“I'm just somebody who wants the world to be a better place.”

DEVELOPING CLIMATE RESILIENCE SOLUTIONS, ONE CLASS AT A TIME

Geoffrey Habron is a professor of sustainability science in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Furman University. Currently, he is part of a multi-institutional effort to develop climate resilience solutions in frontline, at-risk communities across the Carolinas. The initiative is led by North Carolina State University and funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Before coming to Furman in 2017, Dr. Habron spent three years at Warren Wilson College as director of Electronic Portfolios, director of First Year Seminar, and faculty member in the Department of Environmental Studies. From 1999-2014, he was associate professor in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife and the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University. Dr. Habron has a PhD in fisheries science from Oregon State University, an MS in wildlife and fisheries from Mississippi State University, and a BA in biology from University of Miami.

All of us feel the impact of climate change, and unjustly, many of the people and places most impacted will be those who are already most vulnerable. Two of the classes you teach at Furman are: Resilience and Adaptation and Sustainability and Social Justice. Can you tell us a bit about each of the courses and what you hope to impart to your students in each one of them? Sustainability and Social Justice is a new course. Social justice has always been neglected as a part of sustainability. Most people focus on energy systems, green buildings, recycling and waste, and saving the rainforest. But then of course there's the economic side of things. Cost and affordability are what often drive the sustainability conversation; however, equity is a really important piece. You could argue that Sustainability and Social Justice is kind of a silly title because social justice should always be part of sustainability. But I felt we needed to put special emphasis on that.

Typically in sustainability, we say things like, "We're on the right side; everybody else is doing the wrong thing.” There's injustice in the world because people think they can fix everything. What we don't realize is that when we come in with our fixes, we can also perpetuate inequality through a green lens. I try to get students to think about the sustainability fixes and how they can have differential impacts on justice and equity. For example, "We need to have more green buildings" sounds great but why wouldn't we want to do that? If you do that, costs go up and then who gets access? “Let's have electric vehicles; let's eat organic.” That all is wonderful, but if costs go up, who gets to eat that organic food and drive those vehicles? There are going to be some people who are going to miss out while others are trying to do good. With sustainability, it’s important to think about the issues and how one can not only do good but also be cautious about their efforts because they can have unintended consequences.

Resilience and Adaptation talks about how communities can deal with change. It focuses on how we live in a dynamic environment and asks how we are going to adjust to climate change, whether it's floods or fires, and how we can build capacity. If you think about the hurricane that went through Florida in October, many people think, "Resilience means putting up a sea wall" as the engineering solution to keep the water from coming in. But, there is also a social component of resilience. After the floods come through, do the communities have the capacity to bounce back? You might put up a sea wall, but who is going to come back once the people have been disturbed and pushed off the land? The environment is constantly changing, and they are going to be changing for hundreds of years. The whole “Build Back Better” concept is really an idea of thinking about resilience. You don't plan for the past: you plan for the future knowing that it's going to change. But how does that happen across the world? There are so many communities who've lived in dynamic environments for millennia, and they're pretty resilient. If you're in the Amazon, you have seasonal floods that are 30 feet high. People have floating homes, people live on boats. The adaptation side of recognizing climate change and flooding specifically is recognizing that in 50 or 100 years from now, life is going to be different. What are we prepared to do? And again, there is an equitable side in that some people can afford to move, some people can afford to elevate their homes, but other people can't.

You spent the majority of your adolescent life living internationally and knew that you always wanted to be involved with sustainability, especially finding a balance between sustainability and access. Can you talk to us a bit about that? My dad worked for the United States Agency for International Development. Even to this day I don't know exactly what he did and all the places we went, but I knew he was there to help people. He was a civil engineer and wanted to make life better. We lived and traveled to different countries, and I was able to see and be around people that weren't like me, and spoke different languages. I went to international schools and was constantly interacting with people that were different, yet, somehow we all found commonality. That was really impactful on me.

My father loved being outdoors and taking us to the beach so at first I thought I wanted a career in marine science. However, because I was growing up in these different places, I was also feeling like, "Oh, there's lots of people in the world who need assistance. How can I do that?" When I got to college, I was still struggling with, "How do I bring these two things together?" It wasn't until the Peace Corps became an option, that it put things together for me. I realized being in Nicaragua, being in Thailand, there are places that are differently developed than the US, and I want to contribute to making that better, both from environmental and human perspectives.

What is one thing everyone should consider in regards to climate change? I try to get students to think about being “systems thinkers.” We're not individually responsible for all the inequity in the world; you have to change the structures. There are lots of structures and systems and institutions that are systematically biased. I think we can ask the question, "Who benefits from this? Who covers the cost? Are the people that benefit, the ones responsible for the problem?" And especially, “Who has a voice in making the decisions?” People should have a voice in the process to determine what their problems are and help to come up with solutions.

When it became time to replace old boilers from the 1960s, they were replaced with high efficiency boilers at both the Primary and Middle School campuses. When buildings are updated, the insulation is increased to improve energy efficiency as well as retain aesthetic beauty.