CSTPR/IBS-ESP Noontime seminar
"An Inconvenient Celebrity? Promises and Pitfalls of Celebrity Involvement in Climate Change Science, Policy and the Public"
by Maxwell Boykoff
Center for Science & Technology Policy Research

October 26, 2009
12:00 pm
CIRES Auditorium
click here for directions

Maxwell Boykoff, ENVS faculty member of Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, will give a talk "An Inconvenient Celebrity? Promises and Pitfalls of Celebrity Involvement in Climate Change Science, Policy and the Public" on Monday, October 26, 2009. The talk will be from 12:00 - 1:00 pm in the CIRES Auditorium.

The talk is free and open to the public and will be held in the CIRES Audotorium. Click here for directions.

This will be a "brown bag seminar". Feel free to bring your lunches if you wish. This series is being co-sponsored by the CIRES Center for Science and Technology Policy Research and the Institute of Behavioral Science, Environment and Society Program.

Abstract: What is the relationship between public celebrity involvement in climate change and greater discursive traction on this issue in science, policy, and the public? From musical groups promoting ‘carbon neutral’ tours, to actors and former politicians starring in big screen global warming feature films, high-profile personalities have appeared to amplify concerns about human contributions to climate change. Many feel that prominent figures substantially contribute to greater public understanding of climate change science, as well as catalyze climate policy cooperation. However, critics posit that increased involvement from the entertainment industry has not served to influence substantive long-term advancements in these arenas; rather, it has instead reduced the politics of climate change to the domain of fashion and fad devoid of political and public saliency. Widening our purview to examine the role of climate change-related celebrity activities at the interface of climate science, policy and the public, in this seminar I will discuss how the (de)legitimisation of celebrity politicians and politicised celebrities influences unfolding discourse on climate change. Moreover – situated in contemporary (consumer- and spectacle-driven) carbon-based society – I will interrogate various effects that this particular set of personalities has on debates over climate change causes, consequences and action. In theorising on/within the carbon economy, this presentation will seek to tease apart some of the promises, pitfalls and contradictions of this increasingly entrenched set of non-state actors we deem ‘an inconvenient celebrity’. Thus, ultimately – as a form of climate change action – I will explore if it might be more effective to ‘plant’ celebrities than trees. 

Biography: Max Boykoff is an Environmental Studies Faculty Member at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research. Before joining the Center, Max was a Research Fellow in the Environmental Change Institute (ECI) as well as a Department Lecturer in the School of Geography at the Oxford University Centre for the Environment. Max has ongoing interests in environmental governance, science and policy interactions, as well as political economics and the environment. He has experience working in North America, Central America, and Europe. From 2006-2008, Max was a James Martin 21st Century Research Fellow at the University of Oxford ECI. Through this fellowship, he was involved in both the Climate Change Research Cluster and the Environmental Governance and Climate Policy groups. He holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies (with a parenthetical notation in Sociology) from the University of California-Santa Cruz and Bachelor of Sciences from The Ohio State University.