About us
Climate change will alter all aspects of our lives in profound ways. Binghamton 2 Degrees is a proposed campus-wide initiative to engage everyone in Binghamton University and the larger community on the central motivating question of: What will it mean to live in Binghamton under two degrees of warming, and what can we do now to prepare?
Mission Statement
Our mission is:
To make climate change present and pressing under the hypothesis it will help activate practical, local solutions
To help Binghamton thrive under two degrees of warming
To create a membership organization of communities to help each other thrive under two degrees of warming
To coordinate, facilitate, foster, and support research and creative activities around all applied missions
Actions
Binghamton Two Degrees can take a number of actions, centered around an idea of action research: we as a community will participate in this joint scientific venture into a new world that could look radically different from our own. We will figure out how to navigate it together, using our best minds, our best voices, our best hands. We will document what we learn and teach it to others.
Here are some actions:
Localized resilient and sustainable energy production. Design, build.
Localized resilient and sustainable food production. Design, build.
Productions of art. Helping us develop and tell the stories of this grand transition.
Conferences. Papers. Journals and special issues. Books.
Authentic research experiences for students.
Model and document the “Two Degrees” initiative for our peer institutions and communities to emulate.
All-campus events to practice the experience of two degrees of warming. “2 degrees C warmer in summer.” Or “Under two degrees of warming, experts tell us that foods X, Y, and Z will not be available. For one week, we will be eating like it was 2 degrees warmer.”
Mutual Aid. How can we reliably take care of each other?
One early push of Binghamton 2 Degrees will be a series of events during the 23-24 academic year. In the near term, we seek to make climate change present and pressing under the hypothesis this will help activate practical, local solutions. Long term, we seek to build social and physical structures and activities that will help us transition to a warmer, more unstable climate.