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 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
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Index
———
Algorithmic Power: The Role of AI in Foreign Policy
Wednesday, January 28
12 – 1:15 p.m.
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_gFgV0OJMQVSdeU9Po2cfSw#/registration
—————
Indigenous History and Law: The Wampanoag Story
Wednesday, January 28
12pm to 1:15pm
Northeastern, Renaissance_Park, 310, 1135 Tremont Street, Boston, MA
And online
RSVP at https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/60bf05c3-35ed-44b4-bcbe-65438d204e1d@a8eec281-aaa3-4dae-ac9b-9a398b9215e7
—————
Shining a Light on Science at COP30
Wednesday, January 28
2:00–3:00 p.m. ET / 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. PT
Online
RSVP at https://secure.ucs.org/a/2026-1-28-shining-light-science-cop30
—————
Changing the Conversation: Intro to Effective Climate Change Communication
Wednesday, January 28
3pm to 4pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/changing-the-conversation-intro-to-effective-climate-change-communication-registration-1978197446815
—————
Accelerating climate adaptation after COP30
Thursday, January 28
6am - 7:30am ET [11.00 AM - 12.30 PM BST]
Online
RSVP at https://www.tickettailor.com/events/cabotinstitutefortheenvironment/1943425f
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The Opinionated University: Academic Freedom, Diversity, and the Myth of Neutrality in American Higher Education
Wednesday, January 28
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/brian-soucek
—————
Stories to Watch 2026
Thursday, January 29
9:00 - 10:30am EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.wri.org/events/2026/1/stories-watch-2026#register
—————
Stockholm Environmental Institute [SEI] Currents 2026
Which trends will shape 2026? And what will shape these trends?
Thursday, January 29
9am - 10 am EST [15:00 CET ending at 16:00 CET]
Online
RSVP at https://www.sei.org/events/sei-currents-2026-event/
—————
Accelerating climate adaptation after COP30
Thursday, January 29
11.00 AM - 12.30 PM
Online
RSVP at https://www.bristol.ac.uk/cabot/events/2026/after-cop30.html
—————
Building a Grassroots Movement for Global Development
Thursday, January 29
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Cabot Intercultural Center, Cabot 703, 170 Packard Avenue, Medford, MA 02155
RSVP at https://forms.monday.com/forms/13a44083d6ad376da9e579954daef62b?r=use1
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GovScape: Multimodal Search and Discovery for 10+ Million Government PDFs
Thursday, January 29
12:30 pm - 1:30 pm
Harvard Law School, Lewis Hall, 5th floor at the Berkman Klein Center's Multi-Purpose Room 515, 1557 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://hls.harvard.edu/events/govscape-multimodal-search-and-discovery-for-10-million-government-pdfs/
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The Future of Special Education Amid Federal Cuts
Thursday, January 29
3:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://bostonu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_CaSFAJC7SwOZVFdNGoY2hg#/registration
—————
The Death and Life of Gentrification: A New Map of a Persistent Idea
Thursday, January 29
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/japonica-brown-saracino
—————
Expanding Horizons in Computing: AI in Education
Friday, January 30
8:00am to 5:00pm EST
MIT, Building 45 (MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing), 51 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
https://computing.mit.edu/IAP2026
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The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us
Friday, January 30
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue. Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/rebecca-newberger-goldstein
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Inspired by Ice
Monday, February 2
1 PM ET
Online
RSVP at https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2026-inspired-by-ice-virtual
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Reporting on Power and Policy: A conversation with the 2025 Nyhan Prize Honorees
Monday, February 2
1:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_eQo08xAOQ3yaTK_6kYiOWg#/registration
—————
Energy Resilience in a Warming World
Monday, February 2
1:30pm EST [4:30pm to 5:20pm PT]
Stanford, Building 450 Jane Stanford Way, Building 370, Stanford, CA 94305
And online
RSVP at https://events.stanford.edu/event/stanford-energy-seminar-alice-hill-council-foreign-relations
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Alice Hill, Council on Foreign Relations
Monday, February 2
7:30pm EST [4:30pm to 5:20pm PT]
Stanford, Building 370, 450 Jane Stanford Way, Building 370, Stanford, CA 94305
And online
RSVP at https://events.stanford.edu/event/stanford-energy-seminar-alice-hill-council-foreign-relations
—————
Advancing Climate Resilience: NbS, Partnerships, and Indigenous Knowledge
Tuesday, February 3
9am to 4:30pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/advancing-climate-resilience-nbs-partnerships-and-indigenous-knowledge-tickets-1980673415504
—————
Deep Dive Into New Research: Despite ‘Carbon Neutral’ Certifications, Beef Emissions Can Never Be Low
Tuesday, February 3
10:00 - 11:00am EST
Online
RSVP at https://hub.wri.org/events/2026/2/deep-dive-new-research-despite-carbon-neutral-certifications-beef-emissions-can-never
—————
Global Science Sustains U.S. Innovation
Tuesday, February 3
10:00 AM - 11:15 AM ET
Harvard, Perkins Rubenstein 429, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge 02138
And Online
RSVP at https://hksexeced.tfaforms.net/f/registration?e=a4oPp000001SjeLIAS
—————
Monthly Dose of Climate Hope! With Hannah Ritchie
Tuesday, February 3
11am to 12pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/monthly-dose-of-climate-hope-with-hannah-ritchie-tickets-1867333076499
—————
Natural Climate Solutions in Agricultural Landscapes: A Survey of Practices - Dominic Woolf (Cornell University), Biochar
Tuesday, February 3
12 PM – 1 PM EST (GMT-5)
Online
RSVP at https://yaleconnect.yale.edu/env/rsvp_boot?id=2316144
—————
Skating on Thin Ice - The Geopolitics of Greenland and the Arctic
Tuesday, February 3
5pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://wgbh.zoom.us/webinar/register/5817685962979/WN_b4gLjotwSWOeC9YCGP78Bw#/registration
—————
Café Philo: Down to Earth by Bruno Latour
Tuesday, February 3
6 pm to 7:30 pm EST
French Library / Alliance Française of Boston & Cambridge, 53 Marlborough Street, Boston, MA 02116
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cafe-philo-down-to-earth-by-bruno-latour-tickets-1978176594445
Cost: $10-$15
—————
Green Infrastructure Planning & Flood Mapping Climate Social
Tuesday, February 3
6 pm to 8 pm EST
5 Congress Street, Boston, MA 02203
And online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/green-infrastructure-planning-flood-mapping-climate-social-tickets-1979867936294
—————
The Sealed Envelope: Toward an Intelligent Utopia
Tuesday, February 3
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/george-scialabba
—————
Commerce and Conflict
Wednesday, February 4
12:00-1:30pm
MIT, E40-496, 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge, MA 02139
And live-streamed at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG5ooD8Ydk4vd83Ac8VNEoQ
—————
The future of communications regulation with FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty
Wednesday, February 4
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EST
The Brookings Institution, Falk Auditorium, 1775 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, D.C. 20036
And online
RSVP at https://www.brookings.edu/events/the-future-of-communications-regulation-with-fcc-commissioner-olivia-trusty/
—————
The carbon balance of fiery ecosystems: unpacking the role of soils, disturbances and climate solutions
Wednesday, February 4
2pm ET [11:00am - 12:00pm PST]
Stanford, 260 Panama Street, Palo Alto, CA 94305
And online
RSVP at https://carnegiescience.edu/carbon-balance-fiery-ecosystems-unpacking-role-soils-disturbances-and-climate-solutions
—————
Harnessing Nature Data & AI
Wednesday, February 4
6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Online
RSVP at https://www.climate.columbia.edu/events/harnessing-nature-data-ai
—————
Funding Energy & Climate Ventures
Wednesday, February 4
6:00pm to 8:00pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://mit.zoom.us/meeting/register/HcXAQJ6jQGeYcnb31g8P9g#/registration
—————
Ecological City: Art & Climate Solutions
Wednesday, February 4
6:30pm to 8pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ecological-city-art-climate-solutions-panel-discussion-zoom-tickets-1980472729246
—————
Seminar on City-to-City Collaboration for Zero Carbon Society 2026
Wednesday, February 4
8pm ET [10:00-12:30 JST February 5]
ANA CROWNE PLAZA MATSUYAMA, Japan
And online
RSVP at https://crm.iges.or.jp/public/application/add/7886
Deadline: Monday, 2 February 2026, 17:00 JST (for both in-person and online participation)
—————
Exploring Climate Watch
Thursday, February 5
10:00 - 11:00am EST
Online
RSVP at https://hub.wri.org/events/2026/2/exploring-climate-watch
—————
Health Case for a Fossil Fuel Advertising Ban
Thursday, February 5
12pm to 1pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/health-case-for-a-fossil-fuel-advertising-ban-tickets-1977629385729
—————
Will the Most Damaging Wildfire Occur in the East?
Thursday, February 5
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, Multipurpose Room, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://as.tufts.edu/environmentalstudies/news-events/hoch-cunningham-lecture-series#feb5
—————
CIERP Lecture: William Moomaw
Thursday, February 5
12 – 1:30PM
Tufts, Cabot Intercultural Center, Cabot 702, 170 Packard Avenue, Medford, MA 02155
RSVP at https://forms.monday.com/forms/45705aff25a2e6a8e4bf7a70eb08fd85?r=use1
—————
Environment, Atmosphere, Feeling Keynote: Naomi Paik
Thursday, February 5
4pm to 6pm
Northeastern, 716 Columbus Place, 6th Floor, Boston, MA, Boston
More information at https://calendar.northeastern.edu/event/environment-atmosphere-feeling-keynote-naomi-paik
—————
EnergyBar: Looking Ahead Together
Thursday, February 5
5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Greentown Labs,444 Somerville Ave, Somerville, MA 02143
RSVP at https://greentownlabs.com/event/energybar-looking-ahead-together/
—————
A screening of the award-winning documentary Harm in the Water
Thursday, February 5
6:00pm
Modern Theatre, 525 Washington Street, Boston, MA 02111
RSVP at https://ci.ovationtix.com/34432/production/1262617?performanceId=11744384
—————
Designers of Mountain and Water
Thursday, February 5
6:30pm to February 6 at 6pm EST
Harvard University Graduate School Of Design, 48 Quincy Street, Piper Auditorium Cambridge, MA 02138
And online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/designers-of-mountain-and-water-tickets-1976495034855
—————
CEMTF 6th's Virtual Summit Series: Climate, Readiness, Solidarity & Rights for All: UNITED ACTIONS for a Just & Regenerative Future
Friday, February 6
12pm - 3 pm ET [9A-Noon PST]
Online
RSVP at https://bit.ly/4tgyb8C
—————
When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America’s Black Botanical Legacy
Friday, February 6
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
—————
Implementing a Low-Carbon Future: Climate Leadership in Chinese Cities
February 9
12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Princeton, # 300 Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ
And online
RSVP at https://cpree.princeton.edu/events/2026/implementing-low-carbon-future-climate-leadership-chinese-cities
—————
Pop-Propaganda: How the Kremlin Markets Its War Like Disney and Coca-Cola
Monday, February 9
5 – 6:30 p.m.
Harvard, S354, CGIS South, 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/pop-propaganda-how-the-kremlin-markets-its-war-like-disney-coca-cola-tickets-1854434245749
—————
Sustainability Showcase — Sarah Dimick, Book Reading of “Unseasonable”
Monday, February 9
5:30 pm - 7:00 pm EST
Webster’s Bookstore Cafe, 133 E Beaver Avenue, State College, PA 16801
And online
RSVP at https://sustainability.psu.edu/event/sarah-dimick-book-reading/
—————
Gastronomy and Beyond Lecture Series
Tuesday, February 10
12:30pm to 1:30pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://calendar.mit.edu/event/gastronomy-and-beyond-lecture-series-chef-ozoz-sokoh
—————
Securing Peace in Europe After the Cold War: NATO and Russia
Tuesday, February 10
12:30 – 2 p.m.
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ZqDPlFRiSbynyvyPfjknrw#/registration
—————
Myth-Busting Climate Change Webinar
Tuesday, February 10
2:30pm to 3:30pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/myth-busting-climate-change-webinar-tickets-1980083537162
—————
Greeley Lecture: Reconciling the Loss of Indigenous Eden
Tuesday, February 10
5:30 – 7 p.m.
Harvard, Center for the Study of World Religions, Common Room, 42 Francis Ave., Cambridge, MA
And online
RSVP in person at https://harvard.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_42By6XkLAYkSW4m
RSVP online at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_0xb5uEwnRUKGkCx1qp8MTA#/registration
—————
Presidential Visions of Transitional Justice: An American Legacy of Responsibility and Reconciliation
Tuesday, February 10
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
—————
On the Road to 1.3 Trillion- Going Forward How Do We Improve Transparency, Participation and Accountability in Climate Finance?
Wednesday, February 11
10:00 - 11:00am EST
Online
RSVP at https://hub.wri.org/events/2026/2/road-13-trillion-improve-transparency-participation-accountability-climate-finance
—————
New Year, Net Zero: Setting Game Studio Climate Targets With Confidence
Wednesday, February 11
10am to 11am EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/new-year-net-zero-setting-game-studio-climate-targets-with-confidence-tickets-1980002832773
—————
New Weapons between Utopia and Apocalypse: An Intellectual History, 1860s–1970s
Wednesday, February 11
12:00-1:30pm
MIT, E40-496, 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge, MA 02139
And livestreamed at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG5ooD8Ydk4vd83Ac8VNEoQ
—————
Revisiting Peak Water, Peak Grain, And Analogies To Peak Oil Using Boom–Bust Dynamics In Groundwater Sourced Grain Production For The U.S. High Plains
Wednesday, February 11
4:00pm to 5:30pm EST
MIT, Building 1-190, 33 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139
—————
The Mechanics of Public Man-Made Death: USAID’s Destruction At One Year
Wednesday, February 11
4:30 – 6 p.m.
Harvard, Tsai Auditorium (Room S010), CGIS South Building, 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeQezO-7Z1Jp5fdUlNPcymQYjKJoXGifDqp9qxrhk7xXDpyIA/viewform
—————
Devil Put the Coal in the Ground
Wednesday, February 11
7 p.m. (EST)
Online
RSVP at https://sustainability.psu.edu/event/intersections-film-series-devil-put-the-coal-in-the-ground/
—————
Community-Based, Science-Informed Framework for Infrastructure Resilience Under Climate Extremes
Thursday, February 12
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, Multipurpose Room, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://as.tufts.edu/environmentalstudies/news-events/hoch-cunningham-lecture-series#feb12
—————
Call for Social Ventures in Regenerative Agriculture, Water, Climate, & Nature
Thursday, February 12
3pm to 4pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/call-for-social-ventures-in-regen-agriculture-water-climate-nature-tickets-1978650514954
—————
How America Got Into This Mess and How We Recover: Reflections from a Columnist’s Life
Thursday, February 12
4 PM ET
Harvard, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
And online
RSVP at https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2025-david-brooks-conversation
——————
The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots
Thursday, February 12
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM
Boston Public Library, 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02116
RSVP at https://bpl.libcal.com/event/16053102
—————
7th MIT Global Humanities Forum on “PILLAR 5: Environment, Biodiversity & Planetary Stewardship”
Friday, February 13
10:00am to 11:30am EST
Online
RSVP at https://mit.zoom.us/meeting/register/CGiHfwLpTxSAgzCTgqVptw
—————
Masterclass on Artificial Intelligence in Sustainable Finance
Monday, February16 - Thursday, February 19
Online
Application form https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=G96VzPWXk0-0uv5ouFLPkVKZPl5aUUZAuNC9HDb-S51UMDdHSUw4UkQ5MzZDTFpBTklCN0YxNjFRWS4u
—————
Bernie for Burlington
Monday, February 16
7:00pm
Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Coolidge Corner, Brookline, MA 02446-2908
—————
Starr Forum: The Future of US-China Relations
Tuesday, February 17
4:00pm to 5:30pm EST
MIT, E51-115, Wong Auditorium, Tang Center, 2 Amherst St, Cambridge, MA 02142
—————
Tiny Gardens Everywhere: The Past, Present, and Future of the Self-Provisioning City
Tuesday, February 17
7:00pm
Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Coolidge Corner, Brookline, MA 02446-2908
—————
George Washington's Library, Lifelong Learning, and Citizenship
February 18
6:00 PM to 7:00 PM ET
Boston Athenaeum, 10 1/2 Beacon Street, Boston, MA, 02108
—————
Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage
Wednesday, February 18
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
—————
Increased future ocean heat uptake constrained by Antarctic sea ice extent
Thursday, February 19
9am to 9:45am EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/increased-future-ocean-heat-uptake-constrained-by-antarctic-sea-ice-extent-tickets-1864811815339
—————
Covering Climate Across Beats
Thursday, February 19
1 pm ET
Online
RSVP at https://coveringclimatenow.org/event/covering-climate-across-beats/
——————
Chambers Lecture: Breaking the Circle of Poverty with Daniel Germain
Thursday, February 19
4pm
Boston College, Winston Center, Heights Room, Carney Hall, Room 439, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3808
——————
Biography of a Dangerous Idea: A New History of Race from Louis XIV to Thomas Jefferson
Thursday, February 19
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
—————
Politics Without Politicians: The Case for Citizen Rule
Friday, February 20
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
—————
MIT Energy Conference: Securing the Energy Future; Resources for Resilience
Monday, February 23rd–24th, 2026
Cambridge, Massachusetts
RSVP at https://www.mitenergyconference.org/
Cost: $8 - $949
—————
NECSI invitation: Collaborating on solutions to global challenges
Monday, February 23–27
10am - 1pm
Online
RSVP at https://unpolitics.global/meeting2026A/home
—————
Markets for Climate Expertise
Monday, February 23
12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Princeton, #300 Wallace Hall
And online
RSVP at https://cpree.princeton.edu/events/2026/markets-climate-expertise
—————
Can Insurance Help Unlock Investments In Clean Technology?
Tuesday, February 24
10:00AM - 11:00AM
Online
RSVP at https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/events/can-insurance-help-unlock-investments-in-clean-technology/
—————
Age of Deception: Cybersecurity as Secret Statecraft
Wednesday, February 25
12:00-1:30pm
MIT, E40-496, 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge
And livestreamed at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG5ooD8Ydk4vd83Ac8VNEoQ
—————
Born to Flourish
Wednesday, February 25
1 – 2 p.m.
Harvard, FXB G13, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Ave, Boston
And online
RSVP at https://harvard.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_7ZMfB0gs14zVrgi
—————
Teaching 250 Years of Immigration
Wednesday, February 25
4:30-5:30 PM ET
Online
RSVP at https://www.ilctr.org/events/teaching-250-years-of-immigration-webinar/
—————
Can the Ocean Clean Up Our Carbon Mess?
Thursday, February 26
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, Multipurpose Room, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://as.tufts.edu/environmentalstudies/news-events/hoch-cunningham-lecture-series#feb26
—————
Industrial Policy in Action: Lessons from Over a Decade at the DOE
Thursday, February 26
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM ET
Online
RSVP at https://www.hks.harvard.edu/events/industrial-policy-action-lessons-over-decade-doe
—————
Insights to Action: Coastal and Marine Climate Impacts and Adaptation Priorities
Thursday, February 26
1:00 pm
Online
RSVP at https://necasc.umass.edu/webinars/insights-action-coastal-and-marine-climate-impacts-and-adaptation-priorities
—————
MIT Sloan Africa Innovate Conference
Saturday, February 28
MIT, Building E51, Wong Auditorium, 70 MEMORIAL DR, Cambridge, MA 02142
https://mit-africa.com/africa-innovate-conference/
—————
Environmental Justice in the Time of Climate Denial: How frontline communities are organizing and building power as environmental protections are rolled back
Monday, March 2
12:15 pm – 1:15 pmA
Princeton, #300 Wallace Hall
And online
RSVP at https://cpree.princeton.edu/events/2026/environmental-justice-time-climate-denial
—————
A Slightly Better Future
Monday, March 2
3pm ET [6:00 PM PST]
The Commonwealth Club of California, 110 The Embarcadero, Taube Family Auditorium, San Francisco, CA 94105
And online
RSVP at https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2026-03-02/george-hammond-slightly-better-future
Cost: $5
—————
The Stratton Lecture: The Epidemic of Loneliness
Tuesday, March 3
11:30pm - 1:00pm
MIT Wong Auditorium (E51-115), 2 Amherst St, Cambridge, MA 02142
And livestreamed
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/stratton-lecture-the-living-brain-tickets-1980660496864
—————
Climate Change: A Solutions Approach (webinar)
Tuesday, Marcy 3
12pm to 1pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-change-a-solutions-approach-webinar-registration-1936833905349
—————
Amazon Rainforest and Its Soils: The Tipping Point as an Imminent Risk of the Savannization of the System
Wednesday, March 4,
12 PM ET
Online
RSVP at https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2026-mauricio-fontes-fellow-presentation-virtual
—————
Restoring Indigenous Socio-Environmental Systems
Thursday, March 5
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, Multipurpose Room, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://as.tufts.edu/environmentalstudies/news-events/hoch-cunningham-lecture-series#mar5
——————
The Navy We Need: Maritime Dominance in a World of Interlocking Supply Chains
Wednesday, March 4
12:00-1:30pm
MIT, E40-496, 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge 02139
And livestreamed at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG5ooD8Ydk4vd83Ac8VNEoQ
—————
A Political Economy of Inequality and Pandemics
Thursday, March 5
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
BU, Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 67 Bay State Road, Boston, MA
And online
RSVP at https://www.bu.edu/pardee/ghpwspring2026/
—————
10 Year Anniversary of Sustainable Business Network of Massachusetts
Thursday, March 5
6:30 pm to 8:30 pm EST
Nonprofit Center, 89 South Street, Boston, 02111, MA
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2025-26-sustainable-business-of-the-year-awards-tickets-1981005466678
Cost: The tickets are self-selected sliding scale between $50–$120. It will help us cover the cost of dinner and drinks for our guests. Your contribution directly supports SBN’s mission to build a green and fair economy in Massachusetts.
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Events
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Algorithmic Power: The Role of AI in Foreign Policy
Wednesday, January 28
12 – 1:15 p.m.
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_gFgV0OJMQVSdeU9Po2cfSw#/registration
SPEAKER(S) Marc Aidinoff, Faculty Associate; Assistant Professor, Department of the History of Science, Harvard University
Carmem Domingues, AI specialist; former White House Senior AI Technical Advisor
Ofrit Liviatan, Lecturer on Law and Politics, Department of Government, Harvard University
Bruce Schneier, American cryptographer, computer security professional, privacy specialist, and writer; Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
CONTACT INFO Sarah Bansesarahbanse@wcfia.harvard.edu
This forum will explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping global decision making and diplomatic strategy. What are the opportunities—and risks—AI presents as governments increasingly rely on data-driven tools?
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Indigenous History and Law: The Wampanoag Story
Wednesday, January 28
12pm to 1:15pm
Northeastern, Renaissance_Park, 310, 1135 Tremont Street, Boston, MA
And online
RSVP at https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/60bf05c3-35ed-44b4-bcbe-65438d204e1d@a8eec281-aaa3-4dae-ac9b-9a398b9215e7
https://cssh.northeastern.edu/humanities/events/ #Humanities Center, CSSH
In this lecture, Linda Coombs (Aquinnah Wampanoag) will explore how from its "discovery" by Europeans to the first Thanksgiving, the story of America's earliest days has been carefully and deliberately misrepresented. Told from the perspective of the New England Indigenous Nations that these outsiders found when they arrived, Linda Coomb’s latest book provides the true story of how America as we know it today began.
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Shining a Light on Science at COP30
Wednesday, January 28
2:00–3:00 p.m. ET / 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. PT
Online
RSVP at https://secure.ucs.org/a/2026-1-28-shining-light-science-cop30
This past November, world leaders gathered at the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30), with the Brazilian COP President calling for a focus on implementation of actions to address climate change, not just a list of future aspirations.
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) invites you to join a virtual discussion to learn more about our efforts to shine a light on the latest science and what it means for decisionmakers, people, and the planet as we fight for climate justice alongside civil society representatives from Brazil and across the world.
Last year, which marked the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement, took place against the backdrop of sobering scientific news that the world is on the verge of breaching 1.5°C of global warming. And, for the first time ever the US government, historically a major player, did not send any representatives to Brazil. Nevertheless 190+ countries, together with representatives of subnational governments, businesses, Indigenous people, and nongovernmental organizations, were on the ground, committed to forging ahead on climate progress.
The barely adequate outcome salvaged in the final hours of COP30 keeps the Paris Agreement alive but exposes the monumental failures of rich countries—including the United States and European Union nations—to live up to the commitments they made under that agreement.
UCS experts will share reflections on how the negotiations played out and what that means for global climate action going forward, with a focus on climate science, policy, climate justice, climate litigation, and the role of fossil fuel industry and climate disinformation.
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Changing the Conversation: Intro to Effective Climate Change Communication
Wednesday, January 28
3pm to 4pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/changing-the-conversation-intro-to-effective-climate-change-communication-registration-1978197446815
The National Network for Ocean and Climate Change Interpretation (NNOCCI) is a global leader in research-based climate communications.
Trying to communicate climate change, but people just don't seem to respond to your facts and science? As important as knowing the climate science, social science provides evidence-based practices that allow us to communicate climate science more effectively. Please join us on Wednesday, January 28th from 12-1 pm PT / 3-4 pm ET to be introduced to the work of the National Network for Ocean and Climate Change Interpretation (NNOCCI), a collective of nearly 900 climate communicators. In this free webinar, learn how specific values and metaphors make your audience more receptive to climate change messaging and join a community of communicators changing the climate discourse to be more positive, civic-minded, and solutions-focused.
NNOCCI has partnered on dozens of peer-reviewed publications that describe its unique combination of elements for training and highlighting the network's outcomes. NNOCCI is supported through a fiscal sponsorship with The Marine Mammal Center. With more than 15 years of success, NNOCCI is widely recognized as the United States' leading climate change interpretation training program, and recently expanded its work into Canada.
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The Opinionated University: Academic Freedom, Diversity, and the Myth of Neutrality in American Higher Education
Wednesday, January 28
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/brian-soucek
Harvard Book Store welcomes Brian Soucek—Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis—for a discussion of his new book The Opinionated University: Academic Freedom, Diversity, and the Myth of Neutrality in American Higher Education. He will be joined in conversation by Randall Kennedy—Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School.
About The Opinionated University
Why institutional neutrality is nothing but an illusion.
Can a university ever truly be neutral in today’s social and political climate? Pushing against the tide of universities increasingly pledging to stay neutral about contentious issues, law professor Brian Soucek argues that their promises are doomed to fail—universities can’t help being opinionated.
In The Opinionated University, Soucek shows that neutrality is a myth by taking a deep dive into several prominent campus controversies of the day, including diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts and restrictions on campus speech and protest. Each issue requires universities to choose a side in what they do, if not also in what they say. In everything from curricular and admissions decisions to their response to outside rankings and their evaluation of faculty, universities express the values at the heart of their mission. Soucek argues that those pushing for neutrality are only preventing universities from standing up for their values, whether in today’s current moment of crisis or in periods of political calm.
Both timely and deeply engaging, The Opinionated University calls on universities to dispense with neutrality as a governing principle and focus instead on what their mission should be, and who should determine it.
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Accelerating climate adaptation after COP30
Thursday, January 29
6am - 7:30am ET [11.00 AM - 12.30 PM BST]
Online
RSVP at https://www.tickettailor.com/events/cabotinstitutefortheenvironment/1943425
This event is aimed at government reps and academics, but is open to all.
Our climate is changing rapidly and this is already impacting lives and livelihoods all over the planet, particularly through changes in extremes of weather and climate. There is a clear and urgent need to begin adapting our world to the new climate of today and what we might see in future.
Following the outcomes of COP30, the UK Universities Climate Network (UUCN) and the Cabot Institute for the Environment at the University of Bristol are hosting an event to explore how we can accelerate the action that needs to be taken to adapt for a climate resilient future. The event will bring together leading experts in climate adaptation to explore what must happen next: the priorities, trade-offs, and opportunities for accelerating real-world implementation.
Chaired by Dr Alix Dietzel, Associate Director at the Cabot Institute for the Environment and COP Lead at the University of Bristol
Keynote address by Professor Dame Angela McLean, UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser.
Talks from:
Professor Stephen Belcher, Chief Scientist, Met Office
Dr Susannah Fisher, Senior Research Fellow, UCL
Others TBC
Panel discussion featuring:
Prof Emma Tompkins, Professor of Geography, Environment & Development, University of Southampton
Dr Eunice Lo, Senior Research Fellow in Climate Change and Health, Cabot Institute for the Environment, University of Bristol
Professor Jim Hall, Professor of Climate and Environmental Risks, Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford
Agenda
Part 1 – Setting the Scene: The Science and the Stakes
Keynote Address: Professor Dame Angela McLean, UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser
Expert Lightning Talks: Rapid insights from leading voices in adaptation research and policy.
Audience Q&A: Your pre-submitted questions answered by our keynote and speakers.
Short Break
Part 2 – From Insight to Action: What Comes Next?
Panel Discussion: A cross-sector conversation on the opportunities, priorities, and trade-offs shaping adaptation policy and practice after COP30.
Interactive Q&A: Engage directly with our expert panel through a mix of pre-submitted and live questions.
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Stories to Watch 2026
Thursday, January 29
9:00 - 10:30am EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.wri.org/events/2026/1/stories-watch-2026#register
Join our President and CEO, Ani Dasgupta, on Thursday, January 29 for WRI's annual look at the stories that will define the year ahead.
Stories to Watch 2026 will show how well-designed climate action is delivering benefits today. We’ll explore how countries are using the clean energy transition to spark inclusive economic growth, how climate solutions are helping address the cost-of-living and housing crises, and how investment in green jobs is creating opportunity around the world.
Each story will combine insights from WRI experts with on-the-ground videos showing real people and real solutions in action.
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Stockholm Environmental Institute [SEI] Currents 2026
Thursday, January 29
9am - 10 am EST [15:00 CET ending at 16:00 CET]
Online
RSVP at https://www.sei.org/events/sei-currents-2026-event/
Which trends will shape 2026? And what will shape these trends?
Maria Sköld / maria.skold@sei.org
Olesia Polishchuk / olesia.polishchuk@sei.org
SEI hosts its fifth installation of Currents, the webinar exploring the forces that will shape the year ahead. Tune in on 29 January for expert analysis of what 2026 may bring: the major shifts that can be anticipated, and the subtle undercurrents that could steer the world in unexpected directions.
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Building a Grassroots Movement for Global Development
Thursday, January 29
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Cabot Intercultural Center, Cabot 703, 170 Packard Avenue, Medford, MA 02155
RSVP at https://forms.monday.com/forms/13a44083d6ad376da9e579954daef62b?r=use1
Hear from Asher Moss, Executive Director at Alliance For American Leadership and Paul Bolton, Senior Scientist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, on Building a Grassroots Movement for Global Development.
The Alliance for American Leadership is a nonpartisan coalition working to strengthen global aid and restore American leadership on the world stage. Its team spans all 50 states and works to engage lawmakers and the public in support of aid programs that fight poverty, strengthen alliances, and boost America's economy.
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GovScape: Multimodal Search and Discovery for 10+ Million Government PDFs
Thursday, January 29
12:30 pm - 1:30 pm
Harvard Law School, Lewis Hall, 5th floor at the Berkman Klein Center's Multi-Purpose Room 515, 1557 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://hls.harvard.edu/events/govscape-multimodal-search-and-discovery-for-10-million-government-pdfs/
Please join Kyle Deeds and Benjamin Lee as they share the debut of GovScape, a new tool that offers an unparalleled opportunity to study the history of the 21st century through the End of Term Web Archive. GovScape’s co-founders will discuss its development, as well as its ability to transform search of government data.
This event will take place in the Multi-Purpose Rooms 514/515 at The Lewis International Law Center from 12:30-1:30PM on Thursday, January 29th. Lunch will be served 11:30-12:30 and will be provided with R.S.V.P.
Please fill out the R.S.V.P. form no later than the morning of Monday, January 26, 2026 to register.
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The Future of Special Education Amid Federal Cuts
Thursday, January 29
3:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://bostonu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_CaSFAJC7SwOZVFdNGoY2hg#/registration
Join us for a timely conversation on the future of special education as federal funding and oversight face unprecedented challenges. Marking 50 years since the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), this webinar brings together researchers, educators, and advocates to explore what’s at risk—and what educators can do to protect equitable access for all learners. Featuring: Elizabeth Bettini, Associate Professor Special Education, BU Wheelock Lindsey Chapman, Senior Lecturer and Director of the Special Education Program, BU Wheelock Kathryn Meyer (SSW'14, Wheelock'15,'24) Postdoctoral Associate, Binghamton University
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The Death and Life of Gentrification: A New Map of a Persistent Idea
Thursday, January 29
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/japonica-brown-saracino
Harvard Book Store welcomes Japonica Brown-Saracino—news commentator and award-winning author of A Neighborhood that Never Changes and How Places Make Us—for a discussion of her latest book The Death and Life of Gentrification: A New Map of a Persistent Idea. She will be joined in conversation by Rachel Weber—Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and award-winning author of From Boom to Bubble: How Finance Built the New Chicago.
About The Death and Life of Gentrification
A provocative account of what is gained and what is lost when a word that once narrowly referred to neighborhood change takes on a life all its own.
Sociologist Ruth Glass coined the term gentrification in the 1960s to mark the displacement of working-class residents in London neighborhoods by the professional classes. The Death and Life of Gentrification traces how the word has far outgrown Glass’s meaning, becoming a socially charged metaphor for cultural appropriation, upscaling, and the loss of authenticity.
In this lively and insightful book, Japonica Brown-Saracino traces how a concept originally intended to describe the brick-and-mortar transformation of neighborhoods has come to characterize transformations that have little to do with cities. She describes how journalists, artists, filmmakers, novelists, and academics use gentrification as a symbolic device to mourn how everyday pleasures and forms of self-expression—from music to marijuana, kale, and tattoos—entered the domain of the elite. She weighs the implications of turning to gentrification as a tool to tell stories, entertain audiences, and communicate political messages. Relying on vivid examples, the book reveals how the term today expresses widespread ambivalence about rising economic inequality and unease with a variety of forms of social change. This pathbreaking book forces us to think about whether the wide-ranging way we use gentrification dilutes its meaning and stymies efforts to identify and resist urban displacement.
Drawing on everything from film and television to novels and art, The Death and Life of Gentrification sheds critical light on the changing meaning of gentrification in contemporary life. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in gentrification and urban dynamics, as well as for readers curious about attitudes about growing income inequality and the evolution and circulation of ideas.
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Expanding Horizons in Computing: AI in Education
Friday, January 30
8:00am to 5:00pm EST
MIT, Building 45 (MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing), 51 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
https://computing.mit.edu/IAP2026
Gain a deeper understanding of the applications and impact of AI in education. This session is part of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing’s Expanding Horizons in Computing IAP series, which explores key topics in computing and artificial intelligence.
Agenda
8:00–9:00 am | Breakfast & Gather
9:00–9:10 am | Welcome
Sam Madden, Faculty Head of Computer Science, EECS; College of Computing Distinguished Professor
Eric Klopfer, Professor and Director, Scheller Teacher Education Program and Education Arcade
9:10–10:10 am | AI as TA: Teaching With AI in Intro to Machine Learning
Shen Shen, Lecturer, EECS
10:10–10:40 am | Use of AI in MIT Language Programs
Per Urlaub, Director, Global Languages; Professor of the Practice of German and Second Language Studies
10:40–11:00 am | Break
11:00–11:30 am | Use of AI in the MIT Writing Program
Michael Trice, Lecturer, Writing, Rhetoric and Professional Communication
11:30–12:00 pm | Experiences With AI in the Software Engineering Capstone
Daniel Jackson, Professor of Computer Science, EECS
12:00-12:45 pm | Break for Lunch
12:45–2:00 pm | Panel: How Does AI Affect How We Learn?
Eric Klopfer, Professor and Director, Scheller Teacher Education Program and Education Arcade
Eric So, Sloan Distinguished Professor of Global Economics and Behavioral Science
Antonio Torralba, Faculty Head of Artificial Intelligence and Decision-Making; Delta Electronics Professor, EECS
Melissa Webster, Senior Lecturer, Managerial Communication, MIT Sloan School of Management
2:00–2:15 pm | Break
2:15–2:45 pm | Navigating Teaching and Assessing Student Learning in the GenAI Era
Lourdes Aleman, Associate Director, MIT Teaching + Learning Lab
2:45–3:45 pm | Breakout Session
3:45–4:00 pm | Break
4:00–5:00 pm | Closing Discussion
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The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us
Friday, January 30
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue. Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/rebecca-newberger-goldstein
Harvard Book Store welcomes Rebecca Newberger Goldstein—award-winning philosopher, writer, and public intellectual, and author of ten books of acclaimed fiction and non-fiction, including 36 Arguments for the Existence of God—for a discussion of her new book The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us. She will be joined in conversation by Steven Pinker―acclaimed author and the Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University.
About The Mattering Instinct
A paradigm-shifting work that explores humanity’s most fundamental desire.
MacArthur Fellow and National Humanities Medalist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of Plato at the Googleplex and The Mind-Body Problem, returns with a revelatory book about the primal drive that in our species alone has been transformed into one of our most persistent and universal motivations: the longing to matter.
Drawing on biology, psychology, and philosophy, Goldstein argues that this need to matter—and the various “mattering projects” it inspires—is the source of our greatest progress and our deepest conflicts: the very crux of the human experience.
Goldstein brings this profound idea to life through unforgettable stories of famous and not-so-famous people pursuing their unique mattering projects: the ragtime genius Scott Joplin, whose dedication to his ignored masterpiece, Treemonisha, ended in tragedy; the pioneering psychologist William James, who rose above the depression of his young adulthood to become perhaps the first great theorist of mattering; an impoverished Chinese woman who rescued abandoned newborns from the trash; and a neo-Nazi skinhead who as a young man dealt racial violence to feel he mattered but ultimately renounced that hateful past after realizing that mattering isn’t a zero-sum game. These portraits illuminate how our instinct for significance shapes identity, relationships, culture, and conflict—and they point the way to a future where we all might see that there is, fundamentally, enough mattering to go around.
Deeply revealing and insightful, and decades in the making, The Mattering Instinct is a must read for those curious about why we seek to matter to ourselves and others—and how this insatiable longing that drives us apart may be the key to finally understanding each other.
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Inspired by Ice
Monday, February 2
1 PM ET
Online
RSVP at https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2026-inspired-by-ice-virtual
Floods Splintering Earth's Ice Sheets Glaciers: Meanings and Mythologies
Drawings and prints, as well as sound and music, convey complicated interpretations of ice, environmental history, glaciology, and cultural survival. This event explores the evocative power of art to help us understand the multifaceted impacts of climate change on Arctic communities worldwide.
As climate change remakes the planet, icescapes constitute crucial sites of examination. This program is the second in a two-part series of one-hour webinars offered by Harvard Radcliffe Institute focused on “Ice Humanities.”
Our paired programs explore the cultural, creative, and social dimensions of environmental ice in a time of rapid change and decay. Speakers will connect science and geography with art, music, photography, and history to help us better understand and contextualize the climate crisis.
Speakers
Matthew Burtner, composer, Eleanor Shea Professor of Music, Department of Music, University of Virginia; codirector, Coastal Future Conservatory
Isabelle Gapp, assistant professor, Department of Art History, School of Divinity, History, Philosophy & Art History, University of Aberdeen (Scotland); codirector, The Centre for the North
Moderator
William Cheng RI ‘23, chair and professor of music, Dartmouth College
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Reporting on Power and Policy: A conversation with the 2025 Nyhan Prize Honorees
Monday, February 2
1:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_eQo08xAOQ3yaTK_6kYiOWg#/registration
The Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School is proud to announce the recipients of the 2025 David Nyhan Prizes for Public Policy Journalism. These honors celebrate journalists whose compelling reporting elevates public understanding of policy, politics, and the impact of government on people’s lives—especially those often left unheard by the halls of power. This year’s honorees are recognized for work that not only exposes how decisions are made, but also helps audiences see their own daily realities in relation to public policy choices.
Judd Legum: David Nyhan Prize for Public Policy Journalism Praised as “timely, fearless, and factual,” Judd Legum is the founder and author of Popular Information, an independent newsletter dedicated to accountability journalism. Trained as a lawyer and steeped in practical political experience, Legum has built a model of journalism that combines meticulous investigative reporting with clear, accessible explanations of how power operates—and who benefits.
Samantha Maldonado: David Nyhan Emerging Talent Journalism Prize Samantha Maldonado, winner of the 2025 David Nyhan Emerging Talent Journalism Prize, is a senior reporter at THE CITY, a digital, nonprofit newsroom serving New Yorkers. She covers climate, housing, and politics in New York City—beats that sit at the intersection of daily life and long-term public policy. Her colleagues praise her as a “persistent” and “relentless” reporter with a “deep commitment to showing non-experts how policy decisions shape the world they live in.” The judges were impressed with her clear-eyed reporting on people in power, and her intuition for finding the heart of a story. About the Prize Named in honor of the late David Nyhan—respected Boston Globe columnist and tireless champion of the public good—the Nyhan Prizes honor journalists who go beyond the horserace and power plays of political reporting.
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Energy Resilience in a Warming World
Monday, February 2
1:30pm EST [4:30pm to 5:20pm PT]
Stanford, Building 450 Jane Stanford Way, Building 370, Stanford, CA 94305
And online
RSVP at https://events.stanford.edu/event/stanford-energy-seminar-alice-hill-council-foreign-relations
Alice Hill, Council on Foreign Relations
Climate change isn't just threatening our energy systems, it's already breaking them. Extreme weather and other climate hazards are straining generation, transmission, and supply infrastructure, triggering cascading failures across the grid. This talk reveals the scale of our growing vulnerabilities and explores how they collide with surging energy demand. And most importantly, it will discuss solutions that can protect our power in a warming world.
Alice C. Hill is the David M. Rubenstein senior fellow for energy and the environment at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is an expert on the risks, consequences, and responses associated with climate change and the author of The Fight for Climate After COVID-19 and co-author of Building a Resilient Tomorrow. Hill’s work draws on a unique blend of experience spanning service in the White House and the Department of Homeland Security, as well as her earlier career as a federal prosecutor and judge. As part of a distinguished legal career, Hill received one of the U.S. Department of Justice’s highest awards—the John Marshall Award for Outstanding Legal Achievement.
During the Obama administration, Hill served as special assistant to the President and senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council, where she led the development of policy addressing national security and climate change, including the first federal flood risk standard and national wildfire standard for federal buildings. Prior to joining the White House, Hill served as senior counselor to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. She developed the department’s first-ever climate adaptation plan and the internationally recognized anti-human trafficking initiative, the Blue Campaign.
Prior to joining CFR, Hill was a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, where her work focused on catastrophic risk and our responses. Earlier in her career, Hill served as supervising judge on both the Superior and Municipal Courts in Los Angeles and as chief of the white-collar crime prosecution unit in the Los Angeles U.S. Attorney’s office.
Hill’s work is published widely in journals and newspapers, and she is a frequent commentator on TV, podcasts, and radio. In 2020, Yale University and the Op-Ed Project awarded her the Public Voices Fellowship on the Climate Crisis.
Hill serves on the boards of Munich Re North America and the Environmental Defense Fund. She also serves on the advisory boards of the Center for Climate and Security, Climate Crisis Advisory Group, Insurance for Good, International Military Council on Climate and Security, One Concern, National Parks Conservation Association, Project CASA, and University of Washington Climate Risk Lab.
Alice is currently a Visiting Policy Fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University.
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Alice Hill, Council on Foreign Relations
Monday, February 2
7:30pm EST [4:30pm to 5:20pm PT]
Stanford, Building 370, 450 Jane Stanford Way, Building 370, Stanford, CA 94305
And online
RSVP at https://events.stanford.edu/event/stanford-energy-seminar-alice-hill-council-foreign-relations
The Stanford Energy Seminar has been a mainstay of energy engagement at Stanford for nearly 20 years and is one of the flagship programs of the Precourt Institute for Energy. We aim to bring a wide variety of perspectives to the Stanford community – academics, entrepreneurs, utilities, non-profits, and more.
Alice C. Hill is the David M. Rubenstein senior fellow for energy and the environment at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is an expert on the risks, consequences, and responses associated with climate change and the author of The Fight for Climate After COVID-19 and co-author of Building a Resilient Tomorrow. Hill’s work draws on a unique blend of experience spanning service in the White House and the Department of Homeland Security, as well as her earlier career as a federal prosecutor and judge. As part of a distinguished legal career, Hill received one of the U.S. Department of Justice’s highest awards—the John Marshall Award for Outstanding Legal Achievement.
During the Obama administration, Hill served as special assistant to the President and senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council, where she led the development of policy addressing national security and climate change, including the first federal flood risk standard and national wildfire standard for federal buildings. Prior to joining the White House, Hill served as senior counselor to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. She developed the department’s first-ever climate adaptation plan and the internationally recognized anti-human trafficking initiative, the Blue Campaign.
Prior to joining CFR, Hill was a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, where her work focused on catastrophic risk and our responses. Earlier in her career, Hill served as supervising judge on both the Superior and Municipal Courts in Los Angeles and as chief of the white-collar crime prosecution unit in the Los Angeles U.S. Attorney’s office.
Hill’s work is published widely in journals and newspapers, and she is a frequent commentator on TV, podcasts, and radio. In 2020, Yale University and the Op-Ed Project awarded her the Public Voices Fellowship on the Climate Crisis.
Hill serves on the boards of Munich Re North America and the Environmental Defense Fund. She also serves on the advisory boards of the Center for Climate and Security, Climate Crisis Advisory Group, Insurance for Good, International Military Council on Climate and Security, One Concern, National Parks Conservation Association, Project CASA, and University of Washington Climate Risk Lab.
Alice is currently a Visiting Policy Fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University.
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Advancing Climate Resilience: NbS, Partnerships, and Indigenous Knowledge
Tuesday, February 3
9am to 4:30pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/advancing-climate-resilience-nbs-partnerships-and-indigenous-knowledge-tickets-1980673415504
Join us for a full-day event bringing together climate and development practitioners for a day of learning, exchange, and dialogue.
As part of the 36th International Development Week, this event highlights this year’s theme, Prosperity through Partnership, and the role of collaboration in advancing climate and development action.
English and French interpretation will be provided.
This national knowledge-sharing event is hosted by Aga Khan Foundation Canada (AKFC), in partnership with Global Affairs Canada (GAC), as part of the Government of Canada’s Partnering for Climate initiative and the Nature and Climate Community of Practice.
Throughout the day, participants will engage in high-level panels, interactive discussions, and facilitated breakout sessions focused on advancing inclusive and effective climate change adaptation.
Please note: While in-person participation is reserved for registered Community of Practice members, the virtual public audience is invited to observe and take part in key learning moments from the day.
Sessions:Morning Session: Opportunities and challenges for nature-based finance and partnerships
The morning session will explore how nature-based solutions can be connected to carbon and nature revenue streams, value chains, blended finance, and private-sector partnerships. Participants joining online will also take part in facilitated breakout discussions with other virtual attendees, creating space for shared reflection, exchange of perspectives, and collaborative learning.
Afternoon Session: Insights from Indigenous partnerships and knowledge sharing
In the afternoon, programming will resume with a panel focused on Indigenous partnerships, program design, and governance in nature-based solutions. The day will also feature the formal launch of the Global Affairs Canada-funded report, Working with Knowledge Holders to Advance Inclusive and Equitable Nature and Climate Initiatives.
The event offers a meaningful opportunity to engage with emerging ideas, lessons learned, and Indigenous approaches shaping inclusive and effective climate and nature initiatives.
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Deep Dive Into New Research: Despite ‘Carbon Neutral’ Certifications, Beef Emissions Can Never Be Low
Tuesday, February 3
10:00 - 11:00am EST
Online
RSVP at https://hub.wri.org/events/2026/2/deep-dive-new-research-despite-carbon-neutral-certifications-beef-emissions-can-never
New “sustainable” beef options are flooding the market — but how much difference do they really make?
In this webinar, we unpack findings from new WRI research on beef’s climate and environmental impacts. We’ll explore why there’s no such thing as climate-friendly beef, and why it remains difficult to source verifiably lower-impact beef in the U.S. and Europe.
We’ll also discuss what food companies and purchasers can realistically do today — and over time — to reduce beef-related emissions, including why reducing overall beef consumption remains the most reliable climate lever.
Join us for a practical, evidence-based discussion on the opportunities to strengthen beef supply chain sustainability, reduce emissions, and minimize tradeoffs where possible.
Speakers:
Raychel Santo, Senior Food and Climate Research Associate in WRI's Food, Land & Water Program
Clara Cho, Data Lead for the Coolfood Program in WRI's Food, Land & Water Program
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Global Science Sustains U.S. Innovation
Tuesday, February 3
10:00 AM - 11:15 AM ET
Harvard, Perkins Rubenstein 429, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge 02138
And Online
RSVP at https://hksexeced.tfaforms.net/f/registration?e=a4oPp000001SjeLIAS
In this Academic Research Seminar, Chris Ross Esposito uncovers the structure of the U.S. knowledge supply chain by tracing multi-generational citation paths that connect NSF-funded research to downstream patents, and assess its fragility by simulating barriers that impede the flow of scientific knowledge across the U.S. border.Speaker: Christopher Ross Esposito, Osborne Postdoctoral Fellow in the Strategy Unit at UCLA’s Anderson School of ManagementWhether attending in person or virtually, please register in advance. Room attendance is permitted for the Harvard community. The Zoom session is open to the public.Paper Abstract: Like physical products, new technologies are developed using globally sourced inputs. But while the supply chains behind physical goods are well understood, we know far less about the international ”supply chain” of scientific knowledge that powers U.S. innovation—and how vulnerable it may be to disruption. Here, I uncover the structure of the U.S. knowledge supply chain by tracing multi-generational citation paths that connect NSF-funded research to downstream patents, and assess its fragility by simulating barriers that impede the flow of scientific knowledge across the U.S. border. The results reveal that U.S. innovation is deeply reliant on foreign science: 56% of the intermediary papers linking NSF research to patents are produced outside the United States. Cross-border restrictions reduce the connectivity of these paths, increase their length, and lower innovation productivity, as measured by the U.S. patent-to-publication ratio. Most consequentially, such restrictions strand promising knowledge trajectories outside the U.S.: I estimate there are 104,149 NSF-stimulated paths currently under development outside the U.S. Under the status quo, 67,965 are projected to return to the U.S. for patenting. However, under scientific autarky, virtually none would, representing a loss of approximately $10.7 billion in invested capital. These impacts also affect U.S. firms that are critical to national priorities, including innovation, energy, and security. For example, autarky reduces outstanding path capture at Microsoft, ExxonMobil, and Lockheed Martin by between 48% and 57%.Speaker Bio: Christopher Ross Esposito is the Osborne Postdoctoral Fellow in the Strategy Unit at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, where he is also associated with the Price Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Previously, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago and completed a PhD at UCLA in Geography. Chris uses computational and econometric methods to examine key issues in scientific and technological innovation, including the global dynamics and geopolitical consequences of China’s expanding leadership in science, the drivers of the innovative capacities of cities, and the effects of knowledge obsolescence on the organization of the innovation economy. While grounded in theoretical inquiry, his research generates critical insights for organizational innovation strategy and public policy at the national and metropolitan levels.
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Monthly Dose of Climate Hope! With Hannah Ritchie
Tuesday, February 3
11am to 12pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/monthly-dose-of-climate-hope-with-hannah-ritchie-tickets-1867333076499
Get your monthly dose of climate hope with data scientist Hannah Ritchie— one of the world’s clearest and most hopeful voices on climate!
Come learn from Hannah Ritchie, a leading environmental data scientist who transforms complex climate data into clear, hopeful insights!
When it comes to climate change, doom-and-gloom stories are everywhere. But there's another story unfolding, too— those of dedicated changemakers, game-changing technological innovations, and smart policies that are already reshaping the future for the better!
For this February's Dose of Climate Hope, you'll learn from Hannah Ritchie, one of the world’s most inspiring data-driven voices on climate and sustainability. As Deputy Editor and Science Outreach Lead at Our World in Data and author of Not the End of the World, Hannah uses data-backed insights to show that a sustainable future is more possible than most people realize.
In conversation with Sam Matey, Editor-in-Chief at Climate Action Now, Hannah will unpack the numbers behind humanity’s progress on energy, food, and the environment—and explore how facts can fuel the next wave of climate action.
Come learn from Hannah, bring your questions, and leave with renewed optimism—because there is climate hope, and it’s backed by data!
About Our Featured Expert
Hannah Ritchie is a leading environmental data scientist and writer who works at the intersection of environmental change, technology and global development. She serves as Deputy Editor and Science Outreach Lead at Our World in Data, and she is a Senior Researcher in the Programme for Global Development at the University of Oxford. Dr. Ritchie focuses on long-term changes in the environment – energy, pollution, agriculture, food supply – and their compatibility with global development. She completed her Ph.D. in GeoSciences at the University of Edinburgh, and has authored two deeply hopeful books: Not the End of the World, and Clearing the Air. You can find more of her writing on her Substack Sustainability by Numbers, and she also co-hosts the Solving for Climatepodcast with Rob Stewart.
About Our Interviewer
Sam Matey is Editor-In-Chief at Climate Action Now and authors Your Daily Dose of Climate Hope, a Substack newsletter. Sam wears many hats as a climate journalist, environmental scientist, data scientist, and GIS analyst. Sam is also the author of The Weekly Anthropocene, a weekly Substack newsletter on progress towards a better relationship between humanity and our biosphere.
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Natural Climate Solutions in Agricultural Landscapes: A Survey of Practices - Dominic Woolf (Cornell University), Biochar
Tuesday, February 3
12 PM – 1 PM EST (GMT-5)
Online
RSVP at https://yaleconnect.yale.edu/env/rsvp_boot?id=2316144
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Skating on Thin Ice - The Geopolitics of Greenland and the Arctic
Tuesday, February 3
5pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://wgbh.zoom.us/webinar/register/5817685962979/WN_b4gLjotwSWOeC9YCGP78Bw#/registration
As climate changes accelerate and global power dynamics shift, the Arctic is emerging as one of the most strategically contested regions on earth. Greenland now sits at the center of a geopolitical chess game involving the U.S, China, Russia, and Europe.
Due to the polar ice caps melting at such an unprecedented rate, new shipping routes are being created, vast mineral resources are being exposed and military and economic priorities of world powers are being reshaped. Simultaneously, Greenlanders are navigating questions surrounding their own autonomy, national identity and future development.
America’s recent intervention in Venezuela has turned world attention to other regions of the globe where strategic competition is rife and the Arctic is at the top of that list. The same forces driving tensions in South America - rich mineral resources, strategic one-upmanship, and shifting trade and military alliances - are now flaring in the far north.
Cambridge Forum brings together Arctic geopolitical specialists to explore the key issues at stake in this rapidly changing territory. How are global powers positioning themselves? How will Greenland safeguard its future? And how will climate, resources, alliances and sovereignty shape the Arctic’s next chapter?S.gif
Kenneth R. Rosen is author of a Polar War: Submarines, Spies, and the Struggle for Power in a Melting Arctic.
He is the recipient of a Kurt Schork Award in International Journalism and the Bayeux-Calvados Award for War Correspondents, a two-time finalist for the Livingston Award for his work in Syria and Iraq, and an Ira A. Lipman Fellow at Columbia University. He is also the author of Troubled and Bulletproof Vest, and his writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The NYT, The Atlantic, and WIRED. He divides his time between Western Massachusetts and Italy.
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Heather A. Conley is a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, specializing in transatlantic security and Arctic geopolitics. She previously served as president of the German Marshall Fund and held senior roles at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the U.S. State Department. Conley is known for her work on the Kremlin Playbook series and her research on great‑power competition in the Arctic. Her analysis has appeared in major outlets, and she is a frequent commentator on national media. She holds an MA from Johns Hopkins SAIS and a BA from West Virginia Wesleyan College.
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Jennifer Moore is GBH News' Statewide & Features Editor. A graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, she spent five years in the Persian Gulf region as a freelance journalist contributing to NPR and as a fixer for CNN-International. She worked as a reporter for the NPR station in the Ozarks, KSMU Radio, before serving as news director there during the pandemic. She’s a contracted freelancer for The New York Times and NPR. Her reporting has earned multiple regional and national awards, including a national Edward R. Murrow Award for writing, the Excellence in Legal Journalism award from The Missouri Bar, and the Honorable Mention for the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting from Syracuse University.
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Café Philo: Down to Earth by Bruno Latour
Tuesday, February 3
6 pm to 7:30 pm EST
French Library / Alliance Française of Boston & Cambridge, 53 Marlborough Street, Boston, MA 02116
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cafe-philo-down-to-earth-by-bruno-latour-tickets-1978176594445
Cost: $10-$15
Explore how philosophy and ecology help us rethink life on a shared planet.
What does it really mean to “live on Earth” today?
Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime is one of Bruno Latour’s most accessible and provocative books.
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Green Infrastructure Planning & Flood Mapping Climate Social
Tuesday, February 3
6 pm to 8 pm EST
5 Congress Street, Boston, MA 02203
And online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/green-infrastructure-planning-flood-mapping-climate-social-tickets-1979867936294
Join us virtually via Zoom or in-person for an open house on the Boston Community-Based Flood Resilience project!
Join us to hear from the Boston Community-Based Flood Resilience project team and community partners. Learn how the results of our Boston Flood Survey are being used, get access to local resources, and explore the updated flood viewer tool.
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The Sealed Envelope: Toward an Intelligent Utopia
Tuesday, February 3
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/george-scialabba
Harvard Book Store welcomes George Scialabba—award-winning critic and essayist, and author of the memoir How To Be Depressed and the essay collection Only a Voice—for a discussion of his new essay collection The Sealed Envelope: Toward an Intelligent Utopia. He will be joined in conversation by Erik Baker—College Fellow at Harvard University and author of Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America.
About The Sealed Envelope
An award-winning author argues for the necessity of cultural critics and intellectuals to American democracy.
This incisive collection of essays investigates the moral imagination of modernism and our intellectual and political inheritance. George Scialabba offers a series of portraits of, and arguments with, American and European thinkers of the past hundred years, ranging from conservatives such as John Gray, William Buckley, and Jonathan Haidt to radicals such as Dwight Macdonald, Christopher Hitchens, and Bill McKibben.
In our moment of democracy under siege, with intellectual work popularly derided as only for “elites,” Scialabba champions such thinkers as Richard Rorty, Barbara Ehrenreich, and Christopher Lasch, with their emphasis on democratic political culture and their faith in the capacities of ordinary people and the importance of intellectual work. This collection passes on these values “in a sealed envelope,” as Rilke says of love between selfish lovers, for future generations to use in crafting their own “intelligent utopia.”
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Commerce and Conflict
Wednesday, February 4
12:00-1:30pm
MIT, E40-496, 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge, MA 02139
And live-streamed at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG5ooD8Ydk4vd83Ac8VNEoQ
Sebastian Rosato, University of Notre Dame
Summary: What is the relationship between commerce and conflict in international affairs? In this seminar, Professor Rosato will present his research that shows great powers have a powerful incentive to use force in order to establish or maintain commercial relations because commerce — trade and investment — is a source of power and security. Whether or not they act on their incentives is largely a function of the balance of military capabilities between them and their targets. The theory offers a simple explanation for the course of three multilateral great-power competitions: the Great Game (1830-1907); the Scramble for Africa (1870-1914); and the Scramble for China (1832-1945).
Bio: Sebastian Rosato is Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame, where he is also a fellow of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, and the Nanovic Institute for European Studies. He is the author of Europe United: Power Politics and the Making of the European Community (Cornell, 2011), Intentions in Great Power Politics: Uncertainty and the Roots of Conflict (Yale, 2021), and How States Think: The Rationality of Foreign Policy (Yale 2023) (with John Mearsheimer). He has also published scholarly articles in several journals, including the American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, International Security, Perspectives on Politics, and Security Studies.
Professor Rosato has been a fellow at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University, and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. He is also the recipient of major research grants from the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, the Earhart Foundation, and the Charles Koch Foundation, as well as a fellowship from the Norwegian Nobel Institute.
Professor Rosato has also won two teaching awards. He received the Morton Grodzins Prize Lectureship when he was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, and he won the Reverend Edmund P. Joyce Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at Notre Dame in 2013. He received a B.A. (Honors) in History from Cambridge University, an M.Phil. in International Relations from Oxford University, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago. Before attending graduate school, he worked for Goldman Sachs in London.
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The future of communications regulation with FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty
Wednesday, February 4
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EST
The Brookings Institution, Falk Auditorium, 1775 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, D.C. 20036
And online
RSVP at https://www.brookings.edu/events/the-future-of-communications-regulation-with-fcc-commissioner-olivia-trusty/
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is the federal agency responsible for regulating our networks and communications, including broadband, infrastructure, space, and media. In January 2025, Olivia Trusty was nominated by President Donald J. Trump to serve as FCC commissioner. After being confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Commissioner Trusty began her term in June 2025. Alongside her peers, Commissioner Trusty will be instrumental in advancing the resiliency of existing and future networks, the future of media, and efforts that ensure communications accessibility to all Americans, especially as Congress begins to engage in universal service reform.
On February 4, the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings will host a fireside chat with FCC Commissioner Trusty to discuss her outlook on the agency in 2026, the priorities of the agency, and the aspirations for communications policies under her leadership.
This event will be open to attend in person or watch online. Online viewers can submit questions via e-mail to events@brookings.edu.
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The carbon balance of fiery ecosystems: unpacking the role of soils, disturbances and climate solutions
Wednesday, February 4
2pm ET [11:00am - 12:00pm PST]
Stanford, 260 Panama Street, Palo Alto, CA 94305
And online
RSVP at https://carnegiescience.edu/carbon-balance-fiery-ecosystems-unpacking-role-soils-disturbances-and-climate-solutions
Shifting fire regimes are reshaping ecosystems and driving significant changes in global carbon cycling. However, predicting these trajectories remains challenging due to divergent fire trends—increasing in some regions while declining in others—and the varying vulnerability of different landscapes. In this talk, I analyze the response of soil organic carbon (SOC), the primary carbon reservoir in fire-prone ecosystems, which often exhibits complex and contradictory responses to burning. First, I evaluate the mechanisms driving fire-induced changes in mineral soil carbon; using a network of multi-decadal fire manipulation experiments in savanna-grasslands, I contrast the influence of vegetation dynamics against the physicochemical properties of the soil. Second, I examine how evolving fire regimes are currently altering ecosystem carbon balances via their effects on soils, with a specific focus on the vulnerability of global peatlands. Finally, I discuss the management complexities of utilizing soils as nature-based climate solutions within these fiery landscapes.
Adam Pellegrini is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth System Science at Stanford University. Prior to joining Stanford, Adam was a faculty at the University of Cambridge. He received his PhD from Princeton University in 2016, and then was a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford, receiving a NOAA Climate and Global Change fellowship and a USDA NIFA fellowship. His research spans an array of topics but is centered around understanding ecosystem functioning, namely how biogeochemical cycles respond to disturbances, and what this might mean for the trajectory of climate change.
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Harnessing Nature Data & AI
Wednesday, February 4
6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Online
RSVP at https://www.climate.columbia.edu/events/harnessing-nature-data-ai
Decision-makers and practitioners across sectors increasingly depend on high-quality biodiversity and environmental data to meet management and reporting mandates of global biodiversity and sustainability frameworks and for financial and investment decisions. This online event brings together two leaders in biodiversity data analytics from the nonprofit and financial sectors who apply data, geospatial analytics, and emerging AI tools to inform decision-making. Through a moderated conversation with the director of the M.S. in Biodiversity Data Analytics program, they will share how biodiversity data is shaping financial and conservation decisions. Speakers will discuss the rapid evolution of nature-related datasets and data acquisition and processing technologies, and how AI is transforming and advancing decision workflows.
They will also highlight the challenges: data gaps, uncertainty, transparency, and the growing expectation that organizations demonstrate credible, science-based nature metrics.
The event will conclude with a discussion of the skills and training needed for the next generation of biodiversity and nature data professionals, and how the new M.S. in Biodiversity Data Analytics program prepares students to meet this emerging demand.
Speakers / Presenters:
Moderator:
Viorel Popescu, Lecturer and Director of MS Program in Biodiversity Data Analytics, School of Professional Studies.
Panel:
Carly Batist, Nature Tech and AI Innovation Manager, Conservation International.
Gillian Mollod, Senior Principal Product Manager, Intercontinental Exchange.
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Funding Energy & Climate Ventures
Wednesday, February 4
6:00pm to 8:00pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://mit.zoom.us/meeting/register/HcXAQJ6jQGeYcnb31g8P9g#/registration
Getting Started. Getting Funded.
This event is for early-stage and aspiring entrepreneurs in the climate, energy, and sustainability sectors. The panel session will offer funder perspectives on building a comprehensive capital stack across the venture lifecycle—from pre-seed non-dilutive grants and angel investment to institutional venture capital, strategic investors, and potential growth-stage debt.
The panel will include a candid State of Funding discussion focused on today’s climate tech investment environment, exploring how current market conditions are shaping fundraising and what climate tech founders can do to succeed in this time. Panelists will share best practices for articulating a phased financing strategy that aligns capital needs with venture milestones and investor expectations.
With participation by government and venture capital executives, most with founding and operating experience, the session will provide real-world insights on funders, vehicles, timing, and fit. While focused on climate, energy, and sustainability ventures, entrepreneurs from all sectors are welcome to join.
Please register today and join us on February 4 at 6 PM ET. This session will focus on climate, energy, and sustainability ventures but all are welcome. Pre-registration is required. Sign up today!
Panelists:
Stacy Swider, VP Investments, MassVentures
Earl Jones, Operating Partner, DCVC
David Wilson, Principal, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC)
Moderator: Julie Bliss Mullen, 2x Climate Tech Founder & CEO VMS Mentor
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Ecological City: Art & Climate Solutions
Wednesday, February 4
6:30pm to 8pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ecological-city-art-climate-solutions-panel-discussion-zoom-tickets-1980472729246
Join us for an inspiring panel discussion on urban climate challenges and solutions and how the arts can mobilize action.
Creative Action on Climate Solutions//Join us for an inspiring panel discussion on urban climate challenges and solutions and how the arts can be applied to engage community on climate action. Panel speakers include artists presenting their designs for sculptural puppets, costumes and collaborative visual arts projects for the Ecological City - Procession for Climate Solutions on Saturday May 9, 2026 as well as local environmental experts presenting updates on climate solution initiatives.
Attendees bring your inspired imagination to share and discuss what we can create together. Visual #artists, #puppeteers, #costume makers, #performers, #dancers, #singers, #musicians and #poets are invited to join us and collaborate with community creating artistic works for Ecological City.
PANEL SPEAKERS:
Lucrecia Novoa - Art & Climate Puppet Workshops
Yohanna Roa - Art & Climate Costume & Bio-Art Workshops
Kathy Creutzburg - Bio Arts & Bio-Remediation Sculpture
Katherine Freygang - Art & Climate Collaborative Painting
Felicia Young - Founder/Director of Earth Celebrations - Arts Building Community, Collaboration and Environmental Action
Wendy Brawer - Green Map System - Neighborhood Sustainability Solutions
Magali Regis - LUNGS (Loisaida United Neighborhood Gardens) - Gardens & Climate Solutions (NYCCGC))
Dr. Paul Mankeiwicz - Gaia Institute - Climate & Coastal Resiliency
Antonio Lopez - Lower East Side Ecology Center (Waterfront & Partner Collaboration)
Shaheeda Smith - Infinite Movement - Partner Collaboration - Youth Environmental Justice Dance
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Seminar on City-to-City Collaboration for Zero Carbon Society 2026
Wednesday, February 4
8pm ET [10:00-12:30 JST February 5]
ANA CROWNE PLAZA MATSUYAMA, Japan
And online
RSVP at https://crm.iges.or.jp/public/application/add/7886
Deadline: Monday, 2 February 2026, 17:00 JST (for both in-person and online participation)
Cities are responsible for approximately 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption. As such, in order to achieve the Paris Agreement 1.5-degree target, it is vital that cities accelerate the transition to a decarbonised society, and address urban issues in an integrated manner. IGES, together with MOEJ, has been implementing the "City-to-City Collaboration Program for Zero Carbon Society (C3P)" since 2013, based on the belief that knowledge sharing and technical cooperation through city-to-city partnerships are effective measures to support such transition.
This seminar will bring together international stakeholders, including C3P stakeholders and others who are working on local decarbonisation. The discussions aim to build momentum for local decarbonisation and inspire a decarbonisation domino effect both domestically and internationally.
Additionally, advanced examples of collaborative projects designed to create synergies with regional revitalisation initiatives in the host prefecture of Ehime will also be presented.
Please note that in addition to this public seminar, private peer learning sessions on regional decarbonisation and on-site visits to decarbonisation initiatives will be organised for 2025 C3P members.
Languages
Japanese / English (Simultaneous interpretation)
Capacity
Onsite 200 / Online 1,000 (First-come, first-served)
Related Links
Seminar on City-to-City Collaboration for Zero Carbon Society 2025: https://www.iges.or.jp/en/events/20250123
Web Portal for City-to-City Collaboration for Zero Carbon society: https://www.env.go.jp/earth/coop/lowcarbon-asia/english/
Contact
IGES Kitakyushu Urban Centre
Ms. Akagi, Ms. Horizono
kitakyushu-info@iges.or.jp
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Exploring Climate Watch
Thursday, February 5
10:00 - 11:00am EST
Online
RSVP at https://hub.wri.org/events/2026/2/exploring-climate-watch
Join us for an interactive training to learn how to use Climate Watch to explore, analyze and visualize global climate data. This session will introduce participants to Climate Watch’s core tools for tracking insights on countries' climate progress.
The training will begin with an overview of the key datasets available on Climate Watch, including greenhouse gas emissions, Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), long-term strategies and net-zero targets. Throughout the session, participants will learn how to navigate the site, compare country data, create custom charts, download data and more.
Whether you are new to the platform or looking to sharpen your skills, this webinar will show you how to make the most of Climate Watch’s key tools and resources.
Speakers:
Leandro Vigna, Outreach & Data Partnership Manager, Climate Watch
Irene Berman-Vaporis, Head of Communications, Climate Watch & Systems Change Lab
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Health Case for a Fossil Fuel Advertising Ban
Thursday, February 5
12pm to 1pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/health-case-for-a-fossil-fuel-advertising-ban-tickets-1977629385729
Critical Conversation Series | Collaborative Centre for Climate, Health & Sustainable Care
Health Case for a Fossil Fuel Advertising Ban
Health professionals are increasingly concerned about the health impacts of fossil fuel–driven climate change and pollution. Join the Collaborative Centre for Climate, Health & Sustainable Care for a critical discussion as we explore whether restricting fossil fuel advertising—similar to tobacco and other health-related ad limits—could help reduce these harms and serve as an effective public health measure.
Health professionals are increasingly aware of the health consequences of fossil fuel-driven climate change and fossil fuel air pollution. Given the urgency and severity of these health impacts, the medical community has a responsibility to examine not only the clinical impacts but also the upstream commercial and political drivers of these harms. Among the emerging strategies under consideration is the restriction of fossil fuel advertising—a measure that draws inevitable comparison to tobacco control policies. But how valid is this analogy? Does it help us understand the role of corporate influence in perpetuating health harms, or does it risk oversimplification? In this discussion, we will critically evaluate the evidence for and against fossil fuel advertising bans, with particular attention to the mechanisms through which such bans might influence health outcomes. We will consider how these mechanisms compare to tobacco advertising restrictions as well as ad restrictions on alcohol, junk food, and baby formula and explore whether such a policy could serve as a legitimate public health intervention.
Speakers
Dr. Samantha Green is a family physician at St. Michael’s Hospital and at Inner City Health Associates, and the president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. She is the co-director of Temerty Medicine’s Taking Action on Planetary Health certificate program, and co-chair of the CanMEDS 2025 planetary health committee. Samantha has collaborated with CASCADES on the climate conscious inhaler prescribing primary care playbook and course, and is involved in ongoing research and advocacy to protect people living with schizophrenia from extreme heat.
Dr. Leah Temper is a an Ecological Economist and Political Ecologist specialized in knowledge co-production and environmental justice based at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and McGill University, Montreal. She holds a degree in communications science, a Masters in Economic History and a doctorate in Ecological Economics. She is the founder and co-director of the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice (www.ejatlas.org), an initiative mapping ecological conflicts and spaces of resistance around the world. Her current project ACKnowl-EJ (Activist-academic Co-production of Knowledge for Environmental Justice, www.acknowlej.org) examines how transformative alternatives are born from resistance against extractivism.
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Will the Most Damaging Wildfire Occur in the East?
Thursday, February 5
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, Multipurpose Room, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://as.tufts.edu/environmentalstudies/news-events/hoch-cunningham-lecture-series#feb5
In 2024 and 2025, thousands of wildfires burned in novel settings across the East, including unprecedented fires in populated regions like Long Island, New York, Massachusetts, and the Carolinas. While fires in the East have been considered rare, intensifying drought combined with limited preparedness could portend significant vulnerabilities in the future. Comparing wildfires in the West to wildland fire management in the East, this talk will explore the environmental, social, and governance frontiers in understanding this region's potential risk.
Speaker: Dr. Erica Smithwick, Professor of Geography and Director of Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, Penn State University
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CIERP Lecture: William Moomaw
Thursday, February 5
12 – 1:30PM
Tufts, Cabot Intercultural Center, Cabot 702, 170 Packard Avenue, Medford, MA 02155
RSVP at https://forms.monday.com/forms/45705aff25a2e6a8e4bf7a70eb08fd85?r=use1
The Center for International Environment and Resource Policy (CIERP) hosts a talk by Professor Emeritus William Moomaw. He will speak about the importance of forests for the protection of our international natural systems.
In addition to founding CIERP, Dr. Moomaw has been a lead author of five major Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports. As a Science Fellow, he worked in the U.S. Senate on energy and forestry legislation and on legislation that eliminated American use of CFCs in spray cans to protect the ozone layer. He was the first director of the climate program at the World Resources Institute in 1988 as well as the founding director of the Tufts Institute of the Environment, Tufts Climate Initiative, and co-founder of the Global Development and Environment Institute.
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Environment, Atmosphere, Feeling Keynote: Naomi Paik
Thursday, February 5
4pm to 6pm
Northeastern, 716 Columbus Place, 6th Floor, Boston, MA, Boston
More information at https://calendar.northeastern.edu/event/environment-atmosphere-feeling-keynote-naomi-paik
Join GLAS for a Keynote guest lecture event with Naomi Paik of the University of Illinois, Chicago.
This talk examines migration through protected areas of the Sonoran Desert from the 1990s to the present. During this time of accelerating globalization and transnational migration, US border policy has pushed migrants to cross the southern border through the desert, often through protected areas (PAs) like the Cabeza Prieta Wildlife Refuge. In response conservationists and nationalists have cast migrants as “ecological others” who harm the natural landscape, and US state agencies have weaponized environmental protections to further criminalize migrants, as well as humanitarian volunteers working to prevent migrant injury and death. And yet, while pitted against each other, the violence migrants and nature endure share the same root causes—US imperial policies that drive people to move long distance and US border regimes that then channel those migrants, and the anti-migrant enforcement that attempts to exclude them, into the desert. This shared source of harm means that the violence against migrants and the environment intertwine. By analyzing the layered histories of militarism, migration, border regimes, and conservation in the Sonoran Desert, this talk works to bring migrant and environmental justice together under the framework of abolitionist sanctuary that would provide refuge to all lives.
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EnergyBar: Looking Ahead Together
Thursday, February 5
5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Greentown Labs,444 Somerville Ave, Somerville, MA 02143
RSVP at https://greentownlabs.com/event/energybar-looking-ahead-together/
EnergyBar is Greentown Boston’s signature networking event!
We are excited to welcome you back to Greentown Boston for our first EnergyBar of the year! On Thursday, February 5, we’re inviting the climatetech and energy innovation ecosystem to join us for an evening of networking over drinks and bites. For 15 years, our community has been growing strong—and now we’re inviting you to join us to look ahead and celebrate the next 15 years of climate action.
Startups thrive when supported by a diverse ecosystem, and it’s more important now than ever to foster our climate community and bring even more champions into the fold! Whether you’re an investor, potential partner, researcher, job-seeker, or neighbor, our startup community needs you in 2026 and beyond. We hope to see you there!
AGENDA
All times are in ET:
5:30 to 6:00 p.m. Check-in and networking
6:00 to 6:10 p.m. Greentown Labs welcome remarks
6:10 to 7:30 p.m. Networking
EnergyBar is Greentown Boston’s signature networking event that fosters conversation and collaboration among entrepreneurs, investors, corporate leaders, philanthropists, students, neighbors, and other climate champions passionate about innovations in climatetech and the energy transition.
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A screening of the award-winning documentary Harm in the Water
Thursday, February 5
6:00pm
Modern Theatre, 525 Washington Street, Boston, MA 02111
RSVP at https://ci.ovationtix.com/34432/production/1262617?performanceId=11744384
https://www.harminthewater.com/#trailer-video
Harm in the Water is a powerful documentary that examines the devastating impact of industrial water pollution on Black communities along the Mississippi River. Through intimate portraits of community members, environmental activists, and scientific experts, the film reveals how historical patterns of environmental hazards have created a modern crisis.
Director Kendall Moore takes viewers on a journey through the affected communities, highlighting both the struggles and resilience of residents fighting for clean water and environmental justice. The documentary combines compelling personal stories with rigorous scientific evidence to create an urgent call for change.
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Designers of Mountain and Water
Thursday, February 5
6:30pm to February 6 at 6pm EST
Harvard University Graduate School Of Design, 48 Quincy Street, Piper Auditorium Cambridge, MA 02138
And online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/designers-of-mountain-and-water-tickets-1976495034855
This 2-day conference at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design will explore alternative landscapes for a changing climate.
The Sinographic compound (山水), denoting “mountain and water,” is widely shared across many Asian contexts, with different regional traditions and approaches. As shanshui in China, sansui in Japan, and sansu in Korea, the term has historically referred to creative artistic and philosophical visions of the natural world, combining the vital elements of a fully dynamic landscape. With climate change underway, what contemporary elements and dimensions of nature are necessary for designing and building sustainable spaces for human habitation and flourishing? Contemporary landscape architects from Northeast and Southeast Asia are trying to answer this question by rethinking the relation between social and natural forms. Their aim is to design habitable futures at the intersection of the two.
This conference will feature leading landscape architects and scholars from China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, as well as Australia and the US, to discuss the perspectives, histories, politics, and the most compelling projects of sustainable design in the Asian context.
This event accompanies the exhibition Designers of Mountain and Water, which will be on display in the Druker Design Gallery from January 20 to April 4, 2026. Curated by Jungyoon Kim, Associate Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture at the GSD, the exhibition features more than 45 works of landscape architecture by 23 practices in Asia.
This conference and affiliated exhibition are organized by the Graduate School of Design and the Korea Institute, Harvard University. They are also supported by the Harvard University Asia Center, the Southeast Asia Initiative, the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, the Harvard-Yenching Institute, the Kim Koo Forum at the Korea Institute, and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. The project is also supported by Daniel Urban Kiley Exhibition Fund at the GSD.
Livestream Link: This event will be in person and livestreamed. The livestream is available at the top of this page: https://www.gsd.harvard.edu/event/designers-of-mountain-and-water-alternative-landscapes-for-a-changing-climate/
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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CEMTF 6th's Virtual Summit Series: Climate, Readiness, Solidarity & Rights for All: UNITED ACTIONS for a Just & Regenerative Future
Friday, February 6
12pm - 3 pm ET [9A-Noon PST]
Online
RSVP at https://bit.ly/4tgyb8C
The Climate Emergency Mobilization Task Force presents:
Climate & Immigration
Program schedule: 9:00 AM
Land Acknowledgement
Corrina Gould, Tribal Chair, Confederated Villages of Lisjan & Co Founder, Sogorea Te Land Trust
9:10 AM
Welcome
Cheryl Davila, Founder, CEMTF & Former Councilmember, City of Berkeley
Speakers
9:20 AM
Save the San Rafael Valley: The Environmental Cost of Border Militarization
Monica Ruiz House, Media Outreach and Digital Organizing Coordinator, Media Team, No More Deaths
9:50 AM
10:20 AM
Greenwashing Apartheid- Connecting the dots
Elizabeth Milos, Retired UCSF Medical Interpreter
Talk Description: Movement spaces and union organizing spaces and the need to bring union rank and file voices to the forefront. How the fight for union democracy, divestment from fossil fuels and apartheid and movement politics can collide.
10:50 AM Break
10:55 AM
What is Solidarity-Based Organizing?
David Dean, Political Educator & Writer, DavidfDean.com
Talk Description: This talk introduces a framework for building powerful coalitions—a framework based in clear understanding of how things like xenophobia, racism, sexism, transphobia and religious nationalism are not only harms in and of themselves, but also tools of the ruling class to divide, disorient, and weaken the collective power of everyday working people here and around the world. We'll discuss how we can build movements based in a broad, anti-oppressive, class solidarity that is capable of securing a just future for us all and the earth that we call home.
11:25 AM
Chevron's legacy of destruction from CA to the Amazon
Paul Paz y Miño, Deputy Director, Amazon Watch
11:55 AM
Announcements & Closing
Cheryl Davila
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When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America’s Black Botanical Legacy
Friday, February 6
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
Harvard Book Store welcomes Beronda L. Montgomery—award-winning plant biologist and author of the acclaimed Lessons from Plants—for a discussion of her new book, When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America’s Black Botanical Legacy. She will be joined in conversation by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein—an associate professor of physics and astronomy and core faculty in women’s and gender studies at the University of New Hampshire, and author of The Disordered Cosmos.
About When Trees Testify
This stunning cultural and personal reclamation of Black history and Black botanical mastery offers up lessons from the natural world shared through the stories of long-lived trees.
The histories of trees in America are also the histories of Black Americans. Pecan trees were domesticated by an enslaved African named Antoine; sycamore trees were both havens and signposts for people trying to escape enslavement; poplar trees are historically associated with lynching; and willow bark has offered the gift of medicine. These trees, and others, testify not only to the complexity of the Black American narrative but also to a heritage of Black botanical expertise that, like Native American traditions, predates the United States entirely.
In When Trees Testify, award-winning plant biologist Beronda L. Montgomery explores the ways seven trees—as well as the cotton shrub—are intertwined with Black history and culture. She reveals how knowledge surrounding these trees has shaped America since the very beginning. As Montgomery shows, trees are material witnesses to the lives of enslaved Africans and their descendants.
Combining the wisdom of science and history with stories from her own path to botany, Montgomery talks to majestic trees, and in this unique and compelling narrative, they answer.
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Implementing a Low-Carbon Future: Climate Leadership in Chinese Cities
February 9
12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Princeton, # 300 Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ
And online
RSVP at https://cpree.princeton.edu/events/2026/implementing-low-carbon-future-climate-leadership-chinese-cities
Speaker, Weila Gong, UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy's 21st Century China Center
In this talk, Weila Gong will present findings from her book, Implementing a Low-Carbon Future: Climate Leadership in Chinese Cities. Drawing on comparative case studies, process tracing, and over one hundred interviews with policy practitioners inside and outside the government, Gong opens the “black box” of subnational climate policymaking in China’s centralized political system. She will examine why some cities are more successful than others at initiating and sustaining low-carbon policy action, highlighting the motivations and strategies of entrepreneurial bureaucrats in building low-carbon institutionalization. Gong will also discuss the different types of local low-carbon engagement and their implications for climate leadership amid rising geopolitical tensions.
Bio: Weila Gong is a nonresident scholar with the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy's 21st Century China Center. She has over ten years of experience working on climate and environmental politics and policy with a focus on China. She received her PhD in Political Science from the Technical University of Munich's School of Governance and has held postdoctoral fellowships at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. She was recently a climate policy fellow at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.
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Pop-Propaganda: How the Kremlin Markets Its War Like Disney and Coca-Cola
Monday, February 9
5 – 6:30 p.m.
Harvard, S354, CGIS South, 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/pop-propaganda-how-the-kremlin-markets-its-war-like-disney-coca-cola-tickets-1854434245749
SPEAKER(S) Andrew Ryvkin
Join us for a lecture that will explore how the Kremlin’s information apparatus no longer relies solely on agitprop and censorship.
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Sustainability Showcase — Sarah Dimick, Book Reading of “Unseasonable”
Monday, February 9
5:30 pm - 7:00 pm EST
Webster’s Bookstore Cafe, 133 E Beaver Avenue, State College, PA 16801
And online
RSVP at https://sustainability.psu.edu/event/sarah-dimick-book-reading/
Sarah Dimick is a professor in English and the Program in Environmental Policy and Culture at Northwestern University and is the author of Unseasonable: Climate Change in Global Literatures, which focuses on how people make sense of climate change as a disruption of routines and our sense of time and how this understanding can build solidarity for those most at risk from climate change. She will be reading from her work and participating in a Q&A session at Webster’s Cafe on Monday, Feb. 9, 6-7 p.m. A free appetizer buffet starts at 5:30 p.m. This event is free and open to all, as with all our events, and online attendance is possible. Pre-registration is required for online attendance and can be done at our Sarah Dimick book reading registration page.
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Gastronomy and Beyond Lecture Series
Tuesday, February 10
12:30pm to 1:30pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://calendar.mit.edu/event/gastronomy-and-beyond-lecture-series-chef-ozoz-sokoh
Chef Ozoz Sokoh
We’re excited to welcome Chef Ozoz Sokoh as our next speaker on February 10. A culinary researcher, writer, and educator, Ozoz Sokoh explores food as a lens to understand culture, history, identity, and place, with a particular focus on West African and diasporic foodways.
Chef Ozoz Sokoh is a culinary researcher, writer, and educator whose work explores food as a powerful lens to understand history, culture, identity, and place. Through archival research, fieldwork, and storytelling, she traces West African and diasporic foodways, revealing how ingredients, techniques, and culinary traditions carry knowledge across generations and geographies.
Her practice moves beyond the kitchen, positioning gastronomy as a form of cultural research and education. By connecting recipes to language, migration, and memory, Ozoz Sokoh’s work invites us to rethink food not only as nourishment, but as an archive, a map, and a living system that shapes communities and cities.
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Securing Peace in Europe After the Cold War: NATO and Russia
Tuesday, February 10
12:30 – 2 p.m.
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ZqDPlFRiSbynyvyPfjknrw#/registration
SPEAKER(S) Stephan Kieninger
Join us for a talk about NATO-Russia relations through the Soviet Era until the present day
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Myth-Busting Climate Change Webinar
Tuesday, February 10
2:30pm to 3:30pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/myth-busting-climate-change-webinar-tickets-1980083537162
The first in a series of eco webinars for 2026, organised by EWG (Environmental Working Group).
In this online session, Revd Prof Charlotte Sleigh will explore why many people struggle to take action in response to the climate and environmental crises. She will examine common barriers to engagement and share practical ways we can address these challenges - both in ourselves and in others - while remaining faithful to our vocation as caretakers of the planet.
Charlotte is an ordained priest and Professor of Science Humanities at UCL, as well as a teaching fellow at St Augustine’s College of Theology. Her recent three-part series, “What does your congregation ask about climate change?”, is available in Preach magazine.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87067125945?pwd=RwUGCa1ZjK9aQ6BZ3Wyhb3v1YonJC7.1
Meeting ID: 870 6712 5945
Passcode: 996962
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Greeley Lecture: Reconciling the Loss of Indigenous Eden
Tuesday, February 10
5:30 – 7 p.m.
Harvard, Center for the Study of World Religions, Common Room, 42 Francis Ave., Cambridge, MA
And online
RSVP in person at https://harvard.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_42By6XkLAYkSW4m
RSVP online at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_0xb5uEwnRUKGkCx1qp8MTA#/registration
CONTACT Laurie D. Sedgwick, CSWR Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.eduDETAILS Registration is required.
Blair Stonechild, PhD, First Nations University of Canada, will discuss his research on the concept of Indigenous Eden, its loss, and how the process of Truth and Reconciliation can bring together disparate perspectives and offer solutions for the future. Stonechild’s talk is based on five decades of research with Indigenous Elders at First Nations University of Canada, which has resulted in a trilogy on Indigenous Spirituality: The Knowledge Seeker (2016), Loss of Indigenous Eden (2020), and Challenge to Civilization (2024), published by the University of Regina Press.
BLAIR STONECHILD is a member of the Muscowpetung Saulteaux First Nation and is a survivor of the Qu’Appelle Indian Residential School. He holds a bachelor’s degree from McGill, and master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Regina. In 1976, Blair joined the First Nations University of Canada as its first faculty member and was the Dean of Academics and Executive Director of Development. Publications include Loyal Till Death: Indians and the North-West Rebellion, (Fifth House, 1997); The New Buffalo: Aboriginal Post-secondary Policy in Canada (University of Manitoba Press, 2006); Buffy Sainte-Marie: It’s My Way (Fifth House, 2012), and a trilogy on Indigenous Spirituality published by the University of Regina Press.
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Presidential Visions of Transitional Justice: An American Legacy of Responsibility and Reconciliation
Tuesday, February 10
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
Harvard Book Store welcomes Ruti G. Teitel—Ernst C. Stiefel Professor of Comparative Law at New York Law School and lecturer in the graduate program in international relations at New York University—for a discussion of her latest book, Presidential Visions of Transitional Justice: An American Legacy of Responsibility and Reconciliation. She will be joined in conversation by Annette Gordon-Reed—Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University, and author of Pulitzer Prize–winning The Hemingses of Monticello.
About Presidential Visions of Transitional Justice
Throughout its history, the growing influence and significance of the United States on the world stage coincided with its legacy of human rights violations. However, with each momentous societal shift America encountered- its independence from Great Britain, the Civil War, two World Wars, and the fall of the Soviet communist bloc- Presidents have taken the opportunity to address the atrocities of America's past.
Presidential Visions of Transitional Justice: An American Legacy of Responsibility and Reconciliation provides a wide-ranging look at how American Presidents not only influence foreign policy but leverage their power and influence to to address the challenges of political violence and transition globally. Professor Ruti G. Teitel uses examples throughout American history to demonstrate how executives have acted as visionaries in their approach to transitional justice from George Washington to Barack Obama. In exploring how Presidents advanced peace-making efforts in the past, this book shows how executives of the future might do the same.
Professor Teitel is a leading authority on transitional justice, establishing it as a scholarly field of inquiry. At a time when America's global leadership is subject to significant critical challenge, this latest volume illuminates the importance of transitional justice in foreign policy.
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On the Road to 1.3 Trillion- Going Forward How Do We Improve Transparency, Participation and Accountability in Climate Finance?
Wednesday, February 11
10:00 - 11:00am EST
Online
RSVP at https://hub.wri.org/events/2026/2/road-13-trillion-improve-transparency-participation-accountability-climate-finance
We invite you to join us for a virtual panel discussion, “On the Road to 1.3 Trillion – Going forward how do we improve transparency, participation and accountability in climate finance?”, which will present key findings from a forthcoming report examining how open governance principles are applied across the climate finance landscape.
As climate impacts intensify, the demand for finance for mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage is growing rapidly. Meeting this demand will require not only more climate finance, but better governance of climate finance.
Please join us.
This panel discussion will:
Present new evidence on the state of transparency, participation, and accountability across domestic public finance, international public finance, and private climate finance.
Highlight where progress has been made and where critical gaps remain, particularly in decision-making processes and enforceable accountability.
Issue a call to action for governments, donors, multilateral institutions, and private finance providers to strengthen principles of open governance.
Engage participants in a dynamic exchange, with opportunities to ask questions and help inspire concrete action.
Moderator:
Ani Dasgupta, WRI President and CEO
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New Year, Net Zero: Setting Game Studio Climate Targets With Confidence
Wednesday, February 11
10am to 11am EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/new-year-net-zero-setting-game-studio-climate-targets-with-confidence-tickets-1980002832773
Start the New Year with a resolution worth sticking to, & discover how you can set a meaningful Net Zero Target for your video game studio.
Join us as we kick off the new year with a discussion on how your game studio can set credible net zero targets, no matter where you are on your decarbonisation journey.
We'll be presenting our recent report, The Game Studio's Guide to Net Zero Targets, which breaks the process of setting credible net zero targets down into eight easy to follow steps.
You will also hear insights and experiences from leading businesses across the industry of how they navigated this process and how setting net zero targets has boosted their decarbonisation efforts.
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New Weapons between Utopia and Apocalypse: An Intellectual History, 1860s–1970s
Wednesday, February 11
12:00-1:30pm
MIT, E40-496, 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge, MA 02139
And livestreamed at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG5ooD8Ydk4vd83Ac8VNEoQ
Elena Kempf, MIT History Department
Summary: In this seminar, Professor Kempf will discuss the history of weapons prohibitions during the 19th and 20th centuries.
Bio: Elena Kempf is a historian of international law and modern Germany in its global context. She is currently working on a book on the history of weapons prohibitions in international law from the 1860s to the 1970s. In it, she shows how a vast set of characters—diplomats, international lawyers, and politicians, but also surgeons, chemists, teachers and artists—sought to curtail some new weapons by outlawing them. Her next book project will be a history of arms exports from the three postwar Germanies (East Germany, West Germany, and reunified Germany) to countries in the Global South.
In addition, Professor Kempf maintains a research interest in the relationship between the German Federal Constitutional Court and the Court of Justice of the EU. You can find her recent and forthcoming publications in journals including Critical Military Studies, AJIL Unbound, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and the Heidelberg Journal of International Law.
At MIT, Professor Kempf teaches an introductory class on the history of modern Europe (The Making of Modern Europe, 1789–Present), and seminars on the history of modern Germany and the laws of war.
Professor Kempf earned her PhD in History from UC Berkeley in 2021. Before joining MIT, she taught as a Lecturer at the Department of History at Stanford University and served as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law at UC Berkeley.
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Revisiting Peak Water, Peak Grain, And Analogies To Peak Oil Using Boom–Bust Dynamics In Groundwater Sourced Grain Production For The U.S. High Plains
Wednesday, February 11
4:00pm to 5:30pm EST
MIT, Building 1-190, 33 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139
Prof. Gabriel Katul (Duke University).
Abstract: Rapid groundwater depletion represents a significant threat to food and water security because groundwater supplies more than 20% of global water use, especially for crop irrigation. A large swath of the US High Plains, which produces more than 50 million tons of grain yearly, depends on the Ogallala aquifer for more than 90% of its irrigation needs. A dynamical systems model is developed as a coarse-grained theory for explaining boom-bust patterns in groundwater use and crop production dynamics. The model explains and predicts peak groundwater withdrawals and subsequent reductions on three High Plains states. It also predicts peaks and declines in irrigated annual crop production that follow peak groundwater withdrawal occurences. The model shows how recharge rates and the adoption of irrigation technologies control these trends. It also provides a general framework for assessing groundwater-based irrigation sustainability and how remote sensing products may be used to infer early warning signals about over-exploitation of grain-sourced groundwater withdrawals.
Bio: Gabriel G. Katul received his B.E. degree in 1988 at the American University of Beirut (Beirut, Lebanon), his M.S. degree in 1990 at Oregon State University (Corvallis, OR) and his Ph.D degree in 1993 at the University of California in Davis (Davis, CA). He currently holds a distinguished Professorship in Hydrology and Micrometeorology at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Duke University (Durham, NC). He received several honorary awards, including the inspirational teaching award by the students of the School of the Environment at Duke University (in 1994 and 1996), the Macelwane medal and became thereafter a fellow of the American Geophysical Union (in 2002), the John Dalton medal from the European Geosciences Union (in 2018), the Outstanding Achievements in Biometeorology Award from the American Meteorological Society (in 2021) and later became an elected fellow of the American Meteorological Society (in 2024), and the recipient of the American Meteorological Society hydrologic science medal (in 2025). Katul was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (in 2023) for his contributions in eco-hydrology and environmental fluid mechanics. He served as the Secretary General for the Hydrologic Science Section at the American Geophysical Union (2006-2008). His research focuses on micro-meteorology and near-surface hydrology with emphasis on heat, momentum, carbon dioxide, water vapor, ozone, particulate matter (including aerosols, pollen, and seeds) and water transport in the soil-plant-atmosphere system as well as their implications to a plethora of hydrological, ecological, atmospheric and climate change related problems.
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The Mechanics of Public Man-Made Death: USAID’s Destruction At One Year
Wednesday, February 11
4:30 – 6 p.m.
Harvard, Tsai Auditorium (Room S010), CGIS South Building, 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeQezO-7Z1Jp5fdUlNPcymQYjKJoXGifDqp9qxrhk7xXDpyIA/viewform
SPEAKER(S) Speaker
Atul Gawande, John and Cyndy Fish Chair in Surgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Samuel O. Thier Professor of the Practice of Surgery, Harvard Medical School; writer, The New Yorker.
The Trump Administration’s abrupt dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has triggered a wave of already hundreds of thousands of deaths, mostly of children, around the world. Atul Gawande—former leader of global health at the agency—draws on data, historical parallels, and on-the-ground fact-finding to reveal how gains against malnutrition, infectious disease, and child mortality are being rapidly reversed. Gawande argues that this is a case of “public man-made death,” and calls for accountability and renewed commitment to lifesaving global health efforts.
This event is open to the public and will be recorded. Please register to attend. Please plan on being seated by 4:15 p.m. as the event will start promptly at 4:30 p.m.
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Devil Put the Coal in the Ground
Wednesday, February 11
7 p.m. (EST)
Online
RSVP at https://sustainability.psu.edu/event/intersections-film-series-devil-put-the-coal-in-the-ground/
At one time, coal was ingrained in West Virginia’s culture: coal mining was the inevitable job each family member would work. Coal miners supported their families and coal supported the United States to allow for its rapid growth. But when America moved on from coal, what happens to the miners, their families, and communities left behind? Today, West Virginian coal miners face a grim reality. Industrial decline didn’t only affect their finances, but also their health and the health of their communities and landscapes. Now an opioid crisis, job instability, and physical destruction of mountains have left behind reeling communities struggling to hold it all together. What was once a vibrant space is somewhere people try to escape.
In the haunting Devil Put the Coal in the Ground, residents share personal accounts, revealing how they have been deeply impacted by this drastic change. They are faced with decisions: how do they fight back against this decay? Having supported America for so long, how will coal communities find support for themselves and find the strength to support each other?
Following the film, we will feature a panel discussion with experts on coal communities, the opioid epidemic, and efforts to reimagine Appalachia’s future.
Free and open to all. Pre-registration required at this registration link.
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Community-Based, Science-Informed Framework for Infrastructure Resilience Under Climate Extremes
Thursday, February 12
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, Multipurpose Room, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://as.tufts.edu/environmentalstudies/news-events/hoch-cunningham-lecture-series#feb12
Across the United States, aging infrastructure is increasingly strained by intensifying extreme weather events, placing communities at growing risk. These impacts are not evenly distributed: environmental hazards and infrastructure failures often disproportionately affect vulnerable populations. This lecture presents how an interdisciplinary framework can be developed to tackle the compounding risks arising from the interplay between aging infrastructure, climate-driven extremes, and social vulnerability. Drawing on recent research on major extreme events (e.g., flooding, heatwaves, wildfires, and droughts) and their impacts on infrastructure systems (e.g., levees, railroads, Superfund sites), the talk illustrates how spatial variations in hazards and exposure shape both physical and societal outcomes. The lecture also introduces emerging data-driven, physics-informed, and community-based approaches for mapping risk, improving risk communication, and supporting more equitable adaptation strategies to strengthen infrastructure resilience. The discussion concludes by outlining pathways for integrating these insights into climate-adaptive infrastructure planning, resilience investment, and inclusive decision-making in an era of accelerating environmental change.
Speaker: Dr. Farshid Vahedifard, Professor and Chair, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tufts University
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Call for Social Ventures in Regenerative Agriculture, Water, Climate, & Nature
Thursday, February 12
3pm to 4pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/call-for-social-ventures-in-regen-agriculture-water-climate-nature-tickets-1978650514954
Are you a social venture advancing regenerative agriculture, water innovation, climate solutions, or nature-based system?
Impact Finance Center invites you to an informational session on how to join one of IFC’s SEC-compliant Demo Days designed to catalyze investment into the ventures shaping a regenerative future.
About the Marketplace
The IFC Marketplace is a curated platform that connects high-impact ventures with aligned investors across philanthropy, government, and finance. We create a safe and transparent environment for ventures to share their work and build long-term relationships with values-aligned funders.
Social ventures selected for the Marketplace gain access to:
Investor exposure to accredited investors, foundations, family offices, and community-focused capital stewards
Visibility and promotion through IFC’s national network and Impact Days events
Education and support to prepare for Demo Day participation
We will discuss how SEC-compliant Demo Days work and what ventures can expect; eligibility criteria for social ventures; how to submit your venture for consideration; and key timelines and next steps.
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How America Got Into This Mess and How We Recover: Reflections from a Columnist’s Life
Thursday, February 12
4 PM ET
Harvard, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
And online
RSVP at https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2025-david-brooks-conversation
Speaker
David Brooks, author; political analyst; opinion columnist, The New York Times; contributing writer, The Atlantic; commentator, PBS News Hour; senior advisor, The University of Chicago Leadership and Society Initiative
Biography
David Brooks is a columnist for The New York Times, a contributor to The Atlantic, and a commentator on PBS News Hour. His latest book is How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen (Random House, 2023). His previous three books, The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life (Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2020), The Road to Character (Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2016), and The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement (Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2012), were all number one New York Timesbestsellers.
Brooks has taught at Yale and Duke Universities and now teaches at The University of Chicago. He has received over 30 honorary degrees and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots
Thursday, February 12
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM
Boston Public Library, 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02116
RSVP at https://bpl.libcal.com/event/16053102
Professor and editor Jonathan D.S. Schroeder discusses with historian and best-selling author Professor Tiya Milesabout his nonfiction book,The United States Governed By Six Hundred Thousand Despots: A True Story of Slavery, as well as his research and writing process.
After the talk, a book sale and signing will be facilitated by local bookstore partner Trident Booksellers
Lost on the other side of the world since 1855, the story of John Swanson Jacobs finally returns to America. This comprehensive edition includes Jacobs’s narrative in full alongside a full-length biography.
For one hundred and sixty-nine years, a first-person slave narrative written by John Swanson Jacobs—brother of Harriet Jacobs—was buried in a pile of newspapers in Australia. Jacobs’s long-lost narrative, The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots, is a startling and revolutionary discovery. A document like this—written by an ex-slave and ex-American, in language charged with all that can be said about America outside America, untampered with and unedited by white abolitionists—has never been seen before. A radical abolitionist, sailor, and miner, John Jacobs has a life story that is as global as it is American. Born into slavery, by 1855, he had fled both the South and the United States altogether, becoming a stateless citizen of the world and its waters. That year, he published his life story in an Australian newspaper, far from American power and its threats. Unsentimental and unapologetic, Jacobs radically denounced slavery and the state, calling out politicians and slaveowners by their names, critiquing America’s founding documents, and indicting all citizens who maintained the racist and intolerable status quo.
Reproduced in full, this narrative—which entwines with that of his sister and with the life of their friend Frederick Douglass—here opens new horizons for how we understand slavery, race, and migration, and all that they entailed in nineteenth-century America and the world at large. The second half of the book contains a full-length, nine-generation biography of Jacobs and his family by literary historian Jonathan Schroeder. This new guide to the world of John Jacobs will transform our sense of it—and of the forces and prejudices built into the American project. To truly reckon with the lives of John Jacobs is to see with new clarity that in 1776, America embarked on two experiments at once: one in democracy, the other in tyranny.
To find out more about the author, please visit his website: https://jdss.net/
Tiya Miles (Chair) is the author of eight books, including four prize-winning histories, a prize-winning novel, and the recent biography Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People. Her 2021 National Book Award Winner, All That She Carried, was a New York Times bestseller awarded 11 historical and literary prizes. Miles is the Michael Garvey Professor of History at Harvard University and the recipient of fellowships from the MacArthur, Guggenheim, and Mellon Foundations.
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7th MIT Global Humanities Forum on “PILLAR 5: Environment, Biodiversity & Planetary Stewardship”
Friday, February 13
10:00am to 11:30am EST
Online
RSVP at https://mit.zoom.us/meeting/register/CGiHfwLpTxSAgzCTgqVptw
Join us for the 2026 GHI 7th Forum! This session introduces the GHI Pillar Environment, Biodiversity & Planetary Stewardship, in particular two projects Thermal Worlds: A Deep History of the Human Relationship to Cold and Warmth and Ruination and Repair: The Long Human Afterlife of Environmental Disaster.
Speakers: Tristan G Brown, Or Porath
Our presentation, introducing GHI's Environment and Planetary Stewardship Pillar, examines how human communities understand and inhabit a rapidly changing planet. In an era of climate disruption, biodiversity loss, and ecological degradation, the pillar brings humanistic methods into conversation with sustainability science, energy studies, earth systems, and policy. We study how literature, religion, law, art, and ritual shape ecological perception and guide responses to crisis, adaptation, and repair. By tracing patterns of resilience and injustice across places and periods, the initiative asks how cultural meaning can inform more equitable forms of stewardship, and how narrative and ethics can transform debates on sustainability and climate futures today.
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Masterclass on Artificial Intelligence in Sustainable Finance
Monday, February16 - Thursday, February 19
Online
Application form https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=G96VzPWXk0-0uv5ouFLPkVKZPl5aUUZAuNC9HDb-S51UMDdHSUw4UkQ5MzZDTFpBTklCN0YxNjFRWS4u
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly becoming a key driver of innovation in sustainable finance, offering new ways to understand the impact of complex global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and social inequality. By enabling faster, more accurate analysis of vast and diverse datasets, AI can help identify sustainability risks, uncover responsible investment opportunities, and enhance corporate accountability in near real-time. From general-purpose tools like ChatGPT to bespoke models tailored to organisation’s workstreams, AI is already being adopted across the private, public, and non-profit sectors.
While AI holds enormous potential for advancing sustainable finance, not all AI applications deliver meaningful value. Understanding the difference between potential and practical impact is essential. For instance, while AI can automate sustainability and financial analyses, it may struggle with poor data quality, lack of transparency, or context-specific nuances, particularly in emerging markets or underserved communities. Similarly, predictive models for climate risk can be powerful decision-support tools, but only when built on robust, inclusive data and interpreted with care.
For public and third sector professionals working at the intersection of finance and sustainability, it is crucial to move beyond buzzwords and critically assess where AI can genuinely add value, and where it may fall short or even introduce new risks. These sectors have a unique responsibility to ensure that AI is used ethically, inclusively, and in alignment with long-term public interest. This masterclass is designed to provide participants with the foundational knowledge and critical perspective needed to navigate this rapidly evolving landscape, and to lead with confidence in a future where data and algorithms increasingly shape how we define and deliver sustainability.
Objectives
This masterclass will:
Build a solid foundation in AI concepts and capabilities most relevant to sustainable finance, with a focus on understanding the latest state of the art in both technology and real-world applications.
Equip participants to identify and evaluate AI tools they can use and trust in their professional contexts.
Enable participants to critically assess the use of AI by companies and financial institutions, differentiating where AI meaningfully contributes to sustainability goals and where it may introduce new risks.
Foster an ethical and reflective approach to AI adoption, helping public and third sector professionals ensure that data-driven innovation aligns with long-term public interest, inclusion, and sustainability.
Masterclass Syllabus
Session 1: A sustainable future with AI
Purpose: Establish a shared understanding of core AI technological foundations, capabilities, and opportunities. Explore why AI matters for sustainability and sustainable finance.
Content:
What is AI?
Why does AI matter for sustainability?
What is required for the public and third sector to keep pace with developments and make use of AI where it adds value?
Session 2: AI as companion and enabler in sustainable finance
Purpose: Demonstrate AI capabilities for scaling up and mainstreaming sustainable finance. Understand use cases, risks and limitations of AI applications.
Content:
AI & corporate disclosures and strategies
AI & mobilising finance and identifying projects
AI & financial supervision
Future outlook and emerging trends
Session 3: AI for evidence-based policy and decision making in sustainable finance
Purpose: Demonstrate AI capabilities for analysing large amounts of sustainability information to support evidence-based policy and decision-making. Understand use cases, different types of modelling, and uncertainties or limitations.
Content:
Leveraging AI for different types of environmental models
AI applications for integrating environmental information in policy and decision-making processes
Limitations and uncertainties in models
Future outlook and emerging trends in AI and geospatial modelling
Session 4: AI-driven risks to sustainability
Purpose: Introduce wider global concerns associated with the development and deployment of AI and explore different regulatory responses.
Content:
Overview of governance frameworks and regulation for AI
Understanding algorithmic bias and implications, transparency and explainability challenges
Data privacy and security concerns
Environmental, social and other impacts associated with AI infrastructure
Course Directors
Dr Julia Bingler, Research Associate in Financial Risk Data Analytics
Christophe Christiaen, Head of Innovation and Impact, CGFI / Head of Spatial Finance Initiative
Applications
Places on this course are strictly limited to those who have primary employment in:
central or local government
regulatory agencies
supervisory authorities
central banks
multilateral institutions
non-profit civil society organisations
registered charities
philanthropic organisations
Evidence of this may be requested.
To apply please complete the application form, for both individual and group bookings. We aim to respond within 14 working days of receipt of the application.
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Bernie for Burlington
Monday, February 16
7:00pm
Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Coolidge Corner, Brookline, MA 02446-2908
Join us at Brookline Booksmith to celebrate the release of Bernie for Burlington with author Dan Chiasson.
The early days and inexorable rise of the young Bernie Sanders, the one-of-a-kind visionary who changed American politics forever, told by a son of the People’s Republic of Burlington, Vermont.
In this symphonic origin story of an era-defining politician, Dan Chiasson, a Burlington native who had a ringside seat to Bernie Sanders’s development, reconstructs the rise of an American icon. With in-depth reporting and remarkable remembered scenes, Chiasson tracks a faint political signal that traveled from the Vermont communes, hardluck neighborhoods, traditional businesses, and county fairs to the town meetings and ballot boxes of his home state, and finally to Washington, D.C., to transform our national political landscape.
Sanders, insisting on a socialist platform that hasn’t changed to this day, defied a corrupt Democratic machine to find his coalition among Burlington’s often feuding communities: the conservative French-Canadian Catholics whose grandparents and great-grandparents—including Chiasson’s own—had worked in the mills; the puppeteers, hippies, and NYC transplants who’d moved to Vermont to find land and authenticity; the anti-nukers, activist nuns, baseball fans, developers, cops, and small businessmen like Ben and Jerry, who became Ben & Jerry’s right there in town. Bernie captivated them all, running on the slogan “Burlington Is Not for Sale” to become the modern era’s first socialist mayor, one who got the streets plowed but also boasted a foreign policy and a bullhorn to speak directly to Ronald Reagan.
In the tradition of J. Anthony Lukas’s Common Ground, this people’s epic shows us an American city transformed one diner coffee and one neighborhood door-knock at a time, even as the analog era wanes and a new digital politics appears on the horizon. Full of Sanders himself, reflecting and raging, hitting his themes, Bernie for Burlington is a mesmerizing portrait of a politician, a place, and a movement that would change America.
Dan Chiasson is the author of five books of poetry, including Bicentennial (2014) and The Math Campers (2020), and a book of literary criticism. A longtime contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books, Chiasson is the Lorraine Chao Wang Professor of English and chair of the English Department at Wellesley College.
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Starr Forum: The Future of US-China Relations
Tuesday, February 17
4:00pm to 5:30pm EST
MIT, E51-115, Wong Auditorium, Tang Center, 2 Amherst St, Cambridge, MA 02142
Join us for a conversation with Nicholas Burns, the US ambassador to China from 2021-2025.
Speaker: Nicholas Burns is the Goodman Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He is the founder and faculty chair of the Future of Diplomacy Project and a faculty affiliate at Harvard’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. Burns worked in the United States government for over three decades, serving six presidents and nine secretaries of state. Most recently, he served as the US ambassador to the People's Republic of China from 2021-2025, leading public servants from forty-eight US government agencies at the US mission to China in overseeing one of America's most important bilateral relationships.
Moderator: Yasheng Huang is the Epoch Foundation Professor of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He also serves as the faculty director of the MIT-China Program at the Center for International Studies. From 2013 to 2017, he served as an associate dean of MIT Sloan’s GlobalPartnership programs and its Action Learning initiatives. His previous appointments include faculty positions at the University of Michigan and at Harvard Business School. Huang is the author of 11 books in both English and Chinese and of many academic papers. His most recent book, “The Rise and Fall of the EAST: How Exams, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology Brought China Success, and Why They Might Lead to its Decline”, was a 2023 Best Book of the Year by Foreign Affairs magazine.
A recording will be posted on YouTube following the event.
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Tiny Gardens Everywhere: The Past, Present, and Future of the Self-Provisioning City
Tuesday, February 17
7:00pm
Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Coolidge Corner, Brookline, MA 02446-2908
From the eighteenth century to the twenty–first, the surprising history and inspiring contemporary panorama of urban gardening: nurturing health, hope, and community.
Nurturing health, hope, and community, gardeners in cities and suburbs are reclaiming lost commons, transforming vacant lots into vibrant plots, turning waste into compost, and recreating what was once the most productive agriculture in recorded human history.
In a history that has been hidden in plain sight, working-class gardeners have consistently played an outsized role. In London, they devised ways to feed themselves when wage labor fell short. In Paris, a superabundance of horse manure in the streets nourished urban gardens that fed two million residents. In Berlin, gardeners built social safety nets for those marginalized by the state. In Washington, DC, African American migrants brought rural traditions of self-provisioning that were later disrupted by “urban renewal.” In rustbelt Mansfield, Ohio, farming ex-cons grow hope for the city’s future. In post-Soviet Estonia, shared gardens became lifelines for survival amid economic upheaval. And in Amsterdam, activists are reclaiming sustainable farming practices in a sinking landscape oversaturated with fertilizers.
Tilled into this rich history of urban agriculture is an inspiring layer of contemporary activism. Each chapter includes contemporary stories of people from all walks of life who, in their gardens, are continuing a great tradition of mutual aid, political resistance, and bold experiments in sustainability.
A manifesto for the next food revolution, Tiny Gardens Everywhereblends past and present, archive and experience, to offer a truly inspiring vision of the transformative potential of gardening and urban life.
Kate Brown is Distinguished Professor in the History of Science at MIT and author of four previous prize-winning books, including A Manual for Survival, an NBCC Award finalist. She currently plants her gardens in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in Vermont.
Kenda Mutongi teaches a wide range of courses in African history, world history, and gender history. She is the author of two award-winning books: Matatu: A History of Popular Transportation in Nairobi (Chicago UP, 2017) and Worries of the Heart: Widows, Family, and Community in Kenya (Chicago UP, 2007). She has also published several articles in the major African studies journals, and is currently writing a book tentatively titled, Reading Under the Covers, which focuses on the history of secondary schooling in post-colonial Kenya.
Mutongi has been an MLK Visiting Professor of History at MIT, a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard and at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in Amsterdam. She has also received grants from the NEH, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.
Mutongi serves on the editorial boards of several journals and book series in African Studies. Before moving to MIT in 2019, Mutongi taught at Williams College for over 22 years, where she served as chair of the Africana Studies and the Africa/Middle Eastern Studies Programs.
Mutongi was born and raised in rural western Kenya, and received her BA from Coe College and her Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. She enjoys cooking, sewing, and painting.
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George Washington's Library, Lifelong Learning, and Citizenship
February 18
6:00 PM to 7:00 PM ET
Boston Athenaeum, 10 1/2 Beacon Street, Boston, MA, 02108
Join Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsky, Executive Director of the George Washington Presidential Library, to learn about George Washington's reading habits and his life-long quest to improve his knowledge. We will also explore Washington's dedication to supporting education institutions and his belief that an educated citizenry was essential to the future of the republic.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsky is a presidential historian and Executive Director of the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon. Dr. Chervinsky is the author of the award-winning books Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents that Forged the Republic and The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution, and co-editor of Mourning the Presidents: Loss and Legacy in American Culture. Dr. Chervinsky regularly writes for public audiences in publications like the Washington Post, TIME, USA Today, CNN, The Wall Street Journal and provides commentary and historical context for outlets like CBS News, C-SPAN, Face the Nation, the New York Times, and NPR.
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Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage
Wednesday, February 18
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
Harvard Book Store and the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights welcome Heather Ann Thompson—historian and the Pulitzer Prize and Bancroft Prize-winning author of Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy—for a discussion of her new book, Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage. She will be joined in conversation by Elizabeth Hinton—associate professor of history and African American studies at Yale University and professor of law at Yale Law School.
About Fear and Fury
In this masterful, groundbreaking work, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Heather Ann Thompson shines surprising new light on an infamous 1984 New York subway shooting that would unveil simmering racial resentments and would lead, in unexpected ways, to a fractured future and a new era of rage and violence.
On December 22, 1984, in a graffiti-covered New York City subway car, passengers looked on in horror as a white loner named Bernhard Goetz shot four Black teens, Darrell Cabey, Barry Allen, Troy Canty, and James Ramseur, at point-blank range. He then disappeared into a dark tunnel. After an intense manhunt, and his eventual surrender in New Hampshire, the man the tabloid media had dubbed the “Death Wish Vigilante” would become a celebrity and a hero to countless ordinary Americans who had been frustrated with the economic fallout of the Reagan 80s. Overnight, Goetz’s young victims would become villains.
Out of this dramatic moment would emerge an angry nation, in which Rupert Murdoch's New York Post and later Fox News Network stoked the fear and the fury of a stunning number of Americans.
Drawing from never-before-seen archival materials, legal files, and more, Heather Ann Thompson narrates the Bernie Goetz Subway shootings and their decades-long reverberations, while deftly recovering the lives of the boys whom too many decided didn't matter. Fear and Fury is the remarkable account and a searing indictment of a crucial turning point in American history.
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Increased future ocean heat uptake constrained by Antarctic sea ice extent
Thursday, February 19
9am to 9:45am EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/increased-future-ocean-heat-uptake-constrained-by-antarctic-sea-ice-extent-tickets-1864811815339
A climate coffee with Linus Vogt (NYU, Sorbonne,/LOCEAN)
Please join us for this Climate Coffee!
The ocean takes up over 90 % of the excess heat stored in the Earth system as a result of anthropogenic climate change, which has led to sea level rise and an intensification of marine extreme events. However, despite their importance for informing climate policy, future ocean heat uptake (OHU) projections still strongly differ between climate models. Here, we provide improved global OHU projections by identifying a relationship between present-day Antarctic sea ice extent (SIE) and future OHU across an ensemble of 28 state-of-the-art climate models. Models with more sea ice at present also simulate a colder Southern Hemisphere climate state in general, allowing a larger shift in atmospheric and ocean warming. This regional change affects global warming and heat uptake via a northward-propagating cloud feedback. Combining this relationship between historical Antarctic sea ice extent and future global OHU with satellite observations of Antarctic sea ice reduces the uncertainty of OHU projections under future emission scenarios by 12 %–33 %. Moreover, we show that an underestimation of present-day Antarctic sea ice in the latest generation of climate models results in an underestimation of future OHU by 3 %–14 %, an underestimation of global cloud feedback by 19 %–32 %, and an underestimation of global atmospheric warming by 6 %–7 %. This emergent constraint is based on a strong coupling between Antarctic sea ice, deep-ocean temperatures, and Southern Hemisphere sea surface temperatures and cloud cover in climate models. Our study reveals how the present-day Southern Ocean state impacts future climate change and suggests that previous constraints based on warming trends over recent decades have underestimated future warming and ocean heat uptake.
See the publication underlying this event:
Vogt, L., de Lavergne, C., SallĂ©e, J.-B., Kwiatkowski, L., Frölicher, T. L., and Terhaar, J.: Increased future ocean heat uptake constrained by Antarctic sea ice extent, Earth Syst. Dynam., 16, 1453–1482, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-16-1453-2025, 2025.
Our speaker
Linus Vogt is a postdoc at the NYU Courant Institute, he has been previously working at Sorbonne UniversitĂ©, CNRS/IRD/MNHN, Laboratoire d’OcĂ©anographie et du Climat ExpĂ©rimentations et Approches NumĂ©riques (LOCEAN), Paris, France, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, USA.
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Covering Climate Across Beats
Thursday, February 19
1 pm ET
Online
RSVP at https://coveringclimatenow.org/event/covering-climate-across-beats/
Join Covering Climate Now for a free training — part of our CCNow Basics series — on how to identify and report climate angles in your coverage, no matter your beat
Climate change touches every corner of our lives. From the food we eat to the sports we play, from the economy to public health, and from education to infrastructure. Yet, too often, the climate connection goes unreported, leaving audiences with incomplete stories.
The truth is, every journalist is, in a way, a climate journalist. Whether you cover agriculture, sports, crime, or culture, climate change is shaping the stories on your beat. Recognizing and reporting these connections isn’t just good journalism: It’s essential to giving audiences the full picture.
Join us for a live training session on how to make the climate connection across beats. We’ll share practical tips for identifying climate angles in everyday stories, explore examples from newsrooms around the world, and show you how even one sentence can transform your reporting. No science background required, just a willingness to connect the dots!
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Chambers Lecture: Breaking the Circle of Poverty with Daniel Germain
Thursday, February 19
4pm
Boston College, Winston Center, Heights Room, Carney Hall, Room 439, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3808
Daniel Germain, CM, CQ, MSM, is a philanthropist and social entrepreneur dedicated to advancing children’s well-being and breaking cycles of poverty. Growing up in a disadvantaged neighborhood shaped his lifelong commitment to supporting underprivileged youth. This commitment led him to found the Quebec Breakfast Club, addressing a critical barrier to children’s academic and social success: access to a nutritious breakfast.
In 2005, the program was recognized by the United Nations as one of the world’s leading school meal initiatives. Building on this success, Germain founded Breakfast Club of Canada, launched international youth cooperation projects, and established the Montreal Millennium Summit, a global forum focused on children’s well-being worldwide.
A recognized social visionary, Germain has received numerous honors, including the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal and the Quebec YMCA Peace Medal. He is a Member of the Order of Canada and a Knight of the Ordre national du QuĂ©bec. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Breakfast Club of Canada. He is the founder of the Children’s Hour World Campaign, a global movement addressing child poverty, food insecurity, climate change, and the rights of girls, women, and Indigenous communities.
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Biography of a Dangerous Idea: A New History of Race from Louis XIV to Thomas Jefferson
Thursday, February 19
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
Harvard Book Store welcomes Andrew S. Curran—William Armstrong Professor of the Humanities at Wesleyan University and prize-winning author of Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely—for a discussion of his latest work, Biography of a Dangerous Idea: A New History of Race from Louis XIV to Thomas Jefferson. He will be joined in conversation by Ourida Mostefai—professor of Comparative Literature and French & Francophone Studies at Brown University.
About Biography of a Dangerous Idea
Over the course of the eighteenth century, Enlightenment natural historians and classifiers redefined what it meant to be human. By 1800, they had recast the very idea of humankind, sorting the world’s peoples into rigid biological categories for the first time in history. Prize-winning biographer Andrew S. Curran retraces this often-misunderstood story by plunging into the lives and ideas of the most influential individuals behind this reconceptualization, among them Louis XIV, Voltaire, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Thomas Jefferson.
Moving from the gilded halls of Versailles to the slave plantations of the Caribbean, from the court of the Mughal Empire to the drawing rooms of Monticello, Biography of a Dangerous Idea not only reveals the Enlightenment’s entanglement with empire and oppression—it offers a bold reassessment of the era’s most celebrated luminaries.
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Politics Without Politicians: The Case for Citizen Rule
Friday, February 20
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
Harvard Book Store welcomes HĂ©lène Landemore—political theorist, professor of political science at Yale University, and author of the widely influential book Open Democracy—for a discussion of her new book Politics Without Politicians: The Case for Citizen Rule. She will be joined in conversation by Lawrence Lessig—Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School.
About Politics Without Politicians
Politicians have failed us. But democracy doesn’t have to.
Bought by special interests, detached from real life, obsessed with reelection. Politicians make big promises, deliver little to nothing, and keep the game rigged in their favor. But what can we do?
In Politics Without Politicians, acclaimed political theorist HĂ©lène Landemore asks and answers a radical question: What if we didn’t need politicians at all? What if everyday people—under the right conditions—could govern much better?
With disarming clarity and a deep sense of urgency, Landemore argues that electoral politics is broken but democracy isn’t. We’ve just been doing it wrong. Drawing on ancient Athenian practices and contemporary citizens’ assemblies, Landemore champions an alternative approach that is alive, working, and growing around the world: civic lotteries that select everyday people to govern—not as career politicians but as temporary stewards of the common good.
When regular citizens come together in this way, they make smarter, fairer, more forward-thinking decisions, often bringing out the best in one another. Witnessing this process firsthand, Landemore has learned that democracy should be like a good party where even the shyest guests feel welcome to speak, listen, and be heard.
With sharp analysis and real-world examples, drawing from her experience with deliberative processes in France and elsewhere, Landemore shows us how to move beyond democracy as a spectator sport, embracing it as a shared practice—not just in the voting booth but in shaping the laws and policies that govern our lives.
This is not a book about what’s wrong—it’s a manifesto for what’s possible. If you’ve ever felt powerless, Politics Without Politicians will show you how “We the People” take back democracy.
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MIT Energy Conference : Securing the Energy Future; Resources for Resilience
Monday, February 23rd–24th, 2026
Cambridge, Massachusetts
RSVP at https://www.mitenergyconference.org/
Cost: $8 - $949
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NECSI invitation: Collaborating on solutions to global challenges
Monday, February 23–27
10am - 1pm
Online
RSVP at https://unpolitics.global/meeting2026A/home
For those interested in advancing complexity science in action, I wanted to briefly mention an upcoming Unpolitics working meeting (February 23–27, virtual).
Science has always shaped the world—from quantum mechanics to semiconductors, from evolutionary theory to medicine, from ecology to public health. Applying science to real-world challenges is not new. What is different here is how we frame it: as participants in the very systems we aim to understand and improve, not only as observers.
Unpolitics is grounded in the recognition that working together is not just a means to implementation—it is part of the system itself. The way we collaborate, coordinate, and act is intertwined with the dynamics we seek to change. This meeting is a space to engage directly: moving from observation to embedded change.
Our work has long shown that many of the world’s most pressing challenges arise from system structures and interactions that can be modeled, understood, and anticipated. Yet even when those dynamics are clear, it remains difficult to communicate that understanding—and harder still to act effectively on it. Without systems insight, even well-intentioned efforts often move in directions that make problems worse.
Unpolitics is not focused on developing new scientific frameworks, though scientific advances remain essential in every context. It is a working meeting centered on implementation: how to translate systems insights into real-world action, navigate or reshape institutional constraints, and support coordination across domains. It brings together people who are actively working on solutions and who are ready to collaborate across disciplines and systems.
For those drawn to applying complexity science through collaboration and implementation, you can learn more here: https://unpolitics.global/meeting2026A/home
No pressure to attend, but we would value your participation if this kind of work speaks to you.
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Markets for Climate Expertise
Monday, February 23
12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Princeton, #300 Wallace Hall
And online
RSVP at https://cpree.princeton.edu/events/2026/markets-climate-expertise
Speaker
Noah Zucker, Assistant Professor of Politics Princeton University
Noah Zucker is an Assistant Professor of Politics at Princeton University, specializing in international and comparative political economy. He studies the political economy of climate change, with associated interests in bureaucracy, finance, identity, and labor. His work has appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, and World Politics. He has received awards from the American Political Science Association for best dissertation on science, technology, and environmental politics; best paper in political economy; best paper in comparative politics; best paper on democracy and autocracy; and best paper on women, gender, and politics. Zucker received his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University in 2022. Prior to joining the Princeton faculty, he was an assistant professor at the London School of Economics and postdoctoral fellow at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance.
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Can Insurance Help Unlock Investments In Clean Technology?
Tuesday, February 24
10:00AM - 11:00AM
Online
RSVP at https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/events/can-insurance-help-unlock-investments-in-clean-technology/
SPEAKERS
Jeff McAulayCEO, GreenieRE
Maria GuercioSenior Vice President, Climate Tech Industry Practice Leader for North America, Chubb Insurance
George SchulzCEO, New Energy Risk
MODERATORS
Carolyn KouskySenior Fellow, Kleinman Center for Energy Policy
A panel of insurance leaders on how risk transfer, underwriting, and the insurance value chain can direct capital toward cleaner technologies and lower-carbon energy, enabling greater investment in clean energy and clean tech.
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Age of Deception: Cybersecurity as Secret Statecraft
Wednesday, February 25
12:00-1:30pm
MIT, E40-496, 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge
And livestreamed at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG5ooD8Ydk4vd83Ac8VNEoQ
Jon R. Lindsay, Georgia Institute of Technology
Summary:
In this seminar, Professor Lindsay will discuss his new book, Age of Deception: Cybersecurity as Secret Statecraft, which explores the dimensions of cybersecurity within a broader historical context of intelligence operations.
Bio:
Jon Lindsay is an Associate Professor at the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy and the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). His research explores the role of emerging technology in global security. He is the author of Age of Deception: Cybersecurity as Secret Statecraft (Cornell, 2025) and Information Technology and Military Power (Cornell, 2020), co-author with Erik Gartzke of Elements of Deterrence: Strategy, Technology, and Complexity in Global Politics (Oxford, 2024), and the editor of Cross-Domain Deterrence: Strategy in an Era of Complexity (Oxford, 2019) and China and Cybersecurity: Espionage, Strategy, and Politics in the Digital Domain (Oxford, 2015). He holds a Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an M.S. in computer science and B.S. in symbolic systems from Stanford University. He also served in the U.S. Navy with operational assignments in Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.
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Born to Flourish
Wednesday, February 25
1 – 2 p.m.
Harvard, FXB G13, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Ave, Boston
And online
RSVP at https://harvard.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_7ZMfB0gs14zVrgi
SPEAKER(S) Dr. Richard Davidson, Founder and Director of the Center for Healthy Minds; William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry University of Wisconsin–Madison
Discover how to literally reshape your brain for greater happiness, resilience, and purpose with one of the world’s leading experts on the science of well-being, Dr. Richard Davidson. A bestselling author and pioneering neuroscientist, Dr. Davidson will share cutting-edge research from his forthcoming book "Born to Flourish", showing how simple mental training practices can measurably change brain circuits linked to emotional balance, compassion, and flourishing.
Whether you’re seeking tools for personal growth or strategies to transform leadership, team culture, creativity, and health in the workplace, this session will offer practical, science-based steps you can start using right away.
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Teaching 250 Years of Immigration
Wednesday, February 25
4:30-5:30 PM ET
Online
RSVP at https://www.ilctr.org/events/teaching-250-years-of-immigration-webinar/
As the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, this webinar, co-hosted by The Immigration Learning Center and the Institute for Immigration Research, invites educators to examine how immigration has shaped the nation from the Revolutionary era to the present day. Discover what information exists about immigration in the United States across history and learn how to evaluate data critically. Explore ways to integrate immigration history into existing curricula.
Join us for this webinar on Wednesday, February 25 from 4:30-5:30 PM ET. Designed for K–12 educators, this session blends historical content, data literacy, and classroom practice to support inclusive and inquiry-based teaching in the lead-up to America’s semiquincentennial.
During this webinar, you’ll learn how to:
Identify and evaluate immigration-related data over time
Apply classroom-tested strategies and ready-to-use resources to teach immigration as a core part of the American story across grade levels
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Can the Ocean Clean Up Our Carbon Mess?
Thursday, February 26
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, Multipurpose Room, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://as.tufts.edu/environmentalstudies/news-events/hoch-cunningham-lecture-series#feb26
The ocean is the Earth’s largest reservoir of carbon on time scales of decades to centuries and currently absorbs ~25% of annual anthropogenic carbon emissions. This reduces the rate at which carbon accumulates in the atmosphere, slowing global climate change and helping clean up our “carbon mess.” In recent years, proposals to artificially enhance the ocean’s capacity to store carbon – termed marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) – have also gained traction. Predicting the extent to which the ocean will continue absorbing carbon under ongoing climate change, as well as assessing the viability of mCDR proposals, requires a strong baseline knowledge of the mechanisms that enable the ocean to absorb carbon. In this talk, Dr. Hilary Palevsky will discuss our current understanding of the ocean’s capacity to clean up our carbon mess, and how it can inform climate change projections and the burgeoning mCDR industry.
Speaker: Dr. Hilary Palevsky, Assistant Professor in Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Boston College
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Industrial Policy in Action: Lessons from Over a Decade at the DOE
Thursday, February 26
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM ET
Online
RSVP at https://www.hks.harvard.edu/events/industrial-policy-action-lessons-over-decade-doe
The energy sector stands at an inflection point. After 15 years of remarkable change, the convergence of surging electricity demand, climate pressures, and emerging industries promises even more rapid transformation. This presentation and discussion draws on Garrett's experience at the Department of Energy and Waypoint Strategy Group to explore the path from research to commercialization, the impacts of policy on technology development and deployment, and the broader ecosystem that makes modern energy systems work. We'll close with a look at what the coming years may hold.
Speaker: Garrett Nilsen, Co-Founder and Partner Waypoint Strategy Group
Whether attending in person or virtually, please register in advance. Room attendance is permitted for the Harvard community. Lunch will be served. The Zoom session is open to the public.
Speaker Bio: Garrett spent over 13 years working in the US Department of Energy's Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO), rising the roles of Deputy (and Acting) Director, aiding the industry's rise from a minor contributor to the US electricity sector to the nation's fastest growing energy source. He managed a $300+ million-per-year portfolio spanning photovoltaics, solar-thermal, grid integration, supply-chain resilience, and non-hardware solar costs (e.g. workforce development, siting, community acceptance, equitable access to solar). Under his leadership the office launched first of their kind programs to address technology commercialization, solar energy and load forecasting, renewable energy siting, renewable energy grid interconnection, new uses of solar, and more. Prior to leadership roles at SETO, he led teams working on accelerating technologies to market and got to see first hand how industrial policy can shape a technologies future. Garrett is now at Waypoint Strategy Group, which he founded with 3 other senior DOE leaders in 2025 to bring lessons on technology research, development, and commercialization and effective funding program design to the world.
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Insights to Action: Coastal and Marine Climate Impacts and Adaptation Priorities
Thursday, February 26
1:00 pm
Online
RSVP at https://necasc.umass.edu/webinars/insights-action-coastal-and-marine-climate-impacts-and-adaptation-priorities
Building on a regional listening session hosted by NE CASC, this virtual event will share key insights from a follow-up survey on coastal and marine climate impacts and adaptation priorities in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. We will reflect back what we heard about climate change impacts and challenges, as well as adaptation priorities identified by managers, researchers, and the broader coastal and marine community. We invite you to join the discussion on how these findings can inform future research, collaboration, and management efforts.
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MIT Sloan Africa Innovate Conference
Saturday, February 28
MIT, Building E51, Wong Auditorium, 70 MEMORIAL DR, Cambridge, MA 02142
https://mit-africa.com/africa-innovate-conference/
The Africa Innovate Conference (AIC) is the flagship event of the MIT Sloan Africa Business Club, bringing together over 250 entrepreneurs, innovators, investors, policymakers, and industry leaders from around the world. Hosted by MIT Sloan students, AIC fosters networking, learning, and collaboration around advancements in technology, business, and social impact within Africa. Through multidisciplinary panels and showcases of groundbreaking initiatives, AIC addresses interconnected challenges and celebrates projects driving positive change on the continent.
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Environmental Justice in the Time of Climate Denial: How frontline communities are organizing and building power as environmental protections are rolled back
Monday, Marcy 2
12:15 pm – 1:15 pmA
Princeton, #300 Wallace Hall
And online
RSVP at https://cpree.princeton.edu/events/2026/environmental-justice-time-climate-denial
Arif Ullah, Executive Director of A2 (Anthropocene Alliance)
Arif Ullah is Executive Director of A2 (Anthropocene Alliance), a national coalition of frontline groups advocating for environmental health and protection. He is a social and environmental justice advocate, grassroots urban planner, and community activist. He serves on the NYS Climate Justice Working Group.
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A Slightly Better Future
Monday, March 2
3pm ET [6:00 PM PST]
The Commonwealth Club of California, 110 The Embarcadero, Taube Family Auditorium, San Francisco, CA 94105
And online
RSVP at https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2026-03-02/george-hammond-slightly-better-future
Cost: $5
Monday Night Philosophy focuses tonight on the political philosophical principles generated by George Hammond’s “Life is an Eternal Democracy” theory. His latest book, A Slightly Better Future: Short Term Fixes for America, Long Term Fixes for Democracy, details many incremental institutional improvements that could make democracies far more effective in the future. His ideas, based upon what we should have learned over the last 250 years, include a thoroughly revised democratic constitution, significantly redesigned political institutions, and several new forms of institutional checks and balances.
Fortunately, even amidst the current dismaying destruction of valued political norms, there remains a strong, sustaining undercurrent—the hope that all this institutional chaos will ultimately just remind us why compromise in the pursuit of consensus has been, and could continue to be, so productive in America’s political culture.
Join us to discuss political principles that are designed to promote a civilized future, using realistic 21st century political thought—and political hope.
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The Stratton Lecture: The Epidemic of Loneliness
Tuesday, March 3
11:30pm - 1:00pm
MIT Wong Auditorium (E51-115), 2 Amherst St, Cambridge, MA 02142
And livestreamed
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/stratton-lecture-the-living-brain-tickets-1980660496864
Join us for The Living Brain: Health and Memory Across the Lifespan, a lecture that invites curiosity about how the human brain supports learning, thinking, and emotional life over time. Speakers will share insights into how scientists study the brain and what this research reveals about maintaining brain health and memory. Together, these perspectives offer a thoughtful look at how everyday experiences, biology, and care for the brain shape cognitive well-being across the course of life.
Keynote Speaker: Professor John D. Gabrieli
Remarks by: Dr. Mikki Tal
Remarks by: Professor Laura Lewis
Discussion Moderated by: Amy Brand, Director and Publisher of MIT Press
John Gabrieli is the director of the Athinoula A. Martinos Imaging Center at the McGovern Institute. He is an Investigator at the Institute, with faculty appointments in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and the Institute for Medical Engineering & Science, where he holds the Grover Hermann Professorship. He also has appointments in the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and is the director of the MIT Integrated Learning Initiative. Prior to joining MIT in 2005, he spent 14 years at Stanford University in the Department of Psychology and Neurosciences Program. He received a Ph.D. in Behavioral Neuroscience in the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and a B.A. in English from Yale University. In 2016 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Michal Caspi Tal, PhD, is an immunoengineer, and a Principal Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dr. Tal leads the Tal Research Group within the department of Biological Engineering and also serves as the associate scientific director of the Center for Gynepathology Research. Michal is working to identify the connections between infections and chronic diseases. Her research is focused on creating predictive diagnostics, and generating actionable information providers can use to connect with and care for patients to improve diagnosis and treatments for invisible chronic diseases. From tick-borne disease to COVID, there are many similarities across chronic inflammatory diseases and important sex differences in these responses, which are the focus of the Tal group. Michal received her PhD at Yale University in Immunobiology under the mentorship of Dr. Akiko Iwasaki researching how immune responses to viruses are impacted by processes such as aging. Dr Tal then did her postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Irving Weissman at Stanford where she later became an instructor at the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Stanford University leading the infectious disease team and studying immumodulatory mechanisms which impact immune clearance of infectious disease, with a focus on Lyme disease. Michal has been awarded NIH NIAID F31 and F32 pre and postdoctoral fellowships, as well as the Emerging Leader Award from Bay Area Lyme Foundation.
Laura Lewis is the Athinoula A. Martinos Associate Professor in IMES and EECS at MIT, and an Associate Faculty Member at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at MGH. She completed her Ph.D. in Neuroscience, and conducted postdoctoral work in neuroimaging, in the Society of Fellows at Harvard University. Her research develops multimodal approaches for imaging the human brain, and applies them to study the neural circuitry that controls sleep, and the consequences of sleep for brain function. Her work has shown that fast fMRI can measure subsecond neural dynamics, and discovered waves of cerebrospinal fluid flow that appear in the sleeping human brain. Her research has been recognized by awards such as the Peter and Patricia Gruber International Research Award, the Sloan Fellowship, the McKnight Scholar Award, and the Pew Scholar Award.
Moderated by:
Amy Brand, director and publisher of the MIT Press, one of the largest university presses in the world, and an important figure in open access publishing. The MIT Press is well known for its publications in emerging fields of scholarship and its pioneering use of technology. Brand’s career spans a wide array of experiences in academia and scholarly communications. She received her doctorate in cognitive science from MIT and has held a number of positions in scholarly communications, publishing, and open information access at MIT, Digital Science, and Harvard before returning to the press in 2015 to serve as director. She was executive producer of the Emmy-nominated documentary Picture a Scientist, a 2020 selection of the Tribeca Film Festival that highlights gender inequality in science. Some of Dr. Brand’s awards include the Laya Wiesner Community Award, the American Association for the Advancement of Science Kavli Science Journalism Gold Award, and the Award for Meritorious Achievement issued by the Council of Science Editors.
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Climate Change: A Solutions Approach (webinar)
Tuesday, Marcy 3
12pm to 1pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-change-a-solutions-approach-webinar-registration-1936833905349
Part of the Program: Sustainability collection
This class introduces climate change science and solutions, and what you can do locally to make a difference.
This class introduces climate change science and solutions, and what you can do locally to make a difference. It is inspired by the work of Project Drawdown, a solutions-focused approach to climate change, sharing both global and local perspective on the issue and its many solutions. In joining us for this 1-hour presentation, you’ll become more informed on small and large, successfully implemented solutions to slow and eventually stop the increase of greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere. Participants will walk away with specific strategies they can implement in their own lives. Please register for this event ONLY at ufsarasotaext.eventbrite.com rather than any third party websites, as they are not affiliated with our classes and events.
Once registered through Eventbrite, the system will send you a confirmation email.
For questions or further information, please call 941-861-5000 or email sarasota@ifas.ufl.edu.
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Amazon Rainforest and Its Soils: The Tipping Point as an Imminent Risk of the Savannization of the System
Wednesday, March 4,
12 PM ET
Online
RSVP at https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2026-mauricio-fontes-fellow-presentation-virtual
A presentation from 2025–2026 Hrdy Fellow Mauricio P. F. Fontes
The Amazon biome is the world’s largest remaining tropical forest, hosting around 10 percent of the planet’s biodiversity, and the soil, part of this brittle ecosystem, plays a vital role in its conservation. The critical threshold at which the conversion of tropical rainforest to dry savanna could be irreversible is approaching dangerously. Fontes is generating a methodology for the establishment of sustainable and regenerative agriculture in this region.
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Restoring Indigenous Socio-Environmental Systems
Thursday, March 5
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, Multipurpose Room, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://as.tufts.edu/environmentalstudies/news-events/hoch-cunningham-lecture-series#mar5
Environments across North America are in crisis. Restoring longstanding Indigenous relationships with the land and sea provides one pathway to help heal local ecosystems and communities. This talk reviews an ongoing trans-disciplinary collaboration with the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation to help restore land recently re-acquired by the Tribe in the Bear River Basin. Analysis reconstructs long-term baselines of species occurrence, climatic change, and land use practices to model the factors that will maximize cultural keystone species occurrence, biodiversity, and ecosystem function across the region today, and into the future under varying climate scenarios. By centering collaboration to advance scientific knowledge for community benefit, this project contributes to broader movements seeking to help restore Indigenous socio-environmental systems across the continent.
Speaker: Dr. Brian Codding, Professor in Environmental Studies Program and Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara
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The Navy We Need: Maritime Dominance in a World of Interlocking Supply Chains
Wednesday, March 4
12:00-1:30pm
MIT, E40-496, 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge 02139
And livestreamed at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG5ooD8Ydk4vd83Ac8VNEoQ
Paul DeLuca, RAND
Summary:
Global supply chains depend heavily on movement of goods and material by sea, but force structure requirements for the U.S. Navy have been largely focused on priorities besides sea control. Many factors impact supply chain vulnerability, but the physical facts of ocean transportation might not be understood or appreciated. This presentation will describe the relationship between maritime forces and supply chain security and insecurity.
Bio:
Bradley Martin is a senior policy researcher at RAND. He retired from the Navy as a surface warfare Captain after 30 years of service, including four command tours.
In addition to his operational tours, Martin served on the staff of U.S. Forces Japan, the OPNAV staff as an operations analyst, and most recently as the Navy coordinator for participation in Joint Staff and OSD requirements and resources forums. His subspecialties included operations research, operational logistics, and strategic planning. Prior to joining the Navy, he received his doctorate in political science from the University of Michigan, while working as a research assistant for the Correlates of War Project.
His work at RAND focuses on Navy force structure and capabilities, supply chain security and resilience, and national security strategy.
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A Political Economy of Inequality and Pandemics
Thursday, March 5
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
BU, Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, 67 Bay State Road, Boston, MA
And online
RSVP at https://www.bu.edu/pardee/ghpwspring2026/
Join in person or via Zoom us for a Global Health Politics Workshop with Matthew M. Kavanagh, PhD, Director & Associate Professor, Center for Global Health Policy & Politics. Prof. Kavanagh is a political scientist working at the intersection of law, political economy, and global health to explore how international and national governance institutions function and how they produce inequality, particularly in pandemics.
The world is in a new age of pandemics, in which they are more frequent and severe. This is often attributed to factors like travel and urbanization. Less explored are the political drivers. This talk explores the idea of a pandemic-inequality cycle and, in particular, the comparative politics of policy coordination in a pandemic that might help explain why more unequal countries have seen greater morality and transmission when viruses break out.
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10 Year Anniversary of Sustainable Business Network of Massachusetts
Thursday, March 5
6:30 pm to 8:30 pm EST
Nonprofit Center, 89 South Street, Boston, 02111, MA
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2025-26-sustainable-business-of-the-year-awards-tickets-1981005466678
Cost: The tickets are self-selected sliding scale between $50–$120. It will help us cover the cost of dinner and drinks for our guests. Your contribution directly supports SBN’s mission to build a green and fair economy in Massachusetts.
Get ready to celebrate the top sustainable businesses of the year with us at the 2025-26 Sustainable Business of the Year Awards!
A Decade of Local Impact: Join SBN’s 10th Annual Awards!
As a way of celebrating the hundreds of success stories of socially responsible local businesses in 2015! SBN created the first Sustainable Business of the Year Award program that honors the exceptional local businesses that are changing our communities for the better every day. Including this year's Awardees, SBN has honored 57 businesses for their extraordinary commitment to creating strong local economies that are Local, Green, and Fair.
We are hosting our 10th Annual Awards Celebration, and we'd love to have you join us. This isn't just an awards ceremony—it’s a homecoming. We are inviting our partners, awardees, and friends from the last decade to join us for an evening of reflection and celebration.
