Plan C for Civilization: Film Screening and Panel Discussion

Ben is an award-winning director and producer whose work centers on the collision between humanity, technology and the force of nature. His film about the emergence of a controversial climate technology, Plan C for Civilization, premiered at DocNYC in 2025. His 2020 film Can We Cool the Planet? surveyed the landscape of climate solutions and aired on PBS NOVA. His 2014 film Shored Up explored rising sea levels and the politics of climate change in the U.S. in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, winning the Sundance Institute LightStay Sustainability Award and airing on DirecTV.  He directed and produced the documentary HOME: A Rockumentary for WHYY in Philadelphia in 2017 and produced four episodes of the 2016 PBS/OZY Media series The Contenders: 16 for ‘16. He was Associate Producer of the documentary about ocean acidification called A Sea Change, broadcast on Discovery’s Planet Green in 2009, and Two Square Miles, broadcast on PBS’ Independent Lens in 2006. His short film Diorama won a 2007 Eastman Kodak Award and international grand prize awards at film festivals in the U.S. and Europe. Ben’s production company, Mangrove Media, is based in Philadelphia where he is an Associate Professor in the Film and Television Program at Drexel University.

Jane’s undergraduate research at the University of California at Santa Barbara was on paleomagnetics and recent tectonics (measuring movement along faults throughout California as well as the Teton fault in Wyoming). Her graduate research at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena on magnetic paleointensity, earthquakes, plate tectonics and marine seismology took her to Antarctica, Mexico, Chili, New Zealand, and throughout the South Pacific Ocean. She then spent some time outside of graduate school doing global seismology research in Brazil, psychology research at UCLA, and teaching in Southern California. She returned to graduate school in 2000 where her research on volcanism and remote sensing took her throughout Baja California. Her continued interest in earth science research, in particular studying vegetation’s response to climate change using remote sensing imagery, alongside her passion for the environment, science education, teaching and advising led her to University of Pennsylvania.

Jane began teaching at the University of Pennsylvania in 2006 and became the Assistant Director of the Earth and Environmental Science undergraduate programs in 2008. She helped to start the Vagelos Integrated Program in Energy Research (VIPER) in 2012, has served as a freshmen advisor since 2008, is a co-chair of the Environmental Sustainability Advisory Committee’s (ESAC) Academic Subcommittee, helped to develop and run the Integrated Sustainability Across the Curriculum (ISAC) program, and currently is Teaching Faculty in the Earth and Environmental Science Department. She’s taught Math and Physics at the high school level in California and New Jersey and college classes in Earth Science, Environmental Chemistry, Oceanography, Environmental Case Studies, Research Methods, and Remote Sensing.

Brian Berkey works in moral and political philosophy, including business ethics and environmental ethics. He has written on issues such as the demandingness of morality, individual and corporate obligations of justice, ethical issues arising with regard to climate change, exploitation, effective altruism, animal ethics, collective obligations, ethical consumerism, and the relationship between ideal and non-ideal theory. He is also interested in methodological issues in ethics and political philosophy, including the appropriate role of appeals to intuitions. His work has appeared in journals such as Philosophy & Public Affairs, Ethics, Mind, Philosophical Studies, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Utilitas, Business Ethics Quarterly, Journal of Business Ethics, and Journal of Applied Philosophy.

Kim is an environmental social scientist whose work on environmental justice grapples with why minoritized communities are persistently burdened with toxic pollution and water insecurity, exposed to extreme water hazards, and even written out of infrastructural development. Troublingly, this work reveals that many well-intentioned solutions like flood management systems in Vietnam and agricultural diversification programs in Bangladesh not only fail to address their target problems but introduce new ones that exacerbate the precarity of those already suffering from uneven development, climate change, and industrial pollution. Drawing on her training in the natural and social sciences (BSc Biology, MSc Oceanography, PhD Geography), she applies the tools of political ecology to intervene in the processes that engender uneven vulnerability to environmental hazards and to advance just and equitable alternatives. Her research has been supported by funding from the Fulbright US Scholar Program, the Council of Overseas American Research Centers, and the Institute of Human Geography and appears in peer-reviewed journal articles including Nature Climate Change, Global Environmental Change, Climate Policy, and Climate and Development. 

Dr. Decina, Executive Director of Penn Climate, is a biogeochemist who served for five years in the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. In this role, he led collaborative environmental initiatives and negotiations across the G7 and G20 and the United Nations Environment Program, represented the United States on the United Nations International Resource Panel, helped to develop the Cities Forward Initiative, and led efforts to combat wildlife trafficking. 

He also served in the Office of Radiation and Indoor Air at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where he worked to improve childhood air quality exposure in vulnerable communities. He has also consulted for the United Nations Foundation Clean Cooking Alliance as an analyst and educator on household energy standards. He received a PhD in biology, with a specialization in biogeosciences, from Boston University, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in atmospheric science at the University of California at Berkeley. Before his work as a scientist, Dr. Decina taught science for over a decade in Newark, New Jersey and New York City.

"We are determined to play our part in giving future generations the opportunity to live peaceful and prosperous lives on a healthy, healing planet," said Dr. Decina following his appointment as Penn’s inaugural executive director of climate science, policy, and action in July of 2025.