The Wizards of Climate Change:
​How Can Technology Serve Hope and Justice?
Star Island, NH

June 25–July 2, 2023

Registration

Become an IRAS member and receive a reduced rate

Call for papers

Deadline was January 16, 2023.

Star Island offers discounts

Discounts are available based on need. Learn more on the Star Island financial grants section of their registration page.

Fellowships & Scholarships

IRAS offers a range of Fellowships & Scholarships. ​

Streaming the Conference Sessions and Chapel Talks

Unable to go to the conference? Become an IRAS member and stream the conference sessions and chapel talks for free! Access will be provided at the start of the conference.
The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a co-sponsor of the conference. AGU members will receive a discounted registration rate.

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2023 IRAS ​Conference Statement

Technological wizardry has been pitched against prophecies of environmental catastrophe since at least the mid-20th century. Innovate! Create! Only then can everyone win!--Simplify! Change your ways! Or all will be lost! The scientists on the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for example, tell us that large-scale deployment of carbon dioxide removal technologies is “unavoidable” if we are to prevent further dangerous temperature increases. They also argue that we must live less energy-intensive lifestyles to substantially reduce emissions. Addressing the many dimensions of climate change—such as energy and industrial production, urban and infrastructure planning, building construction and design, and land use—will require both new technologies and lifestyle changes.  
In this conference, we will critically examine how technology can be developed, deployed and governed responsibly, to address climate change in ways that foster hope and justice. We will respectfully engage a multiplicity of world views, including religious perspectives, as we learn how countries throughout the world determine and apply climate and technology policies.
​We will address the following questions:
  • How do we assess the future of our climate and technologies? 
    Knowledge about climate change and evolving technologies that address it relies on simulations using models; but the world is phenomenally complex, and unintended consequences abound. How do we best make decisions in light of the uncertainties in our models?
  • How do we ensure that technology is responsibly developed and regulated? 
    Regulation of new technology will require new modes of organization in areas such as government, industry, education, and religion. How can we plan for adaptive policies?
  • How can we curate sources of hope in regard to technology? 
    In the last few centuries, the use of technology has accelerated rapidly, often without full consideration of the consequences. There are legitimate fears that we may not be able to control future impacts. We have reached the point where we must negotiate a “collective rite of passage from childhood to adulthood” in order to live as a responsible member of our planet’s ecosystem. Imagery, vision, ritual, new paradigms: how can these and other sources of hope assist us?
  • How do we deploy technologies to foster justice and equity? 
    The impacts of climate change are unevenly distributed. Technologies addressing climate change are likely to show similar inequities—and vulnerable populations such as impoverished, minoritized, and Indigenous peoples could continue to suffer disproportionately—if we do not take preventative measures. How can justice best be considered in policies on climate and technology?
Presenters will consider these questions in the context of the fields of science-and-religion, public policy, and science communication.

Conference Co-Chairs:
​Arthur Petersen, Bruce Naylor, and Constance Bertka
Morning Chapel Speaker:
Rev. Dr. Barbara Whittaker-Johns​
Plenary speakers:
  • Willem B. Drees, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy of Religion and Ethics, Leiden University and Philosophy of the Humanities, Tilburg University
  • Frances Flannery, Professor of Religion, James Madison University and Co-founder, BioEarth
  • Lisa Graumlich, Professor of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington and President, American Geophysical Union
  • Noreen Herzfeld, Nicholas and Bernice Reuter Professor of Science and Religion, St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict
  • Janot Mendler de Suarez and Pablo Suarez, Advisers, World Bank and Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre
  • Bonnie Nadzam, Writer and Editor, Co-author of the climate fiction work Love in the Anthropocene
  • Kenneth Oye, Professor of Political Science, Professor of Data Systems and Society, and Director of the Program on Emerging Technologies, MIT
  • Leonard A. Smith, Professor, College of Engineering, Virginia Tech and author of Chaos: A Very Short Introduction​
  • Wake Smith, Lecturer, Yale University, Senior Fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School and author of Pandora’s Toolbox: The Hopes and Hazards of Climate Intervention
  • Billy M. Williams​, Executive Vice President, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, American Geophysical Union
Concert: 
Dr. Makiko Hirata and Dr. Lucy Jones
TEMPO: Music for Climate Action   
Optional readings:
  • Cripps, Elizabeth. 2022. What Climate Justice Means and Why We Should Care. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
  • Hawken, Paul, ed. 2017. Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming. New York: Penguin Books.
  • Hayhoe, Katharine. 2021. Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World. New York: One Signal Publishers/Atria Books.
  • Jacobson, Mark Z. 2023. No Miracles Needed: How Today’s Technology Can Save Our Climate and Clean Our Air. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Jamieson, Dale, and Bonnie Nadzam. 2015. Love in the Anthropocene. New York: OR Books.
  • Johnson, Ayana Elizabeth, and Katharine K. Wilkinson, eds. 2021. All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis. New York: One World.
  • Mann, Charles C. 2018. The Wizard and the Prophet: Science and the Future of Our Planet. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
  • Robinson, Kim Stanley. 2020. The Ministry for the Future. New York: Orbit.
  • Smil, Vaclav. 2022. How the World Really Works: A Scientist’s Guide to Our Past, Present and Future. New York: Penguin Books.
  • Smith, Wake. 2022. Pandora’s Toolbox: The Hopes and Hazards of Climate Intervention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Thompson, Erica. 2022. Escape from Model Land: How Mathematical Models Can Lead Us Astray and What We Can Do about It. London: Basic Books.
Copyright by The Institute on Religion in an Age of Science