Lars Hallstrom: Coal Communities and Economic Diversification

Welcome to the Global Speaker Series. a podcast partnership between the Wyoming Humanities and the Jackson Hole Center for Global Affairs (www.jhcga.org). Lars Hallstrom is a political scientist by training, with a long-standing combination of teaching and research interests in comparative politics, environmental policy, environmental health, public health and natural resource management. He is the first Director of the Alberta Centre for Sustainable Rural Communities, University of Alberta (ACSRC) since 2009. They have conducted over 40 projects related to rural sustainability in Alberta and Canada (based largely in 3 priority areas: environmental sustainability (water), social sustainability (aging and youth), and institutional sustainability (rural/municipal planning, policy and governance). They have also partnered with researchers, research networks and rural development organizations (such as the Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation) around the world. In addition to rurally-focused work, he continues to work with different teams of researchers in Canada, the USA and the EU on environmental policy and planning issues such as water and watershed management, municipal planning and governance, regionalization, innovation and most recently the possibility of a new/alternative pedagogy for sustainability.