Energy (and Other) Events Monthly - February 2024

These kinds of events below are happening all over the world every day and most of them, now, are webcast and archived, sometimes even with accurate transcripts. Would be good to have a place that helped people access them. This is a more global version of the local listings I did for about a decade (what I did and why I did it at http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-i-do-and-why-i-do-it.html) until September 2020 and earlier for a few years in the 1990s (https://theworld.com/~gmoke/AList.index.html).  

A more comprehensive global listing service could be developed if there were enough people interested in doing it, if it hasn’t already been done.  

If anyone knows of such a global listing of open energy, climate, and other events is available, please put me in contact.

Thanks for reading,
Solar IS Civil Defense,
George Mokray
gmoke@world.std.com

http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com - notes on lectures and books
http://solarray.blogspot.com - renewable energy and efficiency - zero net energy links list
http://cityag.blogspot.com - city agriculture links list
http://geometrylinks.blogspot.com - geometry links list
http://hubevents.blogspot.com - Energy (and Other) Events
http://www.dailykos.com/user/gmoke/history - articles, ideas, and screeds

———
Index
——— 

Next steps for offshore energy production
Learn more about new research on the potential of combining offshore wind and hydrogen power.
Monday, January 29
6 - 7am EST [12.00 CET]
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.se/e/next-steps-for-offshore-energy-production-tickets-796737010847

—————

On the environmental impacts of genetically modified crops
Monday, January 29
2pm ET [11:00am to 12:00pm PT]
UCSB, Bren Hall 1414
And online
RSVP at https://bren.ucsb.edu/events/bren-seminar-frederik-noack-environmental-impacts-genetically-modified-crops

Frederik Noack, Assistant Professor, Food and Resource Economics Group, University of British Columbia

————— 

The greenest building can be... the one that is already built: an interactive energy house model 
Monday, January 29
2:00pm to 4:00pm
MIT,  Building 9, 9-255, 105 MASSACHUSETTS AVE, Cambridge, MA 02139
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E3W5sm30J2cwUYMjNvMMUJclmFLzRa3RgmsR-vyinlo/edit#gid=0

—————

Toward a Regenerative Future: The Role of Business in a Time of Crisis
Monday, January 29
6 pm ET
Online
RSVP at https://wgbh.zoom.us/webinar/register/8316947227642/WN_01FvXV6AR--ZLneJ0X6Bxg#/registration

————— 

Religion in Times of Earth Crisis: A Procession of Catastrophes
Monday, January 29
6 – 8:45 p.m.
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_lqPUoByLRjGNOvrImc6lZQ#/registration

————— 

Jewish Resistance and the Musicians of Terezin: Lessons for Our Time
Monday, January 29
7 - 8:30pm EST
BU, 213 Bay State Road Boston, MA 02215
And online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jewish-resistance-and-the-musicians-of-terezin-lessons-for-our-time-tickets-777839267187

—————

An uncertain future for the US critical mineral supply chain
Monday, January 29
7:30pm ET [4:30pm to 5:20pm PT]
Stanford, Jen-Hsun Huang Building (School of Engineering), NVIDIA Auditorium, Jen-Hsun Huang Center, 475 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305 
And online
RSVP at https://events.stanford.edu/event/the_energy_seminar_january_29_Caers

————— 

The Climate Story in 2024
Tuesday, January 30
12:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/5117060446696/WN_AkI3337ASkmUVSDrssslyw#/registration''

————— 

Revisiting Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower in 2024
Tuesday, January 30
4 PM–5 PM ET
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_VELjCHS1Qz-v0-qRjvK-fQ#/registration'

————— 

“What Would Be A Just Energy Transition?”
Tuesday, January 30
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
The Forum at Columbia University, 601 W. 125th St., New York, NY 10027 315
And online
RSVP at https://events.columbia.edu/cal/event/showEventMore.rdo;jsessionid=e5XaMGha1sXoLK6tMcmfdsMwyxQLdK4Jhe1OkwWk.calprdapp08

————— 

Shelter and Homeless Housing Roundtable: Shelter Crises & Supportive Housing
Tuesday, January 30
6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Online
RSVP at RSVP at https://www.architects.org/events/683250/2024/01/30/shelter-and-homeless-housing-roundtable-shelter-crises-supportive-housing-work-by-massachusetts-housing-shelter-alliance-mhsa-virtual​​​​​​​

—————

AI Cyber Lunch: "Reimagining Democracy for the Age of AI”
Wednesday, January 31
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM ET
Harvard, R-414ab David T. Ellwood Democracy Lab
And online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_OoNvWyqgQbOl6ukulF8mYg#/registration

————— 

Mobile Money in Africa
Wednesday, January 31
12pm to 1:15pm
Northeastern University, Curry Student Center 346, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115
https://damore-mckim.northeastern.edu/events/nardone-family-seminar-mobile-money-in-africa/ ‘

—————

The Cost of Comfort: How Everyday Choices and Business Practices Impact the Environment and Labor
Wednesday, January 31
3:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://pulitzercenter-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_47Sy8_5xRn25oJrMQll3Ow#/registration

————— 

Creative Maladjustment and the Climate Crisis
Wednesday, January 31
7pm ET [4pm to 5:30pm PT]
Stanford, Encina Hall, Bechtel Conference Center, 616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305 
And online
RSVP at https://events.stanford.edu/event/payne_distinguished_lecture_series_creative_maladjustment_and_the_climate_crisis

————— 

Silicon Valley Reads 2024: A Greener Tomorrow Starts Today
Wednesday, January 31 
10pm EST [7:00 PM PST]
DeAnza Visual and Performing Arts Center, 21250 Stevens Creek Blvd, Cupertino, CA 95014
And Online
RSVP at https://commonwealthclub.my.salesforce-sites.com/ticket/#/instances/a0F8Z00000lUnhIUAS

————— 

Temperatures rising: Illegal and unregulated fisheries, climate change, and armed conflict at sea
Thursday, February 1
10:30 am EST - 11:30 am EST
Online
RSVP at  https://www.brookings.edu/events/temperatures-rising-illegal-and-unregulated-fisheries-climate-change-and-armed-conflict-at-sea 

————— 

Tufts at the Energy Transition
Thursday, February 1
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://tufts.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_UlgvZ8L8QaqkDV_bZu9tbQ#/

—————

Climate-thinking: How farms are integrating climate change into their plans
Thursday, February 1 
13:00 - 14:30 GMT-5
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-thinking-how-farms-are-integrating-climate-change-into-their-plans-tickets-794364915847

————— 

Science Communication in a Crisis 
Thursday,  February 1
1:00pm to 3:30pm
MIT, Building 54, 823, 21 AMES ST, Cambridge, MA 02139
Email Chris Reddy (creddy@whoi.edu) to Register.

—————

Climate Change and Planetary Health Equity
Thursday, February 1
1:15 – 2:30 p.m.
Harvard Kennedy School, Bell Hall (B-500), Belfer Building, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge

————— 

EnergyBar: Kicking Off 2024
Thursday, February 1
5:30 PM - 7:30 PM
Greentown Labs, 444 Somerville Avenue, Somerville, MA
RSVP at https://lu.ma/vb42oyum

————— 

COP28 Symposium: Hear from BC's Delegation
Friday, February 2
245 Beacon Street, Room 501 (Schiller Institute Convening Space), Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
https://www.bc.edu/content/bc-web/centers/schiller-institute/news-events.html

—————

Cultivating a Greener Future: Regenerative Agriculture Policies
Monday, February 5
12:00 PM - 1:15 PM ET
Harvard, R-414ab David T. Ellwood Democracy Lab
And online
RSVP at https://www.hks.harvard.edu/events/energy-policy-seminar-cultivating-greener-future-regenerative-agriculture-policies

————— 

Small Modular Reactors and Other Nuclear Fantasies
Monday, February 5
12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Princeton, 300 Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ
And online
RSVP at https://cpree.princeton.edu/events/2024/small-modular-reactors-and-other-nuclear-fantasies

————— 

Climate Solutions in Three Acts: Net-Zero Aviation, Prioritizing Wildfire Avoidance, and Food without Agriculture
Monday, February 5
2pm ET [11:00am to 12:00pm PT]
UCSB, Bren Hall 1414
And online
RSVP at https://bren.ucsb.edu/events/climate-solutions-three-acts-net-zero-aviation-prioritizing-wildfire-avoidance-and-food

————— 

Religion in Times of Earth Crisis: Ancestors and Climate in Our Boston Backyard
Monday, February 5
6 – 8:45 p.m.
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_TxwmH9P8SWajWXcagD4K9w#/registration

—————

Multimodal Machine Learning and Climate Change Adaptation
Monday, February 5
7:30pm ET [4:30pm to 5:20pm PT]
Jen-Hsun Huang Building (School of Engineering), NVIDIA Auditorium, Jen-Hsun Huang Center, 475 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305 
And online
RSVP at https://events.stanford.edu/event/the_energy_seminar_Feb_5

————— 

The Investigative Agenda for Climate Change Journalism
Tuesday, February 6
9:00 AM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_voe-3VKeS3addvYBcjp0fQ#/registration

————— 

Towards Understanding Interdependence of the Climate and Biodiversity Crises
Tuesday, February 6
12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
Princeton, 10 Guyot Hall, Princeton, NJ
And online 
RSVP at https://princeton.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Xd7jAYs1Sfi2USuaiR2Gjg#/registration

————— 

A Changing Planet Seminar – Ocean Activism: Taking action for the beach front to the front benches of Parliament
Wednesday, February 7
11am ET [16.00 - 17.30 GMT]
Imperial College London, UG100 – LTUG , Imperial College Business School, South Kensington Campus, London, UK
And online
RSCP at https://www.imperial.ac.uk/events/171674/a-changing-planet-seminar-ocean-activism-taking-action-for-the-beach-front-to-the-front-benches-of-parliament/

—————

Ocean Fever: Deep Thoughts on Water, Culture, and Climate Resilience 
Wednesday, February 7
12 – 1 p.m.
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__bT8eekdT1alI6mvifmZcw#/registration

————— 

Wealth Supremacy 
Wednesday, February 7
12:00 PM EST — 1:00 PM EST
Online
RSVP at https://cbey.yale.edu/event/wealth-supremacy

————— 

Outsourcing Repression: Everyday State Power in Contemporary China
Wednesday, February 7
12:00pm to 1:30pm
Online
RSVP at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG5ooD8Ydk4vd83Ac8VNEoQ

————— 

Too Hot, Too Cold, Too Old: Climate Change Through the Eyes of Black Baby Boomers in the American South
Thursday, February 8
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://tufts.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_9DNVvbr7RmGdc41-Wf2xbw#/registration

—————

How High was Sea Level in the Holocene?
Thursday, February 8
3pm ET [12pm to 1pm PT]
Stanford, Mitchell Earth Sciences, 350/372, 397 Panama Mall, Stanford, CA 94305 
And online
RSVP at https://events.stanford.edu/event/geophysics_seminar_-_roger_creel_woods_hole_oceanographic_institution_how_high_was_sea_level_in_the_holocene

—————

Grid Decarbonization - Matteo Muratori, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)Sponsored by 
Thursday, February 8
4:30pm ET [1:30pm to 2:30pm PT]
Stanford, Y2E2 Building, 292A, 473 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305 
And online
RSVP at https://events.stanford.edu/event/smart_grid_seminar_electric_grid_cybersecurity_-_mostafa_mohammadpourfard_arizona_state_university

————— 

Imagination: A Manifesto
Thursday, February 8
7:00 PM ET 
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138 

————— 

Climate Justice Series: Segregation and Environmental Injustice
Friday, February 9
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Center on Global Energy Policy, 1255 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027 First Floor
And online
RSVP at https://events.columbia.edu/cal/event/showEventMore.rdo;jsessionid=DysQHpZWSClVKBPjSLhUryST-NQHIvCgjiWtVPo0.calprdapp06

—————

Greening the Future: Nature-Based Climate Solutions Challenge
Saturday, February 10
9:30 - 11:30am EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/greening-the-future-nature-based-climate-solutions-challenge-tickets-807888615597

————— 

Civic Life Lunch – Shaping International Law to Combat Climate Change
Monday, February 12
12 - 1pm EST
Tufts, Barnum Hall (Rabb Room), 163 Packard Avenue Medford, MA 02155

————— 

On Resource Economics
Monday, February 12
2pm ET [11:00am to 12:00pm PT]
UCSB, Bren Hall 1414, Santa Barbara, CA93106-5131
Online
RSVP at https://bren.ucsb.edu/events/bren-seminar-patrick-baylis-resource-economics

————— 

Religion in Times of Earth Crisis: Animal Stories, in Crisis
Monday, February 12 
6 – 8:45 p.m.
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_aFD188HwTSW49g4ca0OkDQ#/registration

—————

What We've Become:  Living and Dying in a Country of Arms
Monday, February 12
7:00 PM ET Location
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138

—————  

Advancing Energy Equity in California
Monday, February 12
7:30pm ET [4:30pm to 5:20pm PT]
Stanford, Jen-Hsun Huang Building (School of Engineering), NVIDIA Auditorium, Jen-Hsun Huang Center, 475 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305 
And online
RSVP at https://events.stanford.edu/event/the_energy_seminar_feb_12

————— 

EBC 11th Annual New England Regional Offshore Wind Conference
Tuesday, February 13
7:30 a.m. 3:00 p.m. 
WilmerHale, 60 State Street, Boston, MA 02109
And online
RSVP at https://ebcne.org/event/ebc-11th-annual-new-england-regional-offshore-wind-conference/#registration-details
Cost:  $50 - $275

————— 

A Global Climate Plan
Tuesday, February 13
1 - 2:30pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-global-climate-plan-tickets-680722698917

————— 

Climate Change and Children's Health: Challenges and Solutions
Tuesday, February 13
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Online
RSVP at https://www.climate.columbia.edu/events/climate-change-and-childrens-health-challenges-and-solutions

—————

2024 Cleantech Open Northeast Boston Kickoff Party
Tuesday, February 13
5 - 7pm EST
Greentown Labs, 444 Somerville Ave Somerville, MA 02143
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2024-cleantech-open-northeast-boston-kickoff-party-tickets-776498687477
Cost:  $0 -$10

————— 

The Conceivable Future
Tuesday, February 13
7:00PM ET
Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Coolidge Corner, Brookline, MA 02446-2908
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/meghan-elizabeth-kallman-josephine-ferorelli-the-conceivable-future-tickets-786207115647

————— 

Tiny Gardens Everywhere: A History of Food Sovereignty for the 21st Century
Thursday, February 15
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://tufts.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_9F0coNnqSWe1J4kr9Zv46w#/registration

—————

5th National Climate Assessment – Summary for the Northeast: An EBC Climate Change and Air Committee “Lunch and Learn”
Thursday, February 15
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://ebcne.org/event/5th-national-climate-assessment-summary-for-the-northeast-an-ebc-climate-change-and-air-committee-lunch-and-learn/
Cost:  $30 - $105

————— 

Climate Across the Curriculum: An Octopus’s Journey
Thursday, February 15
1:00pm to 2:00pm
Online
RSVP at https://mit.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYtf-mqrzMtE9Da8pmqlsBlzwVmbeQ1kJ0z#/registration

————— 

Climatetech Intern Fair
Thursday, February 15
4:00 PM
Greentown Labs, 444 Somerville Ave, Somerville, MA
RSVP at https://lu.ma/22py3p82

————— 

Psychedelic Intersections: Cross-cultural Manifestations of the Sacred Conference 2024
Saturday, February 17
8 a.m. – 7 p.m.
Harvard, James Room, Swartz Hall, 45 Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA
RSVP at https://harvard.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bNuxfnnA3jPVrFQ
And online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_GE4Ru4U7TlqDavLvt25glA#/registration

————— 

Can Trade Policy Mitigate Climate Change?
Monday, February 19
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Princeton, 300 Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ
And online
RSVP at https://environment.princeton.edu/event/bradford-seminar-can-trade-policy-mitigate-climate-change/

—————

Teacher Training: Climate, justice, and peace
Monday, February 19 
2pm [14:00 - 15:30 GMT-5]
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/teacher-training-climate-justice-and-peace-tickets-711232143487

————— 

Rest Assured: Uncovering the Essential Role of Third-Party Assurance in Climate Data 
Tuesday, February 20
10:00 AM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://ceres-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_4b7W1ieCRAq9CHPt2c4fLg#/registration

————— 

Empowering People Through Strengthened Community Health Systems to Address Inequities and Achieve Targets of the Sustainable Development Goals
Wednesday, February 21
12 – 1PM
Tufts Center for Medical Education, 145 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02111
And online
RSVP at https://tufts.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_PB6O2dh8Q5S37YVzIFh8dA#/registration

————— 

The Campaign for the Future: The Long Road to the Inflation Reduction Act
Wednesday, February 21
12 – 1 p.m.
Online
RSVP at https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2024-leah-stokes-fellow-presentation-virtual

————— 

Teaching Climate Justice Across the Curriculum (Event 2/3 in the CJIT Workshop Series)
Wednesday, February 21
2:00pm to 3:30pm
Online
RSVP at https://mit.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYvf-2urjkoGNG9ASAhNK5v1ZgcBxY9KqA-#/registration

————— 

Shining a Light on Food Systems as a Solution to the Climate Agenda
Wednesday, February 21 
4 - 5:30pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/shining-a-light-on-food-systems-as-a-solution-to-the-climate-agenda-tickets-809039828907

————— 

Ecologies of Justice: The Rights of Nature in Colombia
Thursday, February 22
12:00pm
Boston College, 293 Beacon Street, McElroy Commons, 237, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfzLTepraoXQazrGtcJqRunlvRiNItF8pndx0VrWm-vlWN16A/viewform
And Online
RSVP at https://bccte.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_phWxNG1QT_qxgvPz446klg#/registration

—————

Clough Colloquium: Nadia Murad, Nobel Laureate
Thursday, February 22
4:00pm
Boston College, Heights Room (Corcoran Commons), 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467

—————

Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities and Defenses for EV Charging Systems 
Thursday, February 22
4:30pm ET [1:30pm to 2:30pm PT]
Stanford, Y2E2 Building, 292A, 473 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305 
And online
RSVP at https://events.stanford.edu/event/smart_grid_seminar_cybersecurity_vulnerabilities_and_defenses_for_ev_charging_systems_jay_johnson

————— 

AI for Climate Change Mitigation
Monday, February 26
12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Princeton, 300 Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ
And online
RSVP at https://cpree.princeton.edu/events/2024/ai-climate-change-mitigation

————— 

On the Political Economy of Deforestation
Monday, February 26
2pm ET [11:00am to 12:00pm PT]
USCB, Bren Hall 1414, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-5131
Online
RSVP at https://bren.ucsb.edu/events/bren-seminar-kathryn-baragwanath-political-economy-deforestation
 ————— 

Religion in Times of Earth Crisis | A Series of Public Online Conversations: Apocalyptic Grief: Reckoning with Loss, Wrestling with Hope
Monday, February 26
6:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_MgW5RjTBRyCG3fomK6EQKQ#/registration

————— 

Drawdown Roadmap
Monday, February 26
7 - 8pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/drawdown-roadmap-tickets-782259718877

————— 

What Works in Community News:  Media Startups, News Deserts, and the Future of the Fourth Estate
Monday, February 26
7:00 PM ET
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138

————— 

Journalism and the Migration Crisis with Pulitzer Prize winner Matthieu Aikins
Tuesday, February 27
4:30pm to 6:00pm
BC,  Devlin Hall, 101, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467

————— 

How Activism Can Win Bigger and Faster
Tuesday, February 27 
9pm ET [6:00 PM PST]
The Commonwealth Club of California, 110 The Embarcadero, Taube Family Auditorium, San Francisco, CA 94105
And online
RSVP at https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2024-02-27/kumi-naidoo-how-activism-can-win-bigger-and-faster
Cost:  $0 - $10

————— 

Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There
Wednesday, February 28
6pm EST
Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tali-sharot-and-cass-r-sunstein-at-the-cambridge-public-library-tickets-782156600447?aff=ebdssbdestsearch
Cost:  $0 – $30.80

————— 

Tufts Energy Conference 2024 - Innovation Odyssey: Climate Tech and Economics of the Energy transition
February 29, 12pm - March 1, 8pm EST
Cabot Intercultural Center - Tufts University=, 170 Packard Avenue Medford, MA 02155 Medford, MA 02155
And online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tufts-energy-conference-2024-tickets-808423926727?aff=ebdssbdestsearch

————— 

Mitigation and Reversal Strategies Solutions for a Sustainable Future
Thursday, February 29 
11:00 - 12:00 GMT-5
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/free-mitigation-and-reversal-strategies-solutions-for-a-sustainable-future-tickets-788171270487

————— 

Homegrown National Park
Thursday, February 29
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://tufts.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_oxO3N208RdaKn61cf6IBsQ#/registration

————— 

The Great Deployment: A Look at How the Financing of Climate Technology is Rapidly Evolving
Thursday, February 29
3pm ET [12pm to 1pm PT]
Stanford, Y2E2 Building, 382, 473 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305 
And online
RSVP at https://events.stanford.edu/event/sfi_seminar_chante_harris
————— 

Busting the Bankers' Club:  Finance for the Rest of Us
Thursday, February 29
7:00 PM ET
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138

—————

Water, Waste, and Race:  Environmental Politics during the Nineteenth Century Gold Rushes
Friday, March 1
2:30 to 4:30 pm
Online
RSVP at https://mit.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcrdOmqqzkiHtEdBHwCQBUEbrFTqTcky6-a#/registration

————— 

Beyond Carbon in Nature-Based Climate Solutions:  Documenting Tropical Forest Biodiversity Loss and Recovery Using Sounds
Monday, March 4
12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Princeton, 300 Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ
And online
RSVP at https://cpree.princeton.edu/events/2024/beyond-carbon-nature-based-climate-solutions

————— 

Environmental, Energy, and Engineering Career Fair
Monday, March 4
4:30 pm - 6:30 pm EST
John B. Hynes Convention Center, Junior Ballroom, 302 & 304, 900 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02115

————— 

On Environmental Pollution Impacts on Human Health
Monday, March 4
2pm ET [11:00am to 12:00pm PT]
USCB, Bren Hall 1414, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-5131
And online
RSVP at https://bren.ucsb.edu/events/bren-seminar-eunha-hoh-environmental-pollution-impacts-human-health

————— 

Religion in Times of Earth Crisis | A Series of Public Online Conversations: The Practice of Wild Mercy: Something Deeper Than Hope
Monday, March 4
6:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_lqjE5m36S3yUjASXSZWktQ#/registration

—————

How Disinformation is Sabotaging America
Monday, March 4
9pm ET [6:00 PM PST]
The Commonwealth Club of California, 110 The Embarcadero, Taube Family Auditorium, San Francisco, CA 94105
And online
RSVP at https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2024-03-04/barbara-mcquade-joyce-vance-how-disinformation-sabotaging-america
Cost:  $0 - $10

————— 

A Celebration of and for Trees: Creating Eco-Performance
Thursday, March 7
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://tufts.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ZTQhWUDbTsmpVDWDEQFZUg#/registration

——— 
Events
——— 

Next steps for offshore energy production
Learn more about new research on the potential of combining offshore wind and hydrogen power.
Monday, January 29
6 - 7am EST [12.00 CET]
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.se/e/next-steps-for-offshore-energy-production-tickets-796737010847

Can multi-purpose platforms in the ocean help us fast-track the expansion of renewable energy production? What are the most promising solutions and what is currently missing for upscaling? Join our webinar to find out. On 29 January, we will learn about new research on the potential of combining offshore wind and hydrogen power, with experts mapping out what should be the next steps.

At the recent climate meeting COP28, countries committed to triple renewable energy production by 2030, but that will require massive transformations of the energy sector. In this webinar, we discuss a promising solution: marine platforms that combine multiple uses, for example offshore windfarms that share space with floating solar or wave energy, aquaculture, or hydrogen production.

The concept is explored in the new policy brief Marine multi-use in practice comparing offshore wind and hydrogen production applications . Meet the authors Guido Mazza and Maria Xylia from the Stockholm Environment Institute who will describe both the potential of these solutions and what is currently holding them back.
We will also hear from industry leaders, policy experts and regulators. Which decisions, incentives, and regulations would they like to see? Should multi-use be part of the ranking criteria in wind projects? Why do we seldom design for multi-functionality? How do we balance local and national interests?

Comments:
Céline Frank, EU DG MARE
Manja Meister and Alessandra Tampieri, Orsted

Don’t miss this chance to explore an untapped climate solution and ask your questions.

—————

On the environmental impacts of genetically modified crops
Monday, January 29
2pm ET [11:00am to 12:00pm PT]
UCSB, Bren Hall 1414
And online
RSVP at https://bren.ucsb.edu/events/bren-seminar-frederik-noack-environmental-impacts-genetically-modified-crops

Frederik Noack, Assistant Professor, Food and Resource Economics Group, University of British Columbia

————— 

The greenest building can be... the one that is already built: an interactive energy house model 
Monday, January 29
2:00pm to 4:00pm
MIT,  Building 9, 9-255, 105 MASSACHUSETTS AVE, Cambridge, MA 02139
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E3W5sm30J2cwUYMjNvMMUJclmFLzRa3RgmsR-vyinlo/edit#gid=0

The presentation will showcase an interactive house model, with a series of features and measuring technologies (thermal imaging, temperature, humidity, due point, indoor air quality measurement).

The model is operated (with regulating it's temperature, moisture, indoor air quality, air movement) to show in an interactive way how existing homes' performance can be understood, measured and and with weatherization/home improvement programs. 

The context in which the presenters work are lower-income existing homes in Latin America which when weatherized improve their energy efficiency, reduce emisions and energy poverty, and also improve health, safety and quality of life of families.

—————

Toward a Regenerative Future: The Role of Business in a Time of Crisis
Monday, January 29
6 pm ET
Online
RSVP at https://wgbh.zoom.us/webinar/register/8316947227642/WN_01FvXV6AR--ZLneJ0X6Bxg#/registration

"The most important right we have is the right to be responsible" by Gerald Amos is the opening quote of Patagonia's latest book, The Future of the Responsible Company. While we are used to companies claiming to be sustainable, this book gives us a deep dive into the Patagonia's more humble and honest goal of being responsible to people and ecosystems while making a living. It is a fascinating story that charts a possible path for any business, large or small. Join Bio4Climate as we focus on the growing awareness of whole systems impacts from soil regeneration, water usage and empowering local factories and businesses to treat employees better. 

The Future of the Responsible Company is a short book with gorgeous photography and we encourage you to read the book or learn a bit about Patagonia at their website before the talk. 

Topics include: Life Cycle Analysis, circular economy, regenerative agriculture, B Corps and what it means to have "earth as a shareholder" It is easy to vilify globalization and corporate America, but what would happen if the vast resources of the world economy turned towards eco restoration, fair trade and uplifting labor practices? Is it even possible? Come and judge for yourself. Join us January 18th to get a glimpse inside Patagonia's journey and to ask your questions of Mr. Stanley.

————— 

Religion in Times of Earth Crisis: A Procession of Catastrophes
Monday, January 29
6 – 8:45 p.m.
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_lqPUoByLRjGNOvrImc6lZQ#/registration

This is the first event is a six-part series that will take place live on Zoom and is free and open to the public. Attendees must register for each event separately. For those wishing to engage in discussion of the presentations with other audience members, Diane L. Moore will convene a live discussion on Zoom for one hour following each presentation.

Environmental catastrophes can create a break in the experience of time, they can rupture the possibility of collective meaning. Yet for communities shaped by colonialism and racism, this rupture can only be understood in relation to the past, as an event in the “unceremoniously archived procession of our catastrophes,” to use Édouard Glissant’s words. Histories of colonial and racial devastation teach us that environmental futures are linked to our pasts. We may describe them as “ancestral catastrophes,” as Elizabeth Povinelly suggests. In this session, Mayra Rivera explores the question, “How may we engage those stories in ways that honor our pasts and open possibilities for different futures?”

Speaker: Mayra Rivera, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Religion and Latinx Studies
Moderator: Diane L. Moore, Diane L. Moore, Associate Dean of Religion and Public Life
Mayra Rivera works at the intersections between philosophy of religion, literature, and theories of coloniality, race and gender—with particular attention to Caribbean postcolonial thought. Her research explores the relationship between discursive and material dimensions of existence in shaping human embodiment and socio-material ecologies. She is the author of The Touch of Transcendence (2007) and Poetics of the Flesh (2015). Rivera is currently working on a project that explores the relationships between coloniality and ecological thought through Caribbean thought.

For more information on the full series, "Religion in Times of Earth Crisis: A Series of Public Online Conversations," visit https://hds.harvard.edu/news/religion-times-earth-crisis 
CONTACT rpl@hds.harvard.edu

————— 

Jewish Resistance and the Musicians of Terezin: Lessons for Our Time
Monday, January 29
7 - 8:30pm EST
BU, 213 Bay State Road Boston, MA 02215
And online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jewish-resistance-and-the-musicians-of-terezin-lessons-for-our-time-tickets-777839267187

On this International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Terezin Music Foundation director Mark Ludwig will discuss how the music of Jewish composers in the Terezin concentration camp showed resistance against the Holocaust. How does the propaganda war staged by the Nazis relate to the rise of antisemitism today? What lessons can we learn? 

This program will include music performed by members of the Terezin Music Foundation Ensemble and we strongly recommend you attend in person if possible. If you are unable to join us in person, please email us at ewcjs@bu.edu to receive a Zoom link.

The program is sponsored by Boston University’s Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies, AJC New England, and the Consulate General of Israel to New England, and supported by the Jewish Cultural Endowment of Boston University and BU Hillel.

Important Registration and Entry Guidelines
Advance Registration Required: Advance registration is mandatory to ensure a smooth and secure experience for all attendees. Please complete your registration to confirm your attendance.
Photo Identification: All attendees must present a valid photo ID at the event entrance for security purposes.
Bag Policy: For the safety and security of all, please note that large bags are not permitted inside the venue. Additionally, all bags are subject to inspection upon entry.
Special Note on Walk-Ins: While we typically welcome walk-in attendees, please be advised that due to heightened security measures, walk-in entry will be subject to additional screening. Additionally, walk-in entrance is contingent on available seating. We recommend registering in advance to ensure a seamless entry process.

Mark Ludwig's book, Our Will to Live: The Terezin Music Criqitues of Viktor Ullmann.

—————

An uncertain future for the US critical mineral supply chain
Monday, January 29
7:30pm ET [4:30pm to 5:20pm PT]
Stanford, Jen-Hsun Huang Building (School of Engineering), NVIDIA Auditorium, Jen-Hsun Huang Center, 475 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305 
And online
RSVP at https://events.stanford.edu/event/the_energy_seminar_january_29_Caers

The United States is strategically disadvantaged in building its critical mineral supply, in particular in the upstream and downstream portion. In this presentation, I will report findings on a year-long conversation with government officials, academics, and international industry experts on the status of the US critical mineral supply chain, in particular in the area of electrification (lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper & REE). Overall, the US and its government agencies lack a coherent view of how a robust, resilient & sustainable supply chain will be built starting from exploration to mining, processing to manufacturing. While important research is ongoing on finding replacement materials and recycling, these activities are likely not to have an impact relative to the state of the energy transition we are finding ourselves in today. Additionally, the US is betting too much on single horses, such as the Salton Sea, that remain unproven at operational scale, are unattractive to investors and constitute an unresolved environmental justice concern. Innovation in exploration in particular is completely neglected which means that proven and mineable reserves of critical minerals remain uncertain. In a simple analogy, the US is researching new technology for farming, but has no land to farm on. In the second portion of my presentation, I will focus on a plausible roadmap with very specific recommendations to get the US on a more certain footing. Important to such roadmap is the timing at which priority on innovation, development and manufacturing needs to take place, how are allies, Australia and Canada, will play a crucial role and how such roadmap requires having Environmental Justice and the Geosciences as pillars of its foundation.

Speaker Bio: Jef Caers received both an MSc (’93) in mining engineering / geophysics and a PhD (’97) in mining engineering from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. Currently, he is Professor of Earth and Planetary at Stanford University, California, USA. Jef Caers’ research interests are data science, artificial intelligence and decision making under uncertainty in developing the critical mineral supply required to transition to 100% renewable energy. Jef Caers is founder of the Mineral-X, a community building effort to strengthen stewardship for a prosperous future for all, powered by Earth's minerals. Jef Caers has published in a diverse range of journals covering Mathematics, Statistics, Earth Sciences, Engineering and Computer Science. Jef Caers authored five books on data science & decision making for natural resources. He was awarded the Krumbein Medal of the International Association of Mathematical Geosciences for his career achievement.

————— 

The Climate Story in 2024
Tuesday, January 30
12:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/5117060446696/WN_AkI3337ASkmUVSDrssslyw#/registration

To cover climate change well in 2024, journalists need clarity on the most significant forces affecting the world’s ability to address the climate emergency in time. Among them: the biggest election year in history in which roughly 4 billion people have the chance to vote; key factors hindering a phaseout of fossil fuels and expansion of green energy; and the dangers of proliferating disinformation. Join us on Tuesday, January 30, at 12pm US Eastern Time for a one-hour press briefing on the climate story in 2024. 

Our expert panelists will be Mustafa Santiago Ali of National Wildlife Federation; journalist and activist, Bill McKibben; and Critical Frequency executive editor and co-founder, Amy Westervelt. CCNow's executive director, Mark Hertsgaard, will moderate.

————— 

Revisiting Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower in 2024
Tuesday, January 30
4 PM–5 PM ET
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_VELjCHS1Qz-v0-qRjvK-fQ#/registration

This program is the first in a two-part series of webinars, cosponsored by the Monroe C. Gutman Library, Harvard Graduate School of Education, focused on issues of climate change and climate justice as addressed through young adult literature.

In this series, Radcliffe is inviting leading thinkers, writers, and educators to participate in conversations about how authors and readers of young adult literature engage with climate change, leveraging the power of storytelling as a way to learn about, cope with, and address this extraordinary challenge.
Literature can move people of all generations, including students and educators, as well as scientists, policy makers, journalists, and the public. Parable of the Sower, anticipating global climate disasters, was first published in 1993 but takes place beginning in 2024. This and other seminal works by Octavia Butler have reached many thousands of young readers, engaging them in complex climate issues through fiction while demonstrating the power that arts and literature can have on our communities.

The event will also include audience Q and A.

Speakers
Ayana A. H. Jamieson, assistant professor, Ethnic and Women’s Studies Department, College of Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona; founder of the Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network
Shelley Streeby, professor of literature and ethnic studies, University of California, San Diego
Discussant
Sarah Dimick, assistant professor of English, Harvard University
Program introduction by Cory Beizer, Harvard College student

————— 

“What Would Be A Just Energy Transition?”
Tuesday, January 30
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
The Forum at Columbia University, 601 W. 125th St., New York, NY 10027 315
And online
RSVP at https://events.columbia.edu/cal/event/showEventMore.rdo;jsessionid=e5XaMGha1sXoLK6tMcmfdsMwyxQLdK4Jhe1OkwWk.calprdapp08

Dr. Stephanie Pincetl, Director California Center for Sustainable Communities & Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, UCLA
Professor Pincetl does research on cities, how they impact resources far and near such as water sources and ecosystems, and how those resources are used in cities, where, by whom, and to do what. She focuses on quantifying those flows, including urban generated wastes like greenhouse gases, and how institutions, regulations and rules shape the ways the flows are appropriated, and how cities are built (including infrastructures) and organized. She has created the first ever interactive energy web atlas that describes building energy use in Los Angeles County (http://www.energyatlas.ucla.edu). Buildings account for 40% of urban GHGs and the Atlas shows the relationships between building age, size, use with energy consumption, as well as energy use and sociodemographic characteristics in the residential sector. Her other main project has been to understand the water system of Los Angeles County that has over 100 different water delivering agencies and 7 adjudicated groundwater basins. Pincetl assembles interdisciplinary teams of researchers to conduct work: ecologists, engineers, and hydrologists. She was one of the main leads of the first Los Angeles County Sustainability Plan and is currently serving in the same capacity for the LA Department of Water and Power 100% renewable, equity plan.

Dr. Pincetl is a California native who has written extensively on land use regulations, habitat protection, environmental justice, urban ecosystems and water She has a PhD in Urban Planning from UCLA, a Masters in Cultural Anthropology from UC Davis, and an undergraduate interdisciplinary degree in Land Ethics, an independent major she created while at UC Davis. She is the author 2 books, and of over 100 peer reviewed papers, and book chapters. Pincetl has served on boards and commissions, including the statewide Planning and Conservation League and as President of the statewide environmental justice organization Communities for a Better Environment, and the Los Angeles Regional Planning Commission among others.

————— 

Shelter and Homeless Housing Roundtable: Shelter Crises & Supportive Housing
Tuesday, January 30
6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Online
RSVP at https://online.architects.org/bsassa/f?p=EVTSSA:4010::::4010:P0_EVENT_ID:3831:

Join us to learn more about the role of MHSA in helping to alleviate the homelessness crisis in Massachusetts. The round table discussion with Joyce Tavon, Chief Executive Officer, of Massachusetts Housing & Shelter Alliance (MHSA) will review the work done in the past two years including The Supportive Housing Coalition Pipeline and The Housing Bond Bill | Submitted for AIA Continuing Education credits.

—————

AI Cyber Lunch: "Reimagining Democracy for the Age of AI”
Wednesday, January 31
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM ET
Harvard, R-414ab David T. Ellwood Democracy Lab
And online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_OoNvWyqgQbOl6ukulF8mYg#/registration

​Everyone is talking about AI-accelerated misinformation, but few are thinking deeply about how AI will change democracy. In this talk, HKS Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy Bruce Schneier will go far beyond deepfakes to explore the full spectrum of how AI will impact democratic governance, from AI legislators to AI judges, from AI written laws to AI law enforcement. Some of the possibilities are further away than others, but glimmers of many of them are already emerging in the United States and around the world and all are grounded in current-day science and technology. Whatever our future brings, it's going to be a wild ride.
Q&A to follow. Buffet-style lunch will be served.

Contact Elizabeth Hanlon  617-495-596

Editorial Comment:  Bruce Schneier really knows what he talks about.

————— 

Mobile Money in Africa
Wednesday, January 31
12pm to 1:15pm
Northeastern University, Curry Student Center 346, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115
https://damore-mckim.northeastern.edu/events/nardone-family-seminar-mobile-money-in-africa/ 

Join us for a conversation with Jonathan Greenacre, Assistant Professor of Global Development Policy at Boston University, as he delves into his latest book, “Mobile Money in Africa,” which discusses the role of bridge contracts in enabling mobile money technology to spread in Africa, and explores implications for the international development community.

How did Safaricom, a phone company, provide mobile money to 30 million people in Kenya, particularly in rural areas? Most analyses focus on how Safaricom grew by using mobile phone technology and supportive regulation. However, a closer analysis reveals that Safaricom grew using relatively rudimentary customer-facing technology and experienced its first wave of expansion before the Central Bank of Kenya imposed regulation.
This book argues that along with technology Safaricom used innovative contracts to grow and reach rural communities, largely monitored and enforced largely by the CBK. In particular, Safaricom used a set of contracts to build a system transferring money between banks and mobile money 250,000 agents across Kenya, including those living in rural areas. These “bridge contracts” were highly flexible and relational, and helped build a marketplace of agents, mobile phone airtime sellers, banks, customers, and groups of agents trading electronic money and cash from each other. Safaricom also used contracts and a trust deed to store funds received from customers.

The book supports this claim by combining a contract theory framework and primary data obtained from fieldwork in Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Ghana, Uganda, and Rwanda. Such fieldwork reveals that mobile money firms in other countries also grew by using innovative contracts monitored by the central bank of the relevant jurisdiction, particularly Tanzania and Ghana.

The book uses such insights to make policy proposals for regulating mobile money and the international development community. Both proposals revolve around encouraging the international development sector to existing spontaneous order and contracts operating between firms, agents, and a community, before design policy, not the other way around. The book also argues that the innovative contracting within M-Pesa, particularly its decentralized nature, can contribute to understanding the theory of the firm in Africa, a general theory of New Institutional economics about how organizations adapt to their environment, and how scholars can begin applying mechanism design, market design and other fields of so-called engineering economics to the African context.
About Jonathan Greenacre
Jonathan Greenacre is an Assistant Professor of Global Development Policy at Boston University, where he focuses on designing contracts to support new technological innovations in Africa and other developing regions. He draws on frameworks from contract theory, law, and New Institutional Economics.
Greenacre has particular expertise in analyzing and building “bridge contracts,” which firms and governments are using to move into rural and frontier areas in Africa. He is exploring mobile money in Kenya, “Hello Tractor” which is a so-called “Uber for tractor” sharing app in Nigeria, and the “Bboxx” micro-solar energy service in Rwanda.

Professor Greenacre also has extensive experience in the regulation of new technologies and financial products, particularly in the developing world. He has advised the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, governments in Africa and Asia, and a range of other organizations on issues around financial inclusion, consumer protection, and systemic risk. Greenacre has a Masters and a Ph.D. from Oxford University.

—————

The Cost of Comfort: How Everyday Choices and Business Practices Impact the Environment and Labor
Wednesday, January 31
3:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://pulitzercenter-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_47Sy8_5xRn25oJrMQll3Ow#/registration

This session is dedicated to unravelling the intricate nexus between the environment, labor rights, and the business of wellness and lifestyle. Our objective is to navigate the complex interplay of business practices and consumption patterns and show their profound impact on both the environment and workers. These consequences are frequently concealed from public discussion and often overlooked by consumers.

————— 

Creative Maladjustment and the Climate Crisis
Wednesday, January 31
7pm ET [4pm to 5:30pm PT]
Stanford, Encina Hall, Bechtel Conference Center, 616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305 
And online
RSVP at https://events.stanford.edu/event/payne_distinguished_lecture_series_creative_maladjustment_and_the_climate_crisis

As we veer ever closer to a global climate catastrophe, it has become clear that incremental tinkering with our systems — including political, environmental, social, and economic systems — will not be an adequate solution. Drawing on Martin Luther King’s idea of Creative Maladjustment, this lecture will argue that rather than responding to the polycrisis with an approach of system recovery, maintenance, and protection, what is urgently needed now is system innovation, redesign, and transformation.

It is imperative that we change the trajectory we are on as a species. Yet activism is failing to win at the scale and speed necessary to do so. The communications deficit that must be addressed by those seeking transformative change will likely need to be multilayered and imbued with intersectionality. This lecture posits the power of artivism — a fusion of art and activism — as a vital force capable of resonating with diverse audiences, instilling a sense of urgency, and fostering various pathways for participation. At this critical juncture, pessimism is a luxury we simply cannot afford. The pessimism that flows from our analysis, observations, and lived realities can best be overcome by the optimism of our thoughts, actions, and creative responses.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Kumi Naidoo is a prominent South African human rights and environmental justice activist. At the age of fifteen, he organized school boycotts against the apartheid educational system in South Africa. His courageous actions made him a target for the Security Police, leading to his exile in the United Kingdom, where he remained until 1990. Upon his return to South Africa, Kumi played a pivotal role in the legalization of the African National Congress in his home province of KwaZulu Natal.
Kumi also served as the official spokesperson for the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), responsible for overseeing the country's first democratic elections in April 1994. His dedication to democracy and justice led to notable international roles, including being the first person from the global South to lead Greenpeace International as Executive Director from 2009 to 2016. He later served as the Secretary General of Amnesty International from 2018 to 2020.
In the realm of education, Kumi has shared his expertise, lecturing at Fossil Free University and holding a Richard von Weizsäcker Fellowship at the Robert Bosch Academy until early 2022.

Currently, Kumi serves as a Senior Advisor for the Community Arts Network (CAN). He holds the position of Distinguished visiting lecturer at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and is a Professor of Practice at the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University. Additionally, he continues to represent global interests as a Global Ambassador for Africans Rising for Justice, Peace, and Dignity. He also holds positions as a Visiting Fellow at Oxford University and an Honorary Fellow at Magdalen College.

In a testament to his family's commitment to positive change, they have established the Riky Rick Foundation for the Promotion of Artivism, honoring the legacy of their son and brother, the now late South African rapper Rikhado “Riky Rick” Makhado through a commitment to supporting artivism and mental health in South Africa.

Kumi has authored and co-authored numerous books, the most recent being Letters To My Mother (2022), a personal and professional memoir that won the HSS 2023 non-fiction award by the National Institute Humanities and Social Sciences.

————— 

Silicon Valley Reads 2024: A Greener Tomorrow Starts Today
Wednesday, January 31 
10pm EST [7:00 PM PST]
DeAnza Visual and Performing Arts Center, 21250 Stevens Creek Blvd, Cupertino, CA 95014
And Online
RSVP at https://commonwealthclub.my.salesforce-sites.com/ticket/#/instances/a0F8Z00000lUnhIUAS

Silicon Valley Reads celebrates its 21st year with Lily Brooks-Dalton, Favianna Rodriguez, Alexandria Villaseñor, and Heather White.
Our featured authors and book contributors will focus on environmental sustainability and explore the challenges and opportunities of creating a more sustainable future, not only in Santa Clara County but worldwide.

They will share more about their work and efforts to create awareness and meaningful change for the future.

————— 

Temperatures rising: Illegal and unregulated fisheries, climate change, and armed conflict at sea
Thursday, February 1
10:30 am EST - 11:30 am EST
Online
RSVP at  https://www.brookings.edu/events/temperatures-rising-illegal-and-unregulated-fisheries-climate-change-and-armed-conflict-at-sea 

From rising tensions in the Arctic to geopolitical spillover in the Red and Black seas and direct threats to undersea infrastructure in the Baltic, the oceans — increasingly recognized as a vital part of the global economy and ecology — are becoming a locale of armed conflict. As illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing grows in scale and spreads in geography, this too threatens to become a vector of insecurity. Both state and nonstate actors are engaged in this activity, which threatens livelihoods and regional stability. 

On Thursday, February 1, Brookings and World Wildlife Fund USA will host a discussion on the changing dynamics of IUU fishing and conflict to help forge a better understanding of the relationships at play and the options for prevention. The event will examine the progress and opportunities, new data, technologies, and partnerships available to help manage potential conflict, and the roadmap for improved policy.

Viewers can submit questions via email to events@brookings.edu or on Twitter/X @BrookingsFP using #OceansConflict.

————— 

Tufts at the Energy Transition
Thursday, February 1
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://tufts.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_UlgvZ8L8QaqkDV_bZu9tbQ#/

Tufts University (and the rest of the world) needs to transition away from using fossil fuels to provide energy services—heating, cooling, and electricity. Join Chief Sustainability Officer Dano Weisbord to learn how we might do this at a campus and community scale. We will also discuss the ways we can support change in institutions and across society.

Event Contact Sinet.Kroch@tufts.edu

—————

Climate-thinking: How farms are integrating climate change into their plans
Thursday, February 1 
13:00 - 14:30 GMT-5
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-thinking-how-farms-are-integrating-climate-change-into-their-plans-tickets-794364915847

Hear how farms are understanding their carbon footprint, avoiding trade-offs in taking actions and adapting to a changing climate

With increasing attention on farming’s role in addressing climate change, there's a growing demand for farmers to demonstrate how they are reducing farm emissions while increasing carbon storage on their land.

But amidst a breadth of conflicting advice and often confusing data collection, getting started on the process can be daunting. What is clear, however, is the need for farmers to urgently begin integrating climate mitigation and adaptation into their businesses.

This session brings together members of the Nature Friendly Farming Network to discuss how farmers can deliver ambitious actions for climate change, bringing numerous benefits to both their businesses and nature.

This session will demonstrate how farms can:
Begin to understand their carbon footprint
Take action while avoiding trade-offs for biodiversity and profitability
Use climate adaptation to become more resilient to the impacts of a warming climate
The discussion will provide an opportunity to hear first-hand from farmers who have already integrated climate change into their businesses and to hear the wealth of benefits from doing so.

Panellists:
David Lord, arable farmer
Debbie Wilkins, mixed farmer
Sam Beaumont, livestock farmer
Phil Carson, Nature Friendly Farming Network
This webinar is produced in collaboration between the Nature Friendly Farming Network and the National Trust.

————— 

Science Communication in a Crisis 
Thursday,  February 1
1:00pm to 3:30pm
MIT, Building 54, 823, 21 AMES ST, Cambridge, MA 02139
Email Chris Reddy (creddy@whoi.edu) to Register.

This workshop will be offered at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (January 30, 2024) and at MIT on (February 1, 2024).
The twenty-first century has seen an increase in extreme weather events, large-scale environmental disasters, and global health pandemics. Although science has enormous value to decision-makers during such crises, the disconnect between scientists and those who respond to and are affected by such events is enormous. In this workshop, we will identify the principal challenges that scientists face when communicating with different stakeholder groups, offer advice on how to navigate the maze of competing interests, and deliver actionable science when the clock is ticking.  The lead instructor will be Chris Reddy, Senior Scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and faculty member of the MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography, and recent author of “Science Communication in a Crisis: An Insider’s Guide”.

—————

Climate Change and Planetary Health Equity
Thursday, February 1
1:15 – 2:30 p.m.
Harvard Kennedy School, Bell Hall (B-500), Belfer Building, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge

————— 

EnergyBar: Kicking Off 2024
Thursday, February 1
5:30 PM - 7:30 PM
Greentown Labs, 444 Somerville Avenue, Somerville, MA
RSVP at https://lu.ma/vb42oyum

EnergyBar is Greentown Labs’ signature networking event. Join us for the first EnergyBar of the year. On Thursday, February 1, Greentown Labs is inviting entrepreneurs, investors, students, and friends of climatetech to attend, meet colleagues, and expand Greentown Labs' growing regional climatetech network. Kick off another year of climate impact!

————— 

COP28 Symposium: Hear from BC's Delegation
Friday, February 2
245 Beacon Street, Room 501 (Schiller Institute Convening Space), Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
https://www.bc.edu/content/bc-web/centers/schiller-institute/news-events.html

half-day symposium featuring BC's COP28 delegates.

—————

Cultivating a Greener Future: Regenerative Agriculture Policies
Monday, February 5
12:00 PM - 1:15 PM ET
Harvard, R-414ab David T. Ellwood Democracy Lab
And online
RSVP at https://www.hks.harvard.edu/events/energy-policy-seminar-cultivating-greener-future-regenerative-agriculture-policies

Join us for an Energy Policy Seminar series featuring Dr. Ashlie L. Burkart, MD, Chief Scientific Officer at Germin8 Ventures and Associate in the Belfer Center's Environment and Natural Resources Program. Burkart will give a talk on “Cultivating a Greener Future: Regenerative Agriculture Policies.” Q&A to follow. Buffet-style lunch will be served.Registration: No RSVP is required. Room capacity is limited and seating will be on a first come, first served basis. The seminar will also be streamed via Zoom. Virtual attendees should register using the button below; upon registering, attendees will receive a confirmation email with a Zoom link.Recording: The seminar will be recorded and available to watch on the Belfer Center's YouTube channel. Accessibility: To request accommodations or who have questions about access, please contact Liz Hanlon (ehanlon@hks.harvard.edu) in advance of the session.Sponsors: The Belfer Center's Environment and Natural Resources Program, the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, the Harvard University Center for the Environment, the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability
Speakers and Presenters
​Ashlie L. Burkart, MD, Chief Scientific Officer at Germin8 Ventures and Associate in the Belfer Center's Environment and Natural Resources Program

Contact  Elizabeth Hanlon  ehanlon@hks.harvard.edu or 617-495-5964

————— 

Small Modular Reactors and Other Nuclear Fantasies
Monday, February 5
12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Princeton, 300 Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ
And online
RSVP at https://cpree.princeton.edu/events/2024/small-modular-reactors-and-other-nuclear-fantasies

In-person attendance for Princeton University ID holders (no RSVP req); Other guests RSVP to ccrosby@princeton.edu; Livestream on MediaCentral
Speaker M.V. Ramana, The Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security and Professor at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

M.V. Ramana is the Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security and Professor at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He was earlier with the Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University. Ramana is the author of “The Power of Promise: Examining Nuclear Energy in India” (Penguin Books, 2012), co‑editor of “Prisoners of the Nuclear Dream” (Orient Longman, 2003) and the author of “Nuclear is not the Solution: The Folly of Atomic Power in the Age of Climate Change” (forthcoming from Verso books). He is a member of the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM), the International Nuclear Risk Assessment Group (INRAG), the Canadian Pugwash Group, and the team that produces the annual World Nuclear Industry Status Report. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Leo Szilard Award from the American Physical Society

————— 

Climate Solutions in Three Acts: Net-Zero Aviation, Prioritizing Wildfire Avoidance, and Food without Agriculture
Monday, February 5
2pm ET [11:00am to 12:00pm PT]
UCSB, Bren Hall 1414
And online
RSVP at https://bren.ucsb.edu/events/climate-solutions-three-acts-net-zero-aviation-prioritizing-wildfire-avoidance-and-food

Steven J Davis, Professor, Earth System Science, UC Irvine
Climate solutions may involve reducing sources of greenhouse gas emissions or managing impacts. I’ll talk about some recent projects my group has led to assess prospects for reducing particularly difficult-to-abate GHG emissions as well as for avoiding the mounting impacts of wildfire in California and the western U.S.

Steve Davis is a Professor of Earth System Science at the University of California, Irvine, where he researches the sources and socio-economic drivers of GHG emissions, impacts of global environmental change on human systems, and sustainable solutions. He is also chair of the external science advisory board of Watershed, a carbon accounting start-up, and currently serves on the Technical Council of the Science Based Targets Initiative.

————— 

Religion in Times of Earth Crisis: Ancestors and Climate in Our Boston Backyard
Monday, February 5
6 – 8:45 p.m.
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_TxwmH9P8SWajWXcagD4K9w#/registration

This is the second event is a six-part series that will take place live on Zoom and is free and open to the public. Attendees must register for each event separately. For those wishing to engage in discussion of the presentations with other audience members, Diane L. Moore will convene a live discussion on Zoom for one hour following each presentation. 

Two hundred years ago, the residents of metropolitan Boston faced a climate crisis. White settlers had destroyed the region’s pine forests, triggering dangerous disruptions to both water and carbon cycles. Activists responded by creating forest parks on previously disrupted landscapes. But many of these activists were themselves descended from the settlers who had caused the harm they sought to heal. In imperfect yet instructive ways, they blended ecological care with new forms of ancestral devotion. Gradually they learned what indigenous communities had long known: that care for the more-than-human-world is inseparable from care for our ancestors. In this session, Dan McKanan, will discuss these stories and how they can help contemporary Bostonians, and others, recognize that what makes a place wild is not the absence of humans but the presence of ancestors.

Speaker: Dan McKanan, Ralph Waldo Emerson Unitarian Universalist Association Senior Lecturer in Divinity
Moderator: Diane L. Moore, Diane L. Moore, Associate Dean of Religion and Public Life
Dan McKanan, AB '89, joined the HDS faculty in 2008. He researches religious and spiritual movements for social transformation in the United States and beyond. McKanan serves on the Unitarian Universalist Panel on Theological Education and the board of the Unitarian Universalist Studies Network. At Harvard, he serves as chair of the MTS Curriculum Committee and as faculty director for the Divinity School’s Program for the Evolution of Spirituality.
For more information on the full series, "Religion in Times of Earth Crisis: A Series of Public Online Conversations," visit https://hds.harvard.edu/news/religion-times-earth-crisis
CONTACT rpl@hds.harvard.edu

—————

Multimodal Machine Learning and Climate Change Adaptation
Monday, February 5
7:30pm ET [4:30pm to 5:20pm PT]
Jen-Hsun Huang Building (School of Engineering), NVIDIA Auditorium, Jen-Hsun Huang Center, 475 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305 
And online
RSVP at https://events.stanford.edu/event/the_energy_seminar_Feb_5

Abstract: Climate change is escalating the frequency and severity of natural disasters worldwide, necessitating urgent societal adaptation. In this talk, I present a multimodal machine learning (ML) framework designed to predict natural disasters. Traditionally, weather forecasting has depended on dynamical equations for over a century. However, recent advancements in artificial intelligence are revolutionizing this domain. The innovative multimodal ML framework leverages processing techniques from computer vision, natural language processing, time series signal processing techniques to integrate various data types, such as satellite imagery, textual information, and tabular data, to generate both short-term and long-term forecasts. Our first case study demonstrates that, for 24-hour hurricane forecasting, our ML models achieve results that are competitive with those produced by established national weather forecasting agencies. In our second case study, we explore the potential to create global models with a multi-year scope for assessing flood risks. Artificial intelligence will fundamentally change the way our interaction with weather, and these ML-driven risk assessments will have profound impacts on urban planning, infrastructure investment, renewable energy planning, and insurance policy.

Bio: Cynthia Zeng is a fifth year PhD candidate at the Operations Research Center at MIT, advised by Professor Dimitris Bertsimas. Her research focuses on developing machine learning and optimization methods to address issues around climate change and sustainability. Her notable contributions include a multimodal machine learning framework for predicting natural disasters, such as hurricanes and floods. In addition, her collaboration work with OCP Group, world’s largest phosphate producer, has been implemented and reduces 50% air pollution from industrial activities. With a vision to harness technology for a sustainable future, Cynthia brings valuable insights from her past roles as a quantitative analyst at BlackRock (London) and an investment analyst at SoftBank Vision Fund (China). She received her Bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Imperial College London.

————— 

The Investigative Agenda for Climate Change Journalism
Tuesday, February 6
9:00 AM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_voe-3VKeS3addvYBcjp0fQ#/registration

NOTE: This webinar includes Arabic, French, and Spanish interpretation. 

Although there has been progress on the development of affordable green energy, global greenhouse gas emissions are rising inexorably, according to one of the world’s leading authorities, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Climate change is global, but the causes are not: fossil fuels – largely coal, oil, and gas – account for more than 75% of global greenhouse gasses. Despite the climate crisis the world’s fossil fuel producers are planning massive expansions, according to this report. This growth is occurring even though many governments and corporations around the world have made net-zero and other climate change mitigation pledges. 

Thousands of journalists around the world are reporting on and investigating the impact of climate change, and multiple reporting networks have been established to further this work. Sharing ideas, strategies, and techniques is critical at a time when the investigative agenda in this area is so diffuse and varied. 

GIJN has contributed to the debate about the investigative agenda for climate change journalism with the publication of a report on a one-day meeting of 80 climate change journalists and experts from 35 countries to discuss the role of investigative journalism in climate crisis reporting, convened at the GIJN’s most recent global conference.

In this panel, leading climate change journalists and experts will share perspectives on the top priorities for investigative journalism on climate change, including the fossil fuel industry, government policies, climate change finance, and the interface between climate and socio-economic forces. 

Matthew Green is global investigations editor at DeSmog.
Sunita Narain is the director general of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). 
Amy Westervelt is an award-winning investigative journalist and executive producer of the independent podcast production company Critical Frequency.

————— 

Towards Understanding Interdependence of the Climate and Biodiversity Crises
Tuesday, February 6
12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
Princeton, 10 Guyot Hall, Princeton, NJ
And online 
RSVP at https://princeton.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Xd7jAYs1Sfi2USuaiR2Gjg#/registration

Steve Pacala, the Frederick D. Petrie Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Emeritus, will present “Towards Understanding Interdependence Of The Climate And Biodiversity Crises” in Guyot Hall, Room 10, and online via Zoom. Pacala is the first speaker in the spring 2024 HMEI Faculty Seminar Series.

Decades of experimental and observational work have demonstrated strong relationships between terrestrial plant biodiversity and ecosystem-level carbon uptake, carbon storage and water cycling. Professor Pacala will discuss work conducted by his lab, over the past twenty years, to develop models of competition for light and water among a very few representative plant functional types that control the exchange of matter, energy, and momentum between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere in the GFDL Earth system models. He will explain how physiological and structural diversity among terrestrial plant species maintains very high species diversity, which affects carbon and water cycling, and hence biosphere-climate feedback.

————— 

A Changing Planet Seminar – Ocean Activism: Taking action for the beach front to the front benches of Parliament
Wednesday, February 7
11am ET [16.00 - 17.30 GMT]
Imperial College London, UG100 – LTUG , Imperial College Business School, South Kensington Campus, London, UK
And online
RSCP at https://www.imperial.ac.uk/events/171674/a-changing-planet-seminar-ocean-activism-taking-action-for-the-beach-front-to-the-front-benches-of-parliament/

In this Changing Planet Seminar Hugo Tagholm will talk about his career in ocean activism leading Oceana and Surfers Against Sewage campaigning on issues including water quality, plastic pollution, and Marine Protected Areas. Hugo will present campaigns which turn public action into policy change, using science, data, activism, new technology and the media.

Hugo is a surfer, campaigner, and environmentalist. He is the Executive Director and Vice President of global marine conservation NGO Oceana in the UK.
He previously led the NGO Surfers Against Sewage, campaigning from the beach front to the front benches of Parliament. Hugo founded the Global Wave Conference, Plastic Free Communities movement, the Million Mile Beach Clean & Safer Seas Service and has been instrumental in exposing water company sewage pollution and the plastic pollution crisis.

Hugo was awarded a Doctorate of Science by Exeter University for his services to the marine environment; Environmentalist of the Year 2021 by Save the Waves; featured in the ENDS Report 2023 Campaigning Power List, and has been shortlisted as Leader of the Year in the 2023 Purpose Awards.

Hugo is on the Board of Directors for the Save the Waves Coalition and writes for Oceanographic Magazine. He is a regular speaker and host at ocean and environmental events, and frequent commentator in the media featuring in the Guardian, the Times, Channel 4 News, Sky News, the BBC and many other channels over the years.Please join Hugo in person at the Business School, South Kensington Campus (UG100 – LTUG) on Wednesday 7 February. The Changing Planet Seminar will also be screened at the Silwood Campus (SPPPB 2.4) and available via Zoom.If you would like to attend this seminar, please register to the event.

—————

Ocean Fever: Deep Thoughts on Water, Culture, and Climate Resilience 
Wednesday, February 7
12 – 1 p.m.
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__bT8eekdT1alI6mvifmZcw#/registration

SPEAKER(S) Robert Verchick 
Legal scholar in climate change and disaster policy who designed climate-resilience programs in the Obama administration. He is the Gauthier-St. Martin Eminent Scholar and Chair in Environmental Law at Loyola University New Orleans and is a senior fellow in disaster resilience at Tulane University.
CONTACT INFO events@radcliffe.harvard.edu
Robert Verchick is a legal scholar in climate change and disaster policy who designed climate-resilience programs in the Obama administration. His most recent book, “The Octopus in the Parking Garage: A Call for Climate Resilience,” empowers nonexpert readers to face the climate crisis and shows what we can do to adapt and thrive.
In this lecture, Verchick will explore how we can harness the power of government, science, and local wisdom to rescue the oceans from climate breakdown.

————— 

Wealth Supremacy 
Wednesday, February 7
12:00 PM EST — 1:00 PM EST
Online
RSVP at https://cbey.yale.edu/event/wealth-supremacy

Marjorie Kelly’s book, Wealth Supremacy, is a powerful analysis of how the bias toward wealth that is woven into the very fabric of American capitalism is damaging people, the economy, and the planet.

In her book, Kelly identifies a key driving force behind the multiple global crises we face today: financialization. It’s the problem we’re not yet talking about. There’s too much financial wealth in our system, in too few hands.

In this conversation moderated by Vincent Stanley (CBEY resident fellow and Director of Philosophy at Patagonia), Kelly will discuss the myths that make capital bias seem normal and necessary, and will talk about alternative economic models that are already emerging, exploring what a new, more democratic economy can look like and the pathways we can take to get there.

————— 

Outsourcing Repression: Everyday State Power in Contemporary China
Wednesday, February 7
12:00pm to 1:30pm
Online
RSVP at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG5ooD8Ydk4vd83Ac8VNEoQ

Lynette Ong, Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto. The talk will be broadcast live on the MIT Security Studies Program Youtube channel.

Summary/abstract: How do states coerce citizens into compliance while simultaneously minimizing backlash? In Outsourcing Repression, Lynette Ong examines how the Chinese state engages nonstate actors, from violent street gangsters to nonviolent grassroots brokers, to coerce and mobilize the masses to pursue its ambitious urbanization project. She draws on ethnographic research conducted annually from 2011 to 2019--the years from Hu Jintao to Xi Jinping, a unique and original event dataset, and a collection of government regulations in a study of everyday land grabs and housing demolition in China. Theorizing a counterintuitive form of repression that reduces resistance and backlash, Ong invites the reader to reimagine the new ground state power credibly occupies. Everyday state power is quotidian power acquired through society by penetrating nonstate territories and mobilizing the masses within. After the book’s publication, Lynette has extended the arguments to explain the success, failure, and implications of China’s Zero-Covid Policy in the Journal of Democracy, Foreign Affairs and the Economist etc.

————— 

Too Hot, Too Cold, Too Old: Climate Change Through the Eyes of Black Baby Boomers in the American South
Thursday, February 8
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://tufts.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_9DNVvbr7RmGdc41-Wf2xbw#/registration

As the U.S. “Baby Boomer” generation has inhabited the Earth and likely has seen the impact of changing climate on their communities longer, this study seeks to understand how older Black Americans in the South experience, engage, and make meaning of climate change. It also provides insights on the health impacts of climate change among this population. This approach reveals a more nuanced understanding of the race-health-environment connection in the contexts of the climate crisis.

Event Contact Sinet.Kroch@tufts.edu

—————

How High was Sea Level in the Holocene?
Thursday, February 8
3pm ET [12pm to 1pm PT]
Stanford, Mitchell Earth Sciences, 350/372, 397 Panama Mall, Stanford, CA 94305 
And online
RSVP at https://events.stanford.edu/event/geophysics_seminar_-_roger_creel_woods_hole_oceanographic_institution_how_high_was_sea_level_in_the_holocene

Rober Creel, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution:
I will present work that aims to constrain sea-level change over the last glacial cycle by merging relative sea-level observations and glacial isostatic adjustment models via Bayesian statistical frameworks. I will first reconstruct Norwegian sea level over the last 16,000 years. I will then infer global mean sea level during the Holocene (11.7 - 0 thousand years ago), which is the last time global temperatures may have exceeded early Industrial (1850 CE) values. I will show that the available evidence is consistent with global mean sea level that exceeded early industrial levels in the mid-Holocene and an Antarctic Ice Sheet that was smaller than present in the last 6000 years. I also present the first quantitative estimates of Holocene mountain glacier volume and sea level change due to ocean thermal expansion. 

—————

Grid Decarbonization - Matteo Muratori, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)Sponsored by 
Thursday, February 8
4:30pm ET [1:30pm to 2:30pm PT]
Stanford, Y2E2 Building, 292A, 473 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305 
And online
RSVP at https://events.stanford.edu/event/smart_grid_seminar_electric_grid_cybersecurity_-_mostafa_mohammadpourfard_arizona_state_university

Matteo Muratori, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
A distinguished member of the research staff in NREL’s Center for Integrated Mobility Sciences, Dr. Matteo Muratori joined NREL in 2016 and now leads the Transportation Energy Transitions Analysis group. The group focuses on exploring system-level sustainable solutions for the transformation of the entire transportation sector, including infrastructure and emerging synergies between transportation and the electricity grid. In 2021–2022, Muratori served as the chief analyst for sustainable transportation at the U.S. Department of Energy. He has authored more than 100 technical publications cited over 6,000 times, including a recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment report, and regularly presents research results and insights at conferences, workshops, and the media.

————— 

Imagination: A Manifesto
Thursday, February 8
7:00 PM ET 
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138 

Harvard Book Store welcomes RUHA BENJAMIN—author of the Stowe Prize-winning Viral Justice—for a discussion of her new book Imagination: A Manifesto. She will be joined in conversation by TRACY K. SMITH—22nd Poet Laureate of the United States and author of the Pulizter Prize-winning Life on Mars.

About Imagination: A Manifesto
A world without prisons? Ridiculous. Schools that foster the genius of every child? Impossible. Work that doesn’t strangle the life out of people? Naive. A society where everyone has food, shelter, love? In your dreams. Exactly. Ruha Benjamin, Princeton University professor, insists that imagination isn’t a luxury. It is a vital resource and powerful tool for collective liberation.

Imagination: A Manifesto is her proclamation that we have the power to use our imaginations to challenge systems of oppression and to create a world in which everyone can thrive. But obstacles abound. We have inherited destructive ideas that trap us inside a dominant imagination. Consider how racism, sexism, and classism make hierarchies, exploitation, and violence seem natural and inevitable―but all emerged from the human imagination.
The most effective way to disrupt these deadly systems is to do so collectively. Benjamin highlights the educators, artists, activists, and many others who are refuting powerful narratives that justify the status quo, crafting new stories that reflect our interconnection, and offering creative approaches to seemingly intractable problems.

Imagination: A Manifesto offers visionary examples and tactics to push beyond the constraints of what we think, and are told, is possible. This book is for anyone who is ready to take to heart Toni Morrison’s instruction: “Dream a little before you think.”

Editorial Comment:  from Diane di Prima’s poem “Rant”:
the war that matters is the war against the imagination
all other wars are subsumed in it.

————— 

Climate Justice Series: Segregation and Environmental Injustice
Friday, February 9
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Center on Global Energy Policy, 1255 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027 First Floor
And online
RSVP at https://events.columbia.edu/cal/event/showEventMore.rdo;jsessionid=DysQHpZWSClVKBPjSLhUryST-NQHIvCgjiWtVPo0.calprdapp06

Please join the Ambedkar Initiative at the Institute for Comparative Literature & Society, the India Program at the Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP) at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, the SIPA Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Climate & Engagement (DEICE) Committee, Columbia Climate School, and South Asia Institute for the next session in a series of discussions examining social and economic justice issues related to climate change and the energy transition in India. 

The upcoming session, “Segregation and Environmental Injustice,” will integrate hard data and social sciences to frame environmental injustice in India as essentially caste injustice. Participants will be able to make connections with similar perspectives around questions of racial justice in climate change policies in the United States, particularly as this discussion will also include an introduction to Ava DuVernay’s new feature film Origin, adapted from Isabel Wilkerson’s book, Caste, on global systems of hierarchy, oppression, and access to resources.   T

he discussion will feature two experts, ecological economist Dr. Deepak Malghan and sociologist  Dr. Gaurav Pathania, in a conversation moderated by Dr. Anupama Rao, director of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society and the convenor of the Ambedkar Initiative. Dr. Adam Sobel, professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Engineering School will deliver welcome remarks. Deepali Srivastava, editor of CGEP’s Energy Explained, is the convenor of this series that honors the legacy of Columbia University alum and India’s civil rights icon, Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar (1891–1956), as an economist and an environmental rights leader, whose vision builds a bridge from past to present.

—————

Greening the Future: Nature-Based Climate Solutions Challenge
Saturday, February 10
9:30 - 11:30am EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/greening-the-future-nature-based-climate-solutions-challenge-tickets-807888615597

Global warming and climate change are among the most critical challenges facing our planet today. High school students have the power to make a difference by developing innovative nature-based solutions to combat this crisis.

In this challenge, you will be tasked with creating a comprehensive plan for a nature-based climate solution that can be implemented locally or globally. Your solution should not only address the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions but also contribute to the overall health and sustainability of the environment.

Ready to participate? Join participants from all around the globe in this thrilling challenge and have the chance to win an exclusive scholarship* to study a Bachelor degree at IE University.  

————— 

Civic Life Lunch – Shaping International Law to Combat Climate Change
Monday, February 12
12 - 1pm EST
Tufts, Barnum Hall (Rabb Room), 163 Packard Avenue Medford, MA 02155

Interested in the intersection of law and climate change? Join a lunch conversation with Associate Attorney Duncan Pickard on how Island States' climate efforts before international courts are shaping international law for the better. Lunch provided.

Duncan Pickard is an Associate Attorney in the International Dispute Resolution and Public International Law Groups at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, in New York, where he represents sovereign States, international organizations, and individuals in a wide variety of disputes before international courts and tribunals. Most recently, he acted as counsel for the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law (COSIS), an international organization representing ten small islands in the Pacific and the Caribbean, to bring a request for an advisory opinion on climate change before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. He also advises COSIS in the advisory proceedings on climate change pending before the International Court of Justice. Duncan is a graduate of Stanford Law School, the Harvard Kennedy School, and Tufts University, where he was part of the Institute for Global Leadership's Synaptic Scholars Program.

Editorial Comment:  The Small Island Nations are on the front lines of climate chaos and are pushing the rest of the world to do something about it.

————— 

On Resource Economics
Monday, February 12
2pm ET [11:00am to 12:00pm PT]
UCSB, Bren Hall 1414, Santa Barbara, CA93106-5131
Online
RSVP at https://bren.ucsb.edu/events/bren-seminar-patrick-baylis-resource-economics

Patrick Baylis, Assistant Professor, Vancouver School of Economics, University of British Columbia

More information coming soon

————— 

Religion in Times of Earth Crisis: Animal Stories, in Crisis
Monday, February 12 
6 – 8:45 p.m.
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_aFD188HwTSW49g4ca0OkDQ#/registration

This is the third event is a six-part series that will take place live on Zoom and is free and open to the public. Attendees must register for each event separately. For those wishing to engage in discussion of the presentations with other audience members, Diane L. Moore will convene a live discussion on Zoom for one hour following each presentation. 

Across the Indian Ocean world, communities have shared stories while encountering legacies of modern state-centrism, colonial capitalism, post-colonial environmental destruction and religious reform. Muslim communities, among others, have shared stories of religious environments and animals that were inherited, transmitted, and reinterpreted in light of evolving ecological crises. These stories of multispecies ancestors and colonizers, Islamic conceptions of the environment, and narrative traditions of Islamic ecological care have confronted cycles of crises with visions of pasts and futures. In this session, Teren Sevea will discuss the question, “Can listening to these stories compel us to re-evaluate our academic approaches to religion and environments and the relationship of religious pasts and presents, in our time of crisis?”

Speaker: Teren Sevea, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies
Moderator: Diane L. Moore, Diane L. Moore, Associate Dean of Religion and Public Life
Teren Sevea is a scholar of Islam and Muslim societies in South and Southeast Asia. Before joining HDS, he served as Assistant Professor of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Sevea is the author of Miracles and Material Life: Rice, Ore, Traps and Guns in Islamic Malaya (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Currently, Sevea is coordinating the project “The Lighthouses of God: Mapping Sanctity Across the Indian Ocean,” which investigates the evolving landscapes of Indian Ocean Islam through photography, film and GIS technology.

CONTACT rpl@hds.harvard.edu

—————

What We've Become:  Living and Dying in a Country of Arms
Monday, February 12
7:00 PM ET Location
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138

Harvard Book Store welcomes JONATHAN M. METZL—award-winning author of Dying of Whiteness—for a discussion of his new book What We've Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms. He will be joined in conversation by BETH SIMONE NOVECK—first United States Deputy Chief Technology Officer under President Obama and director of the Burnes Center for Social Change at Northeastern University.

About What We've Become
When a naked, mentally ill white man with an AR-15 killed four young adults of color at a Waffle House, Nashville-based physician and gun policy scholar Dr. Jonathan M. Metzl once again advocated for commonsense gun reform. But as he peeled back evidence surrounding the racially charged mass shooting, a shocking question emerged: Did the public health approach he had championed for years have it all wrong?

Long at the forefront of a movement advocating for gun reform as a matter of public health, Metzl has been on constant media call in the aftermath of fatal shootings. But the 2018 Nashville killings led him on a path toward recognizing the limitations of biomedical frameworks for fully diagnosing or treating the impassioned complexities of American gun politics. As he came to understand it, public health is a harder sell in a nation that fundamentally disagrees about what it means to be safe, healthy, or free.

In What We’ve Become, Metzl reckons both with the long history of distrust of public health and the larger forces—social, ideological, historical, racial, and political—that allow mass shootings to occur on a near daily basis in America. Looking closely at the cycle in which mass shootings lead to shock, horror, calls for action, and, ultimately, political gridlock, he explores what happens to the soul of a nation—and the meanings of safety and community—when we normalize violence as an acceptable trade-off for freedom. Mass shootings and our inability to stop them have become more than horrific crimes: they are an American national autobiography.

This brilliant, piercing analysis points to mass shootings as a symptom of our most unresolved national conflicts. What We’ve Become ultimately sets us on the path of alliance forging, racial reckoning, and political power brokering we must take to put things right.

Editorial Comment:  Cure Violence Global (https://cvg.org/) uses epedemiology techniques to reduce local violence although, to my knowledge, they don’t work specifically on gun violence.

—————  

Advancing Energy Equity in California
Monday, February 12
7:30pm ET [4:30pm to 5:20pm PT]
Stanford, Jen-Hsun Huang Building (School of Engineering), NVIDIA Auditorium, Jen-Hsun Huang Center, 475 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305 
And online
RSVP at https://events.stanford.edu/event/the_energy_seminar_feb_12

Jordyn Bishop & Isabella Carreño | The Greenlining Institute
Abstract: The Greenlining Institute works towards a future where communities of color can build wealth, live in healthy places filled with economic opportunity, and are ready to meet the challenges posed by climate change. Building lasting climate resilience in communities of color can only be achieved by focusing on the intersection of climate action, racial justice, and economic equity. The Energy Equity team works to center equity in the burgeoning clean energy economy and to advance a just transition where the needs of communities are prioritized every step of the way. With the current momentum in the climate and energy policy space, it is vital that policies and programs are shaped to create the best racial equity outcomes. Equitable energy policies help reduce the impacts of climate change, end reliance on fossil fuels, and offer economic opportunities and wealth generation to formerly redlined neighborhoods. In this seminar, Jordyn Bishop (Senior Legal Counsel of Energy Equity) and Isabella Carreño (Climate Equity Fellow) will provide an overview of The Greenlining Institute's work and their current efforts to equitably advance an affordable, reliable, and climate-resilient clean energy future in California.

Bios: Jordyn Bishop (she/her/hers) is the Senior Legal Counsel of Energy Equity at The Greenlining Institute. Jordyn leads Greenlining’s energy affordability work by advocating for laws and regulations that center the energy needs of low-income and communities of color. She focuses on equitably advancing an affordable, reliable, and climate-resilient clean energy future in California. Jordyn is a member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, but born and raised on Ohlone land. She previously served as Assistant City Attorney to several cities advising on a wide range of local government matters. Jordyn received her B.A. from the California State University, East Bay, and her J.D. from the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco with a concentration in Social Justice Lawyering. In her off time, Jordyn can be found spoiling her pit bull, traveling internationally, and spending time with family and friends.

Isabella “Bella” Carreño (she/her/hers) is the Climate Equity Fellow at The Greenlining Institute. Throughout her time at Greenlining, she will be researching grid reliability, its ties to equity, and engaging with the community through the Leadership Academy. Growing up in Bakersfield, California, Bella became passionate about environmental and racial justice from a very young age through seeing the impacts of racial and environmental inequity firsthand. Prior to her Fellowship, Bella graduated from UC Berkeley with a major in political science with a minor in journalism. Throughout her time at UC Berkeley, Isabella worked as an intern for an immigration law firm, an anti-sex trafficking organization, and the United States Senate, all of which taught her the importance of diverse voices in advocacy and policy. Bella believes that racial, socioeconomic, and environmental equity are vital to a better future. While at Greenlining, she hopes to grow her skills and knowledge about the intersection between the environment and policy to make her community, and others like it, a better place. In her free time, she enjoys reading, baking, and exploring the Bay area.

————— 

EBC 11th Annual New England Regional Offshore Wind Conference
Tuesday, February 13
7:30 a.m. 3:00 p.m. 
WilmerHale, 60 State Street, Boston, MA 02109
And online
RSVP at https://ebcne.org/event/ebc-11th-annual-new-england-regional-offshore-wind-conference/#registration-details
Cost:  $50 - $275

————— 

A Global Climate Plan
Tuesday, February 13
1 - 2:30pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-global-climate-plan-tickets-680722698917

Adrien Fabre presents a Global Climate Plan to jointly combat climate change and extreme poverty, and shows strong support from surveys.

Adrien Fabre presents a Global Climate Plan to jointly combat climate change and extreme poverty, as well as survey evidence showing that the policy garners majority support across the world. The 30 min presentation will be followed by a 30 min discussion with high-profile guests (policy-makers, researchers, activists).
Then, 30 min will be devoted to the public's questions.

For details on the Global Climate Plan or to sign the petition, see https://global-redistribution-advocates.org/the-global-climate-plan/

————— 

Climate Change and Children's Health: Challenges and Solutions
Tuesday, February 13
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Online
RSVP at https://www.climate.columbia.edu/events/climate-change-and-childrens-health-challenges-and-solutions

—————

2024 Cleantech Open Northeast Boston Kickoff Party
Tuesday, February 13
5 - 7pm EST
Greentown Labs, 444 Somerville Ave Somerville, MA 02143
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2024-cleantech-open-northeast-boston-kickoff-party-tickets-776498687477
Cost:  $0 -$10

Come join Cleantech Open Northeast for an evening of food, drink, celebration and opportunity at Greentown Labs in Somerville, MA! Since 2005, more than 70% of Cleantech Open's reporting U.S. alumni companies are still active and have collectively raised over $2B in external funding.
Learn how the accelerator program can help you develop your cleantech venture and how to apply to the accelerator. We welcome entrepreneurs, students, investors, savvy technologists, and those interested in joining our growing cleantech community.

EVENT AGENDA:
About Cleantech Open - meet the Cleantech Open Northeast team and learn about opportunities to be involved.
Alumni Lightning Talks - hear from Cleantech Open alumni about their experiences in the program.
Entrepreneur Introductions - tell us about yourself and your clean technology & business. To participate in this part of the program, please sign up when you register!
Q&A - ask your questions about the program, application process, and more.
Networking - meet people in the local ecosystem who are interested in and support Boston cleantech entrepreneurs in a wide variety of ways.

————— 

The Conceivable Future
Tuesday, February 13
7:00PM ET
Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Coolidge Corner, Brookline, MA 02446-2908
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/meghan-elizabeth-kallman-josephine-ferorelli-the-conceivable-future-tickets-786207115647

Explore the ways in which the climate crisis is affecting our personal decisions about family planning, parenting, and political action.
In The Conceivable Future, authors Meghan Elizabeth Kallman and Josephine Ferorelli explore the ways in which the climate crisis is affecting our personal decisions about family planning, parenting, and political action. This book offers fresh, timely answers to questions such as: How do I decide to have a baby when there's the threat of environmental collapse? How do I parent a child in the middle of the climate crisis? What can I actually do to help stop global warming?

Drawing from their decade of work with the organization, Conceivable Future, Kallman, a sociologist and Rhode Island State Senator, and Ferorelli, an activist and former Climate Bureau editor, offers both informed perspective and practical steps for taking meaningful action in combating the climate crisis, while also making smart, balanced decisions when it comes to starting and maintaining a family.

First, The Conceivable Future explores what the real threats are to reproductive, gestational, and infant health (spoiler: it's inequality, heat, and fossil fueled pollution), and debunks the myths of personal carbon footprint, and the harmful legacy of population control. The authors examine the successes and impediments of women-led movements around the world, and share what they've learned through ten years of organizing to bring attention to the reproductive crisis that is climate change.

Finally the book looks at what can be done about the climate crisis today. By taking these steps, we can both understand the crisis on its own terms, and stay rooted in the human scale, where our lives retain their full meaning.

The Conceivable Future is a must-read for all who want to make a difference in the world--and secure a sustainable future for all our families.

Meghan Elizabeth Kallman is a professor in the School for Global Inclusion and Social Development at UMass Boston, a state legislator, and climate organizer based in Rhode Island. Josephine Ferorelli is a writer, illustrator, and yoga instructor who makes her home in Chicago, Illinois. Together they have been friends, collaborators, and co-directors of Conceivable Future, the organization that birthed this book, for a decade.

————— 

Tiny Gardens Everywhere: A History of Food Sovereignty for the 21st Century
Thursday, February 15
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://tufts.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_9F0coNnqSWe1J4kr9Zv46w#/registration

Five thousand Parisian farmers grew vegetables for two million Parisians at the turn of the 19th century. Black residents of Washington DC paid down on their homes during the Great Depression by maintaining vegetable gardens on their urban lots. These stories have been missed because they do not coincide with ideas of progress. Yet these histories reveal how a vegetable-powered wealth underwrote urbanization and industrialization, and offer an alternative vision of future urbanization.

Event Contact Sinet.Kroch@tufts.edu

—————

5th National Climate Assessment – Summary for the Northeast: An EBC Climate Change and Air Committee “Lunch and Learn”
Thursday, February 15
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://ebcne.org/event/5th-national-climate-assessment-summary-for-the-northeast-an-ebc-climate-change-and-air-committee-lunch-and-learn/
Cost:  $30 - $105

Contact (617) 505-1818  ebc@ebcne.org

————— 

Climate Across the Curriculum: An Octopus’s Journey
Thursday, February 15
1:00pm to 2:00pm
Online
RSVP at https://mit.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYtf-mqrzMtE9Da8pmqlsBlzwVmbeQ1kJ0z#/registration

Dr. Sandra Goldmark, Columbia University
What do we need to infuse climate into our courses? Join Sandra Goldmark (Barnard College and Columbia Climate School) for a discussion about climate-responsive teaching in almost any discipline. Goldmark will share her experiences incorporating climate concepts into her theatre courses; expanding climate teaching at Barnard College; and piloting a Climate Ready curriculum at the Columbia Climate School. Participants will be invited to share their own interdisciplinary climate teaching experiences and provide feedback on the Climate Ready framework.
All are welcome!

About the Speaker
Sandra Goldmark is a designer, professor, and circular economy expert. Sandra serves as Senior Assistant Dean for Interdisciplinary Engagement at the Columbia Climate School, and Director of Sustainability and Climate Action and Associate Professor of Professional Practice at Barnard College. From 2013-2019, Sandra founded and operated Fixup, a social enterprise repair service dedicated to healthy and circular patterns of consumption. Sandra is a co-creator of the Sustainable Production Toolkit, a free climate action and sustainability resource for performing arts organizations, and serves on the Board of the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, the BBC, The Sunday Times of London, The Daily News, Salon.com, and many more. A graduate of Harvard College and Yale University, Sandra is the author of Fixation: How to Have Stuff without Breaking the Planet.

————— 

Climatetech Intern Fair
Thursday, February 15
4:00 PM
Greentown Labs, 444 Somerville Ave, Somerville, MA
RSVP at https://lu.ma/22py3p82

​Calling all students and soon-to-be graduates! Please join Greentown Labs for their annual Intern Fair, which focuses on connecting rockstar interns directly with Greentown Labs’ network of cutting-edge climatetech startups looking for bright and eager talent in business administration, data, engineering, marketing, operations, sales, software, and more!

————— 

Psychedelic Intersections: Cross-cultural Manifestations of the Sacred Conference 2024
Saturday, February 17
8 a.m. – 7 p.m.
Harvard, James Room, Swartz Hall, 45 Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA
RSVP at https://harvard.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bNuxfnnA3jPVrFQ
And online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_GE4Ru4U7TlqDavLvt25glA#/registration

The 2024 conference will build on Explorations in Interdisciplinary Psychedelic Research held at HDS last April, Harvard’s first interdisciplinary psychedelics conference, which highlighted the wealth of psychedelic research from across multiple disciplines, departments, and schools at Harvard.
Psychedelic Intersections will expand beyond Harvard to explore how psychedelics and religion intersect across disciplines, countries, and communities. How does psychedelic spirituality emerge and diverge in different cultural contexts? What considerations are necessary to promote healthy partnerships? And how can bridges be built across existing divides?

More details and a full speaker lineup can be found on the Center for the Study of World Religions website at https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/psychedelic-intersections-cross-cultural-manifestations-sacred-conference-2024

————— 

Can Trade Policy Mitigate Climate Change?
Monday, February 19
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Princeton, 300 Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ
And online
RSVP at https://environment.princeton.edu/event/bradford-seminar-can-trade-policy-mitigate-climate-change/

Farid Farrokhi, associate  professor of economics at Purdue University, will present “Do Carbon Offsets Offset Carbon?.” This seminar will be held in-person (PUID holders only) and available via livestream (open to all).

Trade policy is often cast as a solution to the free-riding problem in international climate agreements. This paper uncovers the extent to which trade policy can deliver on this promise. We introduce global supply chains of carbon and climate externality into a multi-country, multi-industry general equilibrium model of trade. By deriving analytical formulas for optimal carbon and border taxes, we quantify the reduction in emissions under two prominent proposals that combine carbon pricing with border taxes. First, we show that carbon border taxes can reduce global emission by only a modest amount. By comparison, Nordhaus’s (2015) climate club proposal can result in an inclusive club of all nations that promotes free trade and cuts global emissions by two-thirds of the emission reduction attainable under the globally first best. This successful outcome hinges on the EU, US, and China committing to the climate club as core members, using their collective trade penalties to enforce cooperation by reluctant governments.

—————

Teacher Training: Climate, justice, and peace
Monday, February 19 
2pm [14:00 - 15:30 GMT-5]
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/teacher-training-climate-justice-and-peace-tickets-711232143487

Part of the Global citizenship teacher training collection
How does the climate crisis threaten peace at home and abroad?
Changing weather patterns and extreme weather events threaten people’s livelihoods and access to food and water. This will increase competition for scarce resources, which can potentially lead to conflict. But this isn’t anything new; injustice has long been a threat to peace. The climate crisis just amplifies global systems that have marginalise and oppress.

In this free teacher training workshop from Global Action Plan, we will offer ways in which your students can investigate the topic of justice and peace in relation to climate. Using case studies, individual testimonies, discussion and reflection, we will support you to bring this topic into your classroom.

This workshop is ideal if your students are basing their Religious Education coursework on topic 1, if you teach CSPE or geography, or if you want to build your skills in global citizenship education.This training is part of the Critical Themes series, funded by Irish Aid’s Worldwide Global Schools.

————— 

Rest Assured: Uncovering the Essential Role of Third-Party Assurance in Climate Data 
Tuesday, February 20
10:00 AM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://ceres-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_4b7W1ieCRAq9CHPt2c4fLg#/registration

Assurance, attestation, and audit are synonymous, but what do they really mean when applied to climate-related disclosures? Investors rely on financial statements to make informed decisions because they have “reasonable assurance”, which is a well-defined term enforced by market regulators. However, climate data lacks a similar mechanism. As climate disclosure is increasingly correlated with financial performance, climate data should be subject to the same level of rigor that financial data receives. Ceres will present the findings from a new report, which shares perspectives from market participants on the current quality of climate data and provides recommendations for the structure and application of assurance. In this session, participants—including investors, companies, and assurance providers—will: -Describe the important role and benefits of assurance in supplying investors with decision-useful climate data -Identify actionable steps that companies and assurance providers should take to effectively apply assurance principles to climate-related disclosure and auditing practices -Assess additional data, themes, or subject areas that should integrate similar assurance mechanisms to enhance investment decision-making

————— 

Empowering People Through Strengthened Community Health Systems to Address Inequities and Achieve Targets of the Sustainable Development Goals
Wednesday, February 21
12 – 1PM
Tufts Center for Medical Education, 145 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02111
And online
RSVP at https://tufts.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_PB6O2dh8Q5S37YVzIFh8dA#/registration

Dr. Walter Gwenigale, former Liberian Minister of Health, said that “Health is made at home and only when it is broken does a health care professional or facility becomes necessary.” This talk will be elaborate on principles for integrating strong community health systems into primary health care and approaches for prioritizing communities as the first line of defense in global health security.

Event Contact Kim Burke  kimberly.burke@tufts.edu

————— 

The Campaign for the Future: The Long Road to the Inflation Reduction Act
Wednesday, February 21
12 – 1 p.m.
Online
RSVP at https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2024-leah-stokes-fellow-presentation-virtual

SPEAKER(S) Leah C. Stokes
Anton Vonk Associate Professor of Environmental Politics in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara

Leah C. Stokes works on energy, climate, and environmental policy. Her award-winning book “Short Circuiting Policy: Interest Groups and the Battle over Clean Energy and Climate Policy in the American States” examines why we are behind on climate action, telling the history of fossil fuel companies and electric utilities promoting climate denial and delay. 

In this lecture, Stokes will examine how climate policy rose to the top of the agenda, became a priority in Congress, and eventually became law through the Inflation Reduction Act. 

Stokes has been published in top scholarly journals as well as in the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and elsewhere. Stokes was named to the 2022 TIME100 Next list. She is a senior policy consultant at Rewiring America and cohost of the popular climate podcast A Matter of Degrees.

CONTACT INFO events@radcliffe.harvard.edu

————— 

Teaching Climate Justice Across the Curriculum (Event 2/3 in the CJIT Workshop Series)
Wednesday, February 21
2:00pm to 3:30pm
Online
RSVP at https://mit.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYvf-2urjkoGNG9ASAhNK5v1ZgcBxY9KqA-#/registration

The Climate Justice Instructional Toolkit (CJIT) was created by the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative (ESI) to support faculty in integrating climate justice into their courses. In these Zoom workshops, you will hear case studies on teaching climate justice across disciplines, and gain tips and strategies for including climate justice content and strategies in your teaching context.

This session features Dr. Khalid Kadir, a lecturer of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley. His research focuses on the intersection of poverty, engineering, and politics.

————— 

Shining a Light on Food Systems as a Solution to the Climate Agenda
Wednesday, February 21 
4 - 5:30pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/shining-a-light-on-food-systems-as-a-solution-to-the-climate-agenda-tickets-809039828907

Co-sponsored by the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute, this Grand Rounds lecture featuring Dr. Jess Fanzo will provide a global to local overview of how fragile, yet important food systems are to climate change and action. Food systems involve a complex set of activities and actors, and everyone, every day, engages with food systems. While they are contributors and victims of climate change, there are transformative paths we can take to ensure food systems, in all their various forms, are resilient.

About the speaker
Jessica Fanzo, Ph.D., is a Professor of Climate and the Food for Humanity Initiative Director at Columbia University’s Climate School in New York City. She also serves as the Interim Director for the International Research Institute for Climate and Society. She held positions at Johns Hopkins University, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN, the UN World Food Programme, Bioversity International, the Earth Institute, and the Millennium Development Goal Centre at the World Agroforestry Center in Kenya. She was the Co-Chair of the Global Nutrition Report and Team Leader for the UN High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Systems and Nutrition. She has been involved in various collective endeavors, including the Food Systems Economic Commission, the Lancet Commission on Anaemia, and the EAT-Lancet Commission. She currently leads the development of the Food Systems Dashboard and the Food Systems Countdown to 2030 Initiative in collaboration with the Global Alliance of Improved Nutrition and FAO. Jessica's research focuses on the transdisciplinary field of food systems and the linkages between agriculture, health, and the environment in climate-impacted countries with limited resources. She has twenty years of experience working in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and East Asia on the diversity and quality of diets, nutrition and health outcomes, environmental sustainability, and climate adaptation.

————— 

Ecologies of Justice: The Rights of Nature in Colombia
Thursday, February 22
12:00pm
Boston College, 293 Beacon Street, McElroy Commons, 237, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfzLTepraoXQazrGtcJqRunlvRiNItF8pndx0VrWm-vlWN16A/viewform
And Online
RSVP at https://bccte.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_phWxNG1QT_qxgvPz446klg#/registration

With Kimberly Theidon, Henry J. Leir Professor in International Humanitarian Studies, Tufts University Fletcher School of Global Affairs
In 2016 the Colombian government and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) signed Peace Accords that marked the official end of the longest armed conflict in the Western Hemisphere.  More than fifty years of war had left 200,000 people dead, 150,000 disappeared, 6 million internally displaced, and 8.6 million registered victims. In addition to the human casualties of war, the environment itself was one component of a “wounded warscape,” with landmines, deforestation, bombed oil pipelines and toxic chemicals leaching into the soil and waterways.  Clearly armed conflict can contribute to an environment that is toxic to human health and well-being, but to leave the argument there is to reduce more-than-human entities to mere resources that exist to satisfy human needs and desires, and to measure their destruction as unfortunate but collateral damage. In this project I aim to move beyond this instrumentalized concern for the more-than-human to consider the interspecies entanglements that make life possible in the best and the worst of times.  From toxic chemicals to land mines, from rivers tinged with blood to vengeful mountain gods, there are multiple environments and actors that play a role in post-war reconstruction and coexistence. To capture these assemblages, I focus on the Atrato River, Colombia’s longest and most-polluted waterway.  On this river, lifeways and waterways converge; as the Atrato winds through the Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities of Urabá, the river gives and is life. 

Copies of Theidon's most recent book, Legacies of War Violence, Ecologies, and Kin, from which the talk draws on, will be available for sale at the event.

—————

Clough Colloquium: Nadia Murad, Nobel Laureate
Thursday, February 22
4:00pm
Boston College, Heights Room (Corcoran Commons), 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467

Human rights activist and recipient of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, Nadia Murad is a leading advocate for survivors of genocide and sexual violence. Her New York Times bestselling memoir, The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State, is a harrowing account of the genocide against the Yazidi people of Iraq and Nadia’s imprisonment by the so-called Islamic State (ISIS). Nadia grew up in a small farming village in the Sinjar region of Northern Iraq. In 2014, ISIS attacked her village and killed thousands of Yazidis, including her beloved mother and several of her brothers. Nadia was taken to Mosul and forced, along with thousands of other Yazidi girls, into sexual slavery. After escaping captivity, Nadia relocated to Germany as a refugee and began raising awareness of the ongoing plight of the Yazidi community and the need to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. In 2016, Nadia became the first United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking. That year, she was also awarded the Council of Europe Václav Havel Award for Human Rights and Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. In 2018, she won the Nobel Peace Prize with Dr. Denis Mukwege. Together, they founded the Global Fund for Survivors of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence. In 2019, Nadia was appointed as a UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Advocate. Nadia is the founder and president of Nadia’s Initiative, a non-profit dedicated to rebuilding communities in crisis and advocating for survivors of sexual violence. Nadia’s Initiative’s current work is focused on the sustainable re-development of the Yazidi homeland in Sinjar and pursuing holistic justice for survivors of ISIS atrocities. In her capacity as a member of France’s Gender Advisory Council, Nadia advocated G7 member states to adopt legislation that protects and promotes women’s rights. Nadia worked with the German Mission to the United Nations to pass UN Security Council Resolution 2467, which expands the UN’s commitments to end sexual violence in conflict. Nadia was also a driving force behind the drafting and passing of UN Security Council Resolution 2379, which established the United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh/ISIL (UNITAD). Since 2015, Nadia has been working with human rights lawyer Amal Clooney to bring ISIS before the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

—————

Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities and Defenses for EV Charging Systems 
Thursday, February 22
4:30pm ET [1:30pm to 2:30pm PT]
Stanford, Y2E2 Building, 292A, 473 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305 
And online
RSVP at https://events.stanford.edu/event/smart_grid_seminar_cybersecurity_vulnerabilities_and_defenses_for_ev_charging_systems_jay_johnson

Jay Johnson
Event Details:  This talk will cover cybersecurity vulnerabilities discovered in private and public electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) systems and technologies that can reduce the risk of cyberattacks on these systems. Cybersecurity researchers have recently identified several vulnerabilities that exist in EVSE devices, communications to electric vehicles (EVs), and upstream services, such as EVSE vendor cloud services, third party systems, and grid operators. The potential impact of attacks on these systems stretches from localized, relatively minor effects to long-term national disruptions. Fortunately, there is a strong and expanding collection of cybersecurity best practices and defensive technologies that may be deployed to secure EVSE environments. Several security hardening examples will be provided, with a focus on recent research into intrusion detection systems and security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) technologies for EVSE cloud management systems.

Speaker Bio
Jay Johnson is the Chief Technology Officer at DER Security Corp, a startup company focused on Distributed Energy Resource (DER) communications, power operations, and security. Jay's team is building cybersecurity protection, detection, and response technologies for EV chargers, renewable energy installations, and energy storage systems. Previously, Jay was a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories where he led research projects totaling $25M in the areas of power system control, optimization, and security. Jay received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla in 2006 and a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2009.

————— 

AI for Climate Change Mitigation
Monday, February 26
12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Princeton, 300 Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ
And online
RSVP at https://cpree.princeton.edu/events/2024/ai-climate-change-mitigation

Speaker
David Sandalow, Inaugural Fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy and Director of the Energy and Environment Concentration at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University

David Sandalow is the Inaugural Fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy and Director of the Energy and Environment Concentration at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He founded and directs the Center’s US-China Program and is author of the Guide to Chinese Climate Policy. He teaches a 1-2 month short course each year as a Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Schwarzman Scholars Program at Tsinghua University and is a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

————— 

On the Political Economy of Deforestation
Monday, February 26
2pm ET [11:00am to 12:00pm PT]
USCB, Bren Hall 1414, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-5131
Online
RSVP at https://bren.ucsb.edu/events/bren-seminar-kathryn-baragwanath-political-economy-deforestation

Kathryn Baragwanath, Harvard Academy Scholar, Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies

More information coming soon

————— 

Religion in Times of Earth Crisis | A Series of Public Online Conversations: Apocalyptic Grief: Reckoning with Loss, Wrestling with Hope
Monday, February 26
6:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_MgW5RjTBRyCG3fomK6EQKQ#/registration

Speaker: Matthew Ichihashi Potts, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church Moderator: Diane L. Moore, Associate Dean of Religion and Public Life 
Human caused climate change already contributes to manifold global disasters. As the planet inevitably continues to warm, these disasters will be routine and unrelenting. Addressing the reality of loss must become a basic spiritual task of our climate present and future, along with summoning the resolve to respond to all our losses. This webinar will consider the apocalyptic roots of the Christian tradition in order both to diagnose how Christianity has contributed to the present crisis, as well as to suggest possibilities for a different way forward. Through particular attention to grief and hope as religious categories, and with specific reference to various moments and movements from within the Christian tradition, we will reflect upon the spiritual crisis at the heart of climate catastrophe, and suggest the potential for a religious response. 

————— 

Drawdown Roadmap
Monday, February 26
7 - 8pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/drawdown-roadmap-tickets-782259718877

You may know that there are many possible solutions to combat climate change. But, how do we focus our efforts, create the most effective plan and really make a difference on climate before it’s too late? The Drawdown Roadmap is a science-based strategy for accelerating climate solutions, pointing to which climate actions governments, businesses, investors, philanthropists, community organizations, and others should prioritize to make the most of our efforts to stop climate change. 

Attend this 4-week course to understand the roadmap, and consider how to actualize it in your business, community organization, investments and more. Contact Lisa Brenskelle at gcs.lrc@gmail.com for more information.

————— 

What Works in Community News:  Media Startups, News Deserts, and the Future of the Fourth Estate
Monday, February 26
7:00 PM ET
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138

Harvard Book Store welcomes ELLEN CLEGG—long-time Boston Globe reporter and co-founder of Brookline.News—and DAN KENNEDY—nationally known media commentator and journalism professor at Northeastern University—for a discussion of their new book What Works in Community News: Media Startups, News Deserts, and the Future of the Fourth Estate.

About What Works in Community News
Local news is essential to democracy. Meaningful participation in civic life is impossible without it. However, local news is in crisis. According to one widely cited study, some 2,500 newspapers have closed over the last generation. And it is often marginalized communities of color who have been left without the day-to-day journalism they need to govern themselves in a democracy.

Veteran journalists Ellen Clegg and Dan Kennedy cut through the pessimism surrounding this issue, showing readers that new, innovative journalism models are popping up across the country to fill news deserts and empower communities. What Works in Community News examines more than a dozen of these projects, including:
Sahan Journal, a digital publication dedicated to reporting on Minnesota’s immigrant and refugee communities;
MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, a nonprofit news outlet in Memphis, TN, focused on poverty, power, and public policy;
New Haven Independent / WNHH / La Voz Hispana de Connecticut, a digital news project that expanded its reach in the New Haven community through radio and a Spanish-language partnership;
Storm Lake Times Pilot, a print newspaper in rural Iowa innovating with a hybrid for-profit/nonprofit model; and
Texas Tribune, once a pioneering upstart, now one of the most well-known—and successful—digital newsrooms in the country.

Through a blend of on-the-ground reporting and interviews, Clegg and Kennedy show how these operations found seed money and support, and how they hired staff, forged their missions, and navigated challenges from the pandemic to police intimidation to stand as the last bastion of collective truth—and keep local news in local hands.

————— 

Journalism and the Migration Crisis with Pulitzer Prize winner Matthieu Aikins
Tuesday, February 27
4:30pm to 6:00pm
BC,  Devlin Hall, 101, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467

Join us for a dialogue between the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Mathieu Aikins and BC Professor Min Song as they discuss the experiences of refugees trying to cross heavily fortified borders, the wars in the Middle East, and the dangers of being a journalist covering such stories.

————— 

How Activism Can Win Bigger and Faster
Tuesday, February 27 
9pm ET [6:00 PM PST]
The Commonwealth Club of California, 110 The Embarcadero, Taube Family Auditorium, San Francisco, CA 94105
And online
RSVP at https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2024-02-27/kumi-naidoo-how-activism-can-win-bigger-and-faster
Cost:  $0 - $10

Kumi Naidoo’s path to being an internationally renowned activist started early. At the age of 15, he organized school boycotts against the apartheid educational system in South Africa. His courageous actions made him a target for the security police, leading to his exile in the United Kingdom, where he remained until 1990. Upon his return to South Africa, Naidoo played a pivotal role in the legalization of the African National Congress in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal.
As former chief of both Amnesty International and Greenpeace International, Naidoo is uniquely qualified to talk about pressuring governments and companies to protect human rights and our environment. Now he’s a visiting scholar at Stanford’s Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, where he’s focusing on how activism can win bigger and faster.
What are the tensions between speed and justice when it comes to moving away from fossil fuels?
With climate protests growing increasingly confrontational, are those tactics galvanizing or repelling people?
How are climate-fueled disasters and migration fueling anti-democratic forces around the world?

Join Climate One co-host Greg Dalton in a live conversation with scholar/activist Kumi Naidoo on how the international drive away from fossil fuels relates to human rights and economic justice.

————— 

Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There
Wednesday, February 28
6pm EST
Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tali-sharot-and-cass-r-sunstein-at-the-cambridge-public-library-tickets-782156600447?aff=ebdssbdestsearch
Cost:  $0 – $30.80

Harvard Book Store welcomes TALI SHAROT—award-winning author and professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London and MIT—and CASS R. SUNSTEIN—the nation's most-cited legal scholar and co-author of the national bestseller Nudge—for a discussion of their new book Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There.

RSVP for free to this event or choose the "Book-Included" ticket to reserve a copy of Look Again and pick it up at the event. Tali Sharot and Cass R. Sunstein will sign copies of their new book after the presentation.

Have you ever noticed that what is thrilling on Monday tends to become boring on Friday? Even exciting relationships, stimulating jobs, and breathtaking works of art lose their sparkle after a while. People stop noticing what is most wonderful in their own lives. They also stop noticing what is terrible. They get used to dirty air. They stay in abusive relationships. People grow to accept authoritarianism and take foolish risks. They become unconcerned by their own misconduct, blind to inequality, and are more liable to believe misinformation than ever before.

But what if we could find a way to see everything anew? What if you could regain sensitivity, not only to the great things in your life, but also to the terrible things you stopped noticing and so don’t try to change?

Now, neuroscience professor Tali Sharot and Harvard law professor (and presidential advisor) Cass R. Sunstein investigate why we stop noticing both the great and not-so-great things around us and how to “dishabituate” at the office, in the bedroom, at the store, on social media, and in the voting booth. This groundbreaking work, based on decades of research in the psychological and biological sciences, illuminates how we can reignite the sparks of joy, innovate, and recognize where improvements urgently need to be made. The key to this disruption—to seeing, feeling, and noticing again—is change. By temporarily changing your environment, changing the rules, changing the people you interact with—or even just stepping back and imagining change—you regain sensitivity, allowing you to more clearly identify the bad and more deeply appreciate the good.

————— 

Tufts Energy Conference 2024 - Innovation Odyssey: Climate Tech and Economics of the Energy transition
February 29, 12pm - March 1, 8pm EST
Cabot Intercultural Center - Tufts University=, 170 Packard Avenue Medford, MA 02155 Medford, MA 02155
And online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tufts-energy-conference-2024-tickets-808423926727?aff=ebdssbdestsearch

The Tufts Energy Conference has a 19-year legacy of bringing together students, academics, public officials, and energy industry professionals for thought-provoking discussions on some of the most critical energy issues of our time. The world currently faces a critical turning point in the fight against climate change and the transition to a clean energy future. Much work needs to be done to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, but energy industry innovations are making this transformation feasible by bringing down prices and increasing the efficiency of green technologies. However, a disconnect exists between the scientific community that pioneers these groundbreaking technologies and the financial sector responsible for scaling investments to guarantee their triumph.

————— 

Mitigation and Reversal Strategies Solutions for a Sustainable Future
Thursday, February 29 
11:00 - 12:00 GMT-5
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/free-mitigation-and-reversal-strategies-solutions-for-a-sustainable-future-tickets-788171270487

Highlight current technologies and innovations aimed at mitigating climate change.
Discuss the role of renewable energy sources, carbon capture technologies, and sustainable practices in reducing environmental impact.
Explore educational tools and initiatives that promote awareness and empower individuals and communities to contribute to reversing climate change.

————— 

Homegrown National Park
Thursday, February 29
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://tufts.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_oxO3N208RdaKn61cf6IBsQ#/registration

Our parks, preserves, and remaining wildlands are too small to sustain all lives our ecosystems depend. We can fix this problem through Homegrown National Park: a national challenge to create diverse ecosystems by reducing lawn, planting native, and removing invasives. The goal is to create a national movement to restore 20 million acres with natives and millions more acres in agriculture and woodlots. If many people make small changes, we can restore healthy ecological networks.

Event Contact Sinet.Kroch@tufts.edu

————— 

The Great Deployment: A Look at How the Financing of Climate Technology is Rapidly Evolving
Thursday, February 29
3pm ET [12pm to 1pm PT]
Stanford, Y2E2 Building, 382, 473 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305 
And online
RSVP at https://events.stanford.edu/event/sfi_seminar_chante_harris

Join SFI’s monthly seminar on the third or fourth Thursday of the month. We’ll cover innovative policy and financial mechanisms designed to rapidly decarbonize the global economy.
Up next:
In this seminar on Thursday, February 29, SFI will be joined by Chante Harris, Founder & Managing Partner, Eunoia Group.
2024 will continue to be an unprecedented year for investment in and big wins in the decarbonization of infrastructure. From the $12.5 billion acquisition of Global Infrastructure Partners by BlackRock to General Atlantic's recent acquisition of Actis, this year is shaping up to be one of the biggest where we see investors double down on clean energy adoption through distributed and large capital projects across shipping ports, data centers, railroads, and others. This moment presents a unique opportunity for highly competitive risk-adjusted returns that integrate incumbent and promising emerging technology solutions at scale while bettering communities' resiliency, well-being, and overall health.

Much of the early discussion around climate was around the invention of breakthrough gigawatt-scale technologies that could lower emissions at a lower cost than today. Fast forward, and most of the focus today is on the pace at which technology and infrastructure come together to decarbonize our built environment. 
To tackle climate change, technologies must reach commercialization. To do so, our understanding of climate technology and the investment that accelerates its deployment must evolve. Join this discussion where we'll dive into how climate tech founders and their investors can close the gap by building ecosystem capacity and testing new capital structures that build on the core competencies of venture capital and project finance.

Recommended readings: 
Skill sets for The Great Deployment: Zoning, permitting and project finance
https://impactalpha.com/skill-sets-for-the-great-deployment-site-selection-permitting-and-pre-development/
Expert voices: Chante Harris on clearing climate tech bottlenecks
https://www.axios.com/pro/climate-deals/2023/10/27/chante-harris-climate-tech?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pro_deals_climatetech_subs&stream=top

Speaker bio:
Chante Harris is a champion of social and financial innovation. Throughout her career, she has successfully scaled nationwide campaigns, technologies, and ideas for the Obama Administration, Fortune 500 companies, and startups. Her writing and work have been featured by ImpactAlpha, Business Insider, The Milken Institute, and other notable publications.

As an operator, she secured and deployed millions of dollars for the implementation of climate projects and energy-efficient technologies. In 2020 she built a $10 million early stage climate tech venture studio in the U.S. focused on global companies deploying technologies across mobility, buildings, agriculture, waste, water, materials, and carbon. After her time as a climate tech strategist with Schmidt Futures, she founded a derisk-as-a-service studio and investment platform addressing the multibillion-dollar funding gap for deep tech climate technologies at the critical early infrastructure project stage.

Named by Forbes as a 30 Under 30 in the Energy Category,  Nasdaq as a Woman to Watch in 2022, ACEEE as a Champion for Energy Efficiency, GreenBiz as 30 Under 30 Leader, and Women Enews as a Pioneering Woman in Sustainability, Chante is at the helm of driving climate innovation and advancing the energy transition across the globe. Chante has traveled the world to speak at global events like COP, Aspen, GreenBiz, and TechStars.

In addition to her work leading in climate tech and investment, Chante launched and built the only global 5,000+ digital collective and global community that is 100% dedicated to advancing women of color working across the sustainability industry. 

Chante is on the advisory committee for the first-ever global Climate Center being built on Governor's Island in NYC and sits on the Board of Summit Impact.

————— 

Busting the Bankers' Club:  Finance for the Rest of Us
Thursday, February 29
7:00 PM ET
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138

Harvard Book Store welcomes GERALD EPSTEIN—Professor of Economics and a Founding Codirector of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst—for a discussion of his new book Busting the Bankers' Club: Finance for the Rest of Us. He will be joined in conversation by JULIET SCHOR—sociologist and economist at Boston College and author of The Overworked American.

About Busting the Bankers' Club
Bankers brought the global economic system to its knees in 2007 and nearly did the same in 2020. Both times, the US government bailed out the banks and left them in control. How can we end this cycle of trillion-dollar bailouts and make finance work for the rest of us? Busting the Bankers' Club confronts the powerful people and institutions that benefit from our broken financial system—and the struggle to create an alternative.

Drawing from decades of research on the history, economics, and politics of banking, economist Gerald Epstein shows that any meaningful reform will require breaking up this club of politicians, economists, lawyers, and CEOs who sustain the status quo. Thankfully, there are thousands of activists, experts, and public officials who are working to do just that. Clear-eyed and hopeful, Busting the Bankers' Club centers the individuals and groups fighting for a financial system that will better serve the needs of the marginalized and support important transitions to a greener, fairer economy.

—————

Water, Waste, and Race:  Environmental Politics during the Nineteenth Century Gold Rushes
Friday, March 1
2:30 to 4:30 pm
Online
RSVP at https://mit.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcrdOmqqzkiHtEdBHwCQBUEbrFTqTcky6-a#/registration

Mae Ngai, Columbia University

————— 

Beyond Carbon in Nature-Based Climate Solutions:  Documenting Tropical Forest Biodiversity Loss and Recovery Using Sounds
Monday, March 4
12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Princeton, 300 Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ
And online
RSVP at https://cpree.princeton.edu/events/2024/beyond-carbon-nature-based-climate-solutions

Speaker
Zuzana Burivalova, Assistant Professor The Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies & Department of Forest & Wildlife Ecology University of Wisconsin - Madison

Forests are at the forefront of nature-based climate solutions, and this has stimulated a global investment into their protection. Yet, focusing on carbon, many nature-based climate solutions do not automatically protect biodiversity. I will discuss the need to include biodiversity conservation as a major goal for tropical forest nature-based climate solutions. I will demonstrate how we use new technologies, particularly bioacoustics (recording and analyzing sounds that animals and humans make), to document the losses and gains in biodiversity. Using new advances in machine learning to detect animal and gunshot sounds, I will show not only the patterns but also the processes that underlie biodiversity changes in the world’s most diverse tropical forests. In this talk, I will draw on examples from the Sound Forest Lab’s work in Indonesia, Gabon, Sierra Leone and Mexico.

————— 

Environmental, Energy, and Engineering Career Fair
Monday, March 4
4:30 pm - 6:30 pm EST
John B. Hynes Convention Center, Junior Ballroom, 302 & 304, 900 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02115

Contact  (617) 505-1818, ebc@ebcne.org

————— 

On Environmental Pollution Impacts on Human Health
Monday, March 4
2pm ET [11:00am to 12:00pm PT]
USCB, Bren Hall 1414, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-5131
And online
RSVP at https://bren.ucsb.edu/events/bren-seminar-eunha-hoh-environmental-pollution-impacts-human-health

————— 

Religion in Times of Earth Crisis | A Series of Public Online Conversations: The Practice of Wild Mercy: Something Deeper Than Hope
Monday, March 4
6:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_lqjE5m36S3yUjASXSZWktQ#/registration

Speaker: Terry Tempest Williams, HDS Writer-in-Residence Moderator: Diane L. Moore, Associate Dean of Religion and Public Life
Can personhood be granted to mountains, lakes, and rivers? What does it mean to be met by another species? How do we extend our notion of power to include all life forms? And what does a different kind of power look like and feel like? Wild Mercy is in our hands. Practices of attention in the field with compassion and grace deepen our kinship with life, allowing us to touch something deeper than hope. Great Salt Lake offers us a reflection into our own nature: Are we shrinking or expanding?  

This is the fifth event of a six-part series of online public conversations with members of the HDS faculty to explore what an expansive understanding of religion can provide in these times of Earth crisis. For those wishing to engage in discussion of the presentations with other audience members, Diane L. Moore will convene a live discussion on zoom for one hour from 7:45 to 8:45 following each presentation. 

—————

How Disinformation is Sabotaging America
Monday, March 4
9pm ET [6:00 PM PST]
The Commonwealth Club of California, 110 The Embarcadero, Taube Family Auditorium, San Francisco, CA 94105
And online
RSVP at https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2024-03-04/barbara-mcquade-joyce-vance-how-disinformation-sabotaging-america
Cost:  $0 - $10

The epidemic of disinformation and misinformation sweeping through our society is like the weather: Everyone complains about it, but no one does anything about it. Now Barbara McQuade is changing that, offering solutions for countering disinformation and maintaining the rule of law.

MSNBC's legal expert breaks down the ways disinformation has become a tool to drive voters to extremes, disempower our legal structures, and consolidate power in the hands of the few. Americans are strategically being pushed apart by disinformation—the deliberate spreading of lies disguised as truth—and it comes at us from all sides: opportunists on the far right, Russian misinformed social media influencers, and others. It's endangering our democracy and causing havoc in our electoral system, schools, hospitals, workplaces, and in our Capitol. Advances in technology including rapid developments in artificial intelligence threaten to make the problems even worse by amplifying false claims and manufacturing credibility.

Legal scholar and analyst McQuade will join us to explain how to identify the ways disinformation is seeping into all facets of our society and how we can fight against it. She examines what she calls the "authoritarian playbook"—a history of disinformation from Mussolini and Hitler to Bolsonaro and Trump—and chronicles the ways in which authoritarians have used disinformation to seize and retain power. She reviews disinformation tactics, such as demonizing the other, seducing with nostalgia, silencing critics, muzzling the media, condemning the courts, and stoking violence, and she explains why they work.

Is America particularly vulnerable to disinformation? Does it exploit our First Amendment Freedoms? What can be done to fight it and its effects?
Don't miss this timely exploration of one of the most important forces in the world today.

————— 

A Celebration of and for Trees: Creating Eco-Performance
Thursday, March 7
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://tufts.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ZTQhWUDbTsmpVDWDEQFZUg#/registration

“Eco theater” was coined in the 1980s to describe environmentally-aware performance. How can performance artists participate in environmental activism in effective ways, while including multiple political and aesthetic viewpoints? How can we develop a physical practice that keeps our bodies attuned to the natural world on a day-to-day level? This discussion will focus on eco theater and the translation of personal encounters with the natural world into physical and kinetic expression.

Event Contact Sinet.Kroch@tufts.edu