Lessons from the Middle East for a Warming Planet
A Crown Seminar with On Barak, in conversation with Natasha Iskander
Thursday, April 16
11 AM-12:15 PM
Online (Register for virtual attendance)
2023, 2024, and 2025 stand as the three hottest years on record. Yet despite such record-breaking temperatures, many people still struggle to grasp the severity of the climate crisis. In this Crown Seminar, On Barak draws from his book Heat, A History to examine the Middle East as a global hotspot already living with the realities of extreme heat. In conversation with Natasha Iskander, Barak explores how the ways we measure, monitor, and adapt to rising temperatures have dulled our sensitivity to climate change and stripped global warming of its political dimensions—even as it deepens ethnic, class, and gender inequalities.
On Barak is a professor in the Department of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University.
Natasha Iskander is the James Weldon Johnson Professor of Urban Planning and Public Service at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service.