"What comes after the environment?" with Naomi Klein and Mirko Zardini

0:00 - Introduction by Dean Richard Sommer
18:00 - Naomi Klein presentation
43:05 - Mirko Zardini presentation
1:07:35 - Moderated discussion
1:50:39 - Closing remarks by George Baird

On October 17, 2016, Naomi Klein and Mirko Zardini participated in the annual George Baird Lecture titled "What comes after the environment?" at the University of Toronto's Convocation Hall. This lecture was part of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design public lecture series and co-organized with the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

The celebration of Canada’s anniversary in 2017 is also a moment for reflection: “What comes after the environment?” featured a discussion between award-winning author, filmmaker, and climate-change activist Naomi Klein and architect, curator, and director of the Canadian Centre for Architecture Mirko Zardini, whose forthcoming book and exhibition It’s All Happening So Fast – A Counter-History of the Modern Canadian Environment explores Canada’s conflicted and conflicting views of what we call the “natural environment."

In an age of unprecedented human impact on the planet, certain countries stand out for their privileged positions and the complexity of their relationships with the land. The stories of Canada closely follow the discovery and appropriation of vast and varied natural resources as well as changing ideas about the relationship between people and their environment. Yet today, Canada’s environmental record is among the poorest when compared to other wealthy nations. It is a fact that suggests ambivalence and the actions of competing interests, which are most often exposed through disasters, moments of disorder and disregard for the unexpected consequences of managing the country’s seemingly endless bounty.

When calls for the exploitation of resources can be made in the name of wealth, growth, or even equality, it is time to question our assumptions. The featured speakers explored the entrenched and false conflict between the natural environment and human development, asked how it has come to shape our society, and considered strategies for cultural change. What comes after the environment? And what role will architects, landscape architects, urban designers, artists, and activists play in finding ways forward in the face of the climate crisis? There is no way to confront the climate crisis as a technocratic problem, in isolation. It must be seen in the context of austerity and privatisation, of colonialism and militarism, and of the various systems of othering needed to sustain them all.

Drawing from her international best-seller This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate (2014), Klein spoke to the broader socio-political forces at play, including corporate interests, the economy, collective social action, and how these factors have shaped our past understanding of the “natural” environment and may presage the future.

Zardini, whose research engages the transformation of contemporary architecture and its relationship with the city and the landscape, and whose forthcoming book and exhibition explore the unexpected consequences and environmental catastrophes that were part of Canada’s modern ambitions, focused on the topic through the disciplinary lenses of architecture and urban design.

For more information about the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, visit us at http://www.daniels.utoronto.ca

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