"Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by UBC Faculty of Forestry’s TerreWEB Seminar Series’ “Perspectives on Challenges for Effective Communication of Science and Global Change.” Julia Dordel’s research focused on mixed species plantations in subtropical Argentina. Julia is currently the TerreWEB Program Director and Liaison Officer contact for the national and international TerreWEB collaborators. Science Communication Research Co-ordinator. Julie’s research interests involve the assessment of the quality and quantity of freshwater resources, including surface and groundwater. She is particularly interested in how different land use practices affect water resources and how this, in turn, affects human development (e.g. food and energy production).
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There is a near universal interest in morality that has sparked thought-provoking inquiry for thousands of years. Much of that inquiry proceeded without the benefit of modern cognitive science, but that is now changing. And the change promises to shed new light on morality, particularly its practices, development, and the psychology behind ethical thought. In this series we bring together speakers from a vast array of disciples--from philosophy and law to biology and psychology--to discuss cutting edge research in the cognitive science of morality. Dr. Haidt is a Professor in the Social Psychology area of the Department of Psychology at the University of Virginia. He studys morality and emotion, and how they vary across cultures. He is also active in positive psychology (the scientific study of human flourishing) and study positive emotions such as moral elevation, admiration, and awe. Dr. Haidt's research these days focuses on the moral foundations of politics, and on ways to transcend the "culture wars" by using recent discoveries in moral psychology to foster more civil forms of politics. Morality, by its very nature, makes it hard to study morality. It binds people together into teams that seek victory, not truth. It closes hearts and minds to opponents even as it makes cooperation and decency possible within groups.

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by Green College. This panel discussion explores issues of practical wisdom and deliberation, including the problem of how, in the context of democratic deliberation and inclusive democracy, humans might attend to the needs and standpoints of nonhuman animals. On each panel, each speaker will speak for 15 minutes followed by 30 minutes of discussion. Kenneth Sharpe, Political Science, Swarthmore College; Max Cameron, Political Science, UBC; Maneesha Deckha, Law, University of Victoria; Michael Burgess, College for Interdisciplinary Studies, UBC; Moderated by Ken Carty, Political Science, UBC

Webcast sponsored by Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by SLAIS. Open Data and Open Government represent a brave new world of information-sharing for citizens. Drawing on examples from the provincial, national and international realm, B.C.’s Information and Privacy Commissioner will discuss the opportunities and challenges of information and data-sharing in the context of Gov 2.0. Elizabeth Denham was appointed Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia in May, 2010. An expert in privacy and access, Ms. Denham has made significant contributions to data protection and has been an influential advocate for online privacy protection.

Webcast sponsored by Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. Alanna Mitchell is a Canadian journalist and author. Her literary non-fiction wins praise for its ability to describe complex ideas in plain language. Mitchell's subjects are science, education and human behaviour and she is known for her strong narrative style. Sea Sick is the first book to explain how the global ocean — 99 per cent of the planet's living space — is undergoing vast chemical changes at the hand of man and why that matters. In a nutshell, some of the carbon dioxide we are putting into the air by burning fossil fuels is being absorbed by the ocean. That reverts it to a state it has not been in for millions of years: more acid, warmer, and more prone to vast oxygen-deprived dead zones. At risk is the very structure of life in the ocean and therefore, on the planet as a whole. UBC Reads Sustainability is supported by AMS Sustainability, the UBC Sustainability Initiative, and the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology, and webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre).

Robert Evans is Professor of Mechanical Engineering at The University of British Columbia (UBC). He obtained a B.A.Sc. degree in mechanical engineering from UBC, an M.A.Sc. from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. from Cambridge University. Dr. Evans has served as Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and was founding Director of the Clean Energy Research Centre at UBC. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, and the Society of Automotive Engineers. Dr. Evans is the author of “Fueling Our Future: an Introduction to Sustainable Energy”, published by Cambridge University Press. The book is also available in Chinese, Arabic, and Turkish, and was short-listed for the 2007 Donner Prize for the best book on public policy published by a Canadian author.

Webcast sponsored by Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by Green College. Richard Carpiano's interests centers on the sociology of health and illness, particularly community and individual socioeconomic influences on physical and mental health. Research- and policy-related concern with how community social and physical conditions serve as determinants of health has necessitated improved measurement of these contexts. Consistent with this need, there has been increased interest in “ecometrics”—the scientific approach to measuring ecologic settings—for creating reliable and valid measures of community context derived from survey-based ratings of community conditions by local residents. Existing research using ecometric techniques, however, has been conducted in a limited number of (mostly urban and non-Canadian) contexts. This talk will discuss an interdisciplinary study that applied ecometric approaches to creating several measures of community social cohesion and social capital. Using survey data collected from residents of 100 British Columbia communities, we evaluate separately for urban and rural communities: (a) the degree to which the reliability of specific ecologic measures is contingent upon the number of “raters” in a community who are providing information and (b) the validity of the resulting measures. The implications of these findings for guiding future studies of community context—for population health and other areas of focus—is also discussed.