Section: Dissemination

Popularization

Education

• Guillaume Mandil gave a half-day training course to a group of high school teachers (Lycée Mounier - CLEPT), July 2019.

• Peter Sturm gave a lecture on the environmental impact of ICT, during a training week of high school teachers of the Hauts-de-France Region, Lille, France, June 2019.

Conference-debate series and YouTube-channel “Understanding and Acting”

Following a dynamics of exponential growth in a finite world, humanity today faces a number of unprece- dented and tightly interlinked challenges. With a growing number of environmental limits being largely and irreversibly exceeded (GHG concentrations in the atmosphere, biodiversity loss, soil erosion, freshwater shortages...), social, economic, geopolitical, humanitarian (etc.) consequences are becoming more urgent than ever to address, while the threat of an uncontrolled global collapse is now more than a prospect. It is urgent to initiate deep, structural, socioeconomic changes on virtually all aspects of our increasingly global societies (economics, industrial and agricultural production, consumption, education, all requiring major new local and global policies).

In view of these facts, the STEEP research team has initiated in 2016 a series of conferences-debates entitled “Understanding & Acting” (Comprendre et Agir) that examines these issues in order to help researchers and citizens to increase their awareness of the various issues at stake in order to initiate relevant individual and collective actions. From now on, the scientific community at large must realize that its duty also lies in helping citizens to better understand these issues. If the fraction of people in society whose privilege is to be paid to think about society’s problems do not seize this opportunity in the critical times we face, who will? Researchers must become more involved in the search of socioeconomic alternatives and help citizens to implement them. The interactions between researchers and citizens must also to be reinvented.

The presentations of this series of conferences typically last between 30 to 45 minutes; they are followed by a 45 minute public debate with the audience. The presentations are captured on video and then made directly accessible on the YouTube Channel “Comprendre et Agir”. At the end of 2019 the YouTube channel has about 5,400 subscribers and reached a total of about 425,000 viewings.

The conference-debates of 2019:

• Olivier Vidal, Université Grenoble Alpes: Resources and energy at the global scale in the context of the energy transition (Matières premières et énergie à l’échelle mondiale dans le contexte de la transition énergétique)

• Grégoire Chambaz, Lausanne: How real is the risk of a blackout? (Le risque de blackout est-il réel ?)

• Christophe Bonneuil, CNRS and École des hautes études en sciences sociales: When the whites intended to preserve the planet – A history of geo-power, 1865-1914 (Quand les blancs voulurent conserver la planète. Une histoire du géopouvoir, 1865-1914)

• Peter Sturm, STEEP: Environmental challenges and what is blocking acting on them (Enjeux environnementaux et blocages à l’action)

• Sophie Wahnich, CNRS and Institut interdisciplinaire d'anthropologie du contemporain: Why was King Louis XVI destituted in 1792? Social imaginaries from 1770 to 1792 (Pourquoi le roi Louis XVI a t-il été destitué en 1792 ? Imaginaires sociaux de 1770 à 1792)

• Denis Dupré, STEEP: Collapses and finance (part I) – Is Finance a collapse pyromaniac? (Effondrements et finance (partie I) – La Finance : pyromane des effondrements ?)

Link to the web page of the series (program, abstracts, dates, complements etc.): https://team.inria.fr/steep/les-conferences-debats-comprendre-et-agir/

Link to the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJbcXCcOA63M8VMysAbmt_A

Interventions

Guillaume Mandil participated in the preparation of an exposition at Cité des Sciences (Paris).

Team members gave the following general audience talks:

• Serge Fenet: Talk Design et anthropocène : business as unusual – Une cartographie des risques par le prisme de la systémique at the Biennale Internationale du Design, St-Étienne, France, May 2019.

• Serge Fenet: Effondrements et anthropocène à la lumière de la dynamique des systèmes at ESC Clermont-Ferrand, France, May 2019.

• Serge Fenet: Technologies numériques et catastrophe environnementale : des liens complexes at École Centrale de Lyon, for a general audience of master students.

• Pierre-Yves Longaretti: Seminar Voluntary minimal consumption: stakes, obstacles, levers. EcoInfo thematic school, November 2019.

• Pierre-Yves Longaretti: Seminar Climate Change and strategic surprise, Swiss military history and prospective center, December 2019.

• Pierre-Yves Longaretti: Round table discussion, Will we all be farmers tomorrow? (Demain, tous paysans ?), Transition Towns biennial meeting, Grenoble, March 2019.

• Pierre-Yves Longaretti: Round table discussion, Agriculture: global and local stakes (Agriculture : enjeux locaux et globaux), Forum citoyen alimentation & santé : La transition agro-alimentaire dans nos assiettes, Grenoble, November 2019.

• Emmanuel Prados: Institutional Conference Veille techno à Polytech, Grenoble, France, December 9-16, 2019. Organized by the MSTII Graduate School of Université Grenoble Alpes (Bernard Tourancheau).

• Emmanuel Prados: Institutional Conference organized by UniLaSalle (Hervé Leyrit), Beauvais, France, October 17, 2019.

• Emmanuel Prados: Conference at the back-to-school day of EPITA LYON (computer intelligence engineering school), Lyon, France, September 10, 2019. Organizer: Epita (Lamia Derrode).

• Emmanuel Prados: Conference on environmental transition for elected politicians of the Grésivaudan community of communes, open to the general public, Le Versoud, France, June 3rd, 2019. Organizer: Le Versoud City Hall (Claire Desmaris).

• Emmanuel Prados: General public conference, Crolles, France, June 22 , 2019. Organizer: Association Ecocitoyens.

• Emmanuel Prados: Conference at the CitizenCampus entitled Transition, démocratie, effondrement : la quadrature du cercle ?, Grenoble, France, March 29, 2019. Organizer: Université Grenoble Alpes. https://twitter.com/YannToma/status/1112094922499330049

• Emmanuel Prados: Conference/debate Quelles transitions dans un contexte d’effondrement ?, Palais des Sports de Grenoble, France, March 13, 2019. Organizer: Ville de Grenoble. http://villesentransition.grenoble.fr/events/quelles-transitions-dans-un-contexte-deffondrement/

• Emmanuel Prados: Conference within the ISN cycle, Le numérique face aux enjeux environnementaux et sociétaux, Grenoble, France, April 10, 2019. Organizer: Inria. https://www.canal-u.tv/video/inria/le_numerique_face_aux_enjeux_environnementaux_et_societaux.50079

• Emmanuel Prados: Invited conference at the Loria colloquium, Le numérique face à la catastrophe environnementale et sociétale, Nancy, France, February 8, 2019. Organizer: Loria (http://www.loria.fr/). https://www.loria.fr/fr/communication/colloquium-loria-exposes-et-videos/

• Peter Sturm made a “Tour de France” by bicycle, to raise awareness on environmental issues. During this trip (May 15 to July 4), he visited all Inria centers and gave a talk on Environmental challenges and what is blocking acting on them in ten locations (Sophia Antipolis, Montpellier, Bordeaux, Rennes, Saclay, Rocquencourt, Paris, Nancy, Lyon, Grenoble). His visits were accompanied by various events, including seminars by local researchers, meetings with sustainable development commissions, social gatherings, etc. This initiative is described at https://project.inria.fr/inriavelo/fr/, see also the daily blog https://www.polarsteps.com/PeterSturm3/1692663-inri-a-velo.