Post prepared by Rebekah Glendinning & Sandy Iverson
In honor of Earth Day 2021, we’re taking a moment to reflect on the role libraries can play in protecting our Earth and imagining better futures for our environment.
The theme of this year’s Earth Day is “Restore Our Earth”. This theme encourages us to think beyond the current strategies of attempting to mitigate or adapt to climate change and emphasizes that we can restore Earth’s natural processes through development of green technologies, restoring wildlife populations and removing plastics from our oceans. As our climate crisis reaches a tipping point, now more than ever we need scientists and activists to be leading the charge towards climate justice.
So, what role do libraries have in this? For one, libraries are (and always have been) places of learning and discussion. They are also places where civic duty and social responsibility are commonly emphasized, and communities can come together through the sharing of information. Academic libraries, especially, are catalysts of research where the scientists of today, and tomorrow, are working towards solutions to the climate problems we face.
StFX is part of this tradition and is committed to encouraging research and discussion around climate change and environmental justice. To see more of what we offer at StFX, check out the Climate and Environment Subject Research Guide here.
If you’re interested in learning more about what you can do in support of our Earth, check out a few titles available in our collection:
Biocultural diversity and indigenous ways of knowing human ecology in the Arctic by Karim-Aly S.Kassam, 2009.
The Canadian environment in political context by Andrea Olive, 2019.
The environment by Linda Pannozzo. 2016.
Routledge handbook of gender and environment by Sherilyn MacGregor, 2019.
How climate change uniquely impacts the physical, social and cultural aspects of First Nations by Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources; Assembly of First Nations, 2006.
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