Bill Mckibben Curates FESTIVAL ALBERTINE 2019

"Having followed the issue closely since I wrote my first book about climate change, thirty years ago, I can say that we're in a remarkable moment, when, after years of languishing, climate concern is suddenly and explosively rising to the top of the political agenda. Maybe, though not certainly, it is rising fast enough that we'll get real action...After thirty years of standing still, baby steps won't do us a bit of good, and a misstep may cost us our last chance."-Bill McKibben, in The New Yorker

The Cultural Services of the French Embassy and Albertine Books, the singular bookshop and cultural center operated by the French Embassy in New York, today announce celebrated author and environmentalist Bill McKibben as the curator of the sixth annual Festival Albertine, centered on climate chaos, and the race to prevent civilization-scale collapse (November 8-10). McKibben will lead prominent thinkers, politicians, activists, artists, and authors from across the U.S., France, and the francophone world in discussions and debates about environmental justice, what we eat and how we grow it, whether local governments can step into the policymaking void, how we can get people to care about climate change, and more. The weekend-long Festival Albertine 2019 exemplifies Albertine Books' commitment to intellectual exchange between French-speaking cultures and America.

Festival Albertine 2019 brings the immense, daunting subject of climate change-all too often considered in the abstract, or with defeatism-to the human scale of intimate discussions. While unflinchingly assessing the damage that has already been done and the inevitably escalating consequences, the festival looks productively, and with great urgency, towards necessary modes of prevention and ways that governments-and individuals, especially in the absence of government action-can effect change. France has taken an international leadership role on the issue through undertakings including the Paris Agreement, President Macron's Make our Planet Great Again initiative, and the country's efforts to organize an aid package from G7 countries to Brazil to fight wildfires. In the U.S., individuals and institutions have shown what the private sector can do to contribute to solutions.

In 1989, Bill McKibben wrote the groundbreaking The End of Nature, considered the earliest widely published book about climate change and the impact of human dominance on the planet; he has since published over 20 books, written countless articles documenting climate change and decades of changing understanding and slow awakening, and founded 350.org, an international movement that seeks to end the age of fossil fuels and create a world of community-led renewable energy.

McKibben says, "Our governments are not built for speed and nimbleness; our societies, unequal and fractured, are filled with people suspicious that change won't benefit them, and who cling to the familiar. But physics demands we shift our habits and economies, and it has set a strict time limit. And our engineers have increasingly produced the technologies that might allow us to catch up with the pace of climate change if we adopted them en masse. So how do we make that change happen-and what else must change to let us make these adaptations?"

"Global warming is both an immediate threat to our world and to future generations," says Gaëtan Bruel, Cultural Counselor of the French Embassy. "Over the past several years, France has made considerable efforts to promote strong and coordinated sustainable development policies in Europe and the United States, two regions with the greatest ability to address climate change. We hope this event provides audiences both with answers to their most urgent questions and with concrete tools to act now."

Festival Albertine 2019 will take place at Albertine Books (972 Fifth Avenue). Additional participants and the festival schedule will be announced soon at Albertine.com. All events will be streamed live at livestream.com/frenchembassy.

For more information, please visit www.albertine.com.

Festival Albertine 2019 - Lineup of Events

All events are moderated by Bill McKibben. Most events will begin with a short reading by Climate Change Theatre Action (CCTA) and other artists.

THE CLIMATE MOMENT
With Naomi Klein
Friday, November 8, 2019
7pm

We need to understand the particular gravity of this moment in time. The planet has already heated dramatically, and now the effects of that heating are felt on every continent and in every season: France set its new all-time temperature record this summer, in a truly remarkable siege of withering heat. At the same time, as wind and sun grow cheaper to use, the chance for rapid action is greater than ever before. The question is, can we move fast enough? What are the keys to unlocking rapid change? What does it feel like to live amid both despair and hope? How can we change?

HOW FAST DO WE NEED TO MOVE-AND HOW FAST CAN WE MOVE?
With Romain Felli, Mark Z. Jacobson and Priscillia Ludosky
Saturday, November 9, 2019
2pm

How fast do we need to move-and how fast can we move? These are questions for scientists and engineers, but also social scientists and activists to answer. Almost daily we can get some new assessment from those who study ice caps or monitor sea level rise: it's melting 'faster than expected,' it's rising 'past the upper bound of earlier predictions.' We're seeing floods and firestorms on a scale that no one predicted even a decade or two ago-the damage that was once foreseen for 2080 or 2150 seems to be occurring already. In the autumn of 2018, the IPCC offered at least a few suggestions on speed: to hit the targets set in Paris, it appears we'll need to have cut fossil fuel use in half by the end of the next decade. But can we do that? Is it technically possible, and is it politically achievable? How do we avoid the pitfalls that came when, say, the French raised gas prices, helping set off the Yellow Vests protests? Does the Green New Deal offer the broad outline of a new political dispensation that might allow us to move with speed and social cohesion? Science informs the climate crisis-but so does political science. This conversation can't be postponed because action can't be postponed.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND POLICY MAKING
With Cherry Foytlin, Clément Guerra, Jade Lindgaard, and Bryan Parras
Saturday, November 9, 2019
4:30pm

As national governments fail to move at necessary speed, cities and towns are trying to fill the gap. New York City, the site of this gathering, is a perfect example. In the last few years it has enacted a bold 'Green New Deal' pledging to slash emissions from existing buildings. It has begun to work out a 'congestion pricing' scheme for automobiles. It has divested its pension holdings from fossil fuels. And it has sued the massive oil companies for their role in creating damages that taxpayers must now address. We're seeing the same kinds of visionary steps from other civic leaders, including the government of Paris. Activists increasingly rely on local leaders for substantive change, if for no other reason than the power of the fossil fuel industry often does not penetrate to local levels. Is this kind of intervention widespread enough to matter? How can activists work to ensure that local governments treat the poorest and most vulnerable fairly, instead of-for instance-building dikes to protect Wall Street? And how can cities then influence decision makers at national governments and in the fossil fuel industry?

WHAT WE EAT-AND HOW WE GROW IT-MAY NEED TO CHANGE
With Raj Patel, Matthew Raiford, and Perrine Hervé-Gruyer
Saturday, November 9, 2019
7pm

From the French government's attempt to increase carbon in the soil, to great chefs working to make their menus responsible, how can this most basic of all human actions help in the climate fight? What we eat-and how we grow it--needs to change. Since agriculture is arguably the planet's biggest industry, it makes sense that it contributes a mighty slug of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. The best guess is that perhaps a fifth of our global warming emissions come from farming, especially the industrial raising of livestock. When cows belch the temperature climbs, but also when rainforest is cut down to make room for pasture. So, what do we do? Some of the answers may be individual-more and more people are choosing to eat less meat or none at all; companies and scientists are suddenly producing meat substitutes that win plaudits from at least some diners. But there are also systematic changes afoot. From the French government's attempt to increase carbon in the soil, to great chefs working to make their menus responsible, to farmers figuring out how to grow local, diverse, and delicious crops, we are seeing the beginnings of real change. Can it scale fast enough to matter, or is industrial agribusiness simply too dominant to allow us the margin we need?

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
With Mustafa Santiago Ali, Marie Toussaint, and Malcom Ferdinand
Sunday, November 10, 2019
2pm

Climate change (and the new economies required to fight it) hit some groups and regions harder than others-what policies and politics might defuse tension and let progress accelerate? If global warming has one iron law, it's: those who did the least to cause it suffering first and most. Around the world people in front-line communities-those who live next to refineries, or inhabit low-lying islands, or sinking neighborhoods, those whose reservations are criss-crossed by pipelines, those whose land is salted by rising sea-are taking the lead in this fight. What should happen? Climate reparations? From whom? How can a burden created over centuries by the wealthy countries be resolved? And how do we make sure that the transition to a clean energy future doesn't disadvantage the same people that paid the price for the old system? Coal miners were badly exploited, for instance; 'black lung' killed many of them, and unsafe conditions took the lives of thousands of others. But now they're out of work, with entire communities drained of jobs. How do we make sure that a 'just transition' is more than just words?

HOW DO WE GET PEOPLE TO CARE?
With Fabrice Hyber, Lauren Groff, Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky, and Irina Brook
Sunday, November 10, 2019
4:30pm

Literature, music, drama-these are key resources for societies trying to come to grips with new realities. In recent years we've seen them begin to grapple with climate change, but that engagement must now grow. The arts have traditionally engaged with what seemed the most dramatic questions: the struggles of one set of human beings with another. That struggle is still underway, of course, but now we've added something different: the terrifying drama of people with a suddenly angry natural world. How does this new moment redefine what we think about when we take up brush or pen, camera or keyboard? What is the work of a poet in a world on fire, or an orchestra in a city where the seas are rising? We have enough examples now that we've begun to see what this work can look like: in literature, for instance, "Cli Fi" has emerged as a genre of its own, with remarkable storytellers. Can they be connected with the scientists, activists, and engineers to help societies change with the speed required? Is 'fine art' on these topics useful, or do we need artists deeply engaged with the social movements now rising? These are questions that suddenly come with high stakes.

Bill McKibben is an author, environmentalist, and activist. In 1988 he wrote The End of Nature, the first book for a common audience about global warming. He is a co-founder and Senior Advisor at 350.org, an international climate campaign that works in 188 countries around the world.

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