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 (http://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
http://zeronetenrg.blogspot.com - zero net energy links list
http://cityag.blogspot.com - city agriculture links list
If anyone knows of such a global listing of open energy, climate, and other events is available, please put me in contact.
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Index
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Youth United on Climate Change on the Road to the UN COP30 in Belém, Brazil
Monday, September 1
10am - 2pm EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/youth-united-on-climate-change-on-the-road-to-the-un-cop30-in-belem-brazil-tickets-1120181185079
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Urban Natures: Climate Change Adaptation, Design Agency, and Politics
Tuesday, September 2
6:30 - 8pm EDT. Doors at 6pm
Harvard University Graduate School Of Design, 48 Quincy Street Piper Auditorium Cambridge, MA 02138
And online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/urban-natures-climate-change-adaptation-design-agency-and-politics-tickets-1545351240159
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Encountering Dragonfly: Notes on the Practice of Re-Enchantment
Tuesday, September 2
7:00pm
Porter Square Books - Cambridge Edition, 1815 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02140-1413
RSVP at https://portersquarebooks.com/event/2025-09-02/brooke-williams-author-encountering-dragonfly-conversation-dan-schrag
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Climate Justice is Racial Justice
Wednesday, September 3
7 - 8:15am EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-justice-is-racial-justice-tickets-1556356336699
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Prep Your Climate Coverage: Autumn Extreme Weather
Wednesday, September 3
12pm
Online
RSVP at https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_rKHlL5SARS6LoUQJWRZIdQ#/registration
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The race between consumption and efficiency: A retrospective view of data centre server architecture
Thursday, September 4
4am EST [10:00—11:30 Paris Time]
Online
RSVP at https://www.iea.org/events/the-race-between-consumption-and-efficiency-a-retrospective-view-of-data-centre-server-architecture
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Community Power for Clean Air: Lessons in Equity and Inclusion from Jakarta, Indore, and Nairobi
Thursday, September 4
5:00 - 6:30am EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.wri.org/events/2025/9/community-power-clean-air-lessons-equity-and-inclusion-jakarta-indore-and-nairobi
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Yale Forest Forum – A History of Scientific Forestry: From Extraction to Ecosystem Management
Thursday, September 4 - Thursday, December 4
12pm
Online
RSVP at https://yale.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Mr65vqETSLm9CEN46kATWw#/registration
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Leveraging Data to Drive Effective Heat Protection Policies
Thursday, September 4
12 - 4pm EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/leveraging-data-to-drive-effective-heat-protection-policies-tickets-1549759836389
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Understanding short-lived climate forcers for improved air quality and climate information
Thursday, September 4
2pm EST [14:00 BST - 15:30 BST].
Online
RSVP at https://www.sei.org/events/slcp-and-slcf/
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Carbon Market in the Amazon: Who Benefits, Who Loses
Thursday, September 4
5:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://pulitzercenter-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_XB-GcN3dTkeRYvFWcmqezg#/registration
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he Clough Center's 4th Annual: What the Constitution Means to Us
Thursday, September 4
5pm to 7pm
Boston College, Yawkey Athletics Center, Murray Room. Yawkey Centre, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSekxmxX2RYAsVhpZZuszH7696FpLD0x2glbzkN2QQOwCyKW-A/viewform
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Navigating Uncertainty: Rethinking Global Development in an Unstable World
Thursday, September 4
5:30 PM - 7:30 PM
The Foundry, 101 Rogers Street, Cambridge, MA 02142
RSVP at https://bnid.wildapricot.org/event-6230714/Registration
Cost: $20.00 – $25.00
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The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding
Thursday, September 4
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
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Russia/US/Climate Change Chaos, Native Communities & Bering Sea Ecology
Friday, September 5
10 - 11:30pm EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/new-russiausclimate-change-chaos-native-communities-bering-sea-ecology-tickets-1583244610249
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The Sustainability Midway
Friday, September 5
11:00am to 2:00pm EDT
MIT, Lobby 13, 105 Massachusetts Ave (Rear), Cambridge, MA 02139
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The Great Healthcare Disruption: Big Tech, Bold Policy, and the Future of American Medicine
Friday, September 5
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
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Clean Air and Healthy Cities: Accelerating Equitable Air Quality Solutions in Indore, Nairobi and Jakarta
Monday, September 8
8:00 - 9:15am EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.wri.org/events/2025/9/clean-air-and-healthy-cities-accelerating-equitable-air-quality-solutions-indore
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Bill McKibben: "Here Comes the Sun"
Monday, September 8
4 - 5:15pm EDT
Boston College, Gasson Hall, 140 Commonwealth Avenue Newton, MA 02467
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bill-mckibben-here-comes-the-sun-tickets-1538179439109
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What Is Free Speech?: The History of a Dangerous Idea
Monday, September 8
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/fara-dabhoiwala
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Sustainability Day at the State House
Tuesday, September 9
10am - 3:30pm EDT
Massachusetts State House, 24 Beacon Street Boston, MA 02133
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sustainability-day-at-the-state-house-tickets-1611651235229
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Livestream—Science Under Siege: A Conversation With Dr. Hotez & Dr. Mann
Tuesday, September 9
1:30 - 2:45pm EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/livestreamscience-under-siege-a-conversation-with-dr-hotez-dr-mann-tickets-1567571521619
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Scott Kerman with Michael Dukakis
Tuesday, September 9
7:00pm
Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Coolidge Corner, Brookline, MA 02446-2908
RSVP at https://brooklinebooksmith.com/event/2025-09-09/scott-kerman-michael-dukakis
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Baldwin: A Love Story
Tuesday, September 9
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/nicholas-boggs
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Our Fragile Freedoms: Essays
Wednesday, September 10
6:00pm (doors open at 5:30pm)
Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/eric-foner
Cost: $12.00 - $40.00 (book included)
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Impasse: Climate Change and the Limits of Progress
Wednesday, September 10
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/roy-scranton
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Big Data Conference 2025
Thursday, September 11, 8am – Friday, September 12, 5pm
Harvard University CMSA, 20 Garden Street, Cambridge
And online
RSVP at https://cmsa.fas.harvard.edu/event/bigdata_2025/
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2025 Massachusetts Climatetech Studio Showcase
Thursday, September 11
5:30 - 8:30pm EDT
Suffolk University, 73 Tremont Street Boston, MA 02108
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2025-massachusetts-climatetech-studio-showcase-tickets-1530977397609
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The People's Project: Poems, Essays, and Art for Looking Forward! Anthology
Thursday, September 11
7:00pm
The Marran Theatre, 34 Mellen Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://portersquarebooks.com/products/tags/event-ticket
Cost: $10 - $28
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Rethinking Urban Governance for Climate Mobility
Friday, September 12
12:00 PM - 1:15 PM ET
Harvard, Bloomberg Center For Cities, Taubman Third Floor, 15 Eliot St, Cambridge, MA 02138
And online
RSVP at https://www.hks.harvard.edu/events/rethinking-urban-governance-climate-mobility
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Net Impact Boston SDG Summit 2025
Saturday, September 13
9am - 1pm EDT
NonProfit Center, 89 South Street Boston, MA 02111
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/net-impact-boston-sdg-summit-2025-tickets-1485246725939
Cost: $15 - $25
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Harvard Climate Action Week
September 15- 21
In-person RSVP at https://harvardclimatesymposium.cventevents.com/event/3c86165b-f7ef-49e6-a351-8f103d910e65/regPage:ec88ad6e-613b-40cf-b015-3ae4e4cb7f15?i=OO3plxjrmUm2HxKr3C0o2g&locale=en-US
Livestream RSVP at https://harvardclimatesymposium.cventevents.com/event/3c86165b-f7ef-49e6-a351-8f103d910e65/registrationDeclinePage:694c700e-cf98-4306-975b-bbd05cf2ef06?i=OO3plxjrmUm2HxKr3C0o2g&locale=en-US
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The Road to Electrification: Challenges and Opportunities for the Domestic Auto Industry
Monday, September 15
12 – 1:15 p.m.
Harvard Kennedy School, Rubenstein 414AB, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge
And online
RSVP at https://www.belfercenter.org/event/road-electrification-challenges-and-opportunities-domestic-auto-industry
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Design, Execution, and Political Economy: Lessons from the CHIPS Act for the Future of Industrial Policy
Monday, September 15
12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Princeton, 300 Wallace Hall, Princeton NJ
And online
RSVP at https://cpree.princeton.edu/events/2025/design-execution-and-political-economy-lessons-chips-act-future-industrial-policy
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The cost of climate chaos: financial threats, new approaches, and what we can do
Monday, September 15
6:00 PM - 7:00 PM (Eastern)
Online
RSVP at https://act.sierraclub.org/events/details?formcampaignid=701Po000012iDo4IAE&mapLinkHref=
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The Color of North: The Molecular Language of Proteins and the Future of Life
Monday, September 15
6:00pm (doors open at 5:30pm)
Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/rizk-fink
Cost: $0 - $29.70 (book included)
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Interlinked: temperature, species and health
Wednesday, September 17
8:30 AM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://bristol-ac-uk.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_SIrisjpvRryRhsT_yzUqgg#/registration
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Nature to the Rescue: Amazing Science Supercharging the Planet
Wednesday, September 17
9:00 - 10:00 GMT-4
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/nature-to-the-rescue-amazing-science-supercharging-the-planet-tickets-1504757603499
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In the Heat of This Moment: The People's Struggle for Climate Justice, Health, and Power at Home
Wednesday, September 17
12 – 1 p.m.
Harvard, Knafel Center 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
And online
RSVP at https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2025-diana-hernandez-lecture
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Living Between Worlds—with Courage, Dignity, and Power
Wednesday, September 17
3:00 PM
Online
RSVP at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIvf-mvrD8qGNUBS287pVRGQr77bUBhKQF4#/registration
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Deanna Moran, Chief Coastal Resilience Officer, Commonwealth of Massachusetts – An EBC Leadership Program
Wednesday, September 17
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm EST
Nutter McClennen & Fish LLP, 155 Seaport Boulevard, Boston MA
RSVP at https://ebcne.org/event/network-learn-deanna-moran-chief-coastal-resilience-officer-commonwealth-of-massachusetts-an-ebc-leadership-program/
Cost: $50 -$150
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Mind the Gaps: Climate Policy Integraton and Implemention
Thursday, September 18 - Friday, September 19
Tufts, The Fletcher School, 160 Packard Avenue Medford, MA 02155
RSVP at https://forms.monday.com/forms/7d20627f61c7f6ae2eeea6d000d715ad?r=use1
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Environmental Ethics in Dialogue
Thursday, September 18 and Friday, September 19
12pm to 8pm
Boston College, 245 Beacon Street, Rm 501 and Devlin 110. 140 Commonwealth Ave., Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScPMv9gvZaBgn692O2DTuSvm1wFzJAEUCFgs6mW8q28-Iqbdw/viewform
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Implementing the Green Swap for Development-Optimal Climate Finance
Thursday, September 18
1:30 PM - 2:30 PM ET
Harvard, Wexner 434ab, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.hks.harvard.edu/events/implementing-green-swap-development-optimal-climate-finance
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Building Industries in Green Value Chains
Thursday, September 18
4:30 PM - 5:30 PM ET
Democracy Lab R-414ab, 124 Mount Auburn Street, 2nd Floor, Cambridge, MA 02138
And online
RSVP at https://www.hks.harvard.edu/events/building-industries-green-value-chains
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Plato’s Republic on Motivating Ecological Guardianship
Thursday, September 18
7 - 8:30pm EDT. Doors at 6pm
Boston College, Devlin Hall, 255 Beacon Street Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/melissa-lane-platos-republic-on-motivating-ecological-guardianship-tickets-1415346151439
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The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything: How Carbon Dioxide Made Our World
Thursday, September 18
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/peter-brannen
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Which Resources Count for New England and How Do We Connect Them?
Friday, September 19
9:00 am-12:30 pm
Foley Hoag LLP, 155 Seaport Blvd 17th Floor Boston, MA 02210
And online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/9-19-2025-new-england-electricity-restructuring-roundtable-tickets-1487332033149
Cost: $0 - $110
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Climate, Degrowth & the Economy
Friday, September 19
12 - 3pm EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-degrowth-the-economy-tickets-635008195607
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SunDay
Sunday, September 21
Speeding the energy transition to renewables. More information at https://www.sunday.earth/
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Applied Environmental Diplomacy: A Path Towards Peace
Monday, September 22
12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Princeton, 300 Wallace Hall, Princeton NJ
And online
RSVP at https://cpree.princeton.edu/events/2025/applied-environmental-diplomacy-path-towards-peace
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Online: Rooted and Ready: Planning & Designing Resilience Hubs
Thursday, September 25
10 - 11:30am EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-rooted-and-ready-planning-designing-resilience-hubs-tickets-1560092210799
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Reducing Ramp-Up Costs: Digital Tools and Local Ecosystems in US Battery Manufacturing
Thursday, September 25
11-12 AM ET [5-6 PM CET, 8-9 AM PT]
Online
RSVP at https://www.batterybusinessclub.com/expert-talk-webinar/
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From Barriers to Blueprints: Evolving Environmental Regulations for a Resilient Future
Thursday, September 26
9:30 am - 12:30 pm
Foley Hoag LLP, 155 Seaport Blvd 17th Floor Boston, MA 02210
And online
RSVP at https://climateadaptationforum.org/event/from-barriers-to-blueprints-evolving-environmental-regulations-for-a-resilient-future/
Cost: $15 - $45
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Massachusetts Global Artificial Intelligence Summit - Part of Boston AI Week
Sunday, September 28
9am - 5pm EDT
MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, 32 Vassar Street Cambridge, MA 02139
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/massachusetts-global-artificial-intelligence-summit-part-of-boston-ai-week-tickets-1488256648699
Cost: $0 - $135.23
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Aligning Evidence for Impact: Disaster Research in an Era of Federal Retrenchment
Monday, September 29
12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Princeton, 300 Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ
And online
RSVP at https://cpree.princeton.edu/events/2025/aligning-evidence-impact-disaster-research-era-federal-retrenchment
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How to Be Bold, The Surprising Science of Everyday Courage
Tuesday, September 30
3 – 4:15 p.m.
Harvard Business School, Spangler Auditorium (lower-level Spangler/051), 117 Western Avenue, Boston
And online
RSVP at https://events.hbs.edu/event/how-to-be-bold-the-surprising-science-of-everyday-courage-by-ranjay-gulati-hybrid-event#
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The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why It Matters
Tuesday, September 30
6:00pm (doors open at 5:30pm)
Harvard Science Center, Hall D, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/christine-webb
Cost: $0 - $34.00 (book included)
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Great Decisions | International Cooperation on Climate Change
Tuesday, September 30
6 - 7:30pm EDT
NonProfit Center, 89 South Street Boston, MA 02111
And online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/great-decisions-international-cooperation-on-climate-change-tickets-1492028420169
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This Is for Everyone: The Unfinished Story of the World Wide Web
Wednesday, October 1
6:00pm (doors open at 5:30pm)
Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/tim-berners-lee
Cost: $12 - $40.00 (book included)
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Extraction
Wednesday, October 1
7:00pm
Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Coolidge Corner, Brookline, MA 02446-2908
RSVP at https://brooklinebooksmith.com/event/2025-10-01/thea-riofrancos-ben-tarnoff-extraction
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We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution
Monday, October 6
7:00pm (doors open at 6:15pm)
First Parish Church, 1446 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/jill-lepore
Cost: $45.00 (book included)
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Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It
Tuesday, October 7
6:00pm (doors open at 5:30pm)
Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-at-the-brattle-theatre-tickets-1591235180259
Cost: $10 - $35.00 (book included)
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HBS Climate Symposium 2025
Sunday, October 19
8am - 6:30pm EDT
Harvard Business School, 117 Western Avenue, Boston, MA 02163
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hbs-climate-symposium-2025-tickets-1482276893089
Cost: $11.50—$48.25
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Events
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Youth United on Climate Change on the Road to the UN COP30 in Belém, Brazil
Monday, September 1
10am - 2pm EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/youth-united-on-climate-change-on-the-road-to-the-un-cop30-in-belem-brazil-tickets-1120181185079
Youth United on Climate Change on the Road to the United Nations' COP30 in Belém, Brazil
Welcome to our online event where young people from around the world come together to discuss climate change and prepare for the upcoming UN COP30 in Belém, Brazil. Join us for engaging discussions, workshops, and presentations led by experts in the field. Let's unite and make our voices heard as we work towards a sustainable future for our planet. Register now! Together, we can make a difference.
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Urban Natures: Climate Change Adaptation, Design Agency, and Politics
Tuesday, September 2
6:30 - 8pm EDT. Doors at 6pm
Harvard University Graduate School Of Design, 48 Quincy Street Piper Auditorium Cambridge, MA 02138
And online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/urban-natures-climate-change-adaptation-design-agency-and-politics-tickets-1545351240159
The Druker Design Gallery hosts an evening of interdisciplinary conversation to mark the start of the fall semester and the opening of Urban Natures: A Technological and Political History 1600-2030. The exhibition measures how far we have come since the first public gardens were created, and it challenges us to envision the future of our cities in new ways.Following remarks by Dean Sarah Whiting and curator Antoine Picon, Erika Naginski will moderate a panel discussion between Gary R. Hilderbrand, Ali Malkawi, and Mohsen Mostafavi, about three themes in the exhibition: climate change adaptation, the agency of designers, and the role of urban natures in promoting new collective values.A reception will follow. This event is generously supported by the Center for Green Buildings and Cities and the French Consulate.
Livestream Link: This event will be in person and livestreamed. The livestream is available at the top of this page:
Please note: RSVP does not guarantee entry, which is filled on a first-come-first-served basis. Doors open 15 minutes before the event begins, so be sure to arrive early.
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Encountering Dragonfly: Notes on the Practice of Re-Enchantment
Tuesday, September 2
7:00pm
Porter Square Books - Cambridge Edition, 1815 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02140-1413
RSVP at https://portersquarebooks.com/event/2025-09-02/brooke-williams-author-encountering-dragonfly-conversation-dan-schrag
ABOUT ENCOUNTERING DRAGONFLY
Following dragonflies into the territory between nature and the human psyche
Two decades ago, naturalist and environmental writer Brooke Williams had a powerful dream about a dragonfly, a dream that cracked open his world by giving rise to a steady stream of dragonfly encounters in his waking life.
In the years since, he has delved deeply into the fascinating biology and natural history of dragonflies and made pilgrimages to see them (he now has 38 species on his life list) while also exploring their symbolic meaning and cross-cultural significance.
Encountering Dragonfly is his account--related in a series of odonate encounters--of being drawn into a different kind of relationship with the natural world. By opening himself to the personal and mytho-poetic meanings of dragonfly, and patiently courting an understanding of these creatures that is built upon, but also transcends, a naturalist's observation, Brooke has come to believe in the importance of 're-enchantment.’
Throughout much of human history, we lived in an enchanted world in which myth and magic, ritual, stories, and spirits informed every aspect of our lives, defining the relationships between psyche, Earth and cosmos. The enchantment ended with the Enlightenment and modernity, when reason and scientific discovery explained away the magic, commencing a commodification of nature that has only intensified ever since.
Brooke's personal re-enchantment has required of him a faith that material, biological reality isn't the only reality; it recognizes symbols and archetypes as remnants of a different understanding, which may--as perhaps they always have--play a role in our long-term survival.
In many cultures, the dragonfly carries messages between the inner and outer world. For Brooke Williams the message of the dragonfly is to ask questions about synchronicity, awe and the collective unconscious, and how to engage with a world increasingly out of balance. What are the implications of following a path toward greater enchantment? In a time where the stakes have never been higher, nor the political and biological imperatives of climate change and environmental degradation more urgent, can we afford to choose such a path? Perhaps more to the point, can we afford not to?
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Climate Justice is Racial Justice
Wednesday, September 3
7 - 8:15am EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-justice-is-racial-justice-tickets-1556356336699
The effects of the climate crisis are vastly unequal and unevenly felt across different places and communities. We cannot achieve climate justice without dismantling the global model of extractivism that exploits racialised and marginalised communities.Join us for the first workshop of our series Where Climate Meets Race, a 3-year project supported by Esmée Fairbairn. This session will look to build and sharpen our collective understanding of how climate justice and racial justice intersect, and assess the barriers that hinder wider engagement in the climate movement.This workshop will cover:
How racism, injustice, and inequity are embedded in the climate crisis
What it means to decolonise climate
How we continue to broaden and politicise the conversation on climate
Successful climate campaigns that have centred climate and race
About the host:
Jennifer Wat is our Environmental Strategy Officer at Voice4Change England. She has been working with V4CE to develop an environmental strategy that sees our communities better supported, resourced, and empowered to bring about climate solutions of their own. Her work is centred around community engagement, policy, and advocacy, where she looks to understand and address how the climate crisis affects Black and racialised communities deeply and disproportionately. Her hope is to secure consensus, commitment, and a networked approach to achieving a just transition within and beyond the Sector, and further amplify the message that climate justice cannot be delivered without racial justice and equity.The deadline to register for this session is 8pm on Tuesday 2nd September 2025.
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Prep Your Climate Coverage: Autumn Extreme Weather
Wednesday, September 3
12pm
Online
RSVP at https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_rKHlL5SARS6LoUQJWRZIdQ#/registration
Join us for a one-hour discussion on how to prepare yourself and your newsroom to be responsive to climate-driven extreme weather this autumn
Don’t wait until an extreme weather event strikes to learn how climate change is fueling changes to our weather systems. As the peak of the Atlantic hurricane activity approaches amid a historic wildfire season, join Covering Climate Now and Climate Central for a special webinar highlighting emerging climate attribution research on autumn’s extreme weather events. This Prep Your Climate Coverage session will also explore how fall temperature and severe storm trends are changing, spotlight how journalists have reported on the human impacts of these events, and offer vetted language to make the climate connection in your own reporting this fall.
Panelists
Adam Mahoney, National Climate and Environment Reporter, Capital B
Kaitlyn Trudeau, Senior Research Associate for Climate Science, Climate Central
David Dickson, CCNow’s TV Engagement Coordinator & Meteorologist,
and Shel Winkley, Climate Central’s Weather & Climate Engagement Specialist, will moderate.
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The race between consumption and efficiency: A retrospective view of data centre server architecture
Thursday, September 4
4am EST [10:00—11:30 Paris Time]
Online
RSVP at https://www.iea.org/events/the-race-between-consumption-and-efficiency-a-retrospective-view-of-data-centre-server-architecture
The IEA’s Digital Demand-Driven Electricity Networks (3DEN) Initiative, the IEA 4E TCP Efficient, Demand Flexible Networked Appliances (EDNA), and the Super-Efficient Equipment and Appliance Deployment (SEAD) Initiative are co-organising a webinar focused on the energy efficiency of data centre server architectures. As servers are the primary contributors to electricity demand in data centres, understanding how their efficiency has evolved over time, and where it is headed, is essential for effective energy and digitalisation policy. This session will explore new insights from a decade-long retrospective analysis of server energy efficiency trends, highlighting implications for future electricity demand, efficiency planning, and policy action.
Webinar Focus
This webinar will explore three interrelated themes shaping the future of data centre energy use.
The race between consumption and efficiency
Demand for digital services continues to rise, driven by developments in artificial intelligence, cloud computing, streaming, and the Internet of Things. While these trends increase electricity use in data centres, improvements in server energy efficiency are helping to partially offset this growth. This session will frame the challenge of how to sustain or accelerate efficiency progress to keep pace with rising workloads and energy demand.
A decade of progress: retrospective analysis of server energy efficiency
Drawing on new research supported by EDNA, the session will present detailed findings on the energy efficiency of servers over the past decade. It includes comparative assessments of general purpose servers, accelerated computing chips, and application-specific integrated circuits, revealing compound annual growth rates in efficiency of 26 percent, 49 percent, and 47 percent respectively. The analysis also highlights the methodological complexities of evaluating server efficiency, including diverse hardware and workload types, lack of standardised assumptions, and shifting technology boundaries.
Policy implications and future considerations
The results of this retrospective analysis have clear relevance for energy and digital policy. As computing continues to evolve, server energy performance remains a critical lever for managing overall data centre electricity use. This session will explore what the findings mean for forward-looking policy approaches, how performance tracking can be improved, and what role government and industry can play in aligning innovation with energy system needs.
This session is designed for policymakers, digital infrastructure analysts, technology developers, and energy planners seeking to better understand the past and future trajectory of server energy performance in data centres.
The IEA gratefully acknowledges the support of the Italian Ministry of Environment and Energy Security as part of their contributions to the IEA’s Digital Demand-Driven Electricity Networks (3DEN) Initiative on power system modernisation and the Clean Energy Transitions Programme.
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Community Power for Clean Air: Lessons in Equity and Inclusion from Jakarta, Indore, and Nairobi
Thursday, September 4
5:00 - 6:30am EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.wri.org/events/2025/9/community-power-clean-air-lessons-equity-and-inclusion-jakarta-indore-and-nairobi
Air pollution disproportionately impacts urban poor communities, especially women, yet their voices are often absent from decision-making processes.
The Clean Air Catalyst was a global partnership for accelerating clean air solutions in Indore, Jakarta and Nairobi that intentionally embedded equity and inclusion into their strategies from the ground up. This meant working in close partnership with grassroots organisations and communities, amplifying their existing efforts, insights, and leadership. Women and marginalised groups were not approached as passive recipients or "beneficiaries," but as co-creators, local experts, and catalysts of change. Through community co-design, participatory research, and storytelling, the Catalyst helped to elevate voices that had historically been excluded from air quality governance.
This webinar, timed to coincide with Clean Air Day 2025 (7th September), celebrates women’s clean air leadership and offers a moment for honest reflection on the successes and lessons of an experimental approach. It is also a call to action. It invites air quality and climate practitioners and stakeholders to explore what it truly means to centre equity in local decision-making and policy.
For inquiries, please contact Jessica Kempner, jessica.kempner@wri.org
Speakers:
Anupa Gokhale, Project Director at Pahal Jan Sahyog Vikas Sansthan, Indore, India
Minawati, Jaringan Rakyat Miskin Kota (JRMK), Jakarta, Indonesia
Fadhil Muhammad Firdaus, City Advisor, Breathe Cities Jakarta
Khalisha Qatrunnada, Air Quality and Climate Research Analyst, WRI Indonesia
Muti Kurniasari, WRI Gender and Social Equity Lead, Jakarta
Purity Munyambu, WRI Gender and Social Equity Lead, Nairobi
Azra Khan, WRI Gender and Social Equity Lead, Indore
Jess Kempner, Global Gender and Social Equity Lead, Clean Air Catalyst
Vivian Wangari, ROOTS Kenya
Anshul Mishra, District Epidemiologist-Indore - National Health Mission, MP, In-charge Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP)
Isabella Nzioki, Community Health Worker, Nairobi
Eric Ocholla, Male Community Champion, Nairobi
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Yale Forest Forum – A History of Scientific Forestry: From Extraction to Ecosystem Management
Thursday, September 4 - Thursday, December 4
12pm
Online
RSVP at https://yale.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Mr65vqETSLm9CEN46kATWw#/registration
The Yale Forest Forum is excited to announce the Fall 2025 speaker series, “A History of Scientific Forestry: From Extraction to Ecosystem Management.” Webinars will take place on Thursdays, from September 4 through December 4, from 12:00-1:00 p.m. U.S. ET.
The series examines how European forestry practices influenced the development of forestry in the United States during the 19th century and how the concept and practice of scientific forestry was supported by North American universities—including the founding of The Yale Forest School in 1900. We will trace the transformation of forestry from its early focus on exploitation and extraction in the East, that soon moved westward. This brought on fears of a timber famine at the turn of the 20th century, ultimately leading to efforts to practice sustained yield forestry, and eventually to the development of a more ecological approach to managing the forests of the U.S. This series will explore U.S. forestry by considering its successes and also its problematic legacies in relation to Indigenous land dispossession and settler colonialism. This speaker series will feature scholars and practitioners from a variety of fields, including forestry, history, ecology, sociology, and environmental studies.
This fall 2025 speaker series is co-hosted by The Forest School at the Yale School of the Environment, Forest History Society, Society of American Foresters, and University of Minnesota. Join us every Thursday from September 4 to December 4, from 12:00-1:00 p.m. U.S. ET. Note that there will not be webinars on October 16 and 23 and November 27.
More information at https://yaleconnect.yale.edu/yff/rsvp_boot?id=2300598
The series is free and open to the public. Each session will be recorded. We will offer CEUs for foresters in attendance. Please email yff@yale.edu for further information.
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Leveraging Data to Drive Effective Heat Protection Policies
Thursday, September 4
12 - 4pm EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/leveraging-data-to-drive-effective-heat-protection-policies-tickets-1549759836389
There is an increased need to fill heat-health data gaps to ensure the effective design and implementation of public policies at the local and state levels, as well as private policies within organizations and systems (e.g., health care). Data-informed heat policy is essential to protecting communities from harmful heat exposure and adverse health outcomes. Timely, representative, accessible, and transparent data, ideally collected with and governed by communities, are also critical for calling for, evaluating, and continually improving heat policy.
Given this context, the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) Climate Communities Network (CCN) will host a virtual convening (with optional pre- and post-sessions) to bring together community members, decision-makers, and others working at the intersection of heat, health, and policy. The convening will spotlight actionable strategies to address data gaps and share lessons from the design and implementation of exemplar heat policies. The event will also demonstrate how data-informed policy can reduce heat-related deaths and safeguard community health. Attendees will leave with practical tools, tailored to their spheres of influence, to advance effective, community-informed heat policy.
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Understanding short-lived climate forcers for improved air quality and climate information
Thursday, September 4
2pm EST [14:00 BST - 15:30 BST]
Online
RSVP at https://www.sei.org/events/slcp-and-slcf/
To mark the International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies, the FOCI project is hosting a webinar that will provide a comprehensive overview of short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs), including their sources, current trends, mitigation strategies, and the broad climate and air quality benefits of reducing them.
Speakers
Dr Oksana Tarasova, World Meteorological Organization
Dr Sandro Finardi, ARIANET
Dr Evelyn Toure, Université Felix Houphouet Boigny
Dr Jenniffer Pedraza, SEI, University of York
Leilani Dulguerov, World Meteorological Organization
Prof. Sonia Mangones, Universidad Nacional de Colombia
Prof. Alberto Troccoli, World Energy and Meteorological Council
The EU-HORIZON project “Non-CO₂ Forcers and their Climate, Weather, Health, and Air Quality Impacts” (FOCI) aims to close important knowledge gaps about the effects of non-CO₂ climate pollutants, also known as short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs). These include substances such as black carbon (soot), methane (CH₄), ground-level ozone (O₃), and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).
While much is already known about carbon dioxide (CO₂), a major greenhouse gas that traps heat in the Earth’s atmosphere and contributes to climate change, there is still limited understanding of how non-CO₂ pollutants affect the climate, environment, and human health.
To address this, FOCI investigates the sources of these pollutants and their behaviour in the environment. Researchers are using advanced computer models to simulate how different parts of the Earth’s system, including the atmosphere, interact with these pollutants. This research will rely on both global Earth System Models (ESMs) and Regional Climate Models (RCMs). The results will support the creation and improvement of climate and air quality policies.
The International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies (CAD) was established by the United Nations General Assembly and is observed annually on September 7. It aims to raise public awareness about the importance of clean air and the need to take action. The urgency to reduce SLCPs has been emphasized in the IPCC’s 6th Assessment Report, which highlights how these pollutants contribute to global warming and how reducing them can bring benefits to both climate and air quality.
To mark CAD2025, FOCI plans to host a webinar. The webinar will provide a comprehensive overview of short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs), exploring their origins, current trends, strategies to mitigate them, and the wide-ranging benefits their reduction offers for both climate and air quality.
During the webinar, you can:
Enhance your understanding of various non-CO₂ radiative forcings, including their impacts on climate and air quality, as well as their key sources.
Gain insights into the latest emission trends and effective mitigation strategies.
Discover practical examples through case studies that highlight the success of targeted actions.
Connect with global initiatives and foster collaboration with other researchers and policymakers.
Who should join?
Early-career researchers from diverse backgrounds in climate science, air quality, and environmental policy, as well as researchers and scientists, civil society actors, influencers, and decision-makers, policymakers and policy groups, the private sector, and innovators seeking data-driven solutions, partnerships, or inspiration around clean air.
Agenda
Theme: Understanding Non-CO2 Radiative Forcers for Improved Air Quality and Climate Webinar
14:00: Welcome and opening remarks
14:00: Why SLCF matters – Keynote presentation
14:15: Understand SLCF
14:30: Global SLCF Trends and mitigation strategies
14:45: Discussion
15:15: Feedback and closing remarks
15:20: Next steps
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Carbon Market in the Amazon: Who Benefits, Who Loses
Thursday, September 4
5:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://pulitzercenter-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_XB-GcN3dTkeRYvFWcmqezg#/registration
The Amazon Basin, spread across several South American countries, is facing several challenges related to carbon markets with regard to its legitimacy, deforestation and community involvement. This webinar looks at carbon markets in the Amazon Basin, its impact on the local economy, Indigenous people and the forest. The discussion will highlight how carbon markets operate, the regulations and its implementation. Further, how useful are carbon markets from an ecological lens and whom does it benefit?
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The Clough Center's 4th Annual: What the Constitution Means to Us
Thursday, September 4
5pm to 7pm
Boston College, Yawkey Athletics Center, Murray Room. Yawkey Centre, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSekxmxX2RYAsVhpZZuszH7696FpLD0x2glbzkN2QQOwCyKW-A/viewform
Throughout the history of the United States, the Constitution has been central to our public life. It has inspired hope, and it has provoked despair. It has remained in place as few other national constitutions have. Yet it has also been amended, and some today think it needs to change again. At a moment when our founding document's basic meaning seems more contested than ever, how should we look at the Constitution?
To engage this urgent question, the Clough Center is delighted to host its fourth annual “What the Constitution Means to Us” event. Inspired by Heidi Schreck’s award-winning play, and in the spirit of Constitution and Citizenship Day, this event provides the Boston College community with an opportunity to reflect on our Constitution.
In addition to showcasing contributions from select students and faculty, this year’s celebration will feature journalist Shannon Bream. Host of Fox News Sunday, Bream is Fox News Channel Chief Legal Correspondent and a leading expert on the Supreme Court of the United States.
Please join us on September 4 in the Murray Room for a rich evening of conversation, debate, and reflection, followed by a lively reception. Register to attend.
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Navigating Uncertainty: Rethinking Global Development in an Unstable World
Thursday, September 4
5:30 PM - 7:30 PM
The Foundry, 101 Rogers Street, Cambridge, MA 02142
RSVP at https://bnid.wildapricot.org/event-6230714/Registration
Cost: $20.00 – $25.00
Join us for the Global Changemakers Salon - where leaders, innovators, and changemakers gather!
Are you passionate about creating positive global impact? The Global Changemakers Salon is your opportunity to connect with leaders, professionals, students, and community members who are shaping the future of international development.
Building on our successful annual networking series, this event will celebrate and amplify the international development work happening right here in Greater Boston.
Featuring a fireside chat with seasoned international development professionals, and ample networking possibilities with individuals and organizations, this event is a must-attend for anyone in or interested in the international development space.
Panelists:
Constance Kane, Executive Director, Women Changemakers for Education.
Daniela Gissara, Assistant Director, International Partnerships, Perkins School for the Blind
All are welcome - whether you're a seasoned professional, a student eager to learn, or simply someone who cares about global issues, this event is for you!
Secure your spot today - you won't want to miss this once-a-year event!
Admission price includes non-alcoholic drinks and light refreshments.
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The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding
Thursday, September 4
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
Harvard Book Store welcomes Osita Nwanevu—contributing editor at The New Republic and a columnist at The Guardian, writing about American politics and culture—for a discussion of his debut book The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding. He will be joined in conversation by Ryan D. Doerfler—Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.
About The Right of the People
In time for the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, a bold case for reimagining the American project and making American democracy real—from a formidable new voice in political journalism.
Frustrated with our political dysfunction, wearied by the thinness of contemporary political discourse, and troubled by the rise of anti-democratic attitudes across the political spectrum, journalist Osita Nwanevu has spent the Trump era examining the very meaning of democracy in search of answers to questions many have asked in the wake of the 2024 election: Are our institutions fundamentally broken? How can a country so divided govern itself? Does democracy even work as well as we believe?
The Right of the People offers us challenging answers: while democracy remains vital, American democracy is an illusion we must make real by transforming not only our political institutions but the American economy. In a text that spans democratic theory, the American Founding, our aging political system, and the dizzying inequalities of our new Gilded Age, Nwanevu makes a visionary case for a political and economic agenda to fulfill the promise of American democracy and revive faith in the American project.
“250 years ago, the men who founded America made a fundamental break not just from their old country but the past—casting off an order that had subjugated them with worn and weak ideas for the promise of true self-governance and greater prosperity in a new republic,” Nwanevu writes. “With exactly their sense of purpose and even higher, more righteous ambitions for America than they themselves had, we should do the same now — work as hard as we can in the decades ahead to ‘institute new Government’ for the benefit of all and not just the few.”
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Russia/US/Climate Change Chaos, Native Communities & Bering Sea Ecology
Friday, September 5
10 - 11:30pm EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/new-russiausclimate-change-chaos-native-communities-bering-sea-ecology-tickets-1583244610249
Laney Geography Professor Emeritus Mark Rauzon recently returned from a research trip to the Arctic. He will share is observations and experiences and will update us on current conditions .Mark has an extensive background in natural history, conservation and education having taught at Laney College for 16 years. His motto: "Trying to save the planet through direct action and maximum education."
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The Sustainability Midway
Friday, September 5
11:00am to 2:00pm EDT
MIT, Lobby 13, 105 Massachusetts Ave (Rear), Cambridge, MA 02139
The Sustainability Midway is a drop-in style activities fair that typically occurs near the beginning of the fall semester. The Midway features booths of most sustainability-related clubs, centers, and programs at MIT. It’s a great way to learn how to get involved (plus snag some free food and merch), especially for first-year undergraduate /graduate students and other community members who are new to MIT!
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The Great Healthcare Disruption: Big Tech, Bold Policy, and the Future of American Medicine
Friday, September 5
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
Harvard Book Store welcomes Dr. Marschall Runge—Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs at the University of Michigan, dean of the Medical School, and CEO of Michigan Medicine—for a discussion of his new book The Great Healthcare Disruption: Big Tech, Bold Policy, and the Future of American Medicine.
About The Great Healthcare Disruption
When the conversation turns to the disruptors that are transforming the healthcare industry, Dr. Marschall Runge leans in. In The Great Healthcare Disruption, Dr. Runge explores the disruptors that will be shaping the healthcare industry in the decade ahead and offers practical, targeted recommendations that professionals and healthcare consumers can use to prepare.
Discover the innovations transforming medicine—and the fight to make care more equitable, accessible, and effective.
In The Great Healthcare Disruption, Dr. Marschall Runge―cardiologist, researcher, and CEO of Michigan Medicine―offers a gripping, insider’s look at the forces rapidly reshaping American healthcare. From artificial intelligence and retail medicine to revolutionary gene therapies and next-generation obesity drugs, this is your essential guide to the most significant transformation in medical care since the discovery of antibiotics.
Inside you’ll explore:
The rise of Big Tech in medicine―how Amazon, Google, and other disruptors are redefining the patient experience
Breakthrough treatments and AI-driven diagnostics reshaping chronic disease management, behavioral health, and drug development
The hidden trade-offs of innovation―how cutting-edge care delivery models are improving outcomes while straining the systems meant to support them
Why traditional institutions must evolve―and how academic medical centers can remain vital in a tech-driven world
Hard truths about access, equity, and affordability―and what must change to make healthcare work for everyone
With rich storytelling, sharp insights, and practical solutions, Dr. Runge cuts through the complexity of modern medicine to offer a bold, balanced path forward.
Whether you're a healthcare professional, policy leader, or curious reader, The Great Healthcare Disruption is your guide to understanding―and shaping―the revolution already underway.
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Clean Air and Healthy Cities: Accelerating Equitable Air Quality Solutions in Indore, Nairobi and Jakarta
Monday, September 8
8:00 - 9:15am EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.wri.org/events/2025/9/clean-air-and-healthy-cities-accelerating-equitable-air-quality-solutions-indore
This 1.5-hour webinar will highlight insights and lessons from the Clean Air Catalyst’s data-to-action approach to accelerating equitable clean air action solutions for those working in air quality, climate, urban planning, health, gender and equity, and international development.
Air pollution's devastating impacts are well known across multiple dimensions: economic growth, health systems, public finances, human lives, gender and income inequality, climate change, and natural ecosystems. Despite growing consensus among governments, community groups, donors, and NGOs worldwide, global investments in clean air solutions remain far below what's needed to create meaningful change.
Over the past five years, the Clean Air Catalyst—a consortium of eight partners led by the World Resources Institute and Environmental Defense Fund— pursued an integrated, data-driven approach to equitable clean air solutions with partners in Indonesia, India, and Kenya. This webinar offers practical insights from the Catalyst experience in strengthening air quality monitoring and data analysis capabilities; deepening understanding of pollution sources and their political, economic, and social interdependencies; engaging media and building coalitions for action; and developing solutions that integrate with municipal policymaking and governance processes. The focus will include:
Strategic Implementation: Data-driven strategies for accelerating equitable clean air action in rapidly developing cities across the global south, particularly within today's shifting geopolitical landscape
Local Leadership: Direct insights from local and national government leaders spearheading air quality initiatives in Nairobi, Indore, and Jakarta
Research-Policy Integration: Best practices for bridging the gap between research findings and effective policy implementation
Join us for an opportunity to discuss data and implementation strategies using lessons learned from the Clean Air Catalyst experience.
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Bill McKibben: "Here Comes the Sun"
Monday, September 8
4 - 5:15pm EDT
Boston College, Gasson Hall, 140 Commonwealth Avenue Newton, MA 02467
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bill-mckibben-here-comes-the-sun-tickets-1538179439109
Bill McKibben: "Here Comes the Sun"
Hosted by the Environmental Studies Program, envstudies@bc.edu
Join us for an inspiring event with acclaimed author and environmentalist Bill McKibben as he discusses the rise of renewable energy in his talk, "Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Cimate and A Fresh Start for Civilization ." This public talk will take place at Gasson Hall (room 100), where you can hear firsthand about the importance of sustainable energy solutions for the climate and society. Don't miss this opportunity to learn from one of the leading voices in the environmental movement!
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What Is Free Speech?: The History of a Dangerous Idea
Monday, September 8
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/fara-dabhoiwala
Harvard Book Store welcomes Fara Dabhoiwala—Senior Research Scholar at Princeton University and author of The Origins of Sex: A History of the First Sexual Revolution—for a discussion of his new book What Is Free Speech?: The History of a Dangerous Idea. He will be joined in conversation by David Armitage—Lloyd C. Blankfein Professor of History and Chair of the Social Studies program at Harvard University and prize-winning author.
About What Is Free Speech?
A leading intellectual historian shows how free speech, once viewed as both hazardous and unnatural, was reinvented as an unalloyed good, with enormous consequences for our society today.
Every premodern society, from Sumeria to China to seventeenth–century Europe, knew that bad words could destroy lives, undermine social order, and create political unrest. Given the obvious dangers of outspokenness, regulating speech and print was universally accepted as a necessary and proper activity of government. Only in the early 1700s did this old way begin to break down. In a brief span of time, the freedom to use words as one pleased was reimagined as an ideal to be held and defended in common.
Fara Dabhoiwala explores the surprising paths free speech has taken across the globe since its invention three hundred years ago. Though free speech has become a central democratic principle, its origins and evolution have less to do with the high-minded pursuit of liberty and truth than with the self-interest of the wealthy, the greedy, and the powerful. Free speech, as we know it, is a product of the pursuit of profit, of technological disruption, of racial and imperial hypocrisy, and of the contradictions involved in maintaining openness while suppressing falsehood. For centuries, its shape has everywhere been influenced by international, not just national, events; nowhere has it ever been equally available to women, the colonized, or those stigmatized as racially inferior.
Rejecting platitudes about the First Amendment and its international equivalents, and leaving no ideological position undisturbed, What Is Free Speech? is the unsettling history of an ideal as cherished as it is misunderstood.
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Sustainability Day at the State House
Tuesday, September 9
10am - 3:30pm EDT
Massachusetts State House, 24 Beacon Street Boston, MA 02133
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sustainability-day-at-the-state-house-tickets-1611651235229
Agenda
10:00 AM - 2:00 PM
Sustainability Showcase in The Great Hall
Explore more than 35 exhibitors featuring municipalities, nonprofits, advocacy organizations, state agencies, and businesses that are leading the way in climate action. The Showcase highlights practical solutions in waste reduction, composting, zero waste models, decarbonization pilots, climate technology, battery innovation, and more.
10:30 AM - 11:00 AM
Sustainable Futures for All: Speaking Program & Keynote AddressKick off Sustainability Day with opening remarks from Committee Chair Tram Nguyen and Vice Chair Michelle Ciccolo, followed by a Keynote Address from Massachusetts Climate Chief Melissa Hoffer.
1:30 PM - 3:00 PM
Panel: Municipal Best Practices for Climate Leadership in Room 437This panel highlights how Massachusetts cities and towns are leading the way in climate action. In partnership with the Massachusetts Municipal Association (MMA) and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), municipal leaders will share strategies for fossil-fuel-free buildings, community aggregation, gas leak detection, waste reduction and recycling, electrification, and weatherization. Learn how local governments are turning state policy into on-the-ground progress—and how these models can be replicated across the Commonwealth.
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Livestream—Science Under Siege: A Conversation With Dr. Hotez & Dr. Mann
Tuesday, September 9
1:30 - 2:45pm EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/livestreamscience-under-siege-a-conversation-with-dr-hotez-dr-mann-tickets-1567571521619
From pandemics to climate change, the world faces deeply interconnected and critical challenges. Yet efforts to confront these crises are increasingly obstructed by a powerful, organized force: rising opposition to science, often driven by political and ideological agendas. This erosion of trust in scientific expertise not only threatens effective policymaking but also undermines democratic discourse and public health.
Michael E. Mann, a leading climate scientist, and Peter J. Hotez, a renowned vaccine researcher and physician-scientist, have spent decades working at the intersection of science, policy, and public communication. Both have worked to advance evidence-based responses amid a rise in disinformation and denialism, navigating an environment where scientific consensus is increasingly politicized.
This event is a collaboration between the Baker Institute Director’s Lecture Series and the Science and Tech Policy Program's Civic Scientist Lecture Series, sponsored by Dr. Virginia Clark, with additional support from Benjamin and Winifer Cheng, Rice University’s George R. Brown School of Engineering, and Weiss School of Natural Sciences. “Science Under Siege: How to Fight the Five Most Powerful Forces that Threaten Our World” (PublicAffairs, 2025).
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Scott Kerman with Michael Dukakis
Tuesday, September 9
7:00pm
Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Coolidge Corner, Brookline, MA 02446-2908
RSVP at https://brooklinebooksmith.com/event/2025-09-09/scott-kerman-michael-dukakis
Join us at Brookline Booksmith to celebrate the release of The Duke with author Scott Kerman, in conversation with Michael Dukakis.Register for the event!RSVP to let us know you're coming! Depending on the volume of responses, an RSVP may be required for entrance to the event. In the event that we reach capacity and have to close RSVPs, there will not be a waiting list.
The Duke: Weekly Conversations With The Last Honest Politician
America needs The Duke more than ever right now
The Duke, Weekly conversations with the last honest politician. See what happens when a political giant and a comedian walk into a kitchen...
"Scott Kerman humanizes Michael Dukakis -- presidential candidate, three-term Massachusetts governor, community role model, bane of litterers -- with humor and insight that reveal a multi-layered man of deep civic passions who's thoughtful, irreverent, and refreshingly comfortable in his own skin. A delight to read." -Brian MacQuarrie, Boston Globe.
'Humorist Scott Kerman shows us that decades after being out of office one of America's best known political leaders still has so much to say by opening his heart - and his mouth."-Stephen Kurkjian, Three-time Pulitzer-prize winner for Boston Globe
"The Duke is both hilarious and touching as Humorist Scott Kerman recounts his long relationship with former Massachusetts Gov. Mike Dukakis, a simply loveable character. If you are looking for humor, nostalgia and a just-plain-fun read, you've got to pick this book up.-Executive Editor Tracey Rauh, The Eagle-Tribune.
Scott Kerman is currently the humor columnist at the Eagle Tribune newspaper writing the popular, World According to Scott, weekly column. He’s the author of seven books including the World According to Scott three book humor series. His recently released book is with Governor Michael Dukakis, three time Governor of Massachusetts and 1988 Democratic Nominee for President. The book is titled, The Duke. Weekly Conversations with the Last Honest Politician.
Michael Stanley Dukakis is an American politician who served as Governor of Massachusetts for three terms and is the longest-serving Governor in Massachusetts history. He was nominated by the Democratic Party for President in the 1988 election. He is a lifelong Brookline, MA resident.
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Baldwin: A Love Story
Tuesday, September 9
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/nicholas-boggs
Harvard Book Store welcomes Nicholas Boggs—coeditor of a new edition of James Baldwin’s out-of-print collaboration with Yoran Cazac, Little Man, Little Man: A Story of Childhood—for a discussion of his new biography Baldwin: A Love Story, the first major biography of James Baldwin in three decades. He will be joined in conversation by Ilyon Woo—Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Master, Slave, Husband, Wife.
About Baldwin
Drawing on new archival material, original research, and interviews, this spellbinding book is the first major biography of James Baldwin in three decades, revealing how profoundly his personal relationships shaped his life and work.
Baldwin: A Love Story, the first major biography of James Baldwin in three decades, reveals how profoundly the writer’s personal relationships shaped his life and work. Drawing on newly uncovered archival material and original research and interviews, this spellbinding book tells the overlapping stories of Baldwin’s most sustaining intimate and artistic relationships: with his mentor, the Black American painter Beauford Delaney; with his lover and muse, the Swiss painter Lucien Happersberger; and with his collaborators, the famed Turkish actor Engin Cezzar and the iconoclastic French artist Yoran Cazac, whose long-overlooked significance as Baldwin’s last great love is explored in these pages for the first time.
Nicholas Boggs shows how Baldwin drew on all the complex forces within these relationships—geographical, cultural, political, artistic, and erotic— and alchemized them into novels, essays, and plays that speak truth to power and had an indelible impact on the civil rights movement and on Black and queer literary history. Richly immersive, Baldwin: A Love Story follows the writer’s creative journey between Harlem, Paris, Switzerland, the southern United States, Istanbul, Africa, the South of France, and beyond. In so doing, it magnifies our understanding of the public and private lives of one of the major literary figures of the twentieth century, whose contributions only continue to grow in influence.
Editorial Comment: My notes on Baldwin’s Collected Essays https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2019/01/james-baldwin-collected-essays.html and
The Fire Next Time and Nothing Personal https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2018/07/james-baldwin-fire-next-time-and.html
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Our Fragile Freedoms: Essays
Wednesday, September 10
6:00pm (doors open at 5:30pm)
Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/eric-foner
Cost: $12.00 - $40.00 (book included)
Harvard Book Store welcomes Eric Foner—acclaimed historian and author of the bestseller Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution and the Pulitzer Prize winner The Fiery Trial—for a discussion of his new essay collection Our Fragile Freedoms. He will be joined in conversation by Randall Kennedy—Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School and the author of six books including, Say It Loud!: On Race, Law, History, and Culture.
About Our Fragile Freedoms
From one of the most acclaimed and influential historians of the United States, an insightful guide to our history and why it matters.
Eric Foner has done more to shape the public and professional understanding of American history than any other scholar. The preeminent historian of the Civil War era, Foner’s keynote has been American freedom and the recurring battles over its meanings and boundaries. His award-winning works show that freedom has been a birthright for some and a struggle for others, that rights gained can also be lost, and that they must always be tended with knowledge and vigilance. The present political moment makes the importance of these themes abundantly clear.
This collection of Foner’s recent reviews and commentaries demonstrates the range of his interests and expertise, running from slavery and antislavery, through the disunion and remaking of the United States in the nineteenth century, Jim Crow and the civil rights movement, and into our current politics. Each piece shows a master at work, melding historical knowledge and balanced judgment with crystalline prose. Foner takes up towering figures from Washington to Lincoln, Douglass, and Rosa Parks, pivotal events such as the Fugitive Slave Act and the Tulsa Race Massacre, and the fragility of constitutional guarantees to civil liberties, due process, and birthright citizenship, whether in times of war or peace. He also explores recent controversies over how to commemorate, and how to teach, our history.
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Impasse: Climate Change and the Limits of Progress
Wednesday, September 10
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/roy-scranton
Harvard Book Store welcomes Roy Scranton—professor at the University of Notre Dame, where he directs the Environmental Humanities Initiative, and author of several books, including Learning to Die in the Anthropocene, Total Mobilization: World War II and American Literature, and the novel War Porn—for a discussion of his latest book Impasse: Climate Change and the Limits of Progress. He will be joined in conversation with Naomi Oreskes—author and the Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University.
About Impasse
We need a new realism in the face of global climate catastrophe.
Extreme heat, fires, floods, and storms are transforming our planet. Yet instead of serious responses from world leaders, we get increasing emissions, divisive politics, and ersatz solutions that offer more of the same: more capitalism, more complexity, more "progress.”
The impasse we face is not only political and institutional, but cognitive, existential, and narrative. We're incapable of grasping the scale, speed, and impact of global warming. Our brains can't make sense of how radically our world is changing. And we optimistically cling to a civilizational narrative that promises a better tomorrow if we just keep doing what we're doing.
It's well past time, Roy Scranton argues, to free ourselves from our dangerous and dogmatic faith in progress. Such unwarranted optimism will only accelerate our collective disintegration. If we want to have any hope at all for the future, it must be grounded in a recognition of human limits—a view Scranton calls ethical pessimism.
Drawing from psychology, philosophy, history, and politics, as well as film, literature, and personal experience, Scranton describes the challenges we face in making sense of our predicament, from problems in communication to questions of justice, from the inherent biases in human perception to the difficulties of empirical knowledge. What emerges is a challenging but ultimately hopeful proposition: if we have the courage to accept our limits, we may find a way to embrace our unknowable future.
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Big Data Conference 2025
Thursday, September 11, 8am – Friday, September 12, 5pm
Harvard University CMSA, 20 Garden Street, Cambridge
And online
RSVP at https://cmsa.fas.harvard.edu/event/bigdata_2025/
The CMSA Big Data Conference features speakers from the Harvard community as well as scholars from across the globe, with talks focusing on computer science, statistics, math and physics, and economics.
SPEAKER(S) Invited Speakers (to be confirmed):
Eric Budish, U Chicago
Yiling Chen, Harvard
Petros Koumoutsakos, Harvard
Pankaj Mehta, BU
Sendhil Mullainathan, MIT
Gautam Reddy, Princeton
Tess Smidt. MIT
Caroline Uhler, MIT
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2025 Massachusetts Climatetech Studio Showcase
Thursday, September 11
5:30 - 8:30pm EDT
Suffolk University, 73 Tremont Street Boston, MA 02108
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2025-massachusetts-climatetech-studio-showcase-tickets-1530977397609
Join us for the culminating pitch event of the 2025 Massachusetts Climatetech Studio, powered by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) and FedTech, where 9 startup teams will present their innovative businesses for the chance to win grant funding.
Over an intensive 16-week program, these entrepreneurs have worked to assess the commercial potential of cutting-edge technologies sourced from university and national lab partners, transforming them into viable ventures. Their solutions address critical climate challenges across Massachusetts such as:
Batteries and critical minerals
Renewable power
Food and agriculture
Carbon sequestration
And more!
This event is perfect for state and regional energy stakeholders, investors scouting early-stage climatetech, corporate partners, and anyone passionate about the future of sustainable innovation!
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The People's Project: Poems, Essays, and Art for Looking Forward! Anthology
Thursday, September 11
7:00pm
The Marran Theatre, 34 Mellen Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://portersquarebooks.com/products/tags/event-ticket
Cost: $10 - $28
Contributors Tiana Clark, Koritha Mitchell, Imani Perry, and Jason Silverstein will join for a reading followed by a discussion with Maggie Smith and Saeed Jones.
ABOUT THE PEOPLE'S PROJECT
A liberatory anthology of twenty-six writers—a community in book form—charting paths ahead for action and care in the face of political uncertainty, curated by Maggie Smith and Saeed Jones.
Inspired by Saeed Jones and Maggie Smith’s conversations in the wake of the 2024 election, this is a collection of poems, essays, and visual art on what we—individually and collectively—can hold onto, and what we can work towards.
In times of difficulty, with a government working against its own people, we must turn to our friends and loved ones to provide context, language, energy, and hope. The People’s Project offers a range of perspectives, drawing wisdom from their communities and histories: from know-your-place aggression to crip time as a way forward, from finding strength in nature to how trans people provide a guide for the future, and how hope has everything to do with survival.
We hope these meditations and strategies will provide you with inspiration and fortitude for the years ahead.
Featuring original and selected work from Alexander Chee, Chase Strangio, Tiana Clark, Hala Alyan, Aubrey Hirsch, Imani Perry, Abi Maxwell, Victoria Chang, Koritha Mitchell, Jason Silverstein, Alice Wong, Mira Jacob, Aruni Kashyap, Sam Sax, Ashley C. Ford, Marlon James, Eula Biss, Randall Mann, Danez Smith, Ada Limon, Kiese Laymon, Joy Harjo, Jill Damatac, and Patricia Smith.
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Rethinking Urban Governance for Climate Mobility
Friday, September 12
12:00 PM - 1:15 PM ET
Harvard, Bloomberg Center For Cities, Taubman Third Floor, 15 Eliot Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
And online
RSVP at https://www.hks.harvard.edu/events/rethinking-urban-governance-climate-mobility
Climate disruption is shifting how—and where—people live. From rising seas to prolonged drought to extreme weather events, environmental pressures will contribute to significant population movements in the coming decades, with cities becoming destinations for climate migration. Which populations face displacement, and what does this mean for the future of cities? Join a panel of expert practitioners to explore how urban areas can prepare for climate-related migration and environmental mobility by building resilient communities and designing more adaptive systems for all residents.
Speakers and Presenters
Brigid Shea, Commissioner of Travis County, Texas;
Diane Davis, Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism, Harvard Graduate School of Design;
Hannah Teicher, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning;
Keith James, Mayor of West Palm Beach, FL
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Net Impact Boston SDG Summit 2025
Saturday, September 13
9am - 1pm EDT
NonProfit Center, 89 South Street Boston, MA 02111
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/net-impact-boston-sdg-summit-2025-tickets-1485246725939
Cost: $15 - $25
Agenda
9:00 AM - 9:15 AM
Welcome and Event Overview
9:15 AM - 10:00 AM
Panel 1 - Climate Action
10:00 AM - 10:15 AM
Exhibition Break #1
10:15 AM - 11:00 AM
Panel 2 - Economic Growth & Social Equity
11:00 AM - 11:15 PM
Exhibition Break #2
11:15 AM - 12:00 PM
Panel 3 - Reduced Inequalities
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Closing Remarks, Networking and Refreshments
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Harvard Climate Action Week
September 15- 21
In-person RSVP at https://harvardclimatesymposium.cventevents.com/event/3c86165b-f7ef-49e6-a351-8f103d910e65/regPage:ec88ad6e-613b-40cf-b015-3ae4e4cb7f15?i=OO3plxjrmUm2HxKr3C0o2g&locale=en-US
Livestream RSVP at https://harvardclimatesymposium.cventevents.com/event/3c86165b-f7ef-49e6-a351-8f103d910e65/registrationDeclinePage:694c700e-cf98-4306-975b-bbd05cf2ef06?i=OO3plxjrmUm2HxKr3C0o2g&locale=en-US
The Harvard Climate Symposium: Pathways for Progress on Energy and Climate will engage leaders from government, business, the non-profit sector, and academia to explore actions to enhance resilience to a changing climate and advance efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Participants will discuss what is politically viable, effective, scalable, and which solutions are durable for the short-, medium-, and long-term. Hundreds of attendees will convene on the Harvard Business School campus and many more will watch online as Harvard’s world-class faculty lead discussions anchored in Harvard’s groundbreaking research.
Schools and centers across Harvard University will organize events that showcase their unique contributions to meeting climate challenges and solving problems. These events will evidence the breadth of research taking place at the University and speak to the new knowledge and ideas needed to help the world address the climate crisis. Attendees are invited to register for individual sessions on the registration page.
More information at https://harvardclimatesymposium.cventevents.com/event/3c86165b-f7ef-49e6-a351-8f103d910e65/speakers
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The Road to Electrification: Challenges and Opportunities for the Domestic Auto Industry
Monday, September 15
12 – 1:15 p.m.
Harvard Kennedy School, Rubenstein 414AB, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge
And online
RSVP at https://www.belfercenter.org/event/road-electrification-challenges-and-opportunities-domestic-auto-industry
SPEAKER(S) Christopher Smith, Chief Government Affairs Officer at Ford
The U.S. auto industry faces big roadblocks and opportunities: forecasting consumer demand, Chinese competition and subsidized oversupply, infrastructure hurdles, supply chain vulnerabilities, and a changing policy landscape. In this Energy Policy Seminar, Christopher Smith, Ford's Chief Government Affairs Officer, will explore the policy choices the United States can make to strengthen its domestic auto industry - as well as the policies that would hobble it. This event is part of Harvard Climate Action Week 2025.
RSVP required. A Harvard University ID is required for in-person attendance; all are welcome to attend via Zoom.
CONTACT INFO Elizabeth Hanlon - ehanlon@hks.harvard.edu
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Design, Execution, and Political Economy: Lessons from the CHIPS Act for the Future of Industrial Policy
Monday, September 15
12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Princeton, 300 Wallace Hall, Princeton NJ
And online
RSVP at https://cpree.princeton.edu/events/2025/design-execution-and-political-economy-lessons-chips-act-future-industrial-policy
Speaker
Michael R. Schmidt, Griswold Center for Economic Policy Studies
The CHIPS and Science Act has catalyzed more than $500 billion in planned semiconductor investment, with its design and implementation spanning three presidential administrations. In this seminar, Mike Schmidt — founding Director of the CHIPS Program Office — shares lessons from inside the process: how industrial policy is crafted, how it’s executed, and what it takes to make it endure. Drawing on his experience leading the $39 billion CHIPS manufacturing initiative, Schmidt will explore both the craft and political economy of modern industrial policy, offering practical insights for future efforts to advance strategic national goals — from revitalizing domestic manufacturing to accelerating the clean energy transition.
Michael R. Schmidt is a distinguished visitor at the Griswold Center for Economic Policy Studies at Princeton University. From September 2022 to January 2025, Schmidt served as the inaugural director of the CHIPS Program Office (CPO) at the U.S. Department of Commerce, where he led the implementation of a $39 billion federal initiative to incentivize semiconductor manufacturing in the United States. Under his leadership, the office executed 20 final award agreements totaling $34 billion, unlocking more than $450 billion in total investment in U.S. chip production. Before joining the commerce department, Schmidt led the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s implementation of the expanded Child Tax Credit under the American Rescue Plan, which delivered monthly payments to over 37 million families and lifted more than 3 million children out of poverty. He previously served as commissioner of the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, overseeing the state’s tax system and the collection of more than $100 billion in annual revenue; and as deputy secretary for economic development for the State of New York, where he directed policy and operations across 12 state agencies and authorities. Earlier in his career, he held roles in the Office of Domestic Finance at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and as a financial analyst at the Yale Investments Office. Schmidt holds a BA in history and a JD, both from Yale University. Current research focuses on developing a principled framework for when industrial policy interventions are justified to advance U.S. national security. Drawing on his experience leading the CPO, he seeks to move beyond ad hoc interventions by clarifying the conditions under which government action is warranted. His goal is to articulate a framework that is both analytically rigorous and practically useful for policymakers. Schmidt also examines how U.S. industrial strategy can align with those of allies and partners to support a more coherent global approach.
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The cost of climate chaos: financial threats, new approaches, and what we can do
Monday, September 15
6:00 PM - 7:00 PM (Eastern)
Online
RSVP at https://act.sierraclub.org/events/details?formcampaignid=701Po000012iDo4IAE&mapLinkHref=
Do you worry about how climate chaos poses a financial threat to you and our society? Would you like to learn more about how each of us, individually and at the state level, can redirect money away from planetary destruction and toward a better future?
These are the questions the Sierra Club has been studying in its new report, The Long Term Will Be Decided Now: Why Climate Risk Demands System-Level Action From Investors. Allie Lindstrom, co-author of this report, will explain, in the clearest terms, the economic realities of climate change and the limitations of our current approach to "sustainable investing." She will then offer an alternative solution. Finally, with our pension savings and long-term well-being in mind, we'll take action together to push our $105B state pension toward a better course.
Cosponsored by Third Act Massachusetts and Mothers Out Front Massachusetts Corporate Responsibility Action Group
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The Color of North: The Molecular Language of Proteins and the Future of Life
Monday, September 15
6:00pm (doors open at 5:30pm)
Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/rizk-fink
Cost: $0 - $29.70 (book included)
Harvard Book Store, the Harvard University Division of Science, the Harvard Library, and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Shahir S. Rizk—Associate Professor of Biochemistry at Indiana University South Bend and the Indiana University School of Medicine—and Maggie M. Fink—Adjunct Professor at Indiana University South Bend and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Notre Dame—for a discussion of their new book The Color of North: The Molecular Language of Proteins and the Future of Life.
About The Color of North
An awe-inspiring journey into the world of proteins—how they shape life, and their remarkable potential to heal our bodies and our planet.
Each fall, a robin begins the long trek north from Gibraltar to her summer home in Central Europe. Nestled deep in her optic nerve, a tiny protein turns a lone electron into a compass, allowing her to see north in colors we can only dream of perceiving.
Taking us beyond the confines of our own experiences, The Color of North traverses the kingdom of life to uncover the myriad ways that proteins shape us and all organisms on the planet. Inside every cell, a tight-knit community of millions of proteins skillfully contorts into unique shapes to give fireflies their ghostly glow, enable the octopus to see predators with its skin, and make humans fall in love. Collectively, proteins orchestrate the intricate relationships within ecosystems and forge the trajectory of life. And yet, nature has exploited just a fraction of their immense potential. Shahir S. Rizk and Maggie M. Fink show how breathtaking advances in protein engineering are expanding on nature’s repertoire, introducing proteins that can detect environmental pollutants, capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and treat diseases from cancer to COVID-19.
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Interlinked: temperature, species and health
Wednesday, September 17
8:30 AM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://bristol-ac-uk.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_SIrisjpvRryRhsT_yzUqgg#/registration
The Cabot Institute for the Environment and the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute for Health Research invite you to the second in a series of Climate Change and Health seminars. In this seminar, Dr Alan Kennedy-Asser and Sofia Samoylova will speak about the effects of rising temperatures on the health of humans and other species.
Dr Alan Kennedy-Asser - The unexpected tale of climate change impacts on health in rural Northern Ireland.
Dr Alan Kennedy-Asser is a senior research associate in the School of Geographical Sciences, whose research focusses on changing climate and its impacts on a range of scales. In recent years, this has included understanding the uncertainty in precipitation projections over Africa on the Salient project, as well interdisciplinary methods to quantify impacts of climate change at local-regional scales in the UK.
Abstract
As we progress through another summer of probable heatwaves in the UK, the ever-increasing volume of evidence of how heat affects human health mounds up. However, away from the south and east of England, where high temperatures and population amplify the heat risk, there is Northern Ireland: that rural, cool, damp corner of the country. With the all-time record temperature for the country standing at a whopping 31.3 °C, surely temperatures couldn’t be causing issues for health there? Think again. Interdisciplinary research published in Climate Risk Management shows the unexpected ways that people and livestock in Northern Ireland are being affected by our changing climate, even if (thankfully) it’s not yet 40 °C.
Sofia Samoylova - Heat impacts on pregnancy outcomes: an interdisciplinary and cross-species approach.
Sofia Samoylova is a second year PhD student at the School of Biological Sciences looking at the effects of heat exposure on pregnancy outcomes in life-bearing species.
Abstract
Extreme climate events such as heat waves are becoming increasingly prevalent, with an impact on multiple biological processes such as mortality and reproduction, across a range of species. This has been seen to particularly affect susceptible individuals such as pregnant mothers and their unborn child, with elevated temperatures observed to cause teratogenesis during pregnancy and associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes such as preterm birth, stillbirth, and low birth weight. Despite studies into the associations between heat events and adverse outcomes, the underlying mechanisms and molecular factors remain largely unexplored. Furthermore, the effects of timing of the heat exposure on the type and severity of the outcome has not been yet elucidated.
This project aims to study the potential underlying physiological mechanism connecting heat events and adverse pregnancy outcomes, and how these depend on timing in pregnancy, through a series of heat related studies on a model of viviparous (life bearing) cockroach Diploptera Punctata as well as a human data-based approach. The human side of the project looks at investigating the link between temperature variations and pregnancy outcomes with the use of longitudinal studies such as ALSPAC and Born in Bradford, and analysis of human tissue data such as placental samples and cord blood to analyse the proteomic, transcriptomic and metabolic profiles present.
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Nature to the Rescue: Amazing Science Supercharging the Planet
Wednesday, September 17
9:00 - 10:00 GMT-4
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/nature-to-the-rescue-amazing-science-supercharging-the-planet-tickets-1504757603499
Unlocking Methane Removal
As climate deadlines loom, methane — a greenhouse gas over 80 times more potent than CO₂ over a 20-year period — demands urgent attention. Recent breakthroughs in methane-eating bacteria (methanotrophs) offer a promising path forward, but scientific innovation alone isn’t enough.
Join the Carbon Technology Research Foundation for a focused session in our 'Amazing Science' series, a high-level briefing designed for funders, policymakers, and research leaders working at the frontlines of climate action. This session zeros in on the potential of biological methane removal and what it will take to move this emerging solution from the lab to large-scale deployment.
This 60-minute session will explore:
The current scientific landscape of methane-eating bacteria
What’s needed to bring these solutions to the field — from funding to field trials
The key financial, policy, and social barriers slowing progress
The business case and long term sustainability of solutions
How targeted, coordinated action now can unlock climate impact by 2030
Why Attend: If you're a climate funder, policy influencer, or scientific leader ready to accelerate real-world methane solutions, this session is designed to catalyze collaboration and impact.
Let's turn breakthrough science into measurable climate results - before the critical window closes.
Speakers:
Professor Mary Lidstrom – Professor Emeritus of Chemical Engineering and Professor Emeritus of Microbiology University of Washington, Seattle
Dr. Jessica Swanson - Associate Professor, University of Utah, Department of Chemistry and the Henry Eyring Center for Theoretical Chemistry.
Host:
Maria-Krystyna Duval - CEO Carbon Technology Research Foundation
Don't miss out on this opportunity to be part of the movement towards a more sustainable world
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In the Heat of This Moment: The People's Struggle for Climate Justice, Health, and Power at Home
Wednesday, September 17
12 – 1 p.m.
Harvard, Knafel Center 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
And online
RSVP at https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2025-diana-hernandez-lecture
SPEAKER(S) Diana Hernández, 2025–2026 Radcliffe-Salata Climate Justice Fellow; associate professor of sociomedical sciences and codirector of the Energy Opportunity Lab, Columbia Center for Global Energy Policy, Columbia University
Join Diana Hernández for a timely conversation at the intersection of climate change, energy justice, and public health. Drawing on insights from her new book Powerless: The People’s Struggle for Energy (Russell Sage, 2025), Hernández will reveal how everyday households—especially in low-income, historically marginalized communities— are navigating the compounding pressures of rising energy costs, inadequate housing, and extreme weather.
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Living Between Worlds—with Courage, Dignity, and Power
Wednesday, September 17
3:00 PM
Online
RSVP at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIvf-mvrD8qGNUBS287pVRGQr77bUBhKQF4#/registration
"New worlds don't just happen. We speak them into being…" Please join us for our sixth year of monthly conversations exploring how we might live, with both impact and serenity, in these strange times.
If if was in doubt before, it's clear now: We live between old worlds and new—as we move from the fossil age to renewables, from linear take-make-waste economies to circular, from the post-war geo-political-economic order to a world of climate crisis and geopolitical instability—something that we can't yet name. Between working inside the structures and norms of modern life, and challenging them from "outside;" between working to help institutions adapt, and working to re-invent or replace them. Between tinkering at the margins and committing to reinventing everything. Between fear and hope, resignation and ambition, despair and courage.
Gramsci called it "the time of monsters." Arundhati Roy was more hopeful: "Another world is not only possible, She is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
In these monthly calls, hosted by Gil Friend and Ken Homer, we explore the challenges of navigating the world of messes we've inherited and built—from climate and Covid to biodiversity and fascism to identity and pluralism—with grace, dignity, and power.
“Because people are hungry for meaningful conversations that move worlds. Let’s have some!”
(You can find our previous sessions—and other gems—on Gil's YouTube channel at https://bit.ly/3wKcE9z. If you like what you see, please Like and Subscribe!)
Who joins these conversations? Executives. Sustainability professionals. Investors. Activists. Entrepreneurs. Seekers. Up-and-comers. A poet or two. And you! And consider inviting someone who might enrich the conversation. (Maybe even someone who shares our concerns, but is different than you or me.)
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Deanna Moran, Chief Coastal Resilience Officer, Commonwealth of Massachusetts – An EBC Leadership Program
Wednesday, September 17
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm EST
Nutter McClennen & Fish LLP, 155 Seaport Boulevard, Boston MA
RSVP at https://ebcne.org/event/network-learn-deanna-moran-chief-coastal-resilience-officer-commonwealth-of-massachusetts-an-ebc-leadership-program/
Cost: $50 -$150
This EBC Leadership Briefing features Deanna Moran, Chief Coastal Resilience Office for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Appointed in May of 2024, Ms. Moran leads the state’s new ResilientCoasts initiative, a holistic and proactive strategy to guide state and local coastal resiliency policy and action.
The goal of the ResilientCoasts initiative is to develop a comprehensive, state-wide strategy for coastal resilience in the Commonwealth. In collaboration with the state’s coastal communities and other stakeholders, ResilientCoasts will establish Coastal Resilience Districts based on climate impacts, review resilience options to proactively identify approaches that work statewide and within districts, explore financing mechanisms to find creative and sustainable ways to pay for projects, and review regulations to ensure effective long-term implementation.
Open Discussion: Following the presentation by Chief Coastal Resilience Officer Moran will be an open discussion with the Chief Coastal Resilience Officer and the audience on issues of concern to the EBC membership and their clients.
Keynote Presenter
Deanna Moran, Chief Coastal Resilience Officer, Office of Coastal Zone Management, Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Program Moderator
Nasser Brahim, Director of Climate Resilience, Mystic River Watershed AssociationProgram Agenda
4:00 p.m. – Registration & Networking
4:45 p.m. – Program Begins
6:00 p.m. – Program Adjourns
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Mind the Gaps: Climate Policy Integraton and Implemention
Thursday, September 18 - Friday, September 19
Tufts, The Fletcher School, 160 Packard Avenue Medford, MA 02155
RSVP at https://forms.monday.com/forms/7d20627f61c7f6ae2eeea6d000d715ad?r=use1
The international symposium will bring together leaders in climate policy research, practice, and implementation. Participants will gain insights into how specific structural barriers in their countries could be addressed through national agenda integration and enhanced policy implementation. Speakers will exchange knowledge and experiences regarding what policies and strategies have proven effective and which have not in decarbonizing their countries' economies.
More information at https://www.climatepolicylab.org/symposium
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Environmental Ethics in Dialogue
Thursday, September 18 and Friday, September 19
12pm to 8pm
Boston College, 245 Beacon Street, Rm 501 and Devlin 110. 140 Commonwealth Ave., Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScPMv9gvZaBgn692O2DTuSvm1wFzJAEUCFgs6mW8q28-Iqbdw/viewform
The conference goals are to explore how different theoretical approaches within environmental philosophy, especially when placed in dialogue with the natural sciences and other disciplines, can offer practical solutions to pressing environmental problems. The event will emphasize the critical role that dialogue between philosophy and science can play in creating robust, ethical responses to the current environmental crisis. Our planet is facing a crisis across multiple areas, such as climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss. In recent years, we have seen unprecedented global warming and widespread calls for radical changes in public policy, as well as public resistance to these changes. While these crises are global in scale, they disproportionately impact the poor and historically marginalized populations, raising increasing concerns about justice and inequality. Our conference aims to create a forum to help students and the university community better understand and think through these complex moral, political, and scientific challenges. This conference is paired with the Lowell Lecture series talk by Prof Melissa Lane, "Plato's Republic on Motivating Ecological Guardianship.”
Free and open to the public. Please register to attend
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Implementing the Green Swap for Development-Optimal Climate Finance
Thursday, September 18
1:30 PM - 2:30 PM ET
Harvard, Wexner 434ab, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.hks.harvard.edu/events/implementing-green-swap-development-optimal-climate-finance
Many renewable energy projects are not viable in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs) due to the high cost of capital and scarce development resources. As a result, EMDEs continue to invest in fossil energy projects, locking in carbon-intensive infrastructure and undermining global climate efforts.
The Green Swap, a new financial instrument devised by a project team spanning Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center and Center for International Development, could lower financing costs for renewable energy projects in EMDEs by disentangling the rewards and risks of climate and development finance.
This seminar will provide an overview of how the Green Swap works and how it can be implemented to mobilize more climate finance for EMDEs, with a particular focus on operationalizing carbon credit markets and addressing the challenge of proving additionality. Q&A to follow. Lunch will be served.
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Building Industries in Green Value Chains
Thursday, September 18
4:30 PM - 5:30 PM ET
Democracy Lab R-414ab, 124 Mount Auburn Street, 2nd Floor, Cambridge, MA 02138
And online
RSVP at https://www.hks.harvard.edu/events/building-industries-green-value-chains
The energy transition offers countries a defining opportunity for green growth by building industries for manufactured goods in value chains for energy technologies. As the world needs many more wind turbines, electric vehicles, batteries, heat pumps and other energy technologies, places that manufacture these goods (or their inputs) will be well-positioned to win the industries of the future.
Hear from experts at Harvard’s Growth Lab about their work helping different countries build an industrial base in clean energy technologies. This event will profile green industrial policy initiatives in Morocco, South Africa, and Mexico, and demo the Growth Lab’s ‘Greenplexity’ tool, which helps places understand their economic opportunities in green value chains.
There will also be time for an open discussion on green industrial policy.
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Plato’s Republic on Motivating Ecological Guardianship
Thursday, September 18
7 - 8:30pm EDT. Doors at 6pm
Boston College, Devlin Hall, 255 Beacon Street Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/melissa-lane-platos-republic-on-motivating-ecological-guardianship-tickets-1415346151439
Melissa Lane is the Class of 1943 Professor of Politics at Princeton University, where she is also Associated Faculty in Classics and in Philosophy, and has received the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Prize, the Stanley J. Kelley Teaching Award of the Department of Politics, and the Faculty Community Engagement Award of the Pace Center for Civic Engagement. She currently also holds a three-year appointment dedicated to delivering periodic public lectures in London as the fiftieth Professor of Rhetoric at Gresham College. She has held a Guggenheim Fellowship in the field of Classics, as well as fellowships and visiting professorships at a number of institutions including the ANU, Auckland, Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, the American Academy in Rome, and the École Normale Supérieure. Lane was educated in Californian public schools, then at Harvard University and the University of Cambridge, where she received an MPhil and PhD in Philosophy and then taught for fifteen years before moving to Princeton in 2009. Her most recent monograph, titled Of Rule and Office: Plato's Ideas of the Politicaland published in 2023 by Princeton University Press, was awarded the 2024 Book Prize of the Journal of the History of Philosophy; her 2012 book Eco-Republic continues to be widely discussed. Lane has appeared multiple times on ‘In Our Time’ on BBC Radio Four, and been published in periodicals in the US, UK, Italy and Germany.
This lecture is supported by an ILA Major Grant.
All Lowell Humanities Series lectures are free and open to the public. Registration via Eventbrite is required for in-person attendance.
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The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything: How Carbon Dioxide Made Our World
Thursday, September 18
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/peter-brannen
Harvard Book Store, the Harvard University Division of Science, and the Harvard Library welcome Peter Brannen—contributing writer at The Atlantic and author of The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth's Past Mass Extinctions—for a discussion of his new book The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything: How Carbon Dioxide Made Our World. He will be joined in conversation by Phoebe Cohen—paleontologist, science communicator, and Professor of Geosciences at Williams College.
About The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything
How carbon dioxide made planet Earth, shaped human history, and now holds our future in the balance.
Every year, we are dangerously warping the climate by putting gigantic amounts of carbon dioxide into the air. But CO2 isn’t merely the by-product of burning fossil fuels—it is also fundamental to how our planet works. All life is ultimately made from CO2, and it has kept Earth bizarrely habitable for hundreds of millions of years. In short, it is the most important substance on Earth. But how is it that CO2 is as essential to life on Earth as it is capable of destroying it?
In The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything, award-winning science journalist Peter Brannen reveals how carbon dioxide’s movement through rocks, air, water, and life has kept our planet’s climate livable, its air breathable, and its oceans hospitable to complex life. Starting at the dawn of life almost 4 billion years ago, and working all the way up through today’s global climate crisis and beyond, he illuminates how CO2 has been responsible for the planet’s many deaths and rebirths, for shaping the evolution of life, and for the development of modern human society. And he argues that it’s only by reckoning with this planetary-scale history that we can understand the cosmic stakes of our current moment on Earth—and how dangerous our experiment with the climate really is.
Drawing on groundbreaking research and with a clear- eyed perspective, Brannen shows how a deep exploration of the carbon cycle can shed light on the way forward for humanity as we try to avert environmental catastrophe in the future. And it all begins with a richer understanding of the critical role of CO2 in our world.
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Which Resources Count for New England and How Do We Connect Them?
Friday, September 19
9:00 am-12:30 pm
Foley Hoag LLP, 155 Seaport Blvd 17th Floor Boston, MA 02210
And online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/9-19-2025-new-england-electricity-restructuring-roundtable-tickets-1487332033149
Cost: $0 - $110
Which Resources Count for New England?
Alicia Barton, Chief Executive Officer, Vineyard Offshore
Nathan Phelps, Managing Director Regulatory Advocacy Vote Solar
Paul Hibbard, Principal, Analysis Group
Armond Cohen, Executive Director, Clean Air Task Force
John O’Brien, CEO, JERA Americas
A confluence of several forces is exacerbating concerns about reliability, resource adequacy, and, as always, affordability. With record heat levels recorded in the Northeast and across the country, on top of already increasing demand due to electrification and new loads such as data centers, policymakers (and the public) are asking whether we have the electricity resources we need to ensure reliable, adequate, safe, and affordable service. At the same time, federal policies and priorities have diverged from those of our region, with implications for existing state policies, programs, and plans. In this uncertain political and economic environment, which resources – both existing and new – will prove robust and flexible enough to power our future?
While there appear to be a myriad of resource options, including existing (and perhaps new) gas generation, as well as solar, wind, storage, demand response, and emerging (or re-emerging) technologies such as advanced nuclear, it is not clear which of them can deliver the electricity we need in time and at an affordable cost. In addition to the challenges posed by fluctuating demand forecasts, policymakers, regulators, utilities, developers, system operators, customers, and environmentalists are grappling with uncertainties about resource availability. Siting, permitting, supply chain, financing, and interconnection challenges continue to affect costs and timely resource availability.
This panel will delve into the region’s resource options (in addition to gas, which was just covered extensively at our June Roundtable) for both the short and longer term, considering how these prospects may be affected by the current uncertain political and economic environment.
Alicia Barton, Chief Executive Officer, Vineyard Offshore, will discuss the prospects for offshore wind in the face of federal policy changes. She will examine whether (or not) these changes are affecting state and regional commitments and procurements, and ways the industry can take advantage of opportunities as it is maturing and building multiple projects, some of which are already delivering power to customers.
Nathan Phelps, Managing Director, Regulatory Advocacy Hub, Vote Solar, will address the future of solar in the Northeast, as well as nationally, highlighting recent legislative proposals and federal legislative and policy implications affecting solar compensation, costs, and affordability.
Paul Hibbard, Principal at Analysis Group, will tackle the array of policies and programs needed to deliver peak load reduction and demand response sufficient to reduce costs, enhance reliability, and improve resource adequacy, addressing locational value and rate design, among other topics.
Armond Cohen, Executive Director, Clean Air Task Force, will describe how states across the country are looking at advanced nuclear as an option to meet the need for zero carbon dispatchable power, laying out the role nuclear can play in ensuring reliability and resource adequacy, and examining the prospects for its timing and costs.
John O’Brien, Chief Executive Officer, JERA Americas, will speak to opportunities to cost-effectively make the most of infrastructure we already have to address reliability and resource adequacy, by using storage to enhance utilization of existing generation and transmission infrastructure, and to complement new variable resources.
How Do We Connect Resources to the Grid?
Michael Judge, Undersecretary , MA EOEEA
Rob Gramlich, Founder and President, Grid Strategies LLC
Caitlin Marquis, Managing Director, Advanced Energy United
Digaunto Chatterjee, Senior VP – Engineering , Eversource
Identifying future resource options is only one step in the process of ensuring resource adequacy and reliability in a cost-effective manner. Connecting these resources to the grid and to customers is critical to having enough capacity to meet demand. If 2024 was the year to focus on siting (and there is still work to be done), 2025 is the year of interconnection. Progress is being made at the federal, state, and utility levels. Initiatives range from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) Order 2023 and subsequent interconnection implementation steps at RTOs, to state activities such as Massachusetts’ Interconnection Implementation Review Group (IIRG) and related efforts, to ISO/RTO long term transmission planning (LTTP) processes, and to utility distribution capital investment plans. All of these initiatives share the objective of reducing interconnection complexity and timelines for grid-scale and distributed resources.
As industry stakeholders focus on interconnection of new generation, they are also considering alternatives to building additional T&D infrastructure. Recent studies and proceedings in various jurisdictions point to opportunities for interconnection queue process changes, new operational approaches, and advanced technologies that improve utilization of the existing grid and deploy new resources where they can be accommodated (e.g., at underutilized interconnections).
Interconnection of new loads is also an increasing focus, especially loads that are located where there is grid capacity or that bring their own generation, storage, and/or demand response.
This panel will discuss the range of activities underway related to interconnection and the policy and process changes needed to ensure that resources, the system, and customers can be connected in a timely manner.
Michael Judge, Undersecretary of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, will speak to the Commonwealth’s distributed generation and storage interconnection activities, including the IIRG, and provide a high-level update on pending transmission efforts that should improve grid capacity and processes to connect new resources.
Rob Gramlich, Founder and President, Grid Strategies LLC, will share the results of his firm’s “ISO/RTO interconnection report card” and provide a national perspective on improving interconnection with enhanced long range planning processes, new technologies, and new operating practices, as well as the potential benefits of coordinating siting, new loads, and interconnection.
Caitlin Marquis, Managing Director, Advanced Energy United, will offer an update on FERC activities, and on the developers’ perspective on changes to interconnection processes at both the federal and state levels that are needed to ensure resource adequacy, improve timeliness, and reduce costs.
Digaunto Chatterjee, Senior Vice President-Engineering at Eversource, will discuss interconnection at both the retail (distribution) and wholesale (transmission) levels, describing his utility’s actions to coordinate interconnection of both load and distributed energy resource to reduce time and costs for generators and customers,
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Climate, Degrowth & the Economy
Friday, September 19
12 - 3pm EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-degrowth-the-economy-tickets-635008195607
Climate Emergency Mobilization Task Force Climate, Readiness, Solidarity & Rights for All: UNITED ACTIONS For a Just & Regenerative Future
Website: https://cemtf.org
Editorial Comment: Climate Emergency Mobilization Task Force is a group in the San Francisco Bay Area which is actively preparing for the climate emergency, whatever it may be. They are building a solidarity network of mutual aid and practical action. It is a model that should be replicated throughout the world.
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SunDay
Sunday, September 21
Speeding the energy transition to renewables. More information at https://www.sunday.earth/
Editorial Comment: I would like to see SunDay be a day of action, translating the renewable transition into Gandhi’s swadeshi, local production, the heart and soul of his political and economic nonviolence, activating a new Solar Constructive Programme possibly using the organizing tactics of Abdul Ghaffar Khan and the Khudai Khidmatgar, the world’s first nonviolent army.
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Applied Environmental Diplomacy: A Path Towards Peace
Monday, September 22
12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Princeton, 300 Wallace Hall, Princeton NJ
And online
RSVP at https://cpree.princeton.edu/events/2025/applied-environmental-diplomacy-path-towards-peace
Speaker
Tareq Abu Hamed, Executive Director, Arava Institute for Environmental Studies
The Middle East is a climate change hotspot. The rising temperatures and decreased rainfall are exacerbating the existing conflict, destabilizing the region and hindering peace efforts. However, climate change is also creating opportunities for regional stability and environmental cooperation, particularly in the areas of water-energy-food nexus.
Dr. Tareq Abu Hamed is the Executive Director of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies. A recognized leader in renewable energy technology and regional environmental cooperation, he sits on Israeli President Herzog’s Climate Forum, co-chairing the task force on Regional Cooperation and Security. Dr. Abu Hamed is the recipient of the 2024 American Association for the Advancement of Science’s David and Betty Hamburg Award for Science Diplomacy and the 2025 Al-Moumin Award for Thought Leadership in Environmental Peacebuilding from the Environmental Peacebuilding Association.
Dr. Abu Hamed first joined the Arava Institute in 2008, when he established the Arava Institute’s Center for Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation. He left the Institute in 2013 to join the Israeli Ministry of Science’s ultimately becoming the Ministry’s Acting Chief Scientist, the highest ranking Palestinian in the Israeli government at that time. He returned to the Arava Institute in 2016 as both head of the Center for Renewable Energy and as Academic Director. Today, he is internationally recognized as a leader in regional environmental diplomacy and a sought-after speaker at international convenings including the annual United Nations COP. Under his leadership, the Arava Institute was nominated for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize.
Dr. Abu Hamed holds a Bachelor and a Master of Science in Chemical Engineering from Gazi University (Turkey), and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Ankara University (Turkey). He has completed two terms of postdoctoral research, one at the Environmental Science and Energy Research Department of the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel), and the second at the University of Minnesota’s Mechanical Engineering Department Solar Energy Lab. He also holds a Master’s in Public Policy from Hebrew University. He lives in East Jerusalem with his wife and five children.
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Online: Rooted and Ready: Planning & Designing Resilience Hubs
Thursday, September 25
10 - 11:30am EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-rooted-and-ready-planning-designing-resilience-hubs-tickets-1560092210799
From using solar photovoltaic energy to potable water cisterns and from culturally-centered design to EV infrastructure, and radio communications, cities and neighborhoods across the globe are designing places and spaces that can prepare communities before, during and after climate events.
Rebuild by Design, Climate Resilience Consulting, and ONE Architecture & Urbanism are hosting a panel that will dive into how government agencies, corporations, philanthropy, and community leaders can collaborate to make resilience hubs a part of current budgets.
With examples spanning Montana to Puerto Rico and the Bronx to Denver, the conversation will highlight how communities are turning vision into action—leveraging innovative funding, strategic partnerships, and inclusive design to create resilience hubs that boost health, local economies, and long-term wellbeing.
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Reducing Ramp-Up Costs: Digital Tools and Local Ecosystems in US Battery Manufacturing
Thursday, September 25
11-12 AM ET [5-6 PM CET, 8-9 AM PT]
Online
RSVP at https://www.batterybusinessclub.com/expert-talk-webinar/
As the United States strives to strengthen its position in battery manufacturing and close the gap with China’s production, ramp-up costs play a pivotal role. The expert talk “Reducing Ramp-Up Costs: Digital Tools and Local Ecosystems in US Battery Manufacturing” will address how digital tools and effective collaboration within local ecosystems mitigate risks, streamline processes, and help overcome major obstacles in scaling up battery production. By incorporating perspectives from cutting-edge research and industry use cases, the webinar will provide valuable insights into strategies for enhancing competitiveness in the global race of battery manufacturing.The session will feature prominent speakers, including Kyle Veugeler, Technical Account Manager for Batteries at Siemens USA and Dr.-Ing. Christoph Baum, Head of the Fraunhofer Competence Center for Battery Cell Production USA at Fraunhofer IPT. The experts will discuss the major challenges faced during the startup phase in the US market and the importance of maintaining offtake agreements. Further, the expert talk will put a spotlight on the role of local ecosystems, including regional suppliers, energy grids, and academic partnerships, in supporting the industry and will examine how machine learning and digital tools—such as digital twins and IoT—can accelerate production timelines and decrease costs. The presentation will conclude with a forward-looking perspective, as both speakers will share insights on the future of US battery manufacturing over the next five years, including remarkable projects and successful use cases.
Our speakers:
Kyle R. Veugeler is a Battery System Engineer and Technical Account Manager at Siemens USA. He holds a degree in Electrical Engineering and has 18 years of experience in the automation industry. Kyle’s expertise spans multiple sectors, including automotive and battery automation working for ABB and most recently for Tesla where he acted as a Controls Engineering Manager scaling pilots into mass production operations. Kyle is also a contributing member of the Volta Foundation’s annual Battery Report.
Christoph Baum is the Head of the Fraunhofer Competence Center for Battery Cell Production USA. He studied mechanical engineering with a focus on design and development. Christoph has been with Fraunhofer IPT since 2006, leading multiple groups, most recently acting as head of the Precision Machines department, and has coordinated several international research projects. His leadership in developing microstructuring technologies and continuous roll-to-roll production positions him as a key contributor to advancements in battery manufacturing. He is also a co-founder of the Fraunhofer spin-off Polyscale GmbH & Co. KG.
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From Barriers to Blueprints: Evolving Environmental Regulations for a Resilient Future
Thursday, September 26
9:30 am - 12:30 pm
Foley Hoag LLP, 155 Seaport Blvd 17th Floor Boston, MA 02210
And online
RSVP at https://climateadaptationforum.org/event/from-barriers-to-blueprints-evolving-environmental-regulations-for-a-resilient-future/
Cost: $15 - $45
As the climate crisis accelerates, state and local governments are rethinking outdated policies and building a regulatory foundation for climate resilience. This forum will spotlight innovative approaches to updating regulations, many of which were originally written without climate change in mind, to support adaptation projects that address sea level rise, flooding, and extreme weather.
Through case studies from across the U.S., including New Jersey’s overhaul of land use policies, Cape Cod’s climate-focused regional plan, and Miami-Dade County’s living shoreline initiatives, we’ll explore how forward-looking jurisdictions are embedding climate adaptation into permitting, zoning, and design standards.
Speakers will discuss the process of developing enforceable frameworks, the importance of accommodating dynamic coastlines and shifting baselines, and the tools being used to navigate uncertainty.
Attendees will gain insight into how regulations are being reshaped as catalysts for resilient infrastructure, healthy ecosystems, and equitable community protection.
Forum Speakers
Commissioner Shawn M. LaTourette, Department of Environmental Protection, State of New Jersey
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Massachusetts Global Artificial Intelligence Summit - Part of Boston AI Week
Sunday, September 28
9am - 5pm EDT
MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, 32 Vassar Street Cambridge, MA 02139
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/massachusetts-global-artificial-intelligence-summit-part-of-boston-ai-week-tickets-1488256648699
Cost: $0 - $135.23
Agenda
8:00 AM - 9:00 AM
REGISTRATION | COFFEE & BREAKFAST
9:00 AM - 11:00 AM
AI CENTERS OF EXCELLENCE IN MASSACHUSETTS
11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
GLOBAL AI IMPACT OF AI MADE IN MA
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
CORPORATE AI CENTERS IN MASSACHUSETTS
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
AI DEGREES IN MASSACHUSETTS
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
NETWORKING LUNCH (AI ECOSYSTEM MATCHING)
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
1ST ANNUAL STARTUP PITCH COMPETITION
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Aligning Evidence for Impact: Disaster Research in an Era of Federal Retrenchment
Monday, September 29
12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Princeton, 300 Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ
And online
RSVP at https://cpree.princeton.edu/events/2025/aligning-evidence-impact-disaster-research-era-federal-retrenchment
Speaker, Andrew Rumbach, Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute, Washington, D.C.
Andrew Rumbach, PhD, is a Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute, a non-profit and non-partisan policy research organization in Washington DC. Rumbach's research focuses on household and community risk to natural hazards and disasters, with a frequent emphasis on housing, land use policy, and the impact of federal policy on local outcomes. Prior to joining Urban Rumbach was an Associate Professor of Urban Planning at Texas A&M University. He received his PhD and MRP in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University and a BA in Political Science from Reed College
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How to Be Bold, The Surprising Science of Everyday Courage
Tuesday, September 30
3 – 4:15 p.m.
Harvard Business School, Spangler Auditorium (lower-level Spangler/051), 117 Western Avenue, Boston
And online
RSVP at https://events.hbs.edu/event/how-to-be-bold-the-surprising-science-of-everyday-courage-by-ranjay-gulati-hybrid-event#
SPEAKER(S) Ranjay Gulati, Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
Explore the science of everyday courage with HBS professor Ranjay Gulati, author of the new book How to Be Bold: The Surprising Science of Everyday Courage.
Drawing on gripping stories and research, Gulati examines what drives bold action—from sharing new ideas to standing up for what matters.
Whether you're leading through uncertainty, challenging norms, or seeking to live more boldly, this event offers practical tools and fresh inspiration for courageous living.
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The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why It Matters
Tuesday, September 30
6:00pm (doors open at 5:30pm)
Harvard Science Center, Hall D, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/christine-webb
Cost: $0 - $34.00 (book included)
About The Arrogant Ape
An impassioned celebration of humility before the living world that leads us to a new understanding of other species—and ourselves.
Darwin considered humans one part of the web of life, not the apex of a natural hierarchy. Yet today many maintain that we are the most intelligent, virtuous, successful species that ever lived. This flawed thinking enables us to exploit the earth towards our own exclusive ends, throwing us into a perilous planetary imbalance. But is this view and way of life inevitable? The Arrogant Apeshows that human exceptionalism is an ideology that relies more on human culture than our biology, more on delusion and faith than on evidence.
Harvard primatologist Christine Webb has spent years researching the rich social, emotional, and cognitive lives of our closest living relatives. She exposes the ways that many scientific studies are biased against other species and reveals underappreciated complexities of nonhuman life—from the language of songbirds and prairie dogs, to the cultures of chimpanzees and reef fishes, to the acumen of plants and fungi. With compelling stories and fresh research she gives us a paradigm-shifting way of looking at other organisms on their own terms, one that is revolutionizing our perception both of them and of ourselves.
Critiques of human exceptionalism tend to focus on our moral obligation towards other species. They overlook what humanity also stands to gain by dismantling its illusions of uniqueness and superiority. This shift in perspective fills us with a sense of awe and satisfies one of our oldest and deepest desires to belong to the larger whole we inhabit. What’s at stake is a better, sustainable way of life with the potential to heal and rejuvenate our shared planet.
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Great Decisions | International Cooperation on Climate Change
Tuesday, September 30
6 - 7:30pm EDT
NonProfit Center, 89 South Street Boston, MA 02111
And online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/great-decisions-international-cooperation-on-climate-change-tickets-1492028420169
Over the past 30 years, climate change has become one of the central global challenges of the modern era, one that has hugely important consequences for the livability of the planet.
Join us for a timely discussion of this topic with Dr. Kelly Sims Gallagher, Dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University and a Professor of Energy and Environmental Policy. This program will feature an expert presentation, live audience Q&A, and time for networking and discussion with other globally-oriented participants.
The program will be live-streamed to Zoom from 6:00-7:00 PM.
This program is free and open to the public, but advance registration is required.
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This Is for Everyone: The Unfinished Story of the World Wide Web
Wednesday, October 1
6:00pm (doors open at 5:30pm)
Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/tim-berners-lee
Cost: $12 - $40.00 (book included)
About This Is for Everyone
A gripping account of the rise of the digital world and a crucial guide to the future of the internet—from the inventor of the World Wide Web.
Perhaps the most influential inventor of the modern world, Sir Tim Berners-Lee is a different kind of technologist. Born in the same year as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, he famously distributed his invention, the World Wide Web, for no commercial reward. Its widespread adoption changed everything—transforming humanity into the first digital species. Through the web, we live, work, dream, quarrel, and connect.
In this intimate memoir, Berners-Lee tells the story of his iconic invention, exploring how it launched a new era of creativity and collaboration while unleashing powerful forces that imperil truth and privacy and polarize public debate. With his trademark humor and candor, he recounts how he arrived at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, as a young engineer, and soon came up with the astonishing idea of adding hyperlinks to the then-nascent Internet. His goal was to unleash a wave of creativity and collaboration for the benefit of all—a goal he’s pursued to this day.
Peppered with rich anecdotes and amusing reflections, This Is for Everyone is a gripping, in-the-room account of the rise of the digital world. As the rapid development of artificial intelligence brings new risks and possibilities, Berners-Lee also offers a crucial guide to the decisions ahead—and shows how our digital lives can be reengineered for the sake of human flourishing rather than profit or for power.
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Extraction
Wednesday, October 1
7:00pm
Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Coolidge Corner, Brookline, MA 02446-2908
RSVP at https://brooklinebooksmith.com/event/2025-10-01/thea-riofrancos-ben-tarnoff-extraction
Join us at Brookline Booksmith to celebrate the release of Extraction with author Thea Riofrancos, in conversation with Ben Tarnoff.Register for the event! RSVP to let us know you're coming!
"Dazzling in the bold questions it asks.…An immense contribution." —Naomi Klein
An in-depth investigation into the growing industry of green technologies and the environmental, social, and political consequences of the mining it requires.
Lithium, a crucial input in the batteries powering electric vehicles, has the potential to save the world from climate change. But even green solutions come at a cost. Mining lithium is environmentally destructive. We therefore confront a dilemma: Is it possible to save the world by harming it in the process?
Having spent over a decade researching mining and oil sectors in Latin America, Thea Riofrancos is a leading voice on resource extraction. In Extraction, she draws on groundbreaking fieldwork on the global race for lithium. Taking readers from the breathtaking salt flats of Chile’s Atacama Desert, to Nevada’s glorious Silver Peak Range, to the rolling hills of the Barroso Region of Portugal, she reveals the social and environmental costs of “critical minerals.” In Washington, DC, and Brussels, she tracks the escalating geopolitics of green technology supply chains. And she takes stock of new policy paradigms in the Global South, where governments seek to leverage mineral assets to jumpstart green development. In the process, Riofrancos uncovers surprising links across history, from colonial conquest to the 1970s energy crisis, to our still uncertain green future.
While unregulated mining could inflict irreversible harm, Riofrancos offers optimistic proposals to transform the governance of mining while also reducing the sheer volume of global extraction. A rigorous and hopeful call to action, Extraction shares how we can harmonize climate goals with social justice—and set the planet on a course to ecological flourishing.
Thea Riofrancos is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Providence College, a Strategic Co-Director of the Climate and Community Institute, and a fellow at the Transnational Institute. Previously, she has been an Andrew Carnegie Fellow, a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard, and a Visiting Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at Notre Dame, as well as holding research positions at institutions in Santiago, Chile and Quito, Ecuador. The author of Resource Radicals and coauthor of A Planet to Win, her articles have appeared in Perspectives on Politics, Cultural Studies, World Politics, and Global Environmental Politics, and her essays in the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, n+1, and Jacobin, among other outlets.
Ben Tarnoff is a writer and technologist based in Massachusetts. He is a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books, and has also written for the New York Times, The New Yorker, and the New Republic, among other publications. He is the author of Internet for the People: The Fight for Our Digital Future and Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed, forthcoming from Harper in 2026.
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We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution
Monday, October 6
7:00pm (doors open at 6:15pm)
First Parish Church, 1446 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/jill-lepore
Cost: $45.00 (book included)
About We the People
From the best-selling author of These Truths comes We the People, a stunning new history of the U.S. Constitution, for a troubling new era.
The U.S. Constitution is among the oldest constitutions in the world but also one of the most difficult to amend. Jill Lepore, Harvard professor of history and law, explains why in We the People, the most original history of the Constitution in decades—and an essential companion to her landmark history of the United States, These Truths.
Published on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding—the anniversary, too, of the first state constitutions—We the People offers a wholly new history of the Constitution. “One of the Constitution’s founding purposes was to prevent change,” Lepore writes. “Another was to allow for change without violence.” Relying on the extraordinary database she has assembled at the Amendments Project, Lepore recounts centuries of attempts, mostly by ordinary Americans, to realize the promise of the Constitution. Yet nearly all those efforts have failed. Although nearly twelve thousand amendments have been introduced in Congress since 1789, and thousands more have been proposed outside its doors, only twenty-seven have ever been ratified. More troubling, the Constitution has not been meaningfully amended since 1971. Without recourse to amendment, she argues, the risk of political violence rises. So does the risk of constitutional change by presidential or judicial fiat.
Challenging both the Supreme Court’s monopoly on constitutional interpretation and the flawed theory of “originalism,” Lepore contends in this “gripping and unfamiliar story of our own past” that the philosophy of amendment is foundational to American constitutionalism. The framers never intended for the Constitution to be preserved, like a butterfly, under glass, Lepore argues, but expected that future generations would be forever tinkering with it, hoping to mend America by amending its Constitution through an orderly deliberative and democratic process.
Lepore’s remarkable history seeks, too, to rekindle a sense of constitutional possibility. Congressman Jamie Raskin writes that Lepore “has thrown us a lifeline, a way of seeing the Constitution neither as an authoritarian straitjacket nor a foolproof magic amulet but as the arena of fierce, logical, passionate, and often deadly struggle for a more perfect union.” At a time when the Constitution’s vulnerability is all too evident, and the risk of political violence all too real, We the People, with its shimmering prose and pioneering research, hints at the prospects for a better constitutional future, an amended America.
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Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It
Tuesday, October 7
6:00pm (doors open at 5:30pm)
Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-at-the-brattle-theatre-tickets-1591235180259
Cost: $10 - $35.00 (book included)
Harvard Book Store welcomes Cory Doctorow—blogger, journalist, activist, and author of more than thirty books—for a discussion of his new book Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It.
Enshittification: it’s not just you—the internet sucks now. Here’s why, and here’s how we can disenshittify it.
We’re living through the Enshittocene, the Great Enshittening, a time in which the services that matter to us, that we rely on, are turning into giant piles of shit. It’s frustrating. Demoralizing. Even terrifying.
Enshittification identifies the problem and proposes a solution.
When Cory Doctorow coined the term enshittification, he was not just finding a funner way to say “things are getting worse.” He was making a specific diagnosis about the state of the digital world and how it is affecting all of our lives (and not for the better).
The once-glorious internet was colonized by platforms that made all-but-magical promises to their users—and, at least initially, seemed to deliver on them. But once users were locked in, the platforms turned on them to make their business customers happy. Then the platforms turned to abusing their business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. In the end, the platforms die.
Doctorow’s argument clearly resonated. Once named, it became obvious that enshittification is everywhere, so much so that the American Dialect Society named it its 2023 Word of the Year, and was cited as an inspiration for the 2025 season of Black Mirror.
Here, now, in Enshittification the book, Doctorow moves the conversation beyond the overwhelming sense of our inevitably enshittified fate. He shows us the specific decisions that led us here, who made them, and—most important—how they can be undone.
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HBS Climate Symposium 2025
Sunday, October 19
8am - 6:30pm EDT
Harvard Business School, 117 Western Avenue, Boston, MA 02163
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hbs-climate-symposium-2025-tickets-1482276893089
Cost: $11.50—$48.25
At the Crossroads captures a pivotal moment—where climate science, geopolitical tension, innovation, and economic power converge. The 2025 Climate Symposium brings together global thinkers, leaders, and activists to chart a path toward a climate-stable, equitable future.
With growing focus on resiliency, capital flows, and the ethical and financial implications of AI, panels will span clean energy, climate finance, corporate sustainability, biodiversity, and community justice—offering fresh frameworks and real-world insights.
Beyond panels, the Pitch Competition will spotlight bold ventures at the intersection of climate and equity, while keynotes and curated networking will inspire action and spark lasting collaboration. This is your community. Welcome to the crossroads.
