April 25, 2011

The second conference of the Initiative on Climate Adaptation Research and Understanding through the Social Sciences, or ICARUS, will take place at SNRE in the Dana Building May 5 to 8. The theme is Climate Vulnerability and Adaption: Marginal Peoples and Environment. More than 150 papers will be presented by scholars and researchers from around the world.

ICARUS II is twice as large as the first conference, held at University of Illinois in 2010, in terms of papers submitted and registered attendees. SNRE Dean Rosina M. Bierbaum will provide opening remarks and Maria Blair, the National Vice President at the American Cancer Society and formely managing director of the Rockefeller Foundation and deputy associate director for climate change adaptation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, will deliver the keynote address. Attendees from Mexico, Uruguay, Sweden, France, Japan, Cambodia, Tanzania, Nigeria and many other countries will present climate-adaptation work.

Founded by Arun Agrawal and Maria Lemos of SNRE, Ben Orlove (Columbia University and University of California Davis) and Jesse Ribot (University of Illinois) in 2009, ICARUS brings together scholars, researchers, students, decision makers, and activists interested in working on adaptation to climate variability and change.

"The conference will bring together the latest international research on climate adaptation," Agrawal said. "University of Michigan is becoming a leader in adaption research, and we hope the community of scholarship on climate adaptation will continue to grow and thrive."

ICARUS-2 is sponsored by the Dean's office at the School of Natural Resources and Environment, the Rackham Graduate School, the Center for South Asian Studies, the South Africa Initiative Office of the Center for Afro-American and African Studies, the Center for African Studies, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, the International Institute, the Environmental Law and Policy Program at the Law School, the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Social Dimensions of Environmental Policy (SDEP) at University of Illinois and SNRE faculty.