Events

[CONFERENCE] The thing about climate change is, no matter whether some people deny it or others dispute the root cause and what we are able to do to stop it, it’s ravaging the planet’s entrenched seasonal cycles, disrupting wildlife and displacing millions of people while we go on arguing about what to do. The epic forest fires and back-to-back-to-back hurricanes are only symptoms of a greater global system change running parallel to our planet’s sixth mass extinction event. That’s the rosy backdrop of this weekend’s Humanities Festival, an annual conference put on by the University at Buffalo Humanties Institute that runs this Thursday, September 28 through Saturday, September 30. This year’s theme is “Environments” and while they have a packed weekend of talks and events you can check online, the headline talk is from environmental vanguard Bill McKibben on Friday inside the Albright-Knox Art Gallery Auditorium. Author of a dozen books, founder of the planet-wide climate change movement at 350.org, and organizer of large scale rallies and actions to raise awareness and solutions on climate change issues, McKibben’s contributions are so profound that biologists in 2014 named a new species of woodland gnat—Megophthalmidia mckibbeni–in his honor. His talk is called “The Desperate Climate Fight: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Moment.”