari, Ameli, Nadia, Ayeb-Karlsson, Sonja, Beggs, Paul J, Belesova, Kristine, Berrang Ford, Lea, Bowen, Kathryn, Cai, Wenjia, Callaghan, Max, Campbell-Lendrum, Diarmid, Chambers, Jonathan, Cross, Troy J, … Costello, Anthony. (2023). The 2023 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: the imperative for a health-centred response in a world facing irreversible harms. The Lancet, 402(10419), 2346‑2394. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)01859-7

References Cont’d

• Romanello, Marina, Walawender, Maria, Hsu, Shih-Che, Moskeland, Annalyse, Palmeiro-Silva, Yasna, Scamman, Daniel, Ali, Zakari, Ameli, Nadia, Angelova, Denitsa, Ayeb-Karlsson, Sonja, Basart, Sara, Beagley, Jessica, Beggs, Paul J, Blanco-Villafuerte, Luciana, Cai, Wenjia, Callaghan, Max, Campbell-Lendrum, Diarmid, Chambers, Jonathan D, Chicmana-Zapata, Victoria, … Costello, Anthony. (2024). The 2024 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: facing record-breaking threats from delayed action. The Lancet, 404(10465), 1847‑1896. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(24)01822-1
• Sabherwal, A., Ballew, M. T., van Der Linden, S., Gustafson, A., Goldberg, M. H., Maibach, E. W., Kotcher, J. E., Swim, J. K., Rosenthal, S. A., & Leiserowitz, A. (2021). The Greta Thunberg Effect: Familiarity with Greta Thunberg predicts intentions to engage in climate activism in the United States. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 51(4), 321–333.
• Trott, C. D. (2022). Climate change education for transformation: Exploring the affective and attitudinal dimensions of children’s learning and action. Environmental Education Research, 28(7), 1023–1042.
• Van Beek, L. et Versteeg, W. (2023). Plausibility in models and fiction: What integrated assessment modellers can learn from an interaction with climate fiction. Futures, 151. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2023.103195
• Watts, N., M. Amann, N. Arnell, S. Ayeb-Karlsson, K. Belesova, M. Boykoff, P. Byass, W. Cai, D. Campbell-Lendrum, S. Capstick, J. Chambers, C. Dalin, M. Daly, N. Dasandi, M. Davies, P. Drummond, R. Dubrow, K. L. Ebi, M. Eckelman, P. Ekins, L. E. Escobar, L. Fernandez Montoya, L. Georgeson, H. Graham, P. Haggar, I. Hamilton, S. Hartinger, J. Hess, I. Kelman, G. Kiesewetter, T. Kjellstrom, D. Kniveton, B. Lemke, Y. Liu, M. Lott, R. Lowe, M. O. Sewe, J. Martinez-Urtaza, M. Maslin, L. McAllister, A. McGushin, S. Jankin Mikhaylov, J. Milner, M. Moradi-Lakeh, K. Morrissey, K. Murray, S. Munzert, M. Nilsson, T. Neville, T. Oreszczyn, F. Owfi, O. Pearman, D. Pencheon, D. Phung, S. Pye, R. Quinn, M. Rabbaniha, E. Robinson, J. Rocklöv, J. C. Semenza, J. Sherman, J. Shumake-Guillemot, M. Tabatabaei, J. Taylor, J. Trinanes, P. Wilkinson, A. Costello, P. Gong and H. Montgomery (2019). "The 2019 report of The <em>Lancet</em> Countdown on health and climate change: ensuring that the health of a child born today is not defined by a changing climate." The Lancet 394(10211): 1836-1878.

References Cont’d

• Webb, J. (2022). From wicked problems to wicked, awesome solutions: Introducing compound solutions. CoPEH-Canada blogs. https://copeh-canada.org/en/about-us/blog/7-a-propos/392-compound-solutions.html
• Webb, Jena, Raez-Villanueva, Sergio, Carrière, Paul D, Beauchamp, Audrey-Anne, Bell, Isaac, Day, Angela, Elton, Sarah, Feagan, Mathieu, Giacinti, Jolene, Kabemba Lukusa, Jean Paul, Kingsbury, Celia, Torres-Slimming, Paola A, Bunch, Martin, Clow, Katie, Gislason, Maya K, Parkes, Margot W, Jane Parmley, E, Poland, Blake et Vaillancourt, Cathy. (2023). Transformative learning for a sustainable and healthy future through ecosystem approaches to health: insights from 15 years of co-designed ecohealth teaching and learning experiences. The Lancet Planetary Health, 7(1), e86‑e96. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(22)00305-9
• Weiler, Anelyse M., Hergesheimer, Chris, Brisbois, Ben, Wittman, Hannah, Yassi, Annalee et Spiegel, Jerry M. (2015). Food sovereignty, food security and health equity: a meta-narrative mapping exercise. Health Policy and Planning, 30(8), 1078‑1092. https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czu109
• Wright Morton, L., Eigenbrode, S. D. et Martin, T. A. (2015). Architectures of adaptive integration in large collaborative projects. Ecology and Society, 20(4), art5. doi: 10.5751/ES-07788-200405,
• Yates, S., Saint-Charles, J., Kêdoté, M.N. et Assogba, S.C.-G. (2020). Reducing air pollution in West Wright, Carlee J., Sargeant, Jan M., Edge, Victoria L., Ford, James D., Farahbakhsh, Khosrow, Shiwak, Inez, Flowers, Charlie, Gordon, Allan C. et Harper, Sherilee L. (2018). How are perceptions associated with water consumption in Canadian Inuit? A cross-sectional survey in Rigolet, Labrador. Science of The Total Environment, 618, 369‑378. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.10.255
• United Nations University – Institute for Environment and Human Security. (2025) Turning Over a New Leaf, Executive Summary. Interconnected Disaster Risks report.

Books cited

• Chambers, B. (2021). A Psalm for the Wild-Built (First Edition). Tordotcom, a Tom Doherty Associates Book.
• Christie, M. (2020). Greenwood (Paperback edition). McClelland & Stewart.
• Dimaline, C. (2017). The Marrow Thieves (Twenty-third printing). DCB, an imprint of Cormorant Books Inc.
• Dimaline, Cherie. (2019). Empire of Wild (Harper Collins).
• El Akkad, O. (2021). What Strange Paradise (Hardcover edition). McClelland & Stewart.
• Houle, K. (2019). The Grand River Watershed: A Folk Ecology: poems. Gaspereau Press.
• Jemisin, N. K. (2016). The Fifth Season. Orbit.
• Kingsolver, B. (2013). Flight Behavior. Harper Perennial.
• Leroux, C. (2023). The Future (S. Ouriou, Trans.; First edition). Biblioasis.
• Powers, R. (with Gene Berry and Jeffrey Campbell Collection (Library of Congress)). (2018). The Overstory (First edition). W. W. Norton & Company.
• Raffan, J. (2020). Ice Walker: A Polar Bear’s Journey Through the Fragile Arctic. Simon & Schuster.
• Robinson, K. S. (2020). The Ministry for the Future (First edition). Orbit.
• Thomas-Müller, C. (2022). Life in the City of Dirty Water: A Memoir of Healing. Penguin.
• Ward, J. (2012). Salvage the Bones (Paperback edition). Bloomsbury.

Illustrations and reflections

• In the novel The Ministry of Time, a time travel machine has been created in the future to be able to travel back in time to redress our climate mistakes.
• The main character, of Cambodian and English descent, navigates race in a near future London while passing for White.
• She helps a Victorian-era naval captain brought to her time adapt to modern life.
• All while contemplating the injustice of our current choices for future generations.

Illustrations and reflections

In the novel The Ministry of Time, a time travel machine has been created in the future to be able to travel back in time to redress our climate mistakes.

• How does the use of humour affect our interaction with the equity issues in the book?
• Bradley weaves together narratives on racial, gender and intergenerational equity. Which stood out most for you?
• What does this book say about our climate legacy?

Illustrations and reflections

• In the near-future short story collection Fauna, the characters discover animals that they previously ignored and realize that research will not suffice to save them from climate change.
• What “ingredients” are necessary for action on environmental issues?
• When is enough research enough?
• Who gets to decide the agenda?

Illustrations and reflections

In the near-future short story collection Fauna, the characters discover animals that they previously ignored and realize that research will not suffice to save them from climate change.

• What “ingredients” are necessary for action on environmental issues?
• When is enough research enough?
• Who gets to decide the agenda?