Pipeline Populism and the Climate Cycle of Struggles: 2010-2020

Dr. Kai Bosworth will present a talk on:

Pipeline Populism and the Climate Cycle of Struggles: 2010-2020

How has the character and politics of the climate justice movement changed in the last decade, in the context of the growth of Indigenous-led struggles against oil pipelines? How have non-Indigenous settlers variously understood (or not) themselves in relation to Indigenous sovereignty? This talk describes the rise and demise of a left-populist environmentalism as one tendency within the “cycle of struggles” over climate in the 2010s. This tendency can be found in Upper Midwest pipeline opposition movements, in moves towards mass mobilization such as the People’s Climate March, and in student and youth movements advocating for a Green New Deal. Seeing populist environmentalism can help us understand the specific organizational forms, affects, and strategies of contemporary social struggles–and the political possibilities they open up or occlude.

This is the second instalment of the 2023-24 EUC Climate Series. The climate crisis—especially when broadly conceived—is undoubtedly the most urgent issue of our times. Universities are often slow to respond to such urgencies, but they have a critical role to play in addressing climate crisis as both sites of knowledge production and spaces where multiple constituencies can meet to imagine and make change together. EUC hopes to do its part in this process by bringing scholars and activists working on this critical problem to York on a regular basis through its Climate Seminar.