Meeting with Celena Wasserstrom from the inaugural class of Columbia Climate School

Meeting with Celena Wasserstrom from the inaugural class of Columbia Climate School

This fall, Columbia University will welcome the first batch of students graduating from the newly created university. Climate school. Utilize the expertise of the Earth Institute and its internals Many centers, Columbia Climate Institute will become the center of interdisciplinary climate research and education throughout the university, exploring and developing solutions to the most urgent and complex challenges of our time.

This Master’s Program in Climate and Society It is the first degree program offered by Columbia Climate Institute. This 12-month interdisciplinary program trains students to understand and solve the impact of climate change and climate variability on society and the environment. The 97 students enrolled in the program in the fall of 2021 will graduate from the Columbia Climate Institute in August 2022. Interview In the next few weeks, with a few of these extraordinary students.

Below, you can learn about Celena Wasserstrom, who grew up in Thessaloniki, Greece and is dedicated to helping disadvantaged communities adapt to climate change.

Can you tell us something about your background and how you became interested in studying climate?

Although I was born in New York, I grew up in northern Greece, where the culture values ​​and protects its natural resources and beauty. When I was young, I remember driving to school and seeing bright yellow banners protesting the creation of open-pit mines. As an undergraduate studying for a bachelor’s degree in political science, I focused on the intersection of politics and the environment. I learned to recognize these banners as part of a larger environmental justice movement, which the journalist and activist Naomi Klein referred to as “blocking” ” [a form of activism where people try to stop extraction projects with their bodies or in the courts]. I continue to work for a small company in the Washington area, dedicated to solving the governance problems of fragile states. I support projects in Bangladesh and South Sudan, two countries that are expected to be most affected by climate change, and have witnessed some of the challenges that already exist in these environments. Working in these countries once again confirmed my commitment to supporting the adaptation of disadvantaged communities.

Which courses in the Climate and Society (C+S) program are you most interested in?

In the core course, I am particularly excited about “Management and Climate Adaptation” by Professor Ben Orlove and Catherine Vaughan. One of the biggest challenges we face in the United States is how to communicate and perceive climate issues within a wide range of public areas. If we are to gain the community support needed to understand and advance adaptation and mitigation measures in a country that is one of the main contributors to this issue, we must change messaging. Using the tools I will get from this course, I will get closer to understanding how to synthesize the material I learned in the C+S program and effectively package this information to a wide audience.

I am also very excited about the “Human Rights and the Anthropocene” course. It seems like an interesting juxtaposition to understand the relatively young concept of human rights in the context of the earth’s geological time scale! I hope this course can challenge my understanding of human rights, and I need to “forget” many things in terms of interaction with humans and the earth and the abuse of the earth.

How does the plan align with your career goals?

Through my undergraduate education and work in the past five years, I have been exposed to public policy formulation and field implementation as well as private sector methods. I have observed some tragic consequences of climate change in countries that do not have the resources to cope. But these experiences only emphasize that I lack a real scientific foundation, and I need to supplement my academic and professional background in social sciences. The climate school will enable me to resolve this gap. Finally, I look forward to working with the private sector to enable the company to develop and adapt to increasingly ambitious national, sub-national and local sustainable development goals, down to the community level, and make greater contributions to the common good. They must also evolve, adapt and clean up their behavior, otherwise they will also face existential threats.

You will be a member of the first graduating class of Columbia Climate School. Did the creation of the climate school affect your decision to apply for the C+S program?

To be honest, I had not heard of Columbia Climate School when I applied. When researching a project to solve my own intellectual gap, the Master of Climate and Society did meet the requirements and, as I mentioned, it was consistent with my career goals, so I applied. Later I found out that I would be a member of the inaugural class, and I was very proud and excited about it.

When you look to the future of climate schools, what do you want to see?

The need for intellectual, technological, and political forces to accelerate the development and implementation of climate change adaptation and mitigation at all levels is exploding. Climate schools are fully capable of meeting the growing demand for a well-trained and skilled workforce. Now Make progress on the survival agenda.

Colombia is a global academic leader and has long contributed to the rare atmosphere of policy elites. I hope that the climate school will focus at least part of its plan on ensuring that the impact is most important: the grassroots. I have witnessed the failure of deliberate and well-intentioned policies in this critical area. Schools should ensure that every graduate understands the needs and design of community initiatives. It should require all graduates to understand and be able to participate in the policy or program impact assessment.

Columbia is inextricably linked geographically, historically and otherwise with its own communities, New York City and New York State. With its huge and growing intellectual and financial capital, it should always consider ways of giving back. The city has incredibly ambitious climate goals. The Climate School is in a unique position to help it achieve these goals, while remembering that Manhattan is not the only borough. It should work with local schools and civil society organizations to develop plans for sustainability and locally-led solutions.

Finally, I look forward to the climate school establishing an environmental justice curriculum, which is a key subject area that should be integrated into all curriculums.