This inaugural Center for Social and Environmental Futures (C-SEF) Get Serious* Seminar will take place in the CIRES Auditorium (CIRES 338) at 3 pm. A reception will follow in the CIRES Map Room (CIRES 340) at 4 pm. Everyone is welcome.

Join Environmental Studies Assistant Professor Cassandra Brooks and award-winning photographer, filmmaker, and author John Weller as they tell the inspiring story of the Ross Sea. Weller and Brooks worked alongside a global coalition of organizations, scientists, diplomats, and more than a million people, which eventually entrained the attention of world leaders from the White House to the Kremlin. The process took five years of intense international negotiations and more than ten years of scientific planning and public outreach. But the work paid off: on October 2016, the international community made history by adopting the world’s largest marine protected area in the Ross Sea, Antarctica – by consensus. This demonstrated international leadership and inspired hope that despite political tensions in other parts of the world, the Antarctic continues to be a great global commons dedicated to peace, science, and conservation.

*Conversations about environmental problems too often focus on sweeping and vague solutions. In contrast, C-SEF's Get Serious seminars will highlight people working on important but often-overlooked details of solving environmental problems. They will give students a sense of the many different possible ways to make a difference in sustainability.