These kinds of events below are happening all over the world every day and most of them, now, are webcast and archived, sometimes even with accurate transcripts. Would be good to have a place that helped people access them.
This is a more global version of the local listings I did for about a decade (what I did and why I did it at http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-i-do-and-why-i-do-it.html) until September 2020 and earlier for a few years in the 1990s (https://theworld.com/~gmoke/AList.index.html).
A more comprehensive global listing service could be developed if there were enough people interested in doing it, if it hasn’t already been done.
If anyone knows whether 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
https://zeronetenrg.blogspot.com - zero net energy links list
http://cityag.blogspot.com - city agriculture links list
http://geometrylinks.blogspot.com - geometry links list
http://hubevents.blogspot.com - Energy (and Other) Events
http://www.dailykos.com/user/gmoke/history - articles, ideas, and screeds
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Conferences
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Migration Summit
Monday, April 4 - April 29, 2022
Virtual Event
The Migration Summit 2022, organized by the MIT Refugee Action Hub (ReACT), Na’amal, Karam Foundation and the MIT Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab (J-WEL), is a month-long global convening designed to build bridges between diverse communities of displaced learners, universities, companies, nonprofits and NGOs, social enterprises, foundations, philanthropists, researchers, policy makers, employers and governments around the key challenges and opportunities for refugee and migrant communities. The Migration Summit in April 2022 will explore this year’s theme “Education and Workforce Development in Displacement” through virtual and in-person events hosted by participating partners around the world.
Visit https://react.mit.edu/migrationsummit/ to register and to read the full event description.
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Living Climate Futures
Friday, April 22 - April 23
MIT Campus, Various Locations
Living Climate Futures culminates in a two-day symposium of events and activities, April 22-23.
Some events are open to the public and require Tim Tickets (see FAQ).
Others are for the MIT community (preference to students) and community partners only.
Full Description: livingclimatefutures.org
Friday, April 22
11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Virtual visit with Chicago high school student activists
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Indigenous Earth Day at MIT
Saturday, April 23
9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Environmental Justice + Climate Resilience Tours
2:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Community Partner Panel Discussion + Youth Forum
(all details subject to change - sign up for each event in Eventbrite to get updates)
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TEDxMIT
Saturday, April 23
Stata Center
https://tedxboston.com/upcoming-events/
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MIT Sloan New Space Age Conference 2022
Friday, April 29
MIT Media Lab, 75 Amherst Street, Building E14 - 6th Floor, Cambridge
Tickets now available: http://newspaceage.org/
Cost: $10 – $175
A student-led event at MIT Sloan.
MIT's Astropreneurship & Space Industry Club is proud to host the seventh annual New Space Age Conference as a platform to advance growth of the private space industry. 2022 speakers will discuss new technologies and services being implemented to close the business case for the emerging space economy. Join students, academics, and industry professionals to learn more !
Friday, April 29
MIT Media Lab, 75 Amherst Street, Building E14 - 6th Floor, Cambridge
Tickets now available: http://newspaceage.org/
Cost: $10 – $175
A student-led event at MIT Sloan.
MIT's Astropreneurship & Space Industry Club is proud to host the seventh annual New Space Age Conference as a platform to advance growth of the private space industry. 2022 speakers will discuss new technologies and services being implemented to close the business case for the emerging space economy. Join students, academics, and industry professionals to learn more !
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2022 Hybrid Interfaith Summit - Together in Climate Chaos; Interfaith Solidarity for Climate Resilient Communities; an Interfaith Summit on How to Respond to Climate Change
May 1
4pm-6pm
zoom and in person
Native American Indian Center of Boston, 105 South Huntington Avenue, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130. You have a choice of either attending in-person, or virtually on zoom.
RSVP at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZElc-yqqTgjEtBaSf15bzUUptAuOCnu5Hzw
In the wake of the National Climate Assessment and UN report in 2021 on the projected serious consequences of unchecked climate change, interfaith leaders from the greater Boston area will come together with Communities Responding to Extreme Weather (CREW) to host the fourth annual interfaith summit.
This now abbreviated summit will focus on the role of faith communities in helping their community members build resilience, whether from future climate impacts such as floods, extreme heat, and severe storms, or more immediate concerns like a pandemic. We will shall share knowledge on the types of changes we are already seeing and can expect to see in the Northeast, discuss practical ways congregations can prepare themselves and their surrounding community, and discern together how our spiritual practices could help sustain not only our efforts, but also our souls, hearts, and minds, as we engage in this most critical mission.
There will be an optional half-hour of networking from 6:00pm-6:30pm on the same zoom line that participants are encouraged but not mandated to attend.
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Lecture Series
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Real Organic Book Club
https://www.realorganicproject.org/real-organic-friends/
We are pleased to announce the first several dates for our 2022 Real Friends book club:
Paul Hawken, May 5, 6pm EDT
Anne Bikle, June 2, 6pm EDT
David Montgomery, July 7, 6pm EDT
Vandana Shiva, to be announced
Dan Barber, to be announced
Providing you with the opportunity to engage with these prominent Real Organic board members is just one of the ways we would like to thank you for your ongoing support of our work. The book club meetings should be fun and interesting. It will be a chance to talk with these important thinkers about their work.
Lecture Series
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Real Organic Book Club
https://www.realorganicproject.org/real-organic-friends/
We are pleased to announce the first several dates for our 2022 Real Friends book club:
Paul Hawken, May 5, 6pm EDT
Anne Bikle, June 2, 6pm EDT
David Montgomery, July 7, 6pm EDT
Vandana Shiva, to be announced
Dan Barber, to be announced
Providing you with the opportunity to engage with these prominent Real Organic board members is just one of the ways we would like to thank you for your ongoing support of our work. The book club meetings should be fun and interesting. It will be a chance to talk with these important thinkers about their work.
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Events
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PAOC Colloquium: Ecological and evolutionary responses to global change across realms
Monday, April 4
12:00pm to 1:00pm
Virtual Event
https://mit.zoom.us/j/99605116338#success
Malin Pinsky (Rutgers)
The same ecological and evolutionary processes operate across land and sea, and yet ocean life survives in a dramatically different fluid environment. The ocean is, in effect, a 1.3 sextillion liter water bath with muted thermal variation through time and space, limited oxygen, and intense convective and conductive processes. In this talk, I will trace some of the consequences for evolution, physiology, population dynamics, and conservation at sea, including striking contrasts and similarities to patterns on land. I will present evidence that marine animals live closer to their upper thermal limits than do species on land, that marine species have responded faster to temperature change, and that species can but do not universally evolve in response to rapid environmental change. Finally, I will discuss some of the unique conservation challenges these dynamics create for ocean life and potential solutions through proactive ocean planning and by harnessing evolutionary rescue for climate resilience.
About This Event
The PAOC Colloquium is a weekly interdisciplinary seminar series that brings together the whole PAOC community. Seminar topics include all research concerning the physics, chemistry, and biology of the atmospheres, oceans and climate, but also talks about e.g. societal impacts of climatic processes. The seminars take place on Monday from 12-1pm. Contact paoc-colloquium-comm@mit.edu for more information and Zoom password.
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How Do We Think about Population in the Anthropocene?
Monday, April 4
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/alison-bashford-how-do-we-think-about-population-in-the-anthropocene-registration-252378048537
Alison Bashford explores first how modern (post c. 1780) population changes have entered discussion on the Anthropocene. Second, she asks how historians specifically, might (not should) begin to answer this question, with attention to both accelerating global net population growth and local population decline. She considers the ‘Anthropocene’ (not, say, ‘climate change’), since the former is an historical as well as a geological phenomenon, and, it turns out, a familiar one.
Alison Bashford's work traces the fortunes and trends of historical work on global population from the mid-twentieth century into the era when the Anthropocene was named. The catastrophic register of ‘the population bomb’ era, including its connection to ecological sciences and then environmentalist politics, is the immediate antecedent to political responses to the Anthropocene crisis. That much we already know. Here Allison Bashford explores how and why ‘population’ went from center-stage to off-stage. Discussion of population growth and ‘population control’ became highly charged and then became almost unspeakable. For better or worse this was a remarkable success story of and for ‘critique’: of health systems, of political economy, of Cold War geopolitics, variously via feminist studies, race and postcolonial studies, via Marxism and left science studies from the 1970s onwards. After and in the light of that impact, she asks how or whether ‘population’ might productively be considered via a ‘postcritique’ humanities and social sciences, not least bringing historians into that conversation.
Event Speakers
Alison Bashford, Laureate Professor in History at the University of New South Wales
Response by Kavita Sivaramakrishnan, Associate Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University
Chaired by Maureen Raymo, Co-Founding Dean of the Climate School at Columbia University
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Delivering on Net Zero
Tuesday, April 5
11 a.m. – 12 p.m.
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_LIzv_Hu7Rr2bFiUg3rYJBg
SPEAKER(S) Kwasi Kwarteng, UK Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
CONTACT INFO mrcbg@hks.harvard.edu
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Getting Off Russian Gas: Implications for Germany and Europe
Tuesday, April 5
5:30 - 6:15pm CEST
RSVP at https://email.gmfus.org/s/4434c98e8e6db288802f00e67ddb3141db242047
Jacob Kirkegaard
Moderator: Sudha David-Wilp
External Speaker: Prof. Dr. Veronika Grimm
Before Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine, allies warned Germany of the risks associated with energy dependence on Russia. Now, Germany and other EU member states are hurriedly seeking ways to replace Russian fossil fuels. In his Zeitenwende speech, Chancellor Olaf Scholz called for a "responsible, forward-looking energy policy," but economic concerns already threaten to thwart his vision. What would be the economic effects for Germany and Europe if they wean themselves off Russian gas sooner rather than later? To discuss this question and more, we will speak with economic experts Veronika Grimm and Jacob Kirkegaard in this month’s edition of #TransatlanticTuesdays. Next month, we will cover the military pillar of the Zeitenwende speech.
If you have any questions, please contact Callie Starn at CStarn@gmfus.org.
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Governing the Climate? The Paris Agreement at Work
Wednesday, April 6
8:00 AM to 9:30 AM
RSVP at https://columbiauniversity.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_qAQ4M7biR0WefGBH-ES5Nw
It has been more than six years since COP 21 was held in Paris in December 2015. We’re now able to take a step back, take stock, and ask some important questions about the Paris process: How can very ambitious emissions reduction goals be met by voluntary national commitments? Do commitments translate into transformative policies? What are the most promising mechanisms, initiatives, and developments that could enable developing countries to deliver on ambitious emissions reduction targets? How does the formal regime (post-Paris process) interact with initiatives, actions and commitments from the industrial and financial sectors? How will the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine impact international climate policy? The Center on Global Energy Policy and the Columbia Global Centers | Paris will host a panel of experts to address these questions, and more.
Moderator: Pierre Noël, Global Research Scholar, Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University SIPA
Panelists: Scott Barrett, Lenfest-Earth Institute Professor of Natural Resource Economics, Columbia University; Alliance (Visiting) Professor, Sciences Po; and Centennial (Visiting) Professor, London School of Economics
Amy Dahan, Emeritus Research Director at the CNRS (Paris, France)
Paul Watkinson, Counsellor to Director for European and International Action, Ministry for Ecological Transition, France – former chief negotiator, former chair of Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice of UNFCCC
This webinar will be hosted via Zoom. Advance registration is required. Upon registration, you will receive a confirmation email with access details. The event will be recorded and the video recording will be added to our website following the event.
This event is open to press, and registration is required to attend. For media inquiries or requests for interviews, please contact Natalie Volk (nv2388@columbia.edu).
For more information about the event, please contact energypolicyevents@columbia.edu.
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Flipgrid Live Event: Responding to Environmental Racism
Thursday, April 7
3:00 PM EDT TO 3:30 PM EDT
RSVP at https://retailevents.microsoft.com/event/registration?id=Flipgrid_Live_Event1877343570
Please join us at 3:00pm EDT on Thursday, April 7 for a special event with journalist, poet, and Pulitzer Center reporting fellow Irene Vázquez, hosted in partnership with Flipgrid Live! Irene will talk about what environmental racism is, and how Black and Indigenous organizers are responding to the effects of climate change in their communities.
This event is designed for teachers and students ages 12 and up, but is open to all.
Irene Vázquez is a poet, editor, and journalist from Houston, Texas. She is an incoming editorial assistant at Levine Querido. Irene is a recent graduate of Yale College, where she was an Edward A. Bouchet Fellow. Her writing explores Black placemaking, feminisms, and ecopoetics in the U.S. South and Caribbean. Vázquez is a 2020 recipient of a NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists Scholarship as well as a We Need Diverse Books Internship Grant. Her work has been published in The Texas Observer, Curbed, and Sargasso: A Journal of Caribbean Literature, Language and Culture. When she's not writing, she likes drinking coffee, watching women’s basketball, and reminding people that the South has something to say.
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Climate Doom and Eco-Anxiety
Thursday, April 7
6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
https://events.columbia.edu/cal/event/showEventMore.rdo
This will be a Q&A panel event with four panelists working on climate change and the way it shapes mental health, media, art, and activism. Climate anxiety is the feelings of grief, despair, angst, and doom surrounding the deterioration of the climate. Climate anxiety is on the rise, 2/3 of young Americans and over half of all Americans are anxious about its effect on their mental health. As young people witness slow action to address climate change, this feeling of anxiety continues to grow. The panelists will delve into how various forms of art and activism can foster hope and engagement as we work through climate anxiety. The audience will learn more about resources and opportunities to address climate anxiety while staying active in pushing for change. This conversation will be hosted over Zoom and will be moderated by Columbia undergraduate student and Columbia Climate Conversations creator, Lauren Ritchie. The event will be open to anyone who RSVPs, not limited to only Columbia students.
Event Contact Information:
Earth Institute Events
events@ei.columbia.edu
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Decarbonizing Europe is Important and Challenging
Friday, April 8
9 – 10 a.m.
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_JAb5ED3xSEu5Iku2zy96uA
SPEAKER(S) Dan Jørgensen, Minister of Climate, Energy, and Utilities, Kingdom of Denmark
As a global leader in efforts to combat climate change, Denmark is aiming to phase out its oil and gas production and produce more than 100 percent of its electricity demand by renewables by 2027. Dan Jørgensen, the Danish Minister of Climate, Energy and Utilities, will be our guest for the next HPCA Virtual Forum, “Conversations on Climate Change and Energy Policy,” on April 8. Minister Jørgensen played a significant role in maintaining the focus on reducing the rise of global temperatures during COP26 in Glasgow, serving as co-leader on the consultations in the “ambition track.” In addition, he launched the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA) during the COP. The April 8th discussion will focus on climate policy in general, including the Paris Agreement, COP26, and Danish and European efforts to decarbonize their economies.
CONTACT INFO jason_chapman@hks.harvard.edu
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Crimes against humanity, genocide, and ecocide: Of rights, responsibilities, and international order
The eighth annual Justice Stephen Breyer Lecture on International Law
Friday, April 8
11:00 AM EDT - 1:00 PM EDT
RSVP at https://connect.brookings.edu/register-to-watch-breyer-lecture
Join the conversation on Twitter using #InternationalLaw
On April 8, 2022, as part of the eighth annual Justice Stephen Breyer Lecture on International Law, Foreign Policy at Brookings will host Philippe Sands, professor of law at University College London and Samuel and Judith Pisar visiting professor of law at Harvard Law School, for a keynote address on rights, responsibilities, and international order.
Sands will explore the evolution of the rights of individuals and groups under international law, from the introduction of the ideas of aggression, crimes against humanity, and genocide — introduced at the Nuremberg Trial, in the autumn of 1945 — to the treatment of these issues in current times, including ISIS and the Yazidis; the Rohingya in Myanmar; the Uighurs in China; and the Chagosians and the Chagos Archipelago. He will also address the current situation in Ukraine and touch on new ideas to extend the reach of international law to criminalize severe harm to the environment.
After the keynote address, Nonresident Senior Fellow Ted Piccone will join Sands for a conversation on the role of international law in prosecuting crimes against humanity, genocide, and ecocide. A panel discussion of distinguished experts on these issues will follow their conversation.
Viewers can submit questions by email to events@brookings.edu or on Twitter using #InternationalLaw.
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2022 Urbanism Spring Lecture Series: Dalia Munenzon on Climate Adaptive Cities
Tuesday, April 12
12:30pm to 1:45pm
Virtual Event
Co-hosted by the City Design & Development Program (CDD), SMArchS Urbanism Program and Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism at MIT.
This lecture, Climate Adaptive Cities, will be streamed online here: http://web.mit.edu/webcast/lcau/s22/lecture/9/
The webcast link includes a section where you can submit questions to the speaker for the Q&A period in real time.
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Compensation for a Just Energy Transition to a Zero-Carbon World
Thursday, April 14
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
RSVP at https://columbiauniversity.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_uiPWB2wAROSgXy_yPCFOOw
You will automatically receive a Zoom link to join the event upon registration.
Registration is free but required.
Limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, in line with the Paris Agreement, requires significant reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (GHG) by 2030 and net-zero GHG emissions by mid-century, and ultimately depends on a rapid shift away from fossil fuels.
As we take measures to decarbonize the global energy system, we also need to consider the distributional equity impacts of the energy transition on workers, communities, states, and foreign and domestic investors, and to reflect on the role that international and domestic legal frameworks play and should play in addressing those impacts.
The Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law—joint centers of the Earth Institute / Columbia Climate School and Columbia Law School at Columbia University—will co-host a 90-minute webinar on April 14 at 9am EST / 3pm CEST, focusing on legal approaches to compensation for a just energy transition.
Webinar discussions will cover, among others, the following topics:
A critique of the issue of compensation under investment treaties, including the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), from a climate change perspective
A review of arbitral tribunals’ approaches to the valuation of fossil fuel assets in selected investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS) cases
A case study of Germany's compensation scheme for lignite producers, as an example of a compensation scheme under domestic law
A discussion of possible principles or criteria on compensation for a just energy transition under domestic and international law, taking into account the impact of the transition on workers, communities, states, and companies
Moderator: Michael Burger, Executive Director, Sabin Center for Climate Change Law
Panelists: Martin Dietrich Brauch, Senior Legal and Economics Researcher, CCSI
Kyla Tienhaara, Canada Research Chair in Economy and Environment, School of Environmental Studies and the Department of Global Development Studies, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Blanca Gómez de la Torre, Partner and Head of Dispute Resolution: Litigation and Arbitration, ECIJA GPA; former National Director for International Affairs and Arbitration at the Office of the Attorney-General Office of Ecuador
Sarah Brown, Senior Energy & Climate Analyst, Ember
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“Saving the News: Why the Constitution Calls for Government Action to Preserve Freedom of Speech,” a Conversation with Martha Minow and Heather Hendershot
Thursday, April 14
5:00pm to 6:30pm
Virtual Event
This event is virtual and will be streamed live on Zoom (mit.zoom.us/j/96579656038) and recorded.
In her 2021 book Saving the News: Why the Constitution Calls for Government Action to Preserve Freedom of Speech, our guest Martha Minow “outlines an array of reforms, including a new fairness doctrine, regulating digital platforms as public utilities, using antitrust authority to regulate the media, policing fraud, and more robust funding of public media. As she stresses, such reforms are not merely plausible ideas; they are the kinds of initiatives needed if the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press continues to hold meaning in the twenty-first century.”
Martha Minow has taught at Harvard Law School, where she also served as Dean, since 1981. In addition to Saving the News, she is author of When Should Law Forgive? (2019), In Brown’s Wake: Legacies of America’s Constitutional Landmark (2010), among many other books and articles. She is an expert in human rights and advocacy for members of racial and religious minorities and for women, children, and persons with disabilities, she also writes and teaches about digital communications, democracy, privatization, military justice, and ethnic and religious conflict.
Heather Hendershot is Professor of Comparative Media Studies at MIT and studies TV news, conservative media, political movements, and American film and television history. She is author of the forthcoming book When the News Broke: Chicago 1968 and the Polarizing of America, which follows her 2016 title Open to Debate: How William F. Buckley Put Liberal America on the Firing Line. She has held fellowships at Vassar College, New York University, Princeton, Harvard, Radcliffe, and Stanford, and she has also been a Guggenheim fellow. Her courses emphasize the interplay between creative, political, and regulatory concerns and how those concerns affect what we see on the screen.
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FIRE AND FLOOD: A People’s History of Climate Change, from 1979 to the Present
Thursday, April 14
3 P.M. PDT
RSVP at https://commonwealthclub.secure.force.com/ticket/?_ga=2.188851369.368955509.1648949338-149928173.1643172478#/instances/a0F3j00001Tvq5jEAB
Join us for an online talk with environmental journalist Eugene Linden.
In his new book, Fire and Blood, Linden examines the role of business interests in muddying messages from scientists and derailing attempts to galvanize the public. He tells a story of big monied interests doing what they do to protect short-term profits against longer-term threats. One of the through-lines of the book is the insurance industry’s response to climate change, which for a long time was painfully slow, but recently has pivoted quite dramatically. Florida and California are seeing the housing insurance sector retreat from entire regions because of the unmanageable risks of fire and flood—some believe that the housing markets in parts of those two states are another bad season or two away from collapse. In a larger sense, big business, which for so long has been a woeful headwind to needed change, is waking up to the need to act very quickly now, as the long term has become the near term with terrifying speed.
Eugene Linden is an award-winning journalist and author on science, nature and the environment. He is the author of nine books of non-fiction and one novel. His previous book on climate change, Winds of Change, explored the connection between climate change and the rise and fall of civilizations and was awarded the Grantham Prize Special Award of Merit. For many years, Linden wrote about nature and global environmental issues for Time, where he garnered several awards, including the American Geophysical Union’s Walter Sullivan Award.
This is an online-only program; you must pre-register to receive a link to the live-stream event. We welcome donations made during registration to support the production of our online programming.
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The Ongoing Crisis for Afghan Refugees
Friday, April 15
12:00pm to 1:30pm
Virtual Event
Please register for the virtual Zoom webinar at https://bit.ly/AfghanRefugeeCrisis
Panel discussion with experts :: Part of the Myron Weiner Seminar Series on International Migration
Panelists:
Dipali Mukhopadhyay is Associate Professor in the global policy area at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on the relationships between political violence, state building, and governance during and after war. She is currently serving as senior expert on Afghanistan for the U.S. Institute of Peace and is an affiliated scholar with Columbia University's Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies. She is also the Vice President of the American Institute for Afghanistan Studies.
Nilofar Sakhi is a professorial lecturer of International Affairs at Elliott School of George Washington University. She is also a senior fellow (NR) at the Atlantic Council, South Asia Program. Sakhi is a scholar and policy practitioner who has written extensively on various aspects of peacemaking and peacebuilding processes, transnational security, and human security. Her recent book is on Human Security and Agency: Reframing productive power in Afghanistan.
Omar Sharifi is a Research Fellow and Lecturer at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota. He was the former Senior Research Fellow and Kabul Director of the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies (AIAS). He is also a member of the advisory board of the Civil Society Development Center (CSDC) and member of the Board of Directors of the Afghan Alumni Association and Afghanistan 1400. In addition, Omar worked as a National Consultant for UNICEF Afghanistan. He is an Asia Society Fellow and a member of Afghan 21 Young Leaders Forum.
Moderator:
Anna Hardman is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Economics at Tufts University and is a co-chair for the Inter-University Committee on International Migration at MIT CIS. Her research focuses on urban economics (regulation and the informal sector in housing markets in developing countries, the development and provision of services in peri-urban areas, and neighborhood income distribution) and on migration (remittances and the impact of immigration on housing markets in migrants' home and host communities).
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Energy Policy Seminar: Alexandre Strapasson on "Biofuels and Negative Emissions Technologies"
Monday, April 18
12 – 1 p.m.
RSVP at https://www.belfercenter.org/event/energy-policy-seminar-alexandre-strapasson-biofuels-and-negative-emissions-technologies
SPEAKER(S) Alexandre Strapasson, Research Fellow, Environment and Natural Resources Program, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
DETAILS
If the world is to prevent a major increase in the global mean surface temperature, it will be necessary not only to reduce carbon emissions, but also to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Photosynthesis is a natural mechanism to obtain such reductions. However, is it possible to store carbon while also using biomass energy?
Join us for an Energy Policy Seminar featuring Alexandre Strapasson, Research Fellow with the Environment and Natural Resources Program. Dr. Strapasson will explore how bioenergy and land use can provide negative emissions, including new technologies and trends, as well as the main opportunities and risks associated with them.
CONTACT INFO Elizabeth Hanlon (ehanlon@hks.harvard.edu)
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Energy Poverty and Global Justice Issues: Narasimha Rao, Yale
Monday, April 18
2:30 PM EDT — 3:30 PM
RSVP at https://yale.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_CDGme6PBRRCPRhdQ9Py01Q
This lecture is part of the Yale Energy Justice Speaker Series and will be led by Dr. Narasimha Rao, Yale University Professor of Energy Systems
Dr. Narasimha D. Rao's research examines the relationship between energy systems, human development and climate change. He is the recipient of the European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant (2015-2019) for a project entitled Decent Living Energy -energy and emissions thresholds for providing decent living standards for all. His research interests also include investigating income inequality, infrastructure, and climate policy. His methods include household energy modeling, econometrics, input-output, and policy analysis.
Dr. Rao is also a Senior Research Scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. He received his PhD from Stanford University in Environment and Resources, Masters from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Electrical Engineering and Technology Policy, and A.B from Dartmouth College.
Readings:
Energy Progress Report on Sustainable Development Goal 7, 2021 https://trackingsdg7.esmap.org/data/files/download-documents/2021_tracking_sdg7_report.pdf
Arto et. al, 2016, “The energy requirements of a developed world.” https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esd.2016.04.001
Rao and Baer, 2012, “”Decent Living” Emissions: A Conceptual Framework,”https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/4/4/656
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Sello Verde: Becoming Climate-Positive Organizations
Tuesday, April 19
6:00 PM EDT
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sello-verde-becoming-climate-positive-organizations-tickets-253403987147
Emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are responsible for climate change and global warming. Limiting these emissions is one of the biggest challenges human beings have ever faced.
What is net zero? How is it different from climate positive or carbon negative? Does climate neutrality still matter?
Speaker: Imran Anwar, Chief Innovation Officer, Microsoft, New York, US. IMRAN™ is best known as “father of the Internet & Email industry in Pakistan” and is among early pioneers of the Internet. He co-founded PKNIC & the .PK ccTLD; and launched the global branded credit card industry there with MasterCard. He achieved these disruptions overcoming threats and resistance from religious-fundamentalist dictatorship of a military ruler.
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Exploring evolutionary immunogenomics: Lessons from our ancestors and past pandemics
Wednesday, April 20
12:00 AM ET
RSVP at https://view6.workcast.net/register?cpak=5259998115912167&referrer=ScienceWebsite
SPEAKER Luis Barreiro, Ph.D.
MODERATOR Jackie Oberst, Ph.D.
This webinar is brought to you by the Science/AAAS Custom Publishing Office.
Humans display remarkable immune response variation when exposed to identical immune challenges. However, our understanding of the genetic, evolutionary, and environmental factors that impact this interindividual and interpopulation immune response heterogeneity is still in its early days. In this webinar, three fundamental questions concerning the recent evolution of the human immune system will be discussed: (1) the degree to which individuals from different populations vary in their innate immune responses; (2) the genetic variants accounting for such differences; and (3) the evolutionary mechanisms that led to the establishment of these variants in modern human populations. How past selective events might have contributed to the uneven distribution of immune-related disorders across populations will also be considered.
During this webinar, viewers will:
Gain insight into how past pandemics, such as Yersinia pestis, the agent of the Black Death, led to the evolution of the human immune system
Discover how the unique immunogenetic variation in present-day populations has impacted population differences in immune response to pathogens and susceptibility to immune-related disorders
Learn how cutting-edge techniques, such as RNA sequencing (RNA-seq), are used in evolutionary immunogenomics
Be able to ask questions during the live broadcast.
This webinar will last for approximately 60 minutes.
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In the Name of Your Daughter
Tuesday, April 26
7:00 PM Eastern
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfaWtnXNXjBu2MqiGPyaiJ95eCdxQzu7dw9qAZTxBDDeHcGqw/viewform
Healthy Tomorrow, a nonprofit working to stop FGM (female genital mutilation) in Mali and worldwide, will host an online screening of In the Name of Your Daughter on Tuesday, April 26, 2022 at 7:00 PM Eastern / 4:00 PM Pacific time.
The film documents a safe house in Tanzania that shelters courageous girls who fled from home to escape FGM at the hands of their families and communities. It gives a rare insider view of life in the safe house for girls and staff, and of emotional interactions with the families.
In a post-show panel, director Giselle Portenier and Healthy Tomorrow founder Susan McLucas will discuss the film and the current global movement against FGM and take questions from viewers.
The event is free of charge. Donations are invited to support the work of Healthy Tomorrow and Hope for Girls and Women which runs the safe house.
For more information about Healthy Tomorrow, visit StopExcision.net
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A Changing Planet Seminar: Antarctic marine ecosystems under pressure
Wednesday, April 27
11:00 - 12:00 GMT-04:00
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-changing-planet-seminar-antarctic-marine-ecosystems-under-pressure-tickets-304770606087
Dr Sian Henley, Lecturer in Marine Science, University of Edinburgh
This event is taking place in person, with a livestream (online access via Zoom) for those attending attending online.
Antarctic and Southern Ocean ecosystems are under increasing pressure from global climate change and direct human impacts. Decisive, immediate action on climate change mitigation is required at the global scale, as well as effective management at the local scale, to protect these ecosystems and their societal benefits worldwide.
The Southern Ocean is globally important for regulating climate by taking up atmospheric carbon dioxide, connecting the world’s oceans and ocean-climate system, and supporting key species and ecosystem services. Global climate change and ocean acidification are impacting the health and productivity of the Southern Ocean, with knock-on effects on these critical processes as well as regional fisheries (e.g. Antarctic krill) and other ecosystem services.
The first Marine Ecosystem Assessment for the Southern Ocean (MEASO, 2021) has shown significant changes in Antarctic and Southern Ocean ecosystems, driven by global climate change and direct human impacts. MEASO is an international collaboration of over 200 researchers from 19 countries. A team of scientists from the MEASO initiative attended the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 to present the key findings and advocate for urgent global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to instigate climate recovery and to avoid irreversible deterioration of Southern Ocean ecosystems and associated loss of their wide-ranging societal benefits. In this talk, I will present an overview of the key findings and make the case that only by mitigating global climate change, alongside effective local conservation and management, can we effectively safeguard these vulnerable polar oceans now and into the future.
About the speaker
Dr Sian Henley is a Lecturer in Marine Science at the University of Edinburgh. She also serves as Vice Chair of the Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS), a member of the Southern Ocean Task Force for the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, and a Science Theme Leader within the Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment and Society (SAGES). Sian has a diverse range of research interests from polar ocean ecosystem change to climate change impacts on children worldwide, and is a passionate lecturer, educator and communicator across the spectrum of marine and polar science.
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Bears Ears is Listening: We Are Still Here and The Land is Calling Us Back
Thursday, April 28
1 – 2 p.m.
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_pR2zWCsDRQ6fMEwVH6OomQ
Cynthia Wilson, (RPL Native and Indigenous Rights Fellow) and Angelo Baca ( Cultural Resources Coordinator for Utah Diné Bikéyah) will speak from their experience as Indigenous community organizers helping to secure the protection of Bears Ears National Monument. Located in southeast Utah, Bears Ears was subjected to Proclamation 9681 by President Trump in 2017 to reduce protected lands by more than 1.1 million acres. Following an Indigenous-led movement to protect Bears Ears, a reparative proclamation to modify the boundaries was issued by President Biden in October, 2021. Cynthia Wilson and Angelo Baca will discuss lessons learned from listening, organizing, mobilizing, and planning from a placed-based approach while engaging local Tribal voices, advancing community priorities and goals of ancestral land protection.
Events
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PAOC Colloquium: Ecological and evolutionary responses to global change across realms
Monday, April 4
12:00pm to 1:00pm
Virtual Event
https://mit.zoom.us/j/99605116338#success
Malin Pinsky (Rutgers)
The same ecological and evolutionary processes operate across land and sea, and yet ocean life survives in a dramatically different fluid environment. The ocean is, in effect, a 1.3 sextillion liter water bath with muted thermal variation through time and space, limited oxygen, and intense convective and conductive processes. In this talk, I will trace some of the consequences for evolution, physiology, population dynamics, and conservation at sea, including striking contrasts and similarities to patterns on land. I will present evidence that marine animals live closer to their upper thermal limits than do species on land, that marine species have responded faster to temperature change, and that species can but do not universally evolve in response to rapid environmental change. Finally, I will discuss some of the unique conservation challenges these dynamics create for ocean life and potential solutions through proactive ocean planning and by harnessing evolutionary rescue for climate resilience.
About This Event
The PAOC Colloquium is a weekly interdisciplinary seminar series that brings together the whole PAOC community. Seminar topics include all research concerning the physics, chemistry, and biology of the atmospheres, oceans and climate, but also talks about e.g. societal impacts of climatic processes. The seminars take place on Monday from 12-1pm. Contact paoc-colloquium-comm@mit.edu for more information and Zoom password.
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How Do We Think about Population in the Anthropocene?
Monday, April 4
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/alison-bashford-how-do-we-think-about-population-in-the-anthropocene-registration-252378048537
Alison Bashford explores first how modern (post c. 1780) population changes have entered discussion on the Anthropocene. Second, she asks how historians specifically, might (not should) begin to answer this question, with attention to both accelerating global net population growth and local population decline. She considers the ‘Anthropocene’ (not, say, ‘climate change’), since the former is an historical as well as a geological phenomenon, and, it turns out, a familiar one.
Alison Bashford's work traces the fortunes and trends of historical work on global population from the mid-twentieth century into the era when the Anthropocene was named. The catastrophic register of ‘the population bomb’ era, including its connection to ecological sciences and then environmentalist politics, is the immediate antecedent to political responses to the Anthropocene crisis. That much we already know. Here Allison Bashford explores how and why ‘population’ went from center-stage to off-stage. Discussion of population growth and ‘population control’ became highly charged and then became almost unspeakable. For better or worse this was a remarkable success story of and for ‘critique’: of health systems, of political economy, of Cold War geopolitics, variously via feminist studies, race and postcolonial studies, via Marxism and left science studies from the 1970s onwards. After and in the light of that impact, she asks how or whether ‘population’ might productively be considered via a ‘postcritique’ humanities and social sciences, not least bringing historians into that conversation.
Event Speakers
Alison Bashford, Laureate Professor in History at the University of New South Wales
Response by Kavita Sivaramakrishnan, Associate Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University
Chaired by Maureen Raymo, Co-Founding Dean of the Climate School at Columbia University
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Delivering on Net Zero
Tuesday, April 5
11 a.m. – 12 p.m.
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_LIzv_Hu7Rr2bFiUg3rYJBg
SPEAKER(S) Kwasi Kwarteng, UK Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
CONTACT INFO mrcbg@hks.harvard.edu
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Getting Off Russian Gas: Implications for Germany and Europe
Tuesday, April 5
5:30 - 6:15pm CEST
RSVP at https://email.gmfus.org/s/4434c98e8e6db288802f00e67ddb3141db242047
Jacob Kirkegaard
Moderator: Sudha David-Wilp
External Speaker: Prof. Dr. Veronika Grimm
Before Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine, allies warned Germany of the risks associated with energy dependence on Russia. Now, Germany and other EU member states are hurriedly seeking ways to replace Russian fossil fuels. In his Zeitenwende speech, Chancellor Olaf Scholz called for a "responsible, forward-looking energy policy," but economic concerns already threaten to thwart his vision. What would be the economic effects for Germany and Europe if they wean themselves off Russian gas sooner rather than later? To discuss this question and more, we will speak with economic experts Veronika Grimm and Jacob Kirkegaard in this month’s edition of #TransatlanticTuesdays. Next month, we will cover the military pillar of the Zeitenwende speech.
If you have any questions, please contact Callie Starn at CStarn@gmfus.org.
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Governing the Climate? The Paris Agreement at Work
Wednesday, April 6
8:00 AM to 9:30 AM
RSVP at https://columbiauniversity.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_qAQ4M7biR0WefGBH-ES5Nw
It has been more than six years since COP 21 was held in Paris in December 2015. We’re now able to take a step back, take stock, and ask some important questions about the Paris process: How can very ambitious emissions reduction goals be met by voluntary national commitments? Do commitments translate into transformative policies? What are the most promising mechanisms, initiatives, and developments that could enable developing countries to deliver on ambitious emissions reduction targets? How does the formal regime (post-Paris process) interact with initiatives, actions and commitments from the industrial and financial sectors? How will the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine impact international climate policy? The Center on Global Energy Policy and the Columbia Global Centers | Paris will host a panel of experts to address these questions, and more.
Moderator: Pierre Noël, Global Research Scholar, Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University SIPA
Panelists: Scott Barrett, Lenfest-Earth Institute Professor of Natural Resource Economics, Columbia University; Alliance (Visiting) Professor, Sciences Po; and Centennial (Visiting) Professor, London School of Economics
Amy Dahan, Emeritus Research Director at the CNRS (Paris, France)
Paul Watkinson, Counsellor to Director for European and International Action, Ministry for Ecological Transition, France – former chief negotiator, former chair of Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice of UNFCCC
This webinar will be hosted via Zoom. Advance registration is required. Upon registration, you will receive a confirmation email with access details. The event will be recorded and the video recording will be added to our website following the event.
This event is open to press, and registration is required to attend. For media inquiries or requests for interviews, please contact Natalie Volk (nv2388@columbia.edu).
For more information about the event, please contact energypolicyevents@columbia.edu.
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Flipgrid Live Event: Responding to Environmental Racism
Thursday, April 7
3:00 PM EDT TO 3:30 PM EDT
RSVP at https://retailevents.microsoft.com/event/registration?id=Flipgrid_Live_Event1877343570
Please join us at 3:00pm EDT on Thursday, April 7 for a special event with journalist, poet, and Pulitzer Center reporting fellow Irene Vázquez, hosted in partnership with Flipgrid Live! Irene will talk about what environmental racism is, and how Black and Indigenous organizers are responding to the effects of climate change in their communities.
This event is designed for teachers and students ages 12 and up, but is open to all.
Irene Vázquez is a poet, editor, and journalist from Houston, Texas. She is an incoming editorial assistant at Levine Querido. Irene is a recent graduate of Yale College, where she was an Edward A. Bouchet Fellow. Her writing explores Black placemaking, feminisms, and ecopoetics in the U.S. South and Caribbean. Vázquez is a 2020 recipient of a NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists Scholarship as well as a We Need Diverse Books Internship Grant. Her work has been published in The Texas Observer, Curbed, and Sargasso: A Journal of Caribbean Literature, Language and Culture. When she's not writing, she likes drinking coffee, watching women’s basketball, and reminding people that the South has something to say.
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Climate Doom and Eco-Anxiety
Thursday, April 7
6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
https://events.columbia.edu/cal/event/showEventMore.rdo
This will be a Q&A panel event with four panelists working on climate change and the way it shapes mental health, media, art, and activism. Climate anxiety is the feelings of grief, despair, angst, and doom surrounding the deterioration of the climate. Climate anxiety is on the rise, 2/3 of young Americans and over half of all Americans are anxious about its effect on their mental health. As young people witness slow action to address climate change, this feeling of anxiety continues to grow. The panelists will delve into how various forms of art and activism can foster hope and engagement as we work through climate anxiety. The audience will learn more about resources and opportunities to address climate anxiety while staying active in pushing for change. This conversation will be hosted over Zoom and will be moderated by Columbia undergraduate student and Columbia Climate Conversations creator, Lauren Ritchie. The event will be open to anyone who RSVPs, not limited to only Columbia students.
Event Contact Information:
Earth Institute Events
events@ei.columbia.edu
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Decarbonizing Europe is Important and Challenging
Friday, April 8
9 – 10 a.m.
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_JAb5ED3xSEu5Iku2zy96uA
SPEAKER(S) Dan Jørgensen, Minister of Climate, Energy, and Utilities, Kingdom of Denmark
As a global leader in efforts to combat climate change, Denmark is aiming to phase out its oil and gas production and produce more than 100 percent of its electricity demand by renewables by 2027. Dan Jørgensen, the Danish Minister of Climate, Energy and Utilities, will be our guest for the next HPCA Virtual Forum, “Conversations on Climate Change and Energy Policy,” on April 8. Minister Jørgensen played a significant role in maintaining the focus on reducing the rise of global temperatures during COP26 in Glasgow, serving as co-leader on the consultations in the “ambition track.” In addition, he launched the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA) during the COP. The April 8th discussion will focus on climate policy in general, including the Paris Agreement, COP26, and Danish and European efforts to decarbonize their economies.
CONTACT INFO jason_chapman@hks.harvard.edu
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Crimes against humanity, genocide, and ecocide: Of rights, responsibilities, and international order
The eighth annual Justice Stephen Breyer Lecture on International Law
Friday, April 8
11:00 AM EDT - 1:00 PM EDT
RSVP at https://connect.brookings.edu/register-to-watch-breyer-lecture
Join the conversation on Twitter using #InternationalLaw
On April 8, 2022, as part of the eighth annual Justice Stephen Breyer Lecture on International Law, Foreign Policy at Brookings will host Philippe Sands, professor of law at University College London and Samuel and Judith Pisar visiting professor of law at Harvard Law School, for a keynote address on rights, responsibilities, and international order.
Sands will explore the evolution of the rights of individuals and groups under international law, from the introduction of the ideas of aggression, crimes against humanity, and genocide — introduced at the Nuremberg Trial, in the autumn of 1945 — to the treatment of these issues in current times, including ISIS and the Yazidis; the Rohingya in Myanmar; the Uighurs in China; and the Chagosians and the Chagos Archipelago. He will also address the current situation in Ukraine and touch on new ideas to extend the reach of international law to criminalize severe harm to the environment.
After the keynote address, Nonresident Senior Fellow Ted Piccone will join Sands for a conversation on the role of international law in prosecuting crimes against humanity, genocide, and ecocide. A panel discussion of distinguished experts on these issues will follow their conversation.
Viewers can submit questions by email to events@brookings.edu or on Twitter using #InternationalLaw.
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2022 Urbanism Spring Lecture Series: Dalia Munenzon on Climate Adaptive Cities
Tuesday, April 12
12:30pm to 1:45pm
Virtual Event
Co-hosted by the City Design & Development Program (CDD), SMArchS Urbanism Program and Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism at MIT.
This lecture, Climate Adaptive Cities, will be streamed online here: http://web.mit.edu/webcast/lcau/s22/lecture/9/
The webcast link includes a section where you can submit questions to the speaker for the Q&A period in real time.
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Compensation for a Just Energy Transition to a Zero-Carbon World
Thursday, April 14
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
RSVP at https://columbiauniversity.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_uiPWB2wAROSgXy_yPCFOOw
You will automatically receive a Zoom link to join the event upon registration.
Registration is free but required.
Limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, in line with the Paris Agreement, requires significant reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (GHG) by 2030 and net-zero GHG emissions by mid-century, and ultimately depends on a rapid shift away from fossil fuels.
As we take measures to decarbonize the global energy system, we also need to consider the distributional equity impacts of the energy transition on workers, communities, states, and foreign and domestic investors, and to reflect on the role that international and domestic legal frameworks play and should play in addressing those impacts.
The Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law—joint centers of the Earth Institute / Columbia Climate School and Columbia Law School at Columbia University—will co-host a 90-minute webinar on April 14 at 9am EST / 3pm CEST, focusing on legal approaches to compensation for a just energy transition.
Webinar discussions will cover, among others, the following topics:
A critique of the issue of compensation under investment treaties, including the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), from a climate change perspective
A review of arbitral tribunals’ approaches to the valuation of fossil fuel assets in selected investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS) cases
A case study of Germany's compensation scheme for lignite producers, as an example of a compensation scheme under domestic law
A discussion of possible principles or criteria on compensation for a just energy transition under domestic and international law, taking into account the impact of the transition on workers, communities, states, and companies
Moderator: Michael Burger, Executive Director, Sabin Center for Climate Change Law
Panelists: Martin Dietrich Brauch, Senior Legal and Economics Researcher, CCSI
Kyla Tienhaara, Canada Research Chair in Economy and Environment, School of Environmental Studies and the Department of Global Development Studies, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Blanca Gómez de la Torre, Partner and Head of Dispute Resolution: Litigation and Arbitration, ECIJA GPA; former National Director for International Affairs and Arbitration at the Office of the Attorney-General Office of Ecuador
Sarah Brown, Senior Energy & Climate Analyst, Ember
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“Saving the News: Why the Constitution Calls for Government Action to Preserve Freedom of Speech,” a Conversation with Martha Minow and Heather Hendershot
Thursday, April 14
5:00pm to 6:30pm
Virtual Event
This event is virtual and will be streamed live on Zoom (mit.zoom.us/j/96579656038) and recorded.
In her 2021 book Saving the News: Why the Constitution Calls for Government Action to Preserve Freedom of Speech, our guest Martha Minow “outlines an array of reforms, including a new fairness doctrine, regulating digital platforms as public utilities, using antitrust authority to regulate the media, policing fraud, and more robust funding of public media. As she stresses, such reforms are not merely plausible ideas; they are the kinds of initiatives needed if the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press continues to hold meaning in the twenty-first century.”
Martha Minow has taught at Harvard Law School, where she also served as Dean, since 1981. In addition to Saving the News, she is author of When Should Law Forgive? (2019), In Brown’s Wake: Legacies of America’s Constitutional Landmark (2010), among many other books and articles. She is an expert in human rights and advocacy for members of racial and religious minorities and for women, children, and persons with disabilities, she also writes and teaches about digital communications, democracy, privatization, military justice, and ethnic and religious conflict.
Heather Hendershot is Professor of Comparative Media Studies at MIT and studies TV news, conservative media, political movements, and American film and television history. She is author of the forthcoming book When the News Broke: Chicago 1968 and the Polarizing of America, which follows her 2016 title Open to Debate: How William F. Buckley Put Liberal America on the Firing Line. She has held fellowships at Vassar College, New York University, Princeton, Harvard, Radcliffe, and Stanford, and she has also been a Guggenheim fellow. Her courses emphasize the interplay between creative, political, and regulatory concerns and how those concerns affect what we see on the screen.
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FIRE AND FLOOD: A People’s History of Climate Change, from 1979 to the Present
Thursday, April 14
3 P.M. PDT
RSVP at https://commonwealthclub.secure.force.com/ticket/?_ga=2.188851369.368955509.1648949338-149928173.1643172478#/instances/a0F3j00001Tvq5jEAB
Join us for an online talk with environmental journalist Eugene Linden.
In his new book, Fire and Blood, Linden examines the role of business interests in muddying messages from scientists and derailing attempts to galvanize the public. He tells a story of big monied interests doing what they do to protect short-term profits against longer-term threats. One of the through-lines of the book is the insurance industry’s response to climate change, which for a long time was painfully slow, but recently has pivoted quite dramatically. Florida and California are seeing the housing insurance sector retreat from entire regions because of the unmanageable risks of fire and flood—some believe that the housing markets in parts of those two states are another bad season or two away from collapse. In a larger sense, big business, which for so long has been a woeful headwind to needed change, is waking up to the need to act very quickly now, as the long term has become the near term with terrifying speed.
Eugene Linden is an award-winning journalist and author on science, nature and the environment. He is the author of nine books of non-fiction and one novel. His previous book on climate change, Winds of Change, explored the connection between climate change and the rise and fall of civilizations and was awarded the Grantham Prize Special Award of Merit. For many years, Linden wrote about nature and global environmental issues for Time, where he garnered several awards, including the American Geophysical Union’s Walter Sullivan Award.
This is an online-only program; you must pre-register to receive a link to the live-stream event. We welcome donations made during registration to support the production of our online programming.
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The Ongoing Crisis for Afghan Refugees
Friday, April 15
12:00pm to 1:30pm
Virtual Event
Please register for the virtual Zoom webinar at https://bit.ly/AfghanRefugeeCrisis
Panel discussion with experts :: Part of the Myron Weiner Seminar Series on International Migration
Panelists:
Dipali Mukhopadhyay is Associate Professor in the global policy area at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on the relationships between political violence, state building, and governance during and after war. She is currently serving as senior expert on Afghanistan for the U.S. Institute of Peace and is an affiliated scholar with Columbia University's Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies. She is also the Vice President of the American Institute for Afghanistan Studies.
Nilofar Sakhi is a professorial lecturer of International Affairs at Elliott School of George Washington University. She is also a senior fellow (NR) at the Atlantic Council, South Asia Program. Sakhi is a scholar and policy practitioner who has written extensively on various aspects of peacemaking and peacebuilding processes, transnational security, and human security. Her recent book is on Human Security and Agency: Reframing productive power in Afghanistan.
Omar Sharifi is a Research Fellow and Lecturer at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota. He was the former Senior Research Fellow and Kabul Director of the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies (AIAS). He is also a member of the advisory board of the Civil Society Development Center (CSDC) and member of the Board of Directors of the Afghan Alumni Association and Afghanistan 1400. In addition, Omar worked as a National Consultant for UNICEF Afghanistan. He is an Asia Society Fellow and a member of Afghan 21 Young Leaders Forum.
Moderator:
Anna Hardman is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Economics at Tufts University and is a co-chair for the Inter-University Committee on International Migration at MIT CIS. Her research focuses on urban economics (regulation and the informal sector in housing markets in developing countries, the development and provision of services in peri-urban areas, and neighborhood income distribution) and on migration (remittances and the impact of immigration on housing markets in migrants' home and host communities).
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Energy Policy Seminar: Alexandre Strapasson on "Biofuels and Negative Emissions Technologies"
Monday, April 18
12 – 1 p.m.
RSVP at https://www.belfercenter.org/event/energy-policy-seminar-alexandre-strapasson-biofuels-and-negative-emissions-technologies
SPEAKER(S) Alexandre Strapasson, Research Fellow, Environment and Natural Resources Program, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
DETAILS
If the world is to prevent a major increase in the global mean surface temperature, it will be necessary not only to reduce carbon emissions, but also to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Photosynthesis is a natural mechanism to obtain such reductions. However, is it possible to store carbon while also using biomass energy?
Join us for an Energy Policy Seminar featuring Alexandre Strapasson, Research Fellow with the Environment and Natural Resources Program. Dr. Strapasson will explore how bioenergy and land use can provide negative emissions, including new technologies and trends, as well as the main opportunities and risks associated with them.
CONTACT INFO Elizabeth Hanlon (ehanlon@hks.harvard.edu)
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Energy Poverty and Global Justice Issues: Narasimha Rao, Yale
Monday, April 18
2:30 PM EDT — 3:30 PM
RSVP at https://yale.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_CDGme6PBRRCPRhdQ9Py01Q
This lecture is part of the Yale Energy Justice Speaker Series and will be led by Dr. Narasimha Rao, Yale University Professor of Energy Systems
Dr. Narasimha D. Rao's research examines the relationship between energy systems, human development and climate change. He is the recipient of the European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant (2015-2019) for a project entitled Decent Living Energy -energy and emissions thresholds for providing decent living standards for all. His research interests also include investigating income inequality, infrastructure, and climate policy. His methods include household energy modeling, econometrics, input-output, and policy analysis.
Dr. Rao is also a Senior Research Scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. He received his PhD from Stanford University in Environment and Resources, Masters from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Electrical Engineering and Technology Policy, and A.B from Dartmouth College.
Readings:
Energy Progress Report on Sustainable Development Goal 7, 2021 https://trackingsdg7.esmap.org/data/files/download-documents/2021_tracking_sdg7_report.pdf
Arto et. al, 2016, “The energy requirements of a developed world.” https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esd.2016.04.001
Rao and Baer, 2012, “”Decent Living” Emissions: A Conceptual Framework,”https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/4/4/656
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Sello Verde: Becoming Climate-Positive Organizations
Tuesday, April 19
6:00 PM EDT
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sello-verde-becoming-climate-positive-organizations-tickets-253403987147
Emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are responsible for climate change and global warming. Limiting these emissions is one of the biggest challenges human beings have ever faced.
What is net zero? How is it different from climate positive or carbon negative? Does climate neutrality still matter?
Speaker: Imran Anwar, Chief Innovation Officer, Microsoft, New York, US. IMRAN™ is best known as “father of the Internet & Email industry in Pakistan” and is among early pioneers of the Internet. He co-founded PKNIC & the .PK ccTLD; and launched the global branded credit card industry there with MasterCard. He achieved these disruptions overcoming threats and resistance from religious-fundamentalist dictatorship of a military ruler.
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Exploring evolutionary immunogenomics: Lessons from our ancestors and past pandemics
Wednesday, April 20
12:00 AM ET
RSVP at https://view6.workcast.net/register?cpak=5259998115912167&referrer=ScienceWebsite
SPEAKER Luis Barreiro, Ph.D.
MODERATOR Jackie Oberst, Ph.D.
This webinar is brought to you by the Science/AAAS Custom Publishing Office.
Humans display remarkable immune response variation when exposed to identical immune challenges. However, our understanding of the genetic, evolutionary, and environmental factors that impact this interindividual and interpopulation immune response heterogeneity is still in its early days. In this webinar, three fundamental questions concerning the recent evolution of the human immune system will be discussed: (1) the degree to which individuals from different populations vary in their innate immune responses; (2) the genetic variants accounting for such differences; and (3) the evolutionary mechanisms that led to the establishment of these variants in modern human populations. How past selective events might have contributed to the uneven distribution of immune-related disorders across populations will also be considered.
During this webinar, viewers will:
Gain insight into how past pandemics, such as Yersinia pestis, the agent of the Black Death, led to the evolution of the human immune system
Discover how the unique immunogenetic variation in present-day populations has impacted population differences in immune response to pathogens and susceptibility to immune-related disorders
Learn how cutting-edge techniques, such as RNA sequencing (RNA-seq), are used in evolutionary immunogenomics
Be able to ask questions during the live broadcast.
This webinar will last for approximately 60 minutes.
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In the Name of Your Daughter
Tuesday, April 26
7:00 PM Eastern
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfaWtnXNXjBu2MqiGPyaiJ95eCdxQzu7dw9qAZTxBDDeHcGqw/viewform
Healthy Tomorrow, a nonprofit working to stop FGM (female genital mutilation) in Mali and worldwide, will host an online screening of In the Name of Your Daughter on Tuesday, April 26, 2022 at 7:00 PM Eastern / 4:00 PM Pacific time.
The film documents a safe house in Tanzania that shelters courageous girls who fled from home to escape FGM at the hands of their families and communities. It gives a rare insider view of life in the safe house for girls and staff, and of emotional interactions with the families.
In a post-show panel, director Giselle Portenier and Healthy Tomorrow founder Susan McLucas will discuss the film and the current global movement against FGM and take questions from viewers.
The event is free of charge. Donations are invited to support the work of Healthy Tomorrow and Hope for Girls and Women which runs the safe house.
For more information about Healthy Tomorrow, visit StopExcision.net
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A Changing Planet Seminar: Antarctic marine ecosystems under pressure
Wednesday, April 27
11:00 - 12:00 GMT-04:00
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-changing-planet-seminar-antarctic-marine-ecosystems-under-pressure-tickets-304770606087
Dr Sian Henley, Lecturer in Marine Science, University of Edinburgh
This event is taking place in person, with a livestream (online access via Zoom) for those attending attending online.
Antarctic and Southern Ocean ecosystems are under increasing pressure from global climate change and direct human impacts. Decisive, immediate action on climate change mitigation is required at the global scale, as well as effective management at the local scale, to protect these ecosystems and their societal benefits worldwide.
The Southern Ocean is globally important for regulating climate by taking up atmospheric carbon dioxide, connecting the world’s oceans and ocean-climate system, and supporting key species and ecosystem services. Global climate change and ocean acidification are impacting the health and productivity of the Southern Ocean, with knock-on effects on these critical processes as well as regional fisheries (e.g. Antarctic krill) and other ecosystem services.
The first Marine Ecosystem Assessment for the Southern Ocean (MEASO, 2021) has shown significant changes in Antarctic and Southern Ocean ecosystems, driven by global climate change and direct human impacts. MEASO is an international collaboration of over 200 researchers from 19 countries. A team of scientists from the MEASO initiative attended the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 to present the key findings and advocate for urgent global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to instigate climate recovery and to avoid irreversible deterioration of Southern Ocean ecosystems and associated loss of their wide-ranging societal benefits. In this talk, I will present an overview of the key findings and make the case that only by mitigating global climate change, alongside effective local conservation and management, can we effectively safeguard these vulnerable polar oceans now and into the future.
About the speaker
Dr Sian Henley is a Lecturer in Marine Science at the University of Edinburgh. She also serves as Vice Chair of the Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS), a member of the Southern Ocean Task Force for the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, and a Science Theme Leader within the Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment and Society (SAGES). Sian has a diverse range of research interests from polar ocean ecosystem change to climate change impacts on children worldwide, and is a passionate lecturer, educator and communicator across the spectrum of marine and polar science.
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Bears Ears is Listening: We Are Still Here and The Land is Calling Us Back
Thursday, April 28
1 – 2 p.m.
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_pR2zWCsDRQ6fMEwVH6OomQ
Cynthia Wilson, (RPL Native and Indigenous Rights Fellow) and Angelo Baca ( Cultural Resources Coordinator for Utah Diné Bikéyah) will speak from their experience as Indigenous community organizers helping to secure the protection of Bears Ears National Monument. Located in southeast Utah, Bears Ears was subjected to Proclamation 9681 by President Trump in 2017 to reduce protected lands by more than 1.1 million acres. Following an Indigenous-led movement to protect Bears Ears, a reparative proclamation to modify the boundaries was issued by President Biden in October, 2021. Cynthia Wilson and Angelo Baca will discuss lessons learned from listening, organizing, mobilizing, and planning from a placed-based approach while engaging local Tribal voices, advancing community priorities and goals of ancestral land protection.
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