Every single human rights injustice being perpetrated today can be directly traced to the problem of sustainability. Our entire globalized ecology of production and consumption is, at its core, unsustainable across factors such as health, society, and the environment. This is an overwhelmingly complex and dynamic problem; the amelioration of which will require the participation of individuals in their personal and professional capacities, working across all sectors of life and the economy, throughout the world.

Organizations, communities and corporations of all creeds and political leanings are beginning to incorporate sustainability initiatives into their plans and practices. This is an encouraging gesture, even if minuscule in the shadow of the problem. What, though, does sustainability mean? And, how are we –or how can we– teach sustainability as both an ethos and a mode of practice in our everyday lives?

PRESENTERS: Denise Ofelia Mangen

DENISE OFELIA MANGEN is a Gates Millennium Scholar, a Steinhardt Fellow, and a doctoral candidate in Educational Communication + Technology at New York University. Her research interests include catalysts for positive social action, sustainability, consumer attitude + behavior change, and the use of information + communication technologies in crisis response. Ofelia has held various positions on projects for organizations such as MediaStorm, TEDxEast, National Geographic, the International Center of Photography, The Raw File, Against All Odds Productions, Backlight Media Group, the Moth, and the UNICEF Innovation Team. She earned a MA in Media Ecology from New York University in 2007 and a BS in Visual Communication from Ohio University in 2004.