_edited.png)
The Big Easy’s Response: Sustaining Culture and Community in a Changing Climate
New Orleans, LA
What does sustainability look like as a community practice, and how does that influence our definitions of environmental justice and urban resilience? Through this course and trip, we will examine how New Orleans, Louisiana is pioneering community resilience as preparation for increased disaster risk and sea level rise. Join us as we engage with community members who are organizing in the face of an uncertain climate future. We’ll explore the effects of climate change on agriculture, food security, the petrochemical industry, flood risks, and other local symptoms of unmitigated fossil fuel emissions.
Meet the co-leads:
Hywot Ayana
My name is Hywot Ayana, and I am a junior from Stone Mountain, Georgia, studying civil engineering. I have always been fascinated by urban resilience and how to prepare a place for its future climate — to sustain, and it's not something I believe can be achieved through engineering alone. I am deeply interested in how the climate crisis interacts with and spurs the thriving environmental justice initiatives in New Orleans and how a city builds in the face of rising natural disaster risk.
Alana Esposito
My name is Alana Esposito. I was born and raised in Huntersville, North Carolina. I’m a sophomore hoping to create an individually designed major in engineering studying the interaction between designed social systems and algorithms. I’m interested in how communities especially affected by climate change continue to persist in the face of mounting climatic threats worsened by systemic failures.