Overview

Help the Carleton Climate Commons fund collaborative research, community-engaged projects, public events, and support Indigenous-led initiatives, all to put culture, storytelling, the humanities, and justice at the centre of climate action.

In 1988, the scientist, James Hansen, outlined to US Congress the threat to the world posed by anthropogenic climate change and called for immediate action. His warning was worrying to the public and widely reported. But global carbon emissions continued to rise. The message was repeated and amplified. Still, global carbon emissions continued to rise. Now there is a chorus of voices and movements united in the effort to compel decisive climate action. And still global carbon emissions continue to rise. These facts prompted us to start the Carleton Climate Commons in 2014.

The Background

The Carleton Climate Commons Working Group brings together faculty, staff, undergraduate and graduate students at Carleton University to discuss issues surrounding the climate crisis in relation to the humanities and social sciences, to share academic work, ideas, and resources.

The university has long been the place our society carves out for addressing issues of vital importance to all of society. Climate change is one of those issues. And yet in our increasingly specialized world, the solution to climate change is often perceived to come from science or government or some combination of the two. We think the humanities and social sciences have a role to play here too. The Climate Commons is a forum for exploring, amplifying, and acting on that role.

Our goal is to address the climate crisis with all the skills, resources, and energy that a university enables. At the same time, we include the public in this conversation. We bring together researchers, teachers, students, and the Ottawa community to ask what we can do together to advance climate action. Too often university researchers and teachers are isolated from one another. They don’t share and discuss common projects across departmental lines. Similarly, the university is too often isolated from the broader public.

The Rollout

While the Climate Commons is impactful for students and broader members of the Carleton University and Ottawa communities, it also provides a unique experiential learning opportunity for students to engage and help facilitate important discussions around the climate crisis. Funds raised would help advance our mission to fund research, community-engaged projects, public events, and Indigenous-led initiatives and support graduate and undergraduate students in the work they do with us, which has been essential to our success. They’re involved in every aspect of our functioning.

While most students are volunteer members of the organization, our events only work when a few students have dedicated and established roles for which they are responsible. We hire one graduate student to oversee our Newsletter and our bi-weekly Teach-In series, Noons for Now (this involves liaising with speakers, moderating sessions, setting up the Zoom events, booking rooms for the in-person events, and compiling the resource list). To expand on opportunities available to students, we also hire one undergraduate students, who assists the graduate student and is our social media coordinator.

The Impact

Your support has an impact both on campus and beyond.

Impact on Student Experience:

• Interdisciplinary learning: Students engage across humanities and social sciences, broadening perspectives on climate change beyond the natural sciences.
• Hands-on projects: Opportunities for community-engaged research, exhibitions, and public programs.
• Mentorship & networking: Direct access to faculty, grad students, and community partners.
• Career & community preparation: Experience applicable to arts, policy, law, journalism, museums, and community work.
• Centring justice & Indigenous knowledge: work to deepen understanding of climate justice and Indigenous perspectives in practice.

Impact at Carleton University:

• Fills disciplinary gaps: Positions humanities and social sciences as essential contributors to climate solutions.
• Enhances public engagement: Produces events, teach-ins, and outreach that bring people together at the university.
• Partnerships: Builds durable ties with local organizations, museums, and youth movements.
• Supports innovation: Encourages interdisciplinary research and experiential learning models.
• Attracts students: Differentiates Carleton with unique programs like the EACH minor and community projects.