CBH Talk | Confronting Climate Change Part 3: Solutions

Confronting Climate Change is a three-part series that explores one of the most urgent issues of our times. Join leading thinkers, scientists, journalists, and advocates for these vitally important conversations.

Part Three: Solutions—From Innovation to Action

Part Three of Confronting Climate Change looks ahead, focusing on solutions and the collective work needed to build a more sustainable future. What tools do we already have to address the climate crisis? What innovations are emerging? And what will it take not just to imagine change, but to implement it at scale?

This conversation brings together experts working across law, planning, and climate adaptation to examine a wide range of responses, from renewable energy and resource efficiency to rethinking how and where we build. Michael Burger, Executive Director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, offers insight into the legal strategies and policy frameworks shaping climate action in the U.S. and globally. Jesse M. Keenan, a leading scholar of climate adaptation and urbanism and author of North: The Future of Post-Climate America, explores how cities, infrastructure, and real estate must evolve in the face of rising climate risks. Nadia Seeteram, an adaptation scientist and Director of Buyouts for New York State, brings a ground-level perspective on resilience, focusing on housing, migration, and the difficult but necessary decisions communities face in a changing environment.

Moderated by Rebecca Hersher of NPR’s Climate Desk, this conversation is not only about what can be done, but about the details of how to address climate change in fair and durable ways, and the roles individuals, communities, and institutions can play in driving change. Join us to consider the pathways forward, the trade-offs ahead, and how we might move from urgency to action.

Participants

Michael Burger is Executive Director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and Senior Research Scholar and Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia Law School, where he leads one of the world's most impactful climate law research centers and its domestic and international efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions and advance climate adaptation. Michael is the author and editor of numerous books and articles, a frequent public speaker, and a regular source of expertise for media, with years of experience collaborating with local, national, and international organizations on climate initiatives. He is also Of Counsel at Sher Edling LLP, where he represents public clients in major climate cases around the country. He is a Regent and Fellow at the American College of Environmental Lawyers, a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on Climate and Nature Governance, and serves on the advisory boards of the Urban Ocean Lab and the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society. 

Jesse M. Keenan is the Favrot II Associate Professor of Sustainable Real Estate and Urban Planning and the Director of the Center on Climate Change and Urbanism at Tulane University. His new book is North: The Future of Post-Climate America (Oxford University Press). Keenan's research focuses on the intersection of climate change adaptation and the built environment, including aspects of applied science, design, regulation, and planning. Keenan has previously advised agencies of the U.S. government, governors, mayors, Fortune 500 companies, technology ventures, community enterprises, and international NGOs. Keenan formerly served as the Director and Area Head for Real Estate and the Built Environment on the faculty of the Harvard Graduate School of Design and as the Research Director of the Center for Urban Real Estate on the faculty of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University.

Nadia Seeteram serves as Marin County's inaugural Chief Climate Officer within the Office of the County Executive, where she leads the County's Climate and Sustainability Division — integrating climate action across County departments and coordinating regionally with cities, towns, and partner agencies. Her career has focused on the nexus of climate risk, housing, and migration. In her former role as Director of Buyouts at New York State's Office of Resilient Homes and Communities, she led New York's first proactive, statewide voluntary property buyout program for properties at risk of flooding. She completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at Columbia University's Climate School, earned her Ph.D. in Earth Systems Science at Florida International University, where her dissertation examined how sea-level rise will reshape communities across the socioeconomic spectrum over the long term. She has held research positions at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the New York State Governor's Office of Storm Recovery as well as fellowships with the Aspen Institute's Policy Academy and the Center for Climate and Security.

Rebecca Hersher is a correspondent on NPR's Climate Desk, where she reports on climate science, weather disasters and how humans are adapting to a hotter world. Hersher was part of the NPR team that won the Kavli Science Journalism Award for the series "Beyond the Poles: The far-reaching dangers of melting ice," as well as a Peabody award and an Edward R. Murrow award for coverage of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. Her 2019 coverage of climate-driven flash floods also won an Edward R. Murrow award, and she was part of a team that was honored with a 2020 Society of News Design award for multimedia storytelling. She was a finalist for the Daniel Schorr prize, a Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting fellow and an NPR Above the Fray fellow, investigating the causes of the suicide epidemic in Greenland.

 Confronting Climate Change is presented with generous support from Con Edison.