Plant-Based Universities
Activism and Climate Ethics at the University of Basel
QUDSIA SHUJAZADA AND LAURA VON SALIS IN CONVERSATION WITH NOËMI BERTHERIN
In order to situate our analysis of nonhuman ethics, veganism and institutional responsibility in the context of the climate crisis, we open by canvassing two prominent academic outlooks. pessimist At best, Clare Palmer’s chapter in Ethical Issues in Global Climate Change Policy and the Landscape goes to the heart of basic questions as to why and in what way the harms—and indeed the novel “beings” coming from climate disruption—could matter morally, highlighting profound uncertainties and requesting a more stringent ethical accounting. Expanding on this, and on Mike Fraser Dyke and George Monbiot’s exchange on the roles of universities, is a dialogue about our shared work in higher education, from safeguarding student protest and questioning the myth of the neutral academic, to resisting fossil-fuel funding and reimagining metrics of impact in the name of social transformation. Together, they lay out a path from abstract ethical theory to concrete institutional change—clearing the way for our later interview with a University of Basel student and environmental activist who embodies these conversations in a lived reality.
Activism and Climate Ethics at the University of Basel
QUDSIA SHUJAZADA AND LAURA VON SALIS IN CONVERSATION WITH NOËMI BERTHERIN
In order to situate our analysis of nonhuman ethics, veganism and institutional responsibility in the context of the climate crisis, we open by canvassing two prominent academic outlooks. pessimist At best, Clare Palmer’s chapter in Ethical Issues in Global Climate Change Policy and the Landscape goes to the heart of basic questions as to why and in what way the harms—and indeed the novel “beings” coming from climate disruption—could matter morally, highlighting profound uncertainties and requesting a more stringent ethical accounting. Expanding on this, and on Mike Fraser Dyke and George Monbiot’s exchange on the roles of universities, is a dialogue about our shared work in higher education, from safeguarding student protest and questioning the myth of the neutral academic, to resisting fossil-fuel funding and reimagining metrics of impact in the name of social transformation. Together, they lay out a path from abstract ethical theory to concrete institutional change—clearing the way for our later interview with a University of Basel student and environmental activist who embodies these conversations in a lived reality.
Climate Justice: Basel in the World is a colloquium at the University of Basel, co-organized in the spring semester 2025 by students from the AG Nachhaltigkeit and Prof. Dr. Janina Grabs. It is supported through funding by Impuls.