 Hello and welcome to Conservators Combating Climate Change, a new podcast series by the American Institute for Conservation's Emerging Conservation Professionals Network. I'm Emma Hartman. And I'm Natalia Swanson. And we're so excited to be hosting this series that we hope will inform, empower and inspire action in conservation and collections care professionals at every stage of their career. This podcast is generously supported by the Department of Art Conservation at the University of Delaware in honor of Bruno Pouliott. We're so grateful to the University of Delaware and to the entire AIC and ECPN community for supporting us in this new venture. Before we begin the program today, we'd like to start off by thanking everyone who is tuning in and those who have subscribed and reached out. This is such a bizarre time for all of us and it feels like an especially weird time to be beginning this podcasting journey, but it really has been rewarding so far. One of our primary goals is to empower ourselves and our community into taking action. And in the current reality of often really overwhelming uncertainty, it has felt empowering to talk to each other and our speakers and some of our listeners about how they're creating actionable change. So we hope that you too are feeling empowered and if you are interested in becoming more involved, please reach out to us. And a sincere thank you to everyone who has already reached out with feedback. I'd love to take this opportunity to address one question that has come up a few times, which is how we are choosing our speakers. Those of you who listen to our introductory episode already know that we are trying to engage with a broader demographic than just the emerging conservation community. We genuinely believe that long term systematic change comes from community led initiatives. As such, we decided that in these first few episodes, we feature what we consider to be a diverse set of speakers who don't all identify as experts. It is important that some guests like Henry are on the program to help us understand the situation and provide a framework for future conversations. But it's also really important for us to speak with community members who are reflective of our audience. Those who are interested in instituting change, but who are just learning how to do so. We hope that our next few speakers remind you that it doesn't matter where you work or what your title is or how educated you are. You too have agency to enact positive change and prioritize compassion and equity. So with that said, I'm excited to welcome Maddie Cooper to the program today. Maddie is a graduate fellow at the Winniter University of Delaware program in art conservation. She's specializing in preventive conservation. She graduated from the University of Delaware undergraduate program with her BA in art conservation and chemistry. And then worked as a collections assistant at Wolfsonian FIU and as a conservation technician at the Skya Museum and Gardens, both in Miami. And while working in South Florida, she participated in hurricane preparedness and response activities for hurricanes Matthew and Irma. She's currently a student member of the AIC emergency committee and her research initiatives focus on identifying sustainable alternatives to ideal collection housing materials. So welcome to the program Maddie. We're so excited to have you. Thank you so much for joining us during what is a very strange time for everyone. Thanks for having me. It is a strange time, but today is a good day for, for me at least. So, you know, we're taking it one day at a time. We'd really love to begin this conversation with you talking a little bit about your work in South Florida and how that experience shaped your pathway within the conservation. Sure. Yeah. So I worked in Miami for three years and Miami is grappling with climate change in just about every way that you can possibly grapple with climate change right now. Sea level rise, increased storm intensity, climate gentrification, kind of you name it. And it doesn't matter sort of what line of work you're in climate change works its way into your daily life in big ways and in small ways. And it's, you know, that's not any different from museum professionals. So I remember one time in particular I was working at a museum on Miami Beach in 2017 and it was just like a normal August day and a short storm ended up in four feet of flooding. When the storm water pumps failed. So Miami Beach is, you know, it's four feet above sea level and built on porous limestone and it's just completely reliant on the system of pumps to prevent flooding during little storms or sunny day flooding caused by high tide. So that was sort of my major wake up call. And also just dealing with climate change in big ways and small ways in my personal life and in my professional life. And I hadn't really thought about it much before moving to Miami. Right. So this topic, did you explored at all in your undergraduate training at the University of Delaware? No, I really didn't. And I went to the University of Delaware for undergrad. I had studied chemistry and I studied art conservation. And I had kind of a very traditional view of what art conservation was. You know, I was at University of Delaware. I did an internship at Winniter. I did an internship at the Walters Art Museum. And my introduction to conservation was sort of in some of the oldest conservation labs in the United States. And so that was my idea of what conservation was. And then when I moved to Miami, which has, you know, South Florida has a really great scene of preservation, but it's definitely much younger than it is on the northeast coast and they're dealing with different issues. And so it was an eye opening experience to see kind of the differences between those two conservation experiences, if you will. I think it would be interesting if you have anything to say about how the state politics maybe affected the ability to enact change. Like I know when I was working there that the governor's office wasn't actually allowing the use of the word climate change. And so it was making it really difficult to enact any, you know, significant planning on that front. Did you experience that similarly? I mean, I guess I didn't experience it directly in any way, but like you mentioned, Florida is a state that's dealing with climate change in a very real way, but it's also, you know, a largely conservative state. And so there's that conflict when you have people who are kind of screaming at the top of their lungs. This is what's happening. And then you have a government who's, you know, setting the, setting the policy so it can be really difficult. But I think because it's happening so acutely in that city, it doesn't matter, you know, what your political affiliation is, if it affects your life, if it affects your job, you're going to have to deal with it. So Maddie, I'm wondering if you could talk a bit about what about that experience sort of brought you to preventive conservation and if you could give our listeners a little introduction to what preventive conservation is. Yeah, sure. So I am majoring in preventive conservation in the Winniter University of Delaware program at our conservation woodpack. It's a very new major. I'm the second of three and now four preventive conservation majors in that program. And, you know, as conservators, all conservators do preventive conservation working on guidelines for exhibition, making housings, doing condition reports, documentation, all that stuff is preventive conservation. What I wanted to really focus on was sort of the non-interventive side of conservation, sort of viewing the museum as an ecosystem that has a building and mechanical systems and the collection and all the people and policies in that collection. And are there ways that we can intervene into that system to, you know, protect collections in a way that's more efficient, that's more sustainable, that's more transparent, sort of taking that big picture approach. And I realized that I was interested in preventive conservation when I was in Miami because it's such a difficult environment to keep collections. I mean, it's hot, it's humid, there's insect populations year round. You're dealing with emergencies. And so I was a conservation technician. I was supposed to be doing treatment, but really what I was doing was just sort of running around working with different departments to solve these preventive problems. And I realized that I really loved that and I wanted to dig into that. And so the preventive conservation major at University of Delaware has allowed me to do that. And it's also given me the freedom to sort of dig into those topics that I am passionate about. Can you tell us a little bit about some of the projects that you're working on in the program and kind of how you're tailoring your experience there to focus on the climate crisis and emergency preparedness? Sure. So, you know, like I mentioned, my entrance into sort of the climate change space comes from emergency preparedness and response for the most part. It comes from preparing for and responding to hurricanes. And so I really wanted to dig into emergency preparedness and response because increased storm intensity is an effective climate change. And I feel that it's important that we prepare ourselves for that future. So, since the summer of 2019, I've been working at or with rather the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware, which is an interdisciplinary center that studies the social aspects of disasters. So, help people interact with and react to disasters and it's amazing because disaster affects everyone, right? So, there are researchers in sociology and criminal justice and social justice, climate science, archeology, you know, you name it, they're all working at the DRC. And so I became involved with them this summer when I interned with them. My supervisor there, Valerie Marlowe is getting her PhD in disaster science and she studies the material culture of disasters. So this summer I worked with her to do a comparative study of two responses to Hurricane Harvey in 2017 in Houston, one by the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and one by the Blue Triangle Community Center. So, we were just sort of looking at the networks that form during disaster response and the flow of resources during disaster response. And that was really great experience, you know, because I had never done any sort of sociological research before. But it was excellent. And so, you know, this semester, I'm taking a class at the DRC that was supposed to focus on hurricane recovery. But when COVID came to the US, we sort of pivoted to look at response to the pandemic instead. So continuing on working with them, which has been really great. I, that's super interesting. And I'm so glad that you brought up the like social aspect of climate justice because I feel like one narrative that I've heard more recently is that climate justice is social justice because, as you said, the impacts of the changing climate really affect all of us. But I think as most of us know that they disproportionately affect the disenfranchised. Definitely. So climate change is a risk multiplier. So any risk that is already there is going to become more extreme. So, you know, populations that are at higher risk are automatically going to be affected more by climate change automatically going to be affected more by disaster. So it's imperative that we keep that in mind when we're making decisions. So, Maddie, I know we talked to you a bit before recording about some of your, your mapping projects. And in particular about your interest in the Noah's Ark project in Europe and how that might be useful for future projects here in the US. Do you want to talk a bit about that? Yeah, sure. So the Noah's Ark project refers to a project by the European Commission for Research Innovation and Science and they published, I think it was in 2018 they published a book on the project called Atlas of Climate Change Impact on European Cultural Heritage, which it's a really amazing resource because it is just that it literally maps the effects of climate change that are of concern to preservation professionals throughout Europe. So it's everything from temperature and relative humidity to wind driven rain to like even really specific things like corrosion of bronze caused by pollutants. So it's really sort of a crystal ball showing you the future of what preservation challenges are going to be have to, are going to have to be dealt with in Europe in the future. And so I think that publication is just incredible. And I would really love to see something like that happen in the United States. And so I am interested in sort of exploring this area of data analysis and mapping and creating sort of a visual representation of climate change because, you know, in conservation, a lot of us are very visual people and I think it can really be effective to sort of have that visual aid. So sort of in a in a very abbreviated and much smaller way than than the Noah's Ark project, I have reached out to, you know, the Delaware State climatologist and climate scientists at the University of Delaware to ask them about climate data that may be available for a project like this, and I've had a lot of really positive response. There's a lot of climate data in this area and a lot of people that are really interested in sharing that data with, you know, the preservation community and the arts community. So this summer I'm taking a course on GIS on data mapping. And I hope to put together just a very abbreviated version of those maps for, you know, the Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland area that show change over time in relative humidity, temperature, intense precipitation, just like something like that, and see what happens. It's really great that you mentioned transparency because I think that we all recognize the necessity of transparent information sharing right now, you know, particularly in regards to this topic. What should we all really, regardless of our specialization be doing to address the, you know, climate crisis and, you know, sustainability in our own practice? I mean, I think one thing is that it's really easy to get overwhelmed. It's really easy to think about, you know, climate change and think about sustainability and just feel completely powerless. I think it's also a narrative that I've heard a few times that, you know, the conservation community is very small. The preservation community is very small. What kind of impact can we make when we're talking about a global issue? And something that I think is really important to acknowledge is that, you know, there was this American Alliance of Museum report that came out, I think, 2017, 2018, that says that museums contribute, you know, 50 billion dollars to the global, to the GDP. And they support almost 800,000 jobs. That's just in the United States. And that's just museums. It's not even libraries and archives. And so we are here. I mean, we are a big presence and we are contributors. And we have a responsibility to do our part in trying to make sustainable decisions. And in terms of finding an entry point into that, I think it's really about just being mindful when you're, when you're making decisions in your professional practice. So every single decision, you know, whether you're making a choice of relevant or you're choosing something as big as an HVAC system to keep sustainability in the back of your mind, not just environmental sustainability, but also social and economic sustainability in the back of your mind is important. And it's really hard. It's just, you know, it can seem almost impossible, but when you try to make it a habit to consider it in every single decision that you make, I think it can become a little bit easier and a little bit more manageable. You raised a good point in saying that museums and built heritage are a contributor to climate change, right? Like climate, you know, the climate crisis is the consequence of human action. I mean, if you just think about the amount of energy it takes to condition a museum storage space to that like 50% relative humidity, 70 degrees. It's like, it's an incredible amount of energy, right? So we are thinking about this and preventive conservation a lot. You know, how can we make changes to that environment that is sort of almost impossible to attain anyway? How do we create a museum environment that's going to be safe for material culture and also more sustainable because part of preservation is, you know, recognizing the risk of climate change to cultural heritage and understanding that we have a responsibility to try to mitigate that in different ways. I think, Maddie, you bring up a lot of really good points here and I'm wondering how, I think a lot of us have trouble communicating some of these ideas in museum spaces when they're not already a part of the conversation that's going on in your workplace. Do you have suggestions for some of our listeners who want to effectively communicate the risks of climate change and the importance of sustainability in their museum or cultural heritage spaces? That's a really great question and it's a really hard question and I think it applies to a lot of different aspects of being an emerging conservation professional in the field, just being able to have a voice and being able to speak to the issues that you're really passionate about. I think, you know, there are different ways that you can become involved. You can, through AIC, you can, you know, interact with the Sustainability Committee or the Emergency Committee. You can, you know, make connections through ECPN through networks of emerging conservation professionals. There's an organization called Sustainability and Conservation, which gives people tools to working towards sustainability in their workplaces or in their schools. They have a lot of really amazing resources and I think my biggest piece of advice would just be to talk about it with your peers, talk about it with your colleagues, and try and work together because your voice is always going to be louder if you're part of, you know, a coalition of young professionals rather than just by yourself. But also, you know, I, you know, I'm a graduate student. I'm in my 20s. I'm not, you know, I don't live a zero-waste lifestyle. I'm not even close to that. I have a long way to go and I understand that I have a lot of privilege right now, just especially in this moment of coronavirus, but also just being a graduate student and being given the time and space to explore this topic as much as I would like to. So, it's sort of easy for me to say some of these things, but I guess to digress, try and make as many connections as you can with your peers. Because, you know, we're emerging conservation professionals now, but we will be seasoned conservation professionals in the future when, you know, a lot of these effects of climate change are coming to pass. Because you have transitioned into preventive conservation, you know, what thoughts you have about the potential of some, you know, the more traditional pathways, how that practice might change or adapt in Yeah, definitely. I think it's a really exciting moment for sort of traditional preventive conservation because it's an opportunity to really examine treatment practices and materials and solvents that we've been using for such a long time. And, you know, it's pretty easy for me as a person who doesn't do treatment to kind of sit here and say you should think about the solvents that you're using. But there are people that are taking real steps towards making intervention, preventive conservation more sustainable. So Maddie, it looks like we're about out of time now. If you do you have any closing thoughts before. Oh my gosh. No pressure. So my journey in conservation has been very personal and very special to me, but I, I guess the biggest piece of advice that I can sort of give is to make space for the things that you're passionate about, even if they're not, you know, directly related to conservation, because in reality they are. And if you sort of take the time and space to dig into those, those areas of your life that you find joy in, you will be able to make connections to your professional practice. And I've been really lucky to do that through my work at the University of Delaware and, you know, I hope to do it in the future. That's the only way to end the episode. Maddie, thank you again. It's been, it's such a pleasure to talk to you. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. And hear about your journey. And I'm, you know, I'm so happy that y'all are doing this. I think it's just such a cool project and I can't wait to hear from all of the other awesome guests that you have on the podcast. Thank you so much, Maddie. This was really wonderful. Hi everyone, Emma here. Before we close out today's episode, I'd like to ask something of you all. If you're thinking about climate change and sustainability in your practice of conservation and or collections care in any capacity, we'd love to hear about it. If you have a sustainability tip, a treatment you've completed with sustainability in mind, experience communicating about climate change and cultural heritage spaces, or any other thoughts and reflections on the content that we're discussing here in this podcast, please share them either via email or via a voice message on our anchor page. You may be highlighted in a future episode. To email us, write to ecpn.aic.digitalplatforms at gmail.com. And to leave a voice message, please visit anchor.fm slash conservators combating cc. You can find these links in the show notes as well. Thank you all. Natalia here. Welcome to a special mini episode of conservators combating climate change. In light of all that has happened in these past few weeks, Emma and I thought it was important to take some time and directly address how and why social equity is crucial to the conversation about climate justice and creating a sustainable future. This has come up in all of our conversations with guest speakers so far. We see the heightened awareness of the Black Lives Matter movement as an opportunity to discuss directly what we have learned about why climate justice is social justice. I'm not an expert, but I'm going to try and tackle this truly complex topic in three different categories. First, why this topic must be integrated. I'll then give some examples that will demonstrate how systemic racism is causing disproportionate harm to marginalized communities, both directly from the changing climate and in our nation's response to two disasters. Finally, I'll try and end on a high note and focus on what we can do moving forward in our communities and within institutions. The honest truth is that nothing will change unless we take strategic action. So first, why must these topics be integrated. If you follow US politics, you know that many elected officials claim that climate agendas shouldn't be conflated. The environmental regulations and carbon neutrality with quote unquote unrelated issues like the job sector, health care, civil rights, and so on. The difficult fact that we all need to accept for this conversation to continue transparently is that the problems we are talking about are connected because they are systemic. Within literature sustainability is often described as the triptych of social justice, ecological integrity, and economic well-being. Others posit that the pillars of sustainability are cultural diversity, biodiversity, and human well-being. Either of these definitions, we can see that diversity and equity are defining properties of sustainability and cannot be separated. We also know that widespread societal changes need to be enacted and quickly to avoid the long term catastrophic effects of human induced climate change. To create this future, we must address the energy sector, which means we need to critically evaluate transportation, agriculture, manufacturing industries. Every aspect of society must be evaluated and adjusted accordingly. And since we live in a country where racism and bias are seeped into the foundation of our nation, these injustices are likewise seen in all of these different sectors. It's my opinion that if we separate this conversation, we are perpetuating the injustices of our system. So let's talk about some of those injustices. There are a devastating number of examples that show how marginalized communities are being disproportionately affected by the effects of and the response to the climate crisis. Specifically within the US, this means communities of color, low income communities, indigenous communities, women and non-conforming youth and elderly persons. And as Maddie Cooper said in episode two, climate change is a risk multiplier. So climate change compounds these inequalities. The changes in frequency and intensity of extreme weather events particularly affect communities of color because these communities are already vulnerable due to economic insecurity, insecurity, substandard, housing stock, etc. The change in climate affects geographical areas differently. For example, sea level rise is displacing coastal dwelling communities, which are disproportionately comprised of people of color. Climate gentrification has begun to push out black communities in these cities and will continue to accelerate in the future. It also affects zip code differently because poorer communities tend to have less trees, which means less shade, which results in hot spots, which in the media is often referred to as, quote, urban heat islands, unquote. Studies have shown that individuals in these communities often have higher rates of chronic illness that are exacerbated by the hotter temperatures, which will continue to get hotter in the future. Along these same lines, the NAACP Clean Air Task Force report found that extractive and polluting facilities are frequently operated in majority black communities. This compromises the long and short term health of those communities, again causing elevated health risks. A report by the EPA researchers in the American Journal of Public Health in 2018 found that black Americans were exposed to air pollution particles at a rate 1.5 times greater than the national average. We've also come to learn how the response to human-induced and natural disasters disproportionately affects black and brown communities. A harrowing fact that most people are already aware of is that black men are incarcerated at a rate much, much higher than any other demographic. They comprise 70% of incarcerated peoples. Inmate labor is used to clean up the BP oil spill in 2010 and the wildfires throughout Northern California in these past few years. These people are being paid often pennies on the dollar, $1 per hour in California for extreme and life-threatening work in the hope of an early release. It is truly disgusting that this is allowed to happen legally and will continue to happen as disasters occur with increased scale and frequency. The realities that black communities are being affected more severely than white communities because of the interconnectedness and pervasiveness of systemic racism. I am sure that you too are feeling a mixture of emotions of anger and grief, frustration, personal responsibility at hearing these facts. It will take an incredible amount of work to create equity, but we need to try and stir it somewhere. The NAACP has released an incredible climate justice initiative toolkit. In 2010, it's just as relevant today as it was 10 years ago. In it, they talk about an equitable green economy. This includes jobs that not only improve the environmental health of community, but also pay sustainable living wages and benefits to workers, provide safe and healthy work environments, and enable advocacy for the self and for the community. In their toolkit, they provide a clear pathway for understanding and creating opportunity. So how does this relate to the field of conservation and museum sector, higher education, etc.? Well, thanks to Henry in our first episode, we know that built heritage is part of the problem and has to be part of the solution. We can invest in these renewable energy sectors within our institutions, and this will be mutually beneficial. It's been shown that sustainable initiatives save institutions money. And that's to be frank, in a capitalist, corporatist society, it often comes down to money. It will also create a demand for green-collar jobs, which we know statistically are mostly black and brown men. This is just one optional pathway forward and certainly won't change the systemic problems that persist in our country. It is a starting point, though, and we need to start somewhere. This has been difficult. This research has, this is a difficult conversation. And I want to thank you for joining me today. I hope you feel some empowerment, maybe in the increased information provided and are now committed to creating change within your sphere of influence. As always, MNI also want to thank the entire ECPN and AIC community for supporting us in this venture and to the University of Delaware for financially supporting our guest speakers in honor of Bruno Puglia. Until next time.