Marianne Krasny

Dr. Krasny is not accepting new graduate students at this time.

Marianne Krasny directs the Cornell Civic Ecology Lab, which focuses on the connections between community environmental stewardship, individual environmental actions, and wider systemic change. Her most recent book, In This Together: Connecting with Your Community to Combat the Climate Crisis, uses cartoons and layperson’s language to distill the research on how to scale up individual climate action—such as plant-rich diet, reducing food waste, donating to climate organizations, or advocating for climate policies—through social networks and activism. The book features Network Climate Action, or how people can influence their close-tie networks (friends, family, colleagues) to take climate actions alongside them. Dr Krasny also collaborates with Civic Ecology Lab members to address questions related to the civic outcomes of global online courses, urban agriculture and sustainability initiatives, and environmental education and youth development programs.

Dr. Krasny teaches a capstone course on scaling up individual climate action through social networks and social movement organizations. She also serves as the Director of Graduate Studies for Natural Resources and the Environment and teaches our introductory graduate course. She leads efforts to teach environmental and climate education and action online courses for international audiences, and to facilitate online learning and resource sharing communities for over 12,000 environmental activists and educators globally. Dr Krasny believes that given the scale of the climate justice crisis, faculty and students need to take action as part of our teaching and outreach. 

Dr Krasny’s other recent books include Grassroots to Global: Broader Impacts of Civic Ecology; Advancing Environmental Education Practice; Civic Ecology: Adaptation and Transformation from the Ground Up (with K Tidball), Urban Environmental Education Review (with A Russ), and Communicating Climate Change: A Guide for Educators (with A Armstrong and J Schuldt). Dr Krasny was director of EPA’s North American Environmental Education Training Program, and of the Garden Mosaics community gardening education program, and is a Public Voices Fellow and an International Fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry. Dr Krasny volunteers with Elders Climate Action and the Climate Reality Project and is Director of Public Outreach and Food Policy for Climate Action Now.