We were delighted to be joined by Professor Gregor Wolbring for this session.
Born without legs and a wheelchair user, Gregor is a Professor at the University of Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine, Community Health Science, Program in Community Rehabilitation and Disability Studies.
Gregor published his first academic paper on climate change and disabled people in 2009 and has since published over 30 academic papers focusing on the environment and disabled people. He uses a disability studies and ability studies lens covering energy, water, food and climate change (in)security, environmental activism, environmental education, Rio+20, education for sustainable development, social sustainability, the Sustainable Development Goals, emergency and disaster management, planning and preparedness and eco-health. He coined the term ‘eco-ableism’ in 2012, and has used ability studies as a framework to investigate the ability expectations humans have of nature since 2008.
In 2013, Gregor was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal by the Government of Canada in recognition of the benefit of his academic work to the greater community. This complements a range of other awards across his profile of teaching, research, supervision and equality, diversity and inclusion leadership.
You can find out more about Gregor’s work via his website: https://wolbring.wordpress.com/
During this session, a number of helpful sources were mentioned. Many of these can be found on Gregor’s website above. Some specific examples that were mentioned – written by Gregor and by others – include:
The ability expectations glossary: https://wolbring.wordpress.com/ability-expectationableism-glossary/
2009 paper around disability and adaptation apartheid: https://www.journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/173
2012 piece around eco-ableism: https://svara98.typepad.com/blog/2012/09/eco-ableism-anthropology-news.html
2021 piece around youth environmentalism and disability: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/17/9950
2022 piece on disability and environmental education: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/3/1211
2023 piece on disability and burnout: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/13/5/131
2024 piece on intersectionality and disabled people: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/14/9/176
Anthony Nocella’s work on eco-ability: https://www.anthonynocella.org/producttags/eco-ability/
Agarwal’s news piece, ‘Climate activists with disabilities fight for inclusion’: https://abcnews.go.com/US/climate-activists-disabilities-fight-inclusion/story?id=81042551
Papers on ableism and environmentalism by Deborah Fenney can be located here: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=LpAwsEQAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate
Bristol’s disability-led community climate action plan and linked activities: https://bristolclimatenature.org/projects/community-climate-action/climate-and-disability/