Time: 12:00 PM- 1:30 PM, Tuesday April 22

Venue: LIB1115

Speaker: Dr. Yifei Li, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, NYU Shanghai; Global Network Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Studies, NYU

*Free food will be provided. Let’s eat with care and leave no waste!

Abstract:

On this Earth Day, it is worth pausing to consider the quieter, more ambiguous corners of our environmental consciousness. Public discourse often focuses on the extremes—on intense activism at one end and outright obstruction at the other. Yet the vast middle ground, where most of us reside, remains largely unexamined. This talk explores that overlooked terrain, drawing on qualitative survey data to reveal a rich spectrum of everyday environmental attitudes. These range from agnosticism and resignation to whataboutism, conspiracy thinking, and moral exceptionalism. Taken together, they compose a mosaic of what might be called “lie-flat environmentalism,” a stance not of denial, but of fatigue, disillusionment, and passive resistance. Though often ignored, these sentiments hold deep and urgent implications for the future of environmental action.

Speaker’s Bio:

Yifei Li is Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at NYU Shanghai, Global Network Assistant Professor at NYU, and Fellow at the DFG Humanities Centre for Advanced Studies in Hamburg. His research concerns various groups of people under China’s brand of state-led environmentalism. He has received research support from the United States National Science Foundation, Henry Luce Foundation/American Council of Learned Societies, Rachel Carson Center, and many other extramural sources. He is the lead author (with Judith Shapiro) of China Goes Green: Coercive Environmentalism for a Troubled Planet (Polity, 2020). His recent work appears in Current Sociology, Qualitative Sociology, Sociology of Development, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Environmental Sociology, Journal of Environmental Management, and other scholarly outlets. His scholarly work has been featured on NPR, in The Economist, Foreign Affairs, Le Monde, and other media.