Analyze

Addressing climate change in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais demands collaboration across traditional bureaucratic divisions. While the team officially tasked with devising climate plans falls under the purview of the Secretary of the Environment, their efforts to reduce vulnerability to climate change and support those already suffering its effects have brought them into many uneasy alliances. These efforts ranged from acquiring funding or technical support from European partners with fundamentally different views of environmental projection, to securing logistical aid from Civil Defense which was a part of the Mineiro military cabinet, to encouraging cooperation from the major economic institutions primarily focused around mining and agriculture. Working with these different groups necessitated that climate analysts become adept at shifting their rhetorical framing from audience to audience, but this work carried great ethical and practical risk. Were the climate scientists acting cynically when they adopted rhetoric they did not fully believe? Were they being naïve in trusting partners who may not genuinely value climate justice? What kinds of self-reflection might assist climate analysts and STS scholars in our efforts to grapple with the moral complexities of climate governance? 

Image Source: Ricardo Moraes/Reuters, "Deadly dam burst in Brazil prompts calls for stricter mining regulations," The Guardian, 10, November 2015.

Wald, Jonathan. 2023. "Beyond Cynicism and Naïveté: Ethical Complexities of Climate Governance." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science. Honolulu, Hawai'i, Nov 8-11.

The goal of the Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy is to:

“…achieve increased resilience in communities and individuals impacted by natural and manmade disasters. Such leadership is guided by the ethics of the Triple Bottom Line: Equity, Environment, and Economy.”

The Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy emerged from the breakdown in leadership during the 2004 Katrina super storm disaster.

The program is a branch of Tulane University’s School of Social Work.

The program is funded through the University of Tulane, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, and the Royal Norwegian Government.

There are four different levels to the Disaster Resilience Leadership certification. Level 1 is Strengthening Existing Leadership Capacity. Level 2 is Building Organizational Efficacy. Level 3 is Creating Future DRL Leaders. Level 4 is Global DRL Network.  It is a 6 day workshop.

Community leaders and professionals across various countries and communities to prepare them to lead their communities during disaster management.

The program provides successful participants a certification. A Master’s degree in Disaster Resilience Leadership is available through a 36 credit hour course.

“Based upon research that the DRLA leadership has conducted with reputational leaders in the field, including leaders from within other premier academic institutions, international organizations, prestigious NGOs, the United Nations, the donor community, think tanks and the Red Cross movement, it is widely agreed that a systematic and interdisciplinary approach to leadership is widely needed in the community and insufficiently addressed in most academic programs. As Tulane University itself has exhibited such resilience and strength of leadership in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it represents and ideal setting to support such an approach to disaster resilience leadership education and allows students to experience the living laboratory of recovery and resilience that is the city of New Orleans.” -- Louisiana Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters.