Joint Meeting: Environmental Law Section, EPOC, CEF and SWEP (SEN190409)

Featured speaker
Ms. Elizabeth DeSombre

Why Good People Do Bad Environmental Things: The Social Causes and Consequences of Environmental Problems

Elizabeth DeSombre integrates research from political science, sociology, psychology, and economics to understand why bad environmental behavior makes perfect sense. DeSombre considers the role of structure, incentives, information, habit, and norms on behavior in order to formulate lessons about how these factors lead to environmentally problematic behavior, and what understanding their effects can tell us about ways to change behavior.

Ms. DeSombre is the Camilla Chandler Frost Professor of Environmental Studies at Wellesley College. Much of her work is on international environmental politics and law, with a focus on issues of the global commons. She is the author of seven books, the newest of which is Why Good People Do Bad Environmental Things (Oxford University Press, 2018). This year she is an Abe Fellow with the Social Science Research Council and the Japan Foundation, researching sustainability efforts of seaports.

Please join us for drinks, dinner and a thought provoking presentation by Elizabeth DeSombre. We will gather in The Great Hall of Dinosaurs, the centerpiece of the Yale Peabody Museum. Featuring skeletons from the Museum’s world-renowned paleontology collections, it is also home to Rudolph Zallinger’s famous mural The Age of Reptiles.  The presentation will take place alongside the Peabody’s largest mounted skeleton, a Brontosaurus.  Our guests will have access to adjacent sections of the exhibit during cocktails and dinner.