These kinds of events below are happening all over the world every day and most of them, now, are webcast and archived, sometimes even with accurate transcripts. Would be good to have a place that helped people access them. This is a more global version of the local listings I did for about a decade (what I did and why I did it at http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-i-do-and-why-i-do-it.html) until September 2020 and earlier for a few years in the 1990s (https://theworld.com/~gmoke/AList.index.html).
A more comprehensive global listing service could be developed if there were enough people interested in doing it, if it hasn’t already been done.
If anyone knows of such a global listing of open energy, climate, and other events is available, please put me in contact.
Thanks for reading,
Solar IS Civil Defense,
George Mokray
gmoke@world.std.com
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com - notes on lectures and books
http://solarray.blogspot.com - renewable energy and efficiency - zero net energy links list
http://cityag.blogspot.com - city agriculture links list
http://geometrylinks.blogspot.com - geometry links list
http://hubevents.blogspot.com - Energy (and Other) Events
http://www.dailykos.com/user/gmoke/history - articles, ideas, and screeds
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Index
———
Mitigation and Reversal Strategies Solutions for a Sustainable Future
Thursday, February 29
11:00 - 12:00 GMT-5
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/free-mitigation-and-reversal-strategies-solutions-for-a-sustainable-future-tickets-788171270487
—————
Homegrown National Park
Thursday, February 29
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://tufts.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_oxO3N208RdaKn61cf6IBsQ#/registration
—————
The Great Deployment: A Look at How the Financing of Climate Technology is Rapidly Evolving
Thursday, February 29
3pm ET [12pm to 1pm PT]
Stanford, Y2E2 Building, 382, 473 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305
And online
RSVP at https://events.stanford.edu/event/sfi_seminar_chante_harris
—————
How to grow a mind from a brain: From guessing and betting to thinking and talking
Thursday, February 29
4 – 5 p.m.
Harvard Science Center, Hall A, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge
And online
RSVP at https://cmsa.fas.harvard.edu/event/yip-2024/
—————
Gutman Library Book Talk - Restorative Resistance in Higher Education: Leading in an Era of Racial Awakening and Reckoning
Thursday, February 29
4:30 – 5:30 p.m.
Harvard, 2nd Floor, Gutman Conference Center E4, 6 Appian Way, Cambridge
RSVP at http://bit.ly/RestorativeResistance
And online
RSVP at http://bit.ly/RestorativeResistVirtual
—————
Combating Science Misinformation: Featuring Dr. Kasisomayajula Viswanath
Thursday, February 29
5:00pm to 6:30pm
MIT Building 14S-130, 160 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02139
And online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/combating-science-misinformation-tickets-793700277897
—————
Unsettling Sustainability – Landscape Laboratories as Experimental and Experiential Grounds
Thursday, February 29
6:30 – 8 p.m.
Harvard, Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge
—————
Busting the Bankers' Club: Finance for the Rest of Us
Thursday, February 29
7:00 PM ET
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
—————
The Poetry of Climate Change
Thursday, February 29
7 -8:15 PM
Online
RSVP at https://www.flipcause.com/secure/cause_pdetails/MjAyNTEz
—————
Tufts Energy Conference 2024 - Innovation Odyssey: Climate Tech and Economics of the Energy transition
Friday, March 1
9am - 7pm
Cabot Intercultural Center - Tufts University, 170 Packard Avenue Medford, MA 02155
And online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tufts-energy-conference-2024-tickets-808423926727
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Bottom-Up Approaches in International Development: The Case of Nyaka in Uganda
Friday, March 1
12 – 1 p.m.
Harvard Kennedy School, R-414AB, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge
And online
RSVP at https://hksexeced.tfaforms.net/f/event-registration?c=701Pp000008craVIAQ&_gl=1*irmo60*_ga*MTQ4MzMxMzQ1My4xNzA3MTQ5Nzk0*_ga_72NC9RC7VN*MTcwODc0MzkxNC4zLjEuMTcwODc0Mzk0NS4yOS4wLjA.&_ga=2.29977215.1789627509.1708743076-1483313453.1707149794
—————
Water, Waste, and Race: Environmental Politics during the Nineteenth Century Gold Rushes
Friday, March 1
2:30 to 4:30 pm
MIT, Building E51-275, 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge, MA 02142
And online
RSVP at https://mit.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcrdOmqqzkiHtEdBHwCQBUEbrFTqTcky6-a#/registration
—————
Boston Community Solar Cooperative (BCSC) Launch
Saturday, March 2
Doors open at 10am, Speakers begin at 11am
Fields Corner Business Lab Quincy Lee Event Space, 1452 Dorchester Ave, Fourth Floor, Dorchester, MA
RSVP at https://bit.ly/BCSC2024
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Harvard Climate Connect: Challenges and Opportunities for Building Equitable Climate Resilience in the Boston Area
Saturday, March 2
12:30 – 4 p.m.
Pound Hall, Harvard Law School, 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfLiv0rzfCyKdAexa1nM4RgxvUdyCySzu4J94OVpUiWucE5-w/viewform
—————
Scientist Rebellion Turtle Island Welcome Meeting
You can choose to attend one or more of the following sessions.
March 3, 3:00 PM; April 7, 3:00 PM; May 5, 3:00 PM
RSVP at https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0kfuGurTkpHtCocGTXeF0iIQqvxXJgxMtc#/registration
—————
Riding the Waves: Adaptation to Extreme Temperatures in a Changing Climate
Monday, March 4
11:05 am [4:05pm GMT]
Oxford, Lecture Theatre, Manor Road Building
And online
RSVP at https://www.inet.ox.ac.uk/events/environmental-economics-seminar-wk8/
—————
U.S. International Climate and Energy Policy
Monday, March 4
12:00 PM - 1:15 PM ET
Harvard, R-414ab David T. Ellwood Democracy Lab, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge MA 02138
And online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_onQF4wMVR9WMqfYfXg1ICQ#/registration
—————
Beyond Carbon in Nature-Based Climate Solutions: Documenting Tropical Forest Biodiversity Loss and Recovery Using Sounds
Monday, March 4
12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Princeton, 300 Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ
And online
RSVP at https://cpree.princeton.edu/events/2024/beyond-carbon-nature-based-climate-solutions
—————
On Environmental Pollution Impacts on Human Health
Monday, March 4
2pm ET [11:00am to 12:00pm PT]
USCB, Bren Hall 1414, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-5131
And online
RSVP at https://bren.ucsb.edu/events/bren-seminar-eunha-hoh-environmental-pollution-impacts-human-health
—————
Environmental, Energy, and Engineering Career Fair
Monday, March 4
4:30 pm - 6:30 pm EST
John B. Hynes Convention Center, Junior Ballroom, 302 & 304, 900 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02115
—————
Religion in Times of Earth Crisis | A Series of Public Online Conversations: The Practice of Wild Mercy: Something Deeper Than Hope
Monday, March 4
6:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_lqjE5m36S3yUjASXSZWktQ#/registration
—————
How One House of Worship & School Reduced Carbon by 85%
Monday, March 4,
7-8 pm (EST)
Online
RSVP at https://www.flipcause.com/secure/cause_pdetails/MjAyMTAx
—————
Navigating Africa's Trifecta of Energy, Climate, and Development with Pragmatism
Monday, March 4
7:30pm EST [4:30pm to 5:20pm PT]
Stanford, Jen-Hsun Huang Building (School of Engineering), NVIDIA Auditorium, Jen-Hsun Huang Center, 475 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305
And online
RSVP at https://events.stanford.edu/event/the_energy_seminar_March_4
—————
How Disinformation is Sabotaging America
Monday, March 4
9pm ET [6:00 PM PST]
The Commonwealth Club of California, 110 The Embarcadero, Taube Family Auditorium, San Francisco, CA 94105
And online
RSVP at https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2024-03-04/barbara-mcquade-joyce-vance-how-disinformation-sabotaging-america
Cost: $0 - $10
——————
Underground H2 Storage and Natural Production: Pathways to Energy Decarbonization
Tuesday, March 5
12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
Princeton, 10 Guyot Hall, Princeton, NJ
And online
RSVP at https://princeton.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_XP395Vd7R9S4NjNU6Z2Dhg#/registration
—————
Post-IRA Economics of Home and Vehicle Decarbonization: How the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund Can Fill the Financing Gap
Tuesday, March 5
2:00 p.m. ET
Online
RSVP at https://rmi.org/event/how-ira-incentives-support-clean-projects-and-how-ggrf-clean-financing-can-help-fill-the-remaining-gaps/
—————
The Healing: Planetary Health in Times of Climate Change
Tuesday, March 5, 14:30 - Thursday, April 11, 16:00 GMT-5
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-healing-planetary-health-in-times-of-climate-change-tickets-776251006657
—————
DxD: The Quagmire of Animal Foods for Human and Planetary Health
Tuesday, March 5
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Online
RSVP at https://columbiauniversity.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_zCAgUbhdT-uJLedaILn6Ww#/registration
—————
Accelerating Climate Resilience Webinar: Equitable Engagement with Community Liaisons
Wednesday, March 6
12:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAldeqqqDspHNQ735k8cgRcfR3KV9q9vWTy#/registration
—————
Cracking the Code: Probing the Double-Edged Sword of AI's Environmental Promise
Wednesday, March 6
12 PM – 1 PM EST (GMT-5)
Yale, Kroon Hall - Burke Auditorium, 195 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511
And online
RSVP at https://yaleconnect.yale.edu/YSEDeansOffice/rsvp_boot?id=2261814
—————
Academic Institutions and Sustainable Food Systems
Wednesday, March 6
12:30 pm - 2:30 pm
SwissnexBoston, 420 Broadway, Cambridge, MA
RSVP at https://swissnex.org/boston/event/broadway-bites-david-havelick/
—————
Room To Grow: Creating Space for Climate Tech
Wednesday, March 6
3 - 6pm EST
Urban Wild at Hood Park Campus, 100 D Hood Park Dr. Boston, MA 02129
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/room-to-grow-creating-space-for-climate-tech-tickets-816008432187
Cost: $25
—————
Fireside Chat with Gina McCarthy and Kelly Sims Gallagher
Wednesday, March 6
5:00pm – 6:00pm
Tufts, ASEAN, 160 Packard Ave. Medford, MA 02155
RSVP at https://forms.monday.com/forms/b9b79cbff0fe44781f69ed13420c9b83?r=use1
—————
Climate Designers - Boston Chapter Networking Night at Aeronaut
Wednesday, March 6
5 - 7pm EST
Aeronaut Brewing Company, 14 Tyler Street Somerville, MA 02143
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-designers-boston-chapter-networking-night-at-aeronaut-tickets-828889028397
—————
Reimagine Buildings ’24: 24 Hour Global Building Festival
Thursday, March 7 - Friday, March 8
12:00 PM - 12:00 PM (EST)
Online
RSVP at https://www.accelevents.com/e/passive-house-accelerator
Cost: Free - $179
—————
Teaching Climate Justice Across the Curriculum (Event 3/3 in the CJIT Workshop Series)
Thursday, March 7
9:00am to 10:30am
Online
RSVP at https://mit.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMrcO-spjIiE9wSITORiPfXPgGKW9mZzcof#/registration
—————
EPIIC 2024 Symposium – The Future of Global Institutions
Thursday, March 7
10AM – 4PM
Tufts, Aidekman Arts Center, 40 Talbot Avenue, Medford, MA 02155
RSVP at https://tischcollege.tufts.edu/news-events/events/epiic-symposium-future-global-institutions
—————
Turning Targets into Action: How Food Companies Are Tackling Their Emissions
Thursday, March 7
11:00 AM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://ceres-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_uCrdfYlXTxGA6wkg5549RA#/registration
—————
A Celebration of and for Trees: Creating Eco-Performance
Thursday, March 7
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://tufts.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ZTQhWUDbTsmpVDWDEQFZUg#/registration
—————
Towards Life 3.0: Technology and the Public Interest
Thursday, March 7
4:00pm to 5:00pm
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_mHK8qxFgTiKoM-nUzTip8A#/registration
—————
Light up your world! Learn about energy resilience & microgrids w/ Climable
Thursday, March 7
6 - 8pm EST
Lamplighter Brewing Co. - Broadway, 284 Broadway Cambridge, MA 02139
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/light-up-your-world-learn-about-energy-resilience-microgrids-w-climable-tickets-847604356447
—————
Waterpalooza: A Benefit Concert for Clean Water and Sanitation in South Sudan, Rwanda, and Nepal
Thursday, March 7
9 – 10:30PM
Tufts, Distler Performance Hall, Granoff Music Center
Cost: $5
—————
Burning Refuge: The Inaugural 2024 Buddhism and Social-Spiritual Liberation Conference
Friday, March 8 - Sunday, March 9
9 a.m. – 9 p.m.
Harvard Divinity School, Swartz Hall, 45 Francis Avenue, Cambridge
And online
RSVP at https://burningrefuge2024.site/
—————
MA Commercial Urban Farming Symposium 2024
Friday, March 8
UMASS LOWELL University Crossing / Lowell, MA
And online
RSVP at https://whova.com/portal/registration/ufiam_202403/
Cost: $80.89 - $107.40
—————
The Burden of Beasts: Debating the Energetics of the Sacred Cow in Postcolonial India
Friday, March 8
2:30pm – 4:00pm
MIT, Building E51-275, 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge, MA 02142
And online
RSVP at https://mit.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJElcuCpqzIqEtFzsQWzyc9m9SB2C73y9NTD#/registration
—————
Bio-Inspired and Bio-Based Material Programming
Monday, March 11
11:00am — 12:00pm ET
MIT, Building E14-633, 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge, MA
And online
RSVP at https://www.media.mit.edu/events/tiffany-cheng-seminar/
—————
Transformation, Climate Justice, & Higher Education Expert Panel
Monday, March 11
3 - 4:30pm EDT
Northeastern, 1135 Tremont Street Boston, MA 02120
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/transformation-climate-justice-higher-education-expert-panel-tickets-846017770927
—————
Climate Innovators Café
Wednesday, March 13
5:30 pm - 8:30 pm
SwissnexBoston, 420 Broadway, Cambridge, MA
RSVP at https://swissnex.org/boston/event/climate-innovators-cafe-2/
—————
Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea
Wednesday, March 13
7:00 PM ET
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/leah_hunt-hendrix_astra_taylor/
—————
Harnessing the potential of smart microgrid systems in African countries
Thursday, March 14
8:00 am EST [12:00 GMT -13:30 GMT]
Online
RSVP at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZctceGuqj8iGdD8w96sbNuZgu6aK7rAiry9#/registration
—————
Sustaining Blue Horizons: Protecting Our Oceans’ Future
Thursday, March 14
10 - 11am EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sustaining-blue-horizons-protecting-our-oceans-future-tickets-800700866847
—————
On Thin Ice: Global Impact of Climate Change in the Arctic
Thursday, March 14
12 - 1pm EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/on-thin-ice-global-impact-of-climate-change-in-the-arctic-registration-837697364367
—————
Local Public Health on the Forefront of a Changing Environment
Thursday, March 14
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA 02155
And online
RSVP at https://tufts.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_0mEzyQkwRVWOMeQJOfXkjA#/registration
—————
Accelerating Multi-Benefit Coastal Nature-Based Solutions
Thursday, March 14
2pm EST [11:00 am - 12:30 pm PT]
Online
RSVP at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUkdO6ppzsiGNGTMVs0gXOKjqbVHTBuuDJy#/registration
—————
Braiding Knowledges to Transform Science: Climate Change, Cultural Places, and Food Sovereignty research at the Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science
Thursday, March 14
4:00pm to 6:00pm
MIT, Building 56-114, 21 Ames Street, Cambridge, MA 02139
—————
Climate Adaptation at the Regional Scale: From Planning to Implementation
Friday, March 15
9:30 am - 12:30 pm
Foley Hoag 155 Seaport Boulevard, Boston, MA 02210
And online
RSVP at https://climateadaptationforum.org/event/climate-adaptation-at-the-regional-scale-from-planning-to-implementation/
Cost: $15 - $45
—————
COP28 Symposium: Hear from BC's Delegation
Friday, March 15
11:00am
Boston College, 245 Beacon Street, Room 501 (Schiller Institute Convening Space), Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
—————
Making Climate Policy: Why the Inflation Reduction Act Passed
Monday, March 18
12 – 1:15 p.m.
Harvard Kennedy School, Rubenstein Building, Room 414AB, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge
And online
RSVP at https://www.belfercenter.org/event/energy-policy-seminar-making-climate-policy-why-inflation-reduction-act-passed
—————
Religion in Times of Earth Crisis: Reflecting on Religion in Times of Earth Crisis
Monday, March 18
6 – 8:45 p.m.
Online
RSVP at https://hds.harvard.edu/news/religion-times-earth-crisis
—————
BuildingEnergy Boston 2024
Tuesday and Wednesday, March 19–20
Westin Boston Seaport District
Cost: $50 - $680
—————
The Greener Gender: Women Politicians and Deforestation in Brazil
Tuesday, March 19
12 – 1:20 p.m.
Harvard, CGIS South, S216, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
And online
RSVP at https://drclas.harvard.edu/event/greener-gender-women-politicians-and-deforestation-brazil
—————
Great Decisions on Pandemic Preparedness
Tuesday, March 19
6:00 pm - 07:30 pm
Boston Public Library, Rabb Hall, 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02116
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/great-decisions-on-pandemic-preparedness-ashish-jha-and-matthew-mcknight-tickets-815959696417
And online
RSVP at https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_1ueUREgRRXmpA-mu4CMyQg#/registration
—————
Catastrophe Capacities Collective Storytelling Harvesting
Wednesday, March 20
1 - 3:30pm EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/catastrophe-capacities-collective-storytelling-harvesting-tickets-838852629797
—————
The Signal and The Response: US Readiness For New Infectious Diseases Threats
Wednesday, March 20
1:30-6:30pm EST
Boston University Trustee Ballroom, 1 Silber Way, 9th Floor, Boston, MA
RSVP at https://www.bu.edu/ceid/2024/01/26/the-signal-and-the-response-us-readiness-for-new-infectious-diseases-threats-march-20-2024/
And Online
RSVP at https://bostonu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_8MwHf0eGRC6iWZ0IHR6-yg#/registration
—————
Climate Tech Media Relations: Crafting Stories for a Greener Future
Thursday, March 21
12 - 1:30pm EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-tech-media-relations-crafting-stories-for-a-greener-future-tickets-847257539107
—————
Inundation District
Thursday, March 21
6 - 8pm EDT
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Columbia Point Boston, MA 02125
And online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/inundation-district-tickets-811597157947
—————
The Toxic Problem of Poverty + Housing Costs: Lessons from New Landmark Research About Homelessness
Thursday, March 21
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM ET
Harvard Graduate School of Design, Piper Auditorium, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf2iDgn8AkWhNEDp9TTFOW8WxwvrLUDIUB1QhLg4dQDJcsBUA/viewform
This event will also be livestreamed online; no advance registration is necessary.
—————
Preparing the Electricity System and Wholesale Markets for a Reliable, Affordable and Decarbonized Future
Friday, March 22
9:00 am-12:30 pm
(Networking over breakfast refreshments 8:30-9:00)
Foley Hoag LLP, 155 Seaport Blvd 17th Floor Boston, MA 02210
And online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/3-22-24-new-england-electricity-restructuring-roundtable-tickets-803558875227
Cost: $0 – $110
—————
Fighting Fire With Fire: Austrofascist Resistance to Nazism, 1933-38
Friday, March 22
12:00pm to 1:00pm
Boston College, Stokes Hall South S376, 59-107 College Road, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
—————
LEAP Lab: Robot Dog Demo
Saturday, March 23
11:00am to 12:00pm
MIT Welcome Center 292 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/leap-lab-robot-dog-demo-tickets-759907643217
—————
The Future of Resource Adequacy in a Decarbonized Grid
Monday, March 25
12 – 1:15 p.m.
Harvard Kennedy School, Rubenstein Building, Room 414AB, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge
And online
RSVP at https://www.belfercenter.org/event/energy-policy-seminar-future-resource-adequacy-decarbonized-grid
——————
Roots of Resilience: Art and Heritage as Drivers of Socio-economic Development in the Iron Quadrangle - Brazil
Monday, March 25
12 – 1:15 p.m.
Harvard, CGIS South, S216, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
RSVP at https://drclas.harvard.edu/event/roots-resilience-art-and-heritage-drivers-socio-economic-development-iron-quadrangle?delta=0
——————
Designing Effective Environmental and Conservation Policies: The Role of Collective Approaches
Monday, March 25
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Princeton, 300 Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ
And online
RSVP at https://environment.princeton.edu/event/designing-effective-environmental-and-conservation-policies/
—————
Collisions: The Origins of the War in Ukraine and the New Global Instability
Monday, March 25
6:00 PM ET
Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/michael_kimmage/
—————
Nuclear War: A Scenario
Tuesday, March 26
6:00 PM ET
Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/annie_jacobsen2/
—————
Leveraging data and digitalization to make the grid more visible, resilient, and clean
Wednesday, March 27
1:00pm to 2:00pm
Online
RSVP at https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__XqeHx4SQ9OyJs__bfIZdA#/registration
—————
Gnoseologies: Wisdom from the Edge. A conversation with anthropologist Paul Stoller
Wednesday, March 27
1 – 2 p.m.
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_OpH7ndMLTBGqBZGYhHDqng#/registration
—————
Why Citizens Don’t Hold Politicians Accountable for Air Pollution
Wednesday, March 27
4 – 5:15 p.m.
Harvard, Ash Center, Conference Room 225, Suite 200N, 124 Mount Auburn Street, Cambridge
RSVP at https://ash.harvard.edu/event/why-citizens-don%E2%80%99t-hold-politicians-accountable-air-pollution
—————
Ecologies of a Small New England Town: Paper, People, Politics
Thursday, March 28
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA 02155
RSVP at https://tufts.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__gdko2cCSpe2JbzisKFpnQ#/registration
—————
Elizabeth Kolbert: H Is for Hope
Thursday, March 28
3pm EST [12:00 PM PDT]
Online
RSVP at https://commonwealthclub.my.salesforce-sites.com/ticket/#/instances/a0F8Z00000lUqmpUAC
—————
Planners’ Movie and Meet-up: “Inundation District”
Thursday, March 28
5:30 - 8:30pm EDT
Capitol Theatre, 204 Massachusetts Avenue Arlington, MA 02474
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/planners-movie-and-meet-up-inundation-district-tickets-848510917997
Cost: $10
—————
Planning the Mid-transition for Just and Sustainable Decarbonization
Monday, April 1
12:00 PM - 1:15 PM ET
R-414ab David T. Ellwood Democracy Lab
And online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_TtOizKkuTca5mRZA9-gJwA#/registration
—————
A Renegades’ History of the Revolutionary Frontier: Contesting Race & Nation on the Borderlands of the New United States
Tuesday, April 2
5:00 PM - 6:15 PM EST
Online
RSVP at https://18308a.blackbaudhosting.com/18308a/A-Renegades-History-of-the-Revolutionary-Frontier
—————
Experiments in Utopia: Community Composting and Alternatives to Neoliberal Sustainability
Thursday, April 4
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA 02155
RSVP at https://tufts.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_zKCwxFFxQZWJDy_j7Rvv1A#/registration
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Next in Science: James Webb Space Telescope
Thursday, April 4
2 – 4 p.m.
Harvard, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
And online
RSVP at https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2024-next-in-science-program
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Jonathan Vigliotti: Stories from the Front Lines of Climate Change in Small-town America
Thursday, April 4
3pm EST [12:00 PM PDT]
Online
RSVP at https://commonwealthclub.my.salesforce-sites.com/ticket/#/instances/a0F8Z00000lUr9TUAS
Cost: $10
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Events
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Mitigation and Reversal Strategies Solutions for a Sustainable Future
Thursday, February 29
11:00 - 12:00 GMT-5
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/free-mitigation-and-reversal-strategies-solutions-for-a-sustainable-future-tickets-788171270487
Highlight current technologies and innovations aimed at mitigating climate change.
Discuss the role of renewable energy sources, carbon capture technologies, and sustainable practices in reducing environmental impact.
Explore educational tools and initiatives that promote awareness and empower individuals and communities to contribute to reversing climate change.
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Homegrown National Park
Thursday, February 29
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://tufts.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_oxO3N208RdaKn61cf6IBsQ#/registration
Our parks, preserves, and remaining wildlands are too small to sustain all lives our ecosystems depend. We can fix this problem through Homegrown National Park: a national challenge to create diverse ecosystems by reducing lawn, planting native, and removing invasives. The goal is to create a national movement to restore 20 million acres with natives and millions more acres in agriculture and woodlots. If many people make small changes, we can restore healthy ecological networks.
Event Contact Sinet.Kroch@tufts.edu
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The Great Deployment: A Look at How the Financing of Climate Technology is Rapidly Evolving
Thursday, February 29
3pm ET [12pm to 1pm PT]
Stanford, Y2E2 Building, 382, 473 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305
And online
RSVP at https://events.stanford.edu/event/sfi_seminar_chante_harris
Join SFI’s monthly seminar on the third or fourth Thursday of the month. We’ll cover innovative policy and financial mechanisms designed to rapidly decarbonize the global economy.
Up next:
In this seminar on Thursday, February 29, SFI will be joined by Chante Harris, Founder & Managing Partner, Eunoia Group.
2024 will continue to be an unprecedented year for investment in and big wins in the decarbonization of infrastructure. From the $12.5 billion acquisition of Global Infrastructure Partners by BlackRock to General Atlantic's recent acquisition of Actis, this year is shaping up to be one of the biggest where we see investors double down on clean energy adoption through distributed and large capital projects across shipping ports, data centers, railroads, and others. This moment presents a unique opportunity for highly competitive risk-adjusted returns that integrate incumbent and promising emerging technology solutions at scale while bettering communities' resiliency, well-being, and overall health.
Much of the early discussion around climate was around the invention of breakthrough gigawatt-scale technologies that could lower emissions at a lower cost than today. Fast forward, and most of the focus today is on the pace at which technology and infrastructure come together to decarbonize our built environment.
To tackle climate change, technologies must reach commercialization. To do so, our understanding of climate technology and the investment that accelerates its deployment must evolve. Join this discussion where we'll dive into how climate tech founders and their investors can close the gap by building ecosystem capacity and testing new capital structures that build on the core competencies of venture capital and project finance.
Recommended readings:
Skill sets for The Great Deployment: Zoning, permitting and project finance
https://impactalpha.com/skill-sets-for-the-great-deployment-site-selection-permitting-and-pre-development/
Expert voices: Chante Harris on clearing climate tech bottlenecks
https://www.axios.com/pro/climate-deals/2023/10/27/chante-harris-climate-tech?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pro_deals_climatetech_subs&stream=top
Speaker bio:
Chante Harris is a champion of social and financial innovation. Throughout her career, she has successfully scaled nationwide campaigns, technologies, and ideas for the Obama Administration, Fortune 500 companies, and startups. Her writing and work have been featured by ImpactAlpha, Business Insider, The Milken Institute, and other notable publications.
As an operator, she secured and deployed millions of dollars for the implementation of climate projects and energy-efficient technologies. In 2020 she built a $10 million early stage climate tech venture studio in the U.S. focused on global companies deploying technologies across mobility, buildings, agriculture, waste, water, materials, and carbon. After her time as a climate tech strategist with Schmidt Futures, she founded a derisk-as-a-service studio and investment platform addressing the multibillion-dollar funding gap for deep tech climate technologies at the critical early infrastructure project stage.
Named by Forbes as a 30 Under 30 in the Energy Category, Nasdaq as a Woman to Watch in 2022, ACEEE as a Champion for Energy Efficiency, GreenBiz as 30 Under 30 Leader, and Women Enews as a Pioneering Woman in Sustainability, Chante is at the helm of driving climate innovation and advancing the energy transition across the globe. Chante has traveled the world to speak at global events like COP, Aspen, GreenBiz, and TechStars.
In addition to her work leading in climate tech and investment, Chante launched and built the only global 5,000+ digital collective and global community that is 100% dedicated to advancing women of color working across the sustainability industry.
Chante is on the advisory committee for the first-ever global Climate Center being built on Governor's Island in NYC and sits on the Board of Summit Impact.
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How to grow a mind from a brain: From guessing and betting to thinking and talking
Thursday, February 29
4 – 5 p.m.
Harvard Science Center, Hall A, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge
And online
RSVP at https://cmsa.fas.harvard.edu/event/yip-2024/
SPEAKER Joshua Tenenbaum (MIT), Professor, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
CONTACT INFO Crystal Stillman
cstillman@math.harvard.eduDETAILS Fourth Annual CMSA Yip Lecture
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Gutman Library Book Talk - Restorative Resistance in Higher Education: Leading in an Era of Racial Awakening and Reckoning
Thursday, February 29
4:30 – 5:30 p.m.
Harvard, 2nd Floor, Gutman Conference Center E4, 6 Appian Way, Cambridge
RSVP at http://bit.ly/RestorativeResistance
And online
RSVP at http://bit.ly/RestorativeResistVirtual
SPEAKER(S) Richard J. Reddick, Ed.M.'98, Ed.D.'07
HARVARD KEY REQUIRED NoDETAILS
Contact myanne_krivoshey@gse.harvard.edu
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Combating Science Misinformation: Featuring Dr. Kasisomayajula Viswanath
Thursday, February 29
5:00pm to 6:30pm
MIT Building 14S-130, 160 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02139
And online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/combating-science-misinformation-tickets-793700277897
Kasisomayajula Viswanath, Chair of the NASEM Consensus Study Committee on Understanding and Addressing Science Misinformation
Dr. Viswanath’s talk will explore the nature and scope of misinformation about science and impacts, especially on marginalized communities. Drawing on his leadership of the NASEM Consensus Study Committee on Understanding and Addressing Science Misinformation and his extensive research on health communication, Dr. Viswanath will connect trust in science with public health policy and practice and review solutions to combat misinformation.
This is a hybrid event and will be offered in person in the Nexus as well as online.
* Transcript will be viewable on the webcast or will be accessible for individual viewing on your own device.
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Unsettling Sustainability – Landscape Laboratories as Experimental and Experiential Grounds
Thursday, February 29
6:30 – 8 p.m.
Harvard, Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge
SPEAKER Elizabeth K. Meyer
Meyer, the inaugural faculty director of the University of Virginia’s transdisciplinary Morven Sustainability Lab, will present an overview of how landscape architectural design thinking is at the core of the strategic planning process for this 3000-acre rural landscape on the peri-urban edge of Charlottesville. She will describe how the socio-ecological history of this former plantation and indigenous tribal lands is shaping future research questions, student engagement programs and community collaborations. Additionally, Meyer will share a vision for the Morven Sustainability Lab that positions it within the context of a new generation of landscape labs where landscape architects—working with architects, planners, anthropologists, scientists, and environmental humanities scholars—are co-creating living learning landscapes capable of inspiring a new generation of caring climate activists.
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Busting the Bankers' Club: Finance for the Rest of Us
Thursday, February 29
7:00 PM ET
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
Harvard Book Store welcomes GERALD EPSTEIN—Professor of Economics and a Founding Codirector of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst—for a discussion of his new book Busting the Bankers' Club: Finance for the Rest of Us. He will be joined in conversation by JULIET SCHOR—sociologist and economist at Boston College and author of The Overworked American.
About Busting the Bankers' Club
Bankers brought the global economic system to its knees in 2007 and nearly did the same in 2020. Both times, the US government bailed out the banks and left them in control. How can we end this cycle of trillion-dollar bailouts and make finance work for the rest of us? Busting the Bankers' Club confronts the powerful people and institutions that benefit from our broken financial system—and the struggle to create an alternative.
Drawing from decades of research on the history, economics, and politics of banking, economist Gerald Epstein shows that any meaningful reform will require breaking up this club of politicians, economists, lawyers, and CEOs who sustain the status quo. Thankfully, there are thousands of activists, experts, and public officials who are working to do just that. Clear-eyed and hopeful, Busting the Bankers' Club centers the individuals and groups fighting for a financial system that will better serve the needs of the marginalized and support important transitions to a greener, fairer economy.
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The Poetry of Climate Change
Thursday, February 29
7 -8:15 PM
Online
RSVP at https://www.flipcause.com/secure/cause_pdetails/MjAyNTEz
Calling all poets and poetry lovers! Spend an evening with the poetry of climate change at a virtual open mike. Rabbi Katy Allen and Dr. Thea Iberall will moderate the evening, sharing some of their poetry, inviting others to share theirs, and facilitating a conversation on what the offered poetry brings up for each of us. Bring your favorite poems about climate, environment, your activism. Let's share. Open mic readers will have about 3 minutes to share.
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Tufts Energy Conference 2024 - Innovation Odyssey: Climate Tech and Economics of the Energy transition
Friday, March 1
9am - 7pm
Cabot Intercultural Center - Tufts University, 170 Packard Avenue Medford, MA 02155
And online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tufts-energy-conference-2024-tickets-808423926727
The Tufts Energy Conference has a 19-year legacy of bringing together students, academics, public officials, and energy industry professionals for thought-provoking discussions on some of the most critical energy issues of our time. The world currently faces a critical turning point in the fight against climate change and the transition to a clean energy future. Much work needs to be done to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, but energy industry innovations are making this transformation feasible by bringing down prices and increasing the efficiency of green technologies. However, a disconnect exists between the scientific community that pioneers these groundbreaking technologies and the financial sector responsible for scaling investments to guarantee their triumph.
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Bottom-Up Approaches in International Development: The Case of Nyaka in Uganda
Friday, March 1
12 – 1 p.m.
Harvard Kennedy School, R-414AB, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge
And online
RSVP at https://hksexeced.tfaforms.net/f/event-registration?c=701Pp000008craVIAQ&_gl=1*irmo60*_ga*MTQ4MzMxMzQ1My4xNzA3MTQ5Nzk0*_ga_72NC9RC7VN*MTcwODc0MzkxNC4zLjEuMTcwODc0Mzk0NS4yOS4wLjA.&_ga=2.29977215.1789627509.1708743076-1483313453.1707149794
SPEAKER Jackson Kaguri, 2023 Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellow, CEO and Founder, Nyaka Inc.
Nyaka, a non-profit organization based in Uganda, has implemented the Grandmother Program across three districts in Southwestern Uganda as part of its mission to collaborate with communities in nurturing and safeguarding children for their optimal learning, growth, and well-being. This innovative program integrates business and social enterprise strategies to empower grandmothers economically, creating a comprehensive support structure for orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) and fostering general community development. Notably, the Grandmother Program has significantly narrowed economic and well-being gaps compared to non-participating peers, showcasing its effectiveness in improving the lives of over 20,000 rural grandmother households and more than 88,000 OVCs. By providing microfinance loans, training, technical support, agricultural resources, healthcare services, home construction, and leadership development initiatives, the program elevates household income, enhances livelihoods, improves nutrition, ensures business sustainability, and boosts overall household net wealth. This bottom-up approach not only eliminates the need for traditional orphanages but also results in reduced poverty levels, increased adherence to best practices, and enhanced social cohesion among participating grandmothers. The success of Nyaka's Grandmother Program demonstrates the potential to scale this bottom-up approach in bringing about lasting positive change in more parts of the world.
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Water, Waste, and Race: Environmental Politics during the Nineteenth Century Gold Rushes
Friday, March 1
2:30 to 4:30 pm
MIT, Building E51-275, 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge, MA 02142
And online
RSVP at https://mit.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcrdOmqqzkiHtEdBHwCQBUEbrFTqTcky6-a#/registration
Mae Ngai, Columbia University
This paper draws from my book, The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics(2021), which examined the rise of anti-Chinese racial politics in the anglophone settler colonies in context of the nineteenth-century gold rushes and the rise of the Great Britain and the U.S.as global economic hegemons. Gold mining not only generated untold riches for individuals and companies (as well as losses). It also did great harm to the environment. Contemporaries described a vast landscape of pitted earth and mountains of detritus, polluted streams, and flooded agricultural land. Chinese and Euro-American gold diggers had seemingly different approaches to handling water and waste on the goldfields, which sometimes contributed to group conflict. I suggest that differences in mining practices were in part cultural and in part situational. For example, while Euro-Americans left messy mounds of tailings, Chinese worked over these dregs for small yields of gold and neatly stacked tailings in low walls that can still be seen today. On the other hand, Europeans alleged that Chinese, who adapted irrigation farming methods from southern China to mining, wasted water. And when the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed hydraulic mining, Chinese continued the practice in small-scale operations. It may be that there is no method of gold mining that does not harm the environment. I am curious about how different subject positions may have influenced different practices—Euro-American individual prospectors; large capital intensive mining companies; small Chinese gold mining companies.
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Boston Community Solar Cooperative (BCSC) Launch
Saturday, March 2
Doors open at 10am, Speakers begin at 11am
Fields Corner Business Lab Quincy Lee Event Space, 1452 Dorchester Ave, Fourth Floor, Dorchester, MA
RSVP at https://bit.ly/BCSC2024
The Boston Community Solar Cooperative (BCSC) is celebrating it's launch at an event on March 2nd, 2024 at the Fields Corner Business Lab in Dorchester, MA. Doors will open at 10:00 am and the speakers will begin at
11am.
Join the cofounders of the BCSC, Senator Ed Markey and the Solar for All Program Management from MassCEC in supporting the community ownership of solar movement. This event marks a significant milestone for Boston Community Solar Cooperative as we come together to look ahead to an even
brighter future for energy equity in our Boston communities.
Event Highlights:
Remarks by Senator Edward Markey, a prominent advocate for environmental
justice and renewable energy initiatives.
Engaging presentations highlighting BCSC's accomplishments and future
endeavors.
Interactive workshops on solar energy and community engagement.
Opportunities to meet BCSC members and learn about cooperative solar
ownership.
Family-friendly activities and refreshments.
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Harvard Climate Connect: Challenges and Opportunities for Building Equitable Climate Resilience in the Boston Area
Saturday, March 2
12:30 – 4 p.m.
Pound Hall, Harvard Law School, 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfLiv0rzfCyKdAexa1nM4RgxvUdyCySzu4J94OVpUiWucE5-w/viewform
SPEAKER(S) María Belén Power, Massachusetts Undersecretary of Environmental Justice and Equity
Sanjay Seth, Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor for Climate and Equity, EPA Region 1
Aladdine Joroff, Director of Climate Policy, City of Boston
Hannah Wagner, Climate Resilience Project Manager, City of Boston
Gaurab Basu, Director of Education & Policy, Harvard Chan Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment
Amy Whitesides, Design Critic, Harvard Graduate School of Design
Hannah Perls, Senior Staff Attorney, Harvard Environmental & Energy Law Program
Please join the Harvard Environmental Law Society and the Harvard Chan Public Health School's Environmental Justice Student Organization for an interdisciplinary symposium discussing Boston's unique challenges and opportunities in building climate resilience. The symposium will feature interdisciplinary panel discussions on water / coastal management and intersectional climate policy from academics and government officials. María Belén Power, the first-ever Massachusetts Undersecretary of Environmental Justice and Equity, will provide the keynote address. Following the event, there will be a reception for networking and mingling.
We hope that you will join us for a day of knowledge exchange, thoughtful discussions, and networking to strengthen our collective commitment to climate equity and resilience.
CONTACT INFO The Harvard Environmental Law Society (els@mail.law.harvard.edu) or
The Harvard Chan Environmental Justice Student Organization (ejstudent.harvardchan@gmail.com)
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Scientist Rebellion Turtle Island Welcome Meeting
You can choose to attend one or more of the following sessions.
March 3, 3:00 PM
April 7, 3:00 PM
May 5, 3:00 PM
RSVP at https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0kfuGurTkpHtCocGTXeF0iIQqvxXJgxMtc#/registration
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Riding the Waves: Adaptation to Extreme Temperatures in a Changing Climate
Monday, March 4
11:05 am [4:05pm GMT]
Oxford, Lecture Theatre, Manor Road Building
And online
RSVP at https://www.inet.ox.ac.uk/events/environmental-economics-seminar-wk8/
Stephie Fried, Bank of San Francisco
Will climate change worsen U.S. inequality? Focusing on the direct effects of changes in temperature in the U.S., this paper develops an Aiyagari-style heterogeneous agent model to study the distributional impacts of climate change across income groups. Households can adapt to temperature by using capital and energy for heating and cooling. The model replicates empirical relationships between energy budget shares, energy expenditures, and income. A key insight from the model is that the outdoor temperature acts as a transfer from nature to households. Extreme temperatures correspond to reductions in transfers from nature and thus have higher welfare cost for lower income households. Consequently, climate change is generally regressive in hot regions of the U.S., where it leads to more extreme temperatures and progressive in cold regions, where it leads to fewer extreme temperatures. Households in the lower income deciles break this pattern because climate change affects whether these households purchase both heating and cooling capital or can specialize in a single type of energy capital.
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U.S. International Climate and Energy Policy
Monday, March 4
12:00 PM - 1:15 PM ET
Harvard, R-414ab David T. Ellwood Democracy Lab, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge MA 02138
And online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_onQF4wMVR9WMqfYfXg1ICQ#/registration
Join us for an Energy Policy Seminar featuring Sarah Ladislaw, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Climate and Energy of the U.S. National Security Council. Ladislaw will give a talk on "U.S. International Climate and Energy Policy." Q&A to follow. Buffet-style lunch will be served.
Recording: The seminar will be recorded and available to watch on the Belfer Center's YouTube channel (typically one week later). Those who register for this event will automatically receive a link to the recording as soon as it becomes available.
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Beyond Carbon in Nature-Based Climate Solutions: Documenting Tropical Forest Biodiversity Loss and Recovery Using Sounds
Monday, March 4
12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Princeton, 300 Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ
And online
RSVP at https://cpree.princeton.edu/events/2024/beyond-carbon-nature-based-climate-solutions
Speaker
Zuzana Burivalova, Assistant Professor The Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies & Department of Forest & Wildlife Ecology University of Wisconsin - Madison
Forests are at the forefront of nature-based climate solutions, and this has stimulated a global investment into their protection. Yet, focusing on carbon, many nature-based climate solutions do not automatically protect biodiversity. I will discuss the need to include biodiversity conservation as a major goal for tropical forest nature-based climate solutions. I will demonstrate how we use new technologies, particularly bioacoustics (recording and analyzing sounds that animals and humans make), to document the losses and gains in biodiversity. Using new advances in machine learning to detect animal and gunshot sounds, I will show not only the patterns but also the processes that underlie biodiversity changes in the world’s most diverse tropical forests. In this talk, I will draw on examples from the Sound Forest Lab’s work in Indonesia, Gabon, Sierra Leone and Mexico.
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On Environmental Pollution Impacts on Human Health
Monday, March 4
2pm ET [11:00am to 12:00pm PT]
USCB, Bren Hall 1414, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-5131
And online
RSVP at https://bren.ucsb.edu/events/bren-seminar-eunha-hoh-environmental-pollution-impacts-human-health
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Environmental, Energy, and Engineering Career Fair
Monday, March 4
4:30 pm - 6:30 pm EST
John B. Hynes Convention Center, Junior Ballroom, 302 & 304, 900 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02115
Connect with future environmental and engineering professionals at the Environmental, Energy, and Engineering Career Fair, which attracts hundreds of students and recent alumni from a range of environmental and engineering fields and disciplines seeking paid internships and full-time employment. Whether you are recruiting interns or hiring right now, come share your organization’s professional opportunities.
Contact (617) 505-1818, ebc@ebcne.org
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Religion in Times of Earth Crisis | A Series of Public Online Conversations: The Practice of Wild Mercy: Something Deeper Than Hope
Monday, March 4
6:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_lqjE5m36S3yUjASXSZWktQ#/registration
Speaker: Terry Tempest Williams, HDS Writer-in-Residence Moderator: Diane L. Moore, Associate Dean of Religion and Public Life
Can personhood be granted to mountains, lakes, and rivers? What does it mean to be met by another species? How do we extend our notion of power to include all life forms? And what does a different kind of power look like and feel like? Wild Mercy is in our hands. Practices of attention in the field with compassion and grace deepen our kinship with life, allowing us to touch something deeper than hope. Great Salt Lake offers us a reflection into our own nature: Are we shrinking or expanding?
This is the fifth event of a six-part series of online public conversations with members of the HDS faculty to explore what an expansive understanding of religion can provide in these times of Earth crisis. For those wishing to engage in discussion of the presentations with other audience members, Diane L. Moore will convene a live discussion on zoom for one hour from 7:45 to 8:45 following each presentation.
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How One House of Worship & School Reduced Carbon by 85%
Monday, March 4,
7-8 pm (EST)
Online
RSVP at https://www.flipcause.com/secure/cause_pdetails/MjAyMTAx
Massachusetts Interfaith Power & Light is excited to co-sponsor this JCAN webinar detailing the path one house of worship and school took in upgrading their heating system to heat pumps and reducing their carbon emissions by 85%.
When one of Temple Shir Tikva’s (TST) gas-burning rooftop units RTU failed, it raised concerns about the future of heating & cooling for the nearly 40,000 square foot temple and preschool in Wayland, MA. When a second RTU expired, alarm bells went off.
Would TST reinvest in fossil-burning equipment lasting for many decades or was now the time to transition to an electric system? Which solution would be best, how much would it cost, and how would they continue their educational and religious missions without interruption during what could be a disruptive process?
To help answer these questions and get clear advice and innovative solutions, TST engaged experts from Building Evolution Corporation and GreenerU to assess their needs, explore options, and install new equipment.
Join us for a detailed dive into TST’s path and hear from the specialists who helped chart the route towards climate neutrality while keeping the school, sanctuary, and event spaces in full operation. We’ll be joined by TST’s lead, Richard Kaye; CEO of Building Evolution, Wes Stanhope; and Jody Renouf, Director of Operations at GreenerU.
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Navigating Africa's Trifecta of Energy, Climate, and Development with Pragmatism
Monday, March 4
7:30pm EST [4:30pm to 5:20pm PT]
Stanford, Jen-Hsun Huang Building (School of Engineering), NVIDIA Auditorium, Jen-Hsun Huang Center, 475 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305
And online
RSVP at https://events.stanford.edu/event/the_energy_seminar_March_4
Michael Dioha
The talk, titled "Navigating Africa's Trifecta of Energy, Climate, and Development with Pragmatism," will delve into a comprehensive exploration of the interplay between energy, climate, and development on the African continent. The discussion will acknowledge the critical intersection of these three elements and propose pragmatic approaches as the guiding principle for charting a sustainable course forward. The African continent, rich in resources and potential, faces a unique challenge of balancing its burgeoning energy needs with the imperative of mitigating climate change and fostering inclusive development. This talk aims to unravel the complexities inherent in this trilateral relationship, emphasizing the practical consequences and tangible outcomes that arise from strategic decision-making. By adopting a pragmatic lens, I will dissect existing paradigms, shedding light on solutions that work in real-world contexts. The presentation will draw from concrete examples, successful case studies, and lessons learned from across the continent. The audience can expect to gain insights into actionable strategies that harmonize energy production, climate resilience, and socio-economic development. Ultimately, the talk seeks to inspire a shift in mindset, encouraging stakeholders to approach the challenges of energy, climate, and development in Africa with a problem-solving orientation. As the continent navigates this trifecta, the pragmatic perspective becomes a beacon, guiding the formulation of policies and initiatives that not only address immediate concerns but also pave the way for a sustainable and prosperous future.
Bio: Michael Dioha is a Senior Energy Researcher at Clean Air Task Force, USA. His research focuses on energy-economy-environment modeling, energy policy, pathways for Africa's energy transition, rural energy planning, and interdisciplinary aspects of energy and climate justice. Before joining Clean Air Task Force, Michael was a postdoctoral research scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford, where he researched the value of electric vehicles in deeply decarbonized electricity systems. Michael has worked on many international projects with people from different backgrounds. He plays advisory and analysis roles for several international organizations, including the International Renewable Energy Agency. He has published several scholarly articles in peer-reviewed journals and professional engagements with stakeholders in international energy symposiums. In addition to his role at Clean Air Task Force, Michael holds positions as an Energy Specialist at the California Energy Commission and as a Fellow at the Energy for Growth Hub. He is also recognized as a Fellow of the Solar Energy Society of Nigeria. Active in professional circles, he is a member of many professional bodies including the Association of Energy Engineers, and serves on the Editorial Board of the famous journal Environmental Research Letters by the Institute of Physics. Michael holds an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Energy & Environment from TERI School of Advanced Studies and holds a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology. Beyond his professional pursuits, he finds enjoyment in soccer, hiking, and cycling.
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How Disinformation is Sabotaging America
Monday, March 4
9pm ET [6:00 PM PST]
The Commonwealth Club of California, 110 The Embarcadero, Taube Family Auditorium, San Francisco, CA 94105
And online
RSVP at https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2024-03-04/barbara-mcquade-joyce-vance-how-disinformation-sabotaging-america
Cost: $0 - $10
The epidemic of disinformation and misinformation sweeping through our society is like the weather: Everyone complains about it, but no one does anything about it. Now Barbara McQuade is changing that, offering solutions for countering disinformation and maintaining the rule of law.
MSNBC's legal expert breaks down the ways disinformation has become a tool to drive voters to extremes, disempower our legal structures, and consolidate power in the hands of the few. Americans are strategically being pushed apart by disinformation—the deliberate spreading of lies disguised as truth—and it comes at us from all sides: opportunists on the far right, Russian misinformed social media influencers, and others. It's endangering our democracy and causing havoc in our electoral system, schools, hospitals, workplaces, and in our Capitol. Advances in technology including rapid developments in artificial intelligence threaten to make the problems even worse by amplifying false claims and manufacturing credibility.
Legal scholar and analyst McQuade will join us to explain how to identify the ways disinformation is seeping into all facets of our society and how we can fight against it. She examines what she calls the "authoritarian playbook"—a history of disinformation from Mussolini and Hitler to Bolsonaro and Trump—and chronicles the ways in which authoritarians have used disinformation to seize and retain power. She reviews disinformation tactics, such as demonizing the other, seducing with nostalgia, silencing critics, muzzling the media, condemning the courts, and stoking violence, and she explains why they work.
Is America particularly vulnerable to disinformation? Does it exploit our First Amendment Freedoms? What can be done to fight it and its effects?
Don't miss this timely exploration of one of the most important forces in the world today.
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Underground H2 Storage and Natural Production: Pathways to Energy Decarbonization
Tuesday, March 5
12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
Princeton, 10 Guyot Hall, Princeton, NJ
And online
RSVP at https://princeton.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_XP395Vd7R9S4NjNU6Z2Dhg#/registration
Catherine Peters, the George J. Magee Professor of Geological Engineering and professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, will present “Underground H2Storage and Natural Production: Pathways to Energy Decarbonization” in Guyot Hall, Room 10, and online via Zoom. Peters is the second speaker in the spring 2024 HMEI Faculty Seminar Series
Drawing on experimental studies conducted by her lab, Professor Peters will discuss strategies for optimizing the storage of H2 gas underground for gas purity and operational safety and introduce new research that explores how, by coupling and controlling a unique set of naturally occurring mineral reactions deep underground, it may be possible to produce natural H2 while simultaneously mineralizing carbon dioxide (CO2) – a breakthrough in the production and storage of H2 gas that would facilitate the transition to a clean energy future and the achievement of global targets for mitigating climate change.
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Post-IRA Economics of Home and Vehicle Decarbonization: How the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund Can Fill the Financing Gap
Tuesday, March 5
2:00 p.m. ET
Online
RSVP at https://rmi.org/event/how-ira-incentives-support-clean-projects-and-how-ggrf-clean-financing-can-help-fill-the-remaining-gaps/
EPA is slated to announce the awardees of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund in March. For many community lenders, green banks, and government entities this is an opportunity to design new or re-tool existing green financial offerings. This webinar serves as a primer to those financial entities to inform financing for residential clean energy projects including solar, energy efficiency and electrification, and electric vehicle. We will cover:
The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and how it changes green lending
The upfront and operational costs (before and after IRA incentives) of residential solar, building energy efficiency and electrification, and electric vehicle projects on a state-by-state basis
New incentives for clean energy projects created by the Inflation Reduction Act
The cost gap and other financial barriers green lenders could help overcome
Examples of successful green financing tools for these projects
SPEAKERS
DOUGLASS SIMS, Interim Chief Executive Officer, Justice Climate Fund Learn More
ALISA PETERSEN, Federal Policy Manager, RMI
RYAN SHEA, Home Decarbonization Manager, RMI
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The Healing: Planetary Health in Times of Climate Change
Tuesday, March 5, 14:30 - Thursday, April 11, 16:00 GMT-5
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-healing-planetary-health-in-times-of-climate-change-tickets-776251006657
Join us for an inspiring and transformational online community course on health and healing in times of climate change! Indigenous speakers from Brazil, Philippines and Kenya will share their ancient wisdom on health and healing.
Topics covered will include:
the interconnectedness of mind, body, and nature
traditional medicine and medicinal herbs and honey
indigenous midwifery and women's health
Ayahuasca and spiritual healing
climate change
eco-anxiety and solastalgia
planetary healing
6 Week Online Course
Live Sessions with Indigenous Speakers
Talking Circles
Intensive Course Material
March 5th - April 11th, 2024
Donation based
More information and registration: https://www.guardiansworldwide.org/healing
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DxD: The Quagmire of Animal Foods for Human and Planetary Health
Tuesday, March 5
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Online
RSVP at https://columbiauniversity.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_zCAgUbhdT-uJLedaILn6Ww#/registration
The subject of animal-source foods (ASF) has become a scientific and political quagmire, with divergent interpretations of the scientific literature and intractable value judgments concerning their consumption for human and planetary health. Producing certain ASF can tax land, biodiversity, and water resources and drive rising greenhouse gas emissions, depending on the system in which these animals are raised. To lessen the impact of these foods on the environment and climate, some experts within the nutrition and climate science community suggest that we can meet global nutrient requirements from a highly plant-based diet containing just 14% of calories from ASFs. Limiting the consumption of ASFs, particularly those associated with diet-related non-communicable disease risk, has potential benefits for human and planetary health.
Others propose that limiting ASFs may not provide all the necessary nutrients for human health, and eliminating ASF consumption among key populations could be detrimental to growth, development, and health, particularly in poverty-stricken environments in which the milieu of infectious disease burden on individuals is taxing on physiological systems. There is also the issue of livelihoods – many depend on animals for income generation, as well as preserving long-standing cultures and traditions of humans and animals living in kinship.
Yet, we cannot disentangle how difficult it will be to fulfill the nutritional needs of 10 billion people living on the planet. There are already massive injustices and inequities in people’s ability to access healthy diets. With the current business-as-usual response to climate mitigation and climate-related extreme events, and continued environmental and natural resource constraints and degradation, raising animals and foods to feed them will become even more complex, further exacerbating inequities in who gets access to what types of foods, when, and through what means.
In this DxD series, we will delve into all sides, bringing health, livestock, and climate experts together to find a way forward that is evidence-based and policy-sound. Join us as we disentangle this “wicked” issue of how to the world could ensure there is more equitable consumption of ASF, how ASF could be raised more environmentally sustainable, and the future technologies that may disrupt the ASF sector, like cultivated meats.
Moderator:
Jessica Fanzo, Professor of Climate and Food; Director, Food for Humanity Initiative; Interim Director, International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), The Columbia Climate School
Panelists:
Mario Herrero, livestock/climate science expert
Lora Iannotti, nutrition and diet expert
Robyn Alders, veterinarian/animal health and welfare
Steve Stratford, Kansas cattleman
Donald Moore, Global Dairy Federation
This event is part of the Dialogue Across Difference Initiative (DxD), designed to foster a resilient and inclusive community of learners among students, faculty, and staff and to engage with diverse perspectives and navigate challenging conversations with a shared commitment to mutual understanding and respect.
Contact Information Natalie Unwin-Kuruneri nau2101@columbia.edu
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Accelerating Climate Resilience Webinar: Equitable Engagement with Community Liaisons
Wednesday, March 6
12:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAldeqqqDspHNQ735k8cgRcfR3KV9q9vWTy#/registration
In collaboration with MAPC’s Public Health Department, the Equitable Engagement with Community Liaisons webinar will explore how cities are using community-led planning to broaden and deepen engagement with residents. You will hear about projects in three Massachusetts cities leading with equitable community engagement: - Shawn Luz, Sustainability Coordinator, City of Framingham - Emily Sullivan, Climate Change Program Manager, City of Somerville - Richard Harding, Manager, BIPOC Men’s Health and Community Engagement Cambridge Public Health Department
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Cracking the Code: Probing the Double-Edged Sword of AI's Environmental Promise
Wednesday, March 6
12 PM – 1 PM EST (GMT-5)
Yale, Kroon Hall - Burke Auditorium, 195 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511
And online
RSVP at https://yaleconnect.yale.edu/YSEDeansOffice/rsvp_boot?id=2261814
Angel Hsu and Reid Lifset, University of North Carolina and Yale School of the Environment
The dramatic growth in the capabilities and availability of artificial intelligence has prompted increased interest in its use in environmental research. The potential is vast with a wide range of applications. At the same time, AI has an environmental footprint that receives less attention. In this BIOMES session, Angel Hsu will describe emerging applications of AI, including large-language models and machine learning, for evaluating climate policy and impacts. Reid Lifset will describe the goals and projects of the Network for the Digital Economy & the Environment which is working to catalyze and disseminate research on the energy and environmental impacts of digital technology and digitalization. His talk will include discussion of a bibliometric analysis currently in progress to characterize the evolution of research on the environmental impacts of AI.
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Academic Institutions and Sustainable Food Systems
Wednesday, March 6
12:30 pm - 2:30 pm
SwissnexBoston, 420 Broadway, Cambridge, MA
RSVP at https://swissnex.org/boston/event/broadway-bites-david-havelick/
David Havelick from the Harvard Office for Sustainability
David Havelick, Assistant Director of the Harvard Office for Sustainability, joins us to discuss the ways universities can help shape more climate-friendly food systems. David recently presented his work on this topic at Lake Week, a festival at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) on the future of food.
Broadway Bites is a monthly speaker series at Swissnex on Broadway in Cambridge, bringing inspiring guests from our global network to give a talk on their work.
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Room To Grow: Creating Space for Climate Tech
Wednesday, March 6
3 - 6pm EST
Urban Wild at Hood Park Campus, 100 D Hood Park Dr. Boston, MA 02129
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/room-to-grow-creating-space-for-climate-tech-tickets-816008432187
Cost: $25
Join us for an event focused on fostering the growth of climate economy businesses. This in-person gathering will take place on Wednesday, March 6, 2024, at 3:00 PM in partnership with Rise73.
Food & refreshments will be provided during the networking portion of this event.
Climatetech companies are growing rapidly. As they grow, they need places where they can manufacture their technology and change the world. This process can be complex as they have to navigate the process of finding a space and then getting all of the necessary approvals and permits to build out and occupy the space. They are partnering in this process with many different parts of a municipal government that is trying to navigate complex and changing codes. In our event, we’ll be exploring how to make this process work better for everyone so climatetech companies can deliver the technology we need to change the world.
We will open our program with a welcome from Rise73's co-founder, Robert Glor followed by a keynote from Watertown City Manager, George Proakis.
Our panel discussion will be lead and moderated by NECEC president Joe Curtatone and feature:
George Proakis - Watertown City Manager
Nick Antanavica - Somerville Inspectional Services Director
Patrick McMahon - Senior Vice President at Federal Realty Investment Trust
Joe Rodden - Co-founder & CEO at Lydian Labs
Aaron Baskerville-Bridges - VP of Operations & Co-founder Aeroshield
Agenda
3:00 PM - 4:15 PM Speaking Program
4:15 PM - 4:45 PM Venue Tour
4:45 PM - 6:00 PM Networking Food & refreshments will be provided.
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Fireside Chat with Gina McCarthy and Kelly Sims Gallagher
Wednesday, March 6
5:00pm – 6:00pm
Tufts, ASEAN, 160 Packard Ave. Medford, MA 02155
RSVP at https://forms.monday.com/forms/b9b79cbff0fe44781f69ed13420c9b83?r=use1
Speakers: Gina McCarthy and Kelly Sims Gallagher
with a reception to follow from 6:00pm – 7:00pm in Hall of Flags
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Climate Designers - Boston Chapter Networking Night at Aeronaut
Wednesday, March 6
5 - 7pm EST
Aeronaut Brewing Company, 14 Tyler Street Somerville, MA 02143
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-designers-boston-chapter-networking-night-at-aeronaut-tickets-828889028397
Climate Designers provides the knowledge, skills, and professional network to support designers to be climate leaders everywhere they work. Learn more here.
Celebrate Climate Designers 'Chapter Week' with Climate Designers Boston Chapter Networking Night at Aeronaut Brewing Co. after the Greentown Labs ACCEL event. This will be the first networking event of the year for Climate Designers! If you are interested in climate action, design, and/or beer - we would love to meet you!!
Note: this is a casual meet & greet, we will grab a table, and everyone can come and go as they please!
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Reimagine Buildings ’24: 24 Hour Global Building Festival
Thursday, March 7 - Friday, March 8
12:00 PM - 12:00 PM (EST)
Online
RSVP at https://www.accelevents.com/e/passive-house-accelerator
Cost: Free - $179
You Are Invited to Reimagine Buildings
Join Reimagine Buildings, the global online conference that will give you the knowledge, connections, and inspiration you need to make buildings that will change the world. Over 24 hours we’ll circumnavigate the globe, unveiling a new, innovative building project every hour.
Learn from over 80 speakers and their key insights for healthy and climate-resilient building.
Connect with peers in fun, participatory sessions and networking moments.
Be inspired by the global movement of builders, designers, and community leaders that is acting on climate.
Our mission? Drive a worldwide shift to clean, resilient building design through real-world examples. Explore the key components, materials, and strategies fueling success, from Passive House techniques to building electrification and low-embodied carbon materials.
What's in store? Engaging TED Talk-style presentations by industry leaders, including Passive House as well as leading practitioners of Living Building Challenge, WELL buildings, and more. Rooted in Passive House principles, we will extend our reach beyond its boundaries.
Earn AIA, PHI, and Phius CEs. RB24 program sessions have been submitted for AIA Continuing Education credits in partnership with AIA New York State. RB24 sessions will also be registered for CEs with PHI and Phius.
Do I have to stay up for 24 hours? No, you sure don’t! We’ve designed the program to make it easy to take in local and global stories during YOUR waking hours. Plus, you’ll have exclusive access to recordings with your conference pass.
And it's not just online! Look forward to local in-person events and open houses hosted by RB24 Community Partners. Don't see one in your area? Organize an informal gathering at your local pub or cafe and we'll share it on the RB24 community calendar.
Special thanks to The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) for its support of RB24 as a Stakeholder Partner, and to Metropolis Magazine for being RB24’s Media Partner.
Reimagine Buildings '24 is a production of Passive House Accelerator. Passive House Accelerator LLC was formed in 2020 as a platform for media and education, accelerating progress toward zero carbon buildings. A portion of proceeds from this event will be donated to our RB24 Community Partners to support their work on building decarbonization around the world. The remainder will cover event expenses and will be reinvested into producing our year-round free programming.
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Teaching Climate Justice Across the Curriculum (Event 3/3 in the CJIT Workshop Series)
Thursday, March 7
9:00am to 10:30am
Online
RSVP at https://mit.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMrcO-spjIiE9wSITORiPfXPgGKW9mZzcof#/registration
The Climate Justice Instructional Toolkit (CJIT) was created by the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative (ESI) to support faculty in integrating climate justice into their courses. In these Zoom workshops, you will hear case studies on teaching climate justice across disciplines, and gain tips and strategies for including climate justice content and strategies in your teaching context.
This session features Paul Gallay, Kytt MacManus, and Gregory Yateman — all affiliated with the Columbia Climate School — who specialize in sustainable development, GIS analysis, climate resiliency, and more.
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EPIIC 2024 Symposium – The Future of Global Institutions
Thursday, March 7
10AM – 4PM
Tufts, Aidekman Arts Center, 40 Talbot Avenue, Medford, MA 02155
RSVP at https://tischcollege.tufts.edu/news-events/events/epiic-symposium-future-global-institutions
The Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC) will bring together scholars, practitioners and students to grapple with the challenges and opportunities for making global institutions fit-for-purpose. Discussions will focus on critical issues such as the Sustainable Development Goals, the future of international organizations, UN peace operations, international mediation, US-UN relations, and global health.
Contact Abi Williams abiodun.williams@tufts.edu
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Turning Targets into Action: How Food Companies Are Tackling Their Emissions
Thursday, March 7
11:00 AM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://ceres-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_uCrdfYlXTxGA6wkg5549RA#/registration
With the food sector responsible for one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions, companies must act quickly to transition their businesses toward a zero emissions economy. More food companies are disclosing their emissions, setting emissions targets, and considering how they will reach those targets by developing climate transition plans. Join Ceres experts and representatives of Food Emissions 50 companies to hear about the actions being taken in the food sector to reduce emissions across business operations and in the supply chain. In this webinar, participants will: - Review key findings from Ceres' latest Food Emissions 50 Company Benchmark on the sector’s progress in developing climate transition plans. - Explore investor expectations for corporate climate action. - Gain insights into what strategies major food companies like Hershey and Kraft Heinz are implementing to reduce emissions.
Speakers will include: - Meryl Richards, Director, Food and Forests, Ceres - Moderator - Nako Kobayashi, Manager, Food Emissions 50, Ceres - Matt Silveira, Manager, Environmental Sustainability, Hershey - David Shaw, Global Net Zero Transition Lead, Kraft Heinz
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A Celebration of and for Trees: Creating Eco-Performance
Thursday, March 7
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://tufts.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ZTQhWUDbTsmpVDWDEQFZUg#/registration
“Eco theater” was coined in the 1980s to describe environmentally-aware performance. How can performance artists participate in environmental activism in effective ways, while including multiple political and aesthetic viewpoints? How can we develop a physical practice that keeps our bodies attuned to the natural world on a day-to-day level? This discussion will focus on eco theater and the translation of personal encounters with the natural world into physical and kinetic expression.
Event Contact Sinet.Kroch@tufts.edu
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Towards Life 3.0: Technology and the Public Interest
Thursday, March 7
4:00pm to 5:00pm
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_mHK8qxFgTiKoM-nUzTip8A#/registration
This webinar is part of the Carr Center's Towards Life 3.0 series. Towards Life 3.0: Ethics and Technology in the 21st Century is a talk series organized and facilitated by Dr. Mathias Risse, Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. Drawing inspiration from the title of Max Tegmark’s book, Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, the series draws upon a range of scholars, technology leaders, and public interest technologists to address the ethical aspects of the long-term impact of artificial intelligence on society and human life.
Panelists:
Latanya Sweeney | Daniel Paul Professor of the Practice of Government and Technology, Harvard Kennedy School
Mathias Risse (Moderator) | Faculty Director, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy
Sarah Hubbard (Co-Moderator) | Senior Fellow, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation
Speaker:
Latanya Sweeney is the Daniel Paul Professor of the Practice of Government and Technology at the Harvard Kennedy School and in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, director and founder of the Public Interest Tech Lab, Editor-in-Chief of Technology Science, director and founder of the Data Privacy Lab, former Chief Technology Officer at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science, Technology and Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. Latanya Sweeney has 3 patents, more than 100 academic publications, pioneered the field known as data privacy, launched the emerging area known as algorithmic fairness, and was first to present technology challenges in U.S. elections. She is a recipient of the prestigious Louis D. Brandeis Privacy Award, the American Psychiatric Association's Privacy Advocacy Award, an elected fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics, and has testified before government bodies worldwide. She earned her PhD in computer science from MIT in 2001, being the first black woman to do so, and her undergraduate degree in computer science from Harvard University.
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Light up your world! Learn about energy resilience & microgrids w/ Climable
Thursday, March 7
6 - 8pm EST
Lamplighter Brewing Co. - Broadway, 284 Broadway Cambridge, MA 02139
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/light-up-your-world-learn-about-energy-resilience-microgrids-w-climable-tickets-847604356447
Join the Climable team on March 7th at 6pm in the back taproom at Lamplighter's 284 Broadway location to learn about Climable's work building energy resilience in the Boston area through community-led, clean energy microgrids. Climable staff will lead a one-hour interactive talk about what microgrids are, what benefits they provide, and how they strengthen resilience. They will also discuss ways to get involved with the community microgrids and Climable’s work. There will be a Q&A session and networking time after the event, as well as Lamplighter's entire menu available for purchase– including our collab beer Sour Power. This educational event is free and open to all!
Please note that this event is 21+ and all guests will be asked to show a valid government-issued ID. Questions? Get in touch: events@lamplighterbrewing.com
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Waterpalooza: A Benefit Concert for Clean Water and Sanitation in South Sudan, Rwanda, and Nepal
Thursday, March 7
9 – 10:30PM
Tufts, Distler Performance Hall, Granoff Music Center
Cost: $5
Tufts Thirst Project and Tufts for Health Equity are bringing back Waterpalooza this year! Come watch some stellar performances from student performance groups like Jackson Jills, Blackout, Ladies of Essence, and more! $5 tickets can be purchased on TuftsTickets or in the Campus Center. All proceeds will go towards humanitarian aid in the form of clean water and sanitation to our local non-profit partners that work in South Sudan, Rwanda, and Nepal!
Contact nguyen.dan@tufts.edu
katie.ryu@tufts.edu
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Burning Refuge: The Inaugural 2024 Buddhism and Social-Spiritual Liberation Conference
Friday, March 8 - Sunday, March 9
9 a.m. – 9 p.m.
Harvard Divinity School, Swartz Hall, 45 Francis Avenue, Cambridge
And online
RSVP at https://burningrefuge2024.site/
In March 2024, an exciting and radical conference will host its inaugural offering at Harvard Divinity School to convene critical and interdisciplinary Buddhist scholarship, activism, and arts to chart a path forward into true social-spiritual liberation. We assert that the dream of ultimate social-spiritual liberation is possible and is thus our great task – we invite you to set out on this mission with us and make a vow of commitment. Will you join us?
This year, we are thrilled to bring together a diverse group of scholars, practitioners, and esteemed teachers to explore the profound intersections of Buddhism and individual and collective liberation.
Conference Details:
Date: March 7 - 9, 2024
Venue: Harvard Divinity School & Online (Zoom)
Themes: Buddhism and Race, White Supremacy, and Colonialism; Sex, Gender & Queer/Trans Being; Capitalism & Labor; Technology, AI & Meta-Narratives of Progress; Environmental Justice, Animal Liberation & Deep Ecology.
In addition to our incredible and diverse lineup of keynote speakers, our call for papers/abstracts remains open for any undergraduate/graduate student or scholars inspired to speak on issues related to the aforementioned themes. We are hopeful of inviting a truly diverse array of perspectives to speak on these capacious and complex intersections.
With more speakers to be announced, the current keynote speaker lineup is:
Venerable Kodo Nishimura: Jodo Shu (Pure Land) monk, global LGBTQ+ Buddhist activist/speaker/leader, and internationally celebrated make-up and visual artist.
Mihiri Tillakaratne: Leader in scholarship-journalism-activism in Asian American Buddhism, Associate Editor at Lion’s Roar, PhD from UC Berkeley in Buddhism and race/gender/colonial studies.
Santosh Ishwardas Raut: Professor of Buddhist Philosophy and Aesthetics, acclaimed Ambedkarite Buddhist clergyperson/leader/activist, and Fellow at Harvard Divinity School.
Duncan Ryuken Williams: Professor of East Asian Studies at USC, Soto Zen Priest, foremost scholar on history of and activist leader within Japanese & Asian/PI American Buddhisms.
Magga Sunim: Jogye Buddhist monastic and South Korean public figure advocating for youth mental health. Author, abbott, and president of Compassion Meditation Society.
Cuong Lu: Thiền Buddhist teacher, scholar and writer. 19th monastic discipline of Thich Nhat Hanh. Founder of No Word Zen, an order of “invisible” monks and nuns.
More speakers TBA!
CONTACT studentlife@hds.harvard.edu
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MA Commercial Urban Farming Symposium 2024
Friday, March 8
UMASS LOWELL University Crossing / Lowell, MA
And online
RSVP at https://whova.com/portal/registration/ufiam_202403/
Cost: $80.89 - $107.40
Welcome Farmers and Friends,
We thank you for your unwavering support and continued partnership. The Urban Farming Institute in partnership with the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources proudly presents the Massachusetts Commercial Urban Farming Symposium, an engaging training experience.
Prepare yourself for mind-blowing interactions with industry experts, captivating discussions on cutting-edge topics, and networking opportunities.
In a world filled with uncertainty, our connection to the land and each other keeps us rooted. The Urban Farming Institute is on a mission to cultivate a new generation of urban farming entrepreneurs, creating healthier and more locally-driven food systems that build resilient communities. And this forum is our ultimate showcase!
We owe a massive thank you to our partners, the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources, whose unwavering support has propelled us to unimaginable heights. And, of course, our sponsors, presenters, volunteers, vendors, and amazing Urban Farming supporters who have stood by us every step of the way!
And we can't forget to give a shoutout to our incredible UFI board, staff, and consultants who have been the driving force behind this audacious dream. None of this would be possible without their unwavering dedication and passion.
Get ready to embark on a journey of learning, friendship-making, and collaboration. Don't miss out on a single moment - Be sure to download the conference brochure when it becomes available. Remember, the event schedule is subject to change as we bring you the best experience possible. So keep checking back for the latest agenda updates!
And the best part? You'll have access to most presentations for three months after the conference, ensuring the learning never ends!
So get ready for an enjoyable, informative and opportunity to collaborate at the Massachusetts Commercial Urban Farming Symposium!
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The Burden of Beasts: Debating the Energetics of the Sacred Cow in Postcolonial India
Friday, March 8
2:30pm – 4:00pm
MIT, Building E51-275, 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge, MA 02142
And online
RSVP at https://mit.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJElcuCpqzIqEtFzsQWzyc9m9SB2C73y9NTD#/registration
In the first decades after India’s independence, a heated debate erupted over the energetics of the sacred cow. Economists lamented the Hindu prohibition on cow slaughter: in contravention of economic rationality, even the most decrepit of beasts was allowed to wander through fields guzzling scarce fodder. The state regarded the growing bovine population as a national liability, while gender scholars decried the exhausting labor women devoted to gathering dung as a literalization of Western feminist complaints about household “shit-work.” Anthropologists countered by pointing to the animals’ social efficiency, arguing that cattle were “thermal and chemical factories” converting wasteland into useful energy for humans. At stake in the debate was the opaque character of an energy regime in which 95.5 percent of rural household energy consumption remained outside modern commercial infrastructures (or so guesstimated India’s first large-scale survey in 1965). This talk explores how the postcolonial Indian state attempted to render the Cattle Question legible in energetic terms. This attempt created new possibilities for policy interventions, from improved bullock carts to village power plants running on gobar (cow dung) gas. Knowledge of off-grid social worlds remained very far from complete, though, and this realization generate deep anxieties. By the 1970s, international organizations sounded the alarm about “the other energy crisis” created by rising non-commercial energy extraction across the postcolonial world. My project aims to chart how “traditional” organic energy systems emerged as an object of governance in India, opening up a new avenue in the environmental history of the global South.
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Bio-Inspired and Bio-Based Material Programming
Monday, March 11
11:00am — 12:00pm ET
MIT, Building E14-633, 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge, MA
And online
RSVP at https://www.media.mit.edu/events/tiffany-cheng-seminar/
Tiffany Cheng
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Transformation, Climate Justice, & Higher Education Expert Panel
Monday, March 11
3 - 4:30pm EDT
Northeastern, 1135 Tremont Street Boston, MA 02120
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/transformation-climate-justice-higher-education-expert-panel-tickets-846017770927
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Climate Innovators Café
Wednesday, March 13
5:30 pm - 8:30 pm
SwissnexBoston, 420 Broadway, Cambridge, MA
RSVP at https://swissnex.org/boston/event/climate-innovators-cafe-2/
Join an international gathering of innovators working on global solutions to climate change. During the event, selected climatetech founders will take the stage to pitch their energy-focused startups. The presenters will include the participants in the Swiss-US startup exchange program Climate Collider, as well as Boston-based founders. Following the pitches, there will be the opportunity to network over drinks.
Limited pitching spots are available for energy-focused Boston-area startups. Please indicate your interest when registering.
Climate Collider, a startup exchange program powered by Swissnex and Innosuisse, aims to build a transatlantic startup community and foster international collaboration in climate innovation. The spring 2024 edition is dedicated to energy solutions.
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Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea
Wednesday, March 13
7:00 PM ET
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/leah_hunt-hendrix_astra_taylor/
Harvard Book Store and Boston Review welcome LEAH HUNT-HENDRIX—co-founder of Solidaire and Way to Win—and ASTRA TAYLOR—American Book Award-winning author of The People's Platform—for a discussion of their new book Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea. They will be joined in conversation by AZIZ RANA—professor of Law at Boston College Law School and author of The Two Faces of American Freedom.
About Solidarity
Solidarity is often invoked, but it is rarely analyzed and poorly understood. Here, two leading activists and thinkers survey the past, present, and future of the concept across borders of nation, identity, and class to ask: how can we build solidarity in an era of staggering inequality, polarization, violence, and ecological catastrophe? Offering a lively and lucid history of the idea—from Ancient Rome through the first European and American socialists and labor organizers, to twenty-first century social movements like Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter—Hunt-Hendrix and Taylor trace the philosophical debates and political struggles that have shaped the modern world.
Looking forward, they argue that a clear understanding of how solidarity is built and sustained, and an awareness of how it has been suppressed, is essential to warding off the many crises of our present: right-wing backlash, irreversible climate damage, widespread alienation, loneliness, and despair. Hunt-Hendrix and Taylor insist that solidarity is both a principle and a practice, one that must be cultivated and institutionalized, so that care for the common good becomes the central aim of politics and social life.
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Harnessing the potential of smart microgrid systems in African countries
Thursday, March 14
8:00 am EST [12:00 GMT -13:30 GMT]
Online
RSVP at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZctceGuqj8iGdD8w96sbNuZgu6aK7rAiry9#/registration
This webinar provides an overview of smart microgrids and related technologies as well as the business models and the enabling policy environment for smarter, more efficient, and sustainable energy systems in Smart Energy Solutions for Africa (SESA’s) partner countries. The webinar will host speakers (entrepreneurs, industry players, representatives from local bodies, etc.) from outside the SESA project consortium to discuss businesses and policies in the African context.
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Sustaining Blue Horizons: Protecting Our Oceans’ Future
Thursday, March 14
10 - 11am EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sustaining-blue-horizons-protecting-our-oceans-future-tickets-800700866847
Covering 71% of the Earth’s surface, our planet depends on oceans for the future survival of the planet because we need healthy oceans to have a healthy planet. Not only are oceans essential for the transportation of goods and the economy, oceans play a crucial role in regulating the climate.
Oceans have been mitigating non-renewable industry pollution by 90 percent of the excess heat trapped on Earth by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses, and without this, our planet would be much warmer than it is today.
However, climate change has been warming the oceans, causing detrimental effects including sea level rise, biodiversity loss, and marine heatwaves. The warming oceans have dramatically impacted coral reef ecosystems, contributing to coral bleaching and driving coral reefs on a path toward near extinction.
This means that if oceans continue to be put under such severe stress, we will soon lose not only various important ecosystems, but also a crucial resource in climate change mitigation.
Join us to learn about how we can build resilience and use oceans as a part of the solution to the climate crisis. This webinar will be led by two renowned speakers in the marine conservation efforts.
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On Thin Ice: Global Impact of Climate Change in the Arctic
Thursday, March 14
12 - 1pm EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/on-thin-ice-global-impact-of-climate-change-in-the-arctic-registration-837697364367
This Transatlantic Tandem Talk features an expert discussion between Prof. Dr. Janet Rethemeyer from the University of Cologne, Germany, and Dr. Jannik Martens, UoC alumnus and researcher at Columbia University
The Arctic is warming at rates three times faster than the global average. The melting of ice sheets and glaciers increases concerns about global sea-level rise, while the thawing and degradation of Arctic permafrost soils may release large amounts of greenhouse gases, potentially causing additional warming. Although changes in the Arctic may impact the global climate system, thus affecting societies all over the world, our knowledge of the ongoing transformations in this environment remains limited.
A better understanding of the Arctic region is needed for scientists to predict future changes and develop mitigation and adaptation strategies. To this end, researchers study climate archives such as ocean and lake sediments and permafrost to find clues about how past changes in Arctic climate affected the environment.
In this Transatlantic Tandem Talk Prof. Dr. Janet Rethemeyer from the University of Cologne, Germany, and Dr. Jannik Martens, UoC alumnus and researcher at Columbia University, will discuss:
Current frontiers and open questions in Arctic research, seeking to illuminate past climate changes and the potential impact of permafrost thawing on the global climate system
Recent Arctic field expeditions and their findings
International collaborations between the University of Cologne and leading US-based institutions to tackle a topic that affects us all
Following the Transatlantic Tandem Talk will be a virtual tour through the core repository of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University in NYC which houses over 20,000 sediment cores from across the globe.
Our Experts:
Dr. Janet Rethemeyer is Professor for Organic Geochemistry and Radiocarbon Dating at the Institute for Geology and Mineralogy at the University of Cologne. She is also running the radiocarbon sample preparation lab of the CologneAMS dating center, which applies novel techniques such as compound-specific radiocarbon analysis of source-specific biomarkers and of greenhouse gases. Her research covers a broad range of topics including present and past carbon cycling in terrestrial and marine systems, related microbial mediated biogeochemical processes and greenhouse gas fluxes as well as the reconstruction of paleoenvironmental conditions. She works in different regions ranging from polar to tropics and on different geological timescales. Rethemeyer has been studying the Arctic carbon cycle for 15 years, more specifically, the storage and release of organic carbon from thawing permafrost soils. A key question here is how quickly the organic matter can be broken down after thawing and how much of this ancient organic carbon is released into the atmosphere. In recent years, her research group has worked in the Siberian Arctic in particular, where some areas have extremely ice-rich permafrost, which forms one of the so-called tipping elements of the climate system. Currently, she is involved in a major research project analyzing and modeling methane fluxes in thawing permafrost, which aims at improving climate predictions. Rethemeyer has a Diploma from the University of Bremen and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Kiel.
Dr. Jannik Martens is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University with an interest in climate change and carbon cycling in polar regions. His research focuses on climate feedback processes related to amplified Arctic warming across land and ocean environments, which may impact the global climate system. This includes processes such as the release of carbon and greenhouse gases from thawing permafrost, the melting of Arctic ice sheets, and the rapid acidification of the Arctic Ocean due to rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations and declining sea ice. A central aspect of his research involves studies of past climate periods as “natural experiments,” such as during warming events like the post-glacial climate transition 17,500 to 10,000 years ago and much warmer interglacial periods in the more distant past, such as around 120,000 or 400,000 years ago. These periods serve as references for understanding climate transformations and provide context to ongoing and future climate states. To elucidate carbon cycling and climate variability, Martens analyzes organic matter and microfossils in terrestrial and marine sedimentary archives, using molecular analysis as well as isotopes. For his research, he has repeatedly traveled to the Arctic in land- and sea-going expeditions, including a recent 2-month expedition onboard the JOIDES Resolution to NW Greenland in 2023. Martens obtained his B.Sc. and M.Sc. at the University of Cologne and holds a Ph.D. degree from Stockholm University, Sweden.
Welcoming Remarks by:
Dr. Eva Bosbach, Executive Director, University of Cologne New York Office
Christian Hänel, President, American Friends of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
Moderation by:
Betsy Baker is an international lawyer based in Alaska. Her work on ocean law and Arctic policy builds on 25+ years of experience as an author, consultant, law professor, and director of an Alaska marine science organization. Betsy Baker consults on research, strategy and policy projects involving Arctic and international marine activity in three general areas: Marine resource development and conservation, international environmental law, and Law of the Sea. Baker continues to draw on decades of teaching experience at Vermont, Minnesota, and Harvard Law Schools, most recently teaching Arctic Politics and Governance at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (2016) and lecturing on Arctic Maritime Law and the Law of the Sea for the Ted Stevens Center for Arctic Security (2022).
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Local Public Health on the Forefront of a Changing Environment
Thursday, March 14
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA 02155
And online
RSVP at https://tufts.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_0mEzyQkwRVWOMeQJOfXkjA#/registration
As our planet undergoes environmental changes, the health of humans and animals are being impacted. This presentation will introduce the audience to local public health and its role in our society, and it will highlight stories and vignettes of how local public health practitioners are often on the frontlines, bearing witness and responding to the health impacts of a changing planet.
Contact Sinet.Kroch@tufts.edu
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Accelerating Multi-Benefit Coastal Nature-Based Solutions
Thursday, March 14
2pm EST [11:00 am - 12:30 pm PT]
Online
RSVP at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUkdO6ppzsiGNGTMVs0gXOKjqbVHTBuuDJy#/registration
This 2-part webinar and exchange will bring together a diverse community of practitioners to explore and share case studies showcasing locally led nature-based solutions and tools for building resilient coasts and communities for people, nature, and the climate.
Editorial Comment: There are sea-grasses which can absorb up to 35 times the amount of carbon that trees do. Coastal nature-based solutions to climate could do extremely effective.
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Braiding Knowledges to Transform Science: Climate Change, Cultural Places, and Food Sovereignty research at the Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science
Thursday, March 14
4:00pm to 6:00pm
MIT, Building 56-114, 21 Ames Street, Cambridge, MA 02139
Join MIT Anthropology, MIT Office of Sustainability, and Environmental Solutions Initiative in welcoming
Dr. Sonya Atalay, Visiting Professor in MIT Anthropology, Provost Professor of Anthropology at UMass-Amherst, Director, NSF Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science
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Climate Adaptation at the Regional Scale: From Planning to Implementation
Friday, March 15
9:30 am - 12:30 pm
Foley Hoag 155 Seaport Boulevard, Boston, MA 02210
And online
RSVP at https://climateadaptationforum.org/event/climate-adaptation-at-the-regional-scale-from-planning-to-implementation/
Cost: $15 - $45
Flooding, sea level rise, storm surge, heat, and other climate change challenges cross-cut political boundaries. Facing a crisis without set boundaries, how can communities, agencies, and non-profit organizations plan for climate change at the regional scale? Join experts from across the country to learn about different regional approaches to building climate change resilience for people and nature. Speakers will explore the benefits and challenges of bringing communities together at the watershed, coastal, and other regional scales in order to move from planning through to action.
Forum Speakers
Violeta Duncan, Principal, Duncan Núñez Consulting, LLC
Stephanie Page, Presenting Virtually, Acting Director, Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board
Jason Steiding, Director, Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Natural Resources Department
Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM) – Speaker to be announced shortly.
Kate Bednaz, Restoration Coordinator, Berkshires Clean Cold Connected Partnership
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COP28 Symposium: Hear from BC's Delegation
Friday, March 15
11:00am
Boston College, 245 Beacon Street, Room 501 (Schiller Institute Convening Space), Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
Save the date! On Friday, March 15 we will be hosting a half-day symposium featuring BC's COP28 delegates.
Please visit the Schiller Institute's COP website for more information about COP: https://www.bc.edu/content/bc-web/centers/schiller-institute/programs-initiatives/bc-cop.html
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Making Climate Policy: Why the Inflation Reduction Act Passed
Monday, March 18
12 – 1:15 p.m.
Harvard Kennedy School, Rubenstein Building, Room 414AB, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge
And online
RSVP at https://www.belfercenter.org/event/energy-policy-seminar-making-climate-policy-why-inflation-reduction-act-passed
SPEAKER Leah Stokes, Anton Vonk Associate Professor of Environmental Politics at the University of California, Santa Barbara
Stokes will give a talk on “Making Climate Policy: Why the Inflation Reduction Act Passed.” Q&A to follow. Buffet-style lunch will be served.
CONTACT INFO Elizabeth Hanlon - ehanlon@hks.harvard.edu
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Religion in Times of Earth Crisis: Reflecting on Religion in Times of Earth Crisis
Monday, March 18
6 – 8:45 p.m.
Online
RSVP at https://hds.harvard.edu/news/religion-times-earth-crisis
This is the sixth event is a six-part series that will take place live on Zoom and is free and open to the public. Attendees must register for each event separately.
This session will be a discussion among presenters reflecting upon the insights shared throughout the series. In addition to identifying themes and throughlines among sessions, we will return to the overarching questions that framed this collaboration: What can an expansive understanding of religion provide in these times of Earth crisis? What is the role of the study of religion in times of catastrophe?
Panelists: Mayra Rivera, Dan McKanan, Teren Sevea, Matthew Ichihashi Potts, Terry Tempest Williams
Moderator: Diane L. Moore, Diane L. Moore, Associate Dean of Religion and Public Life
Mayra Rivera, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Religion and Latinx Studies
Dan McKanan, Ralph Waldo Emerson Unitarian Universalist Association Senior Lecturer in Divinity
Teren Sevea, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies
Matthew Ichihashi Potts, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church
Terry Tempest Williams, HDS Writer-in-Residence
For more information on the full series, "Religion in Times of Earth Crisis: A Series of Public Online Conversations," visit hds.harvard.edu….
CONTACT rpl@hds.harvard.edu
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BuildingEnergy Boston 2024
Tuesday and Wednesday, March 19–20
Westin Boston Seaport District
Cost: $50 - $680
BuildingEnergy Boston is a conference designed by and for practitioners in the fields of high-performance building and design, energy efficiency, and renewable energy. It brings more than 1,000 industry leaders and emerging professionals together to learn from and share ideas with each other. Sessions are curated by a volunteer NESEA-Member content committee to ensure that conference sessions are genuinely useful to attendees. The conference will feature product demonstrations, networking events, and accredited sessions that offer best practices and lessons learned, case studies and proven data, technical "how-to"s, emerging technologies, and innovative policies and programs.
Conference Theme: Climate Resilience
As the planet warms, the Northeast is already experiencing severe weather events, including prolonged heat waves and cold snaps, strong winds, heavy rains, and coastal flooding. Achieving climate resilience in our built environment will require us to implement a wide array of passive and active solutions to mitigate the effects of these changes. At the same time, we must continue to address the root causes by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. It is also critical to ensure that vulnerable and under-resourced communities do not bear the brunt of these challenges.
As practitioners, we have a multitude of tools to apply to this work, ranging from the tried-and-true to the experimental and cutting-edge. All these tools will be necessary for the task at hand, which will also require bringing together stakeholders from many fields and backgrounds.
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The Greener Gender: Women Politicians and Deforestation in Brazil
Tuesday, March 19
12 – 1:20 p.m.
Harvard, CGIS South, S216, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
And online
RSVP at https://drclas.harvard.edu/event/greener-gender-women-politicians-and-deforestation-brazil
SPEAKER(S) Kathryn Baragwanath, Harvard Academy Scholar
Moderated by Steven Levitsky, Professor of Government, Harvard University; Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies
This paper examines the impact of women’s political representation on deforestation rates in Brazil. Using close election regression discontinuity design, we show that women, when elected to office, are more likely to drive improved environmental outcomes due to factors such as reduced access to corrupt networks that influence the enforcement of environmental laws at the local level. Altogether, our findings demonstrate that women’s political representation significantly reduces deforestation rates in the Brazil.
This event is hybrid, to attend remotely register at the ticket link.
Presented in collaboration with the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs
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Great Decisions on Pandemic Preparedness
Tuesday, March 19
6:00 pm - 07:30 pm
Boston Public Library, Rabb Hall, 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02116
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/great-decisions-on-pandemic-preparedness-ashish-jha-and-matthew-mcknight-tickets-815959696417
And online
RSVP at https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_1ueUREgRRXmpA-mu4CMyQg#/registration
Join WorldBoston for a timely Great Decisions program on “Pandemic Preparedness” featuring Ashish Jha and Matthew McKnight
Although the Covid-19 pandemic seems to have waned, there are many lessons to take away for domestic and international policies. How can countries cooperate to better manage global health challenges?
Join us for a timely discussion of this topic with Ashish Jha, former White House Covid-19 Response Coordinator, and Matthew McKnight, General Manager for Biosecurity at Ginkgo Bioworks. The program will feature expert remarks from Mr. McKnight and Dr. Jha, live audience Q&A, and time for networking and discussion with other globally-oriented participants.
This program is free and open to the public, but advance registration is required.
A global leader driving public health research, policy, and practice, Dr. Ashish Jha joined the Brown School of Public Health as dean in September 2020. An accomplished and practicing physician, Dr. Jha is recognized globally as a trusted expert on major issues impacting public health, and a catalyst for new thinking and approaches. A long-time leader on pandemic preparedness and response, from directing groundbreaking research on Ebola to serving on the frontlines of the COVID-19 response, he has led national and international analysis of key issues and advised local and federal policy makers around the world.
President Joe Biden appointed Dr. Jha as White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator in March 2022, describing him as “one of the leading public health experts in America.” Dr. Jha led the work that increased the development of and access to treatments and newly formulated vaccines, dramatically improved testing and surveillance, facilitated major investments in indoor air quality measures, and put in place an infrastructure to respond to current and future disease outbreaks more effectively. He has received bipartisan praise for his pragmatic approach to public health that, in the words of President Biden, “translates…complex scientific challenges into concrete actions” that help improve millions of lives.
Before joining the Brown School of Public Health, Dr. Jha was a professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School. He was the faculty director of the Harvard Global Health Institute from 2014 until 2020 and has held other various leadership roles at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Dr. Jha has published nearly three hundred original research publications in prestigious journals and has consistently been ranked in the top 1% of most cited researchers. He is also a frequent contributor to a range of public media across the political spectrum, focused on how science and evidence can be used to craft better policy and improve health both in the US and around the globe.
Dr. Jha was born in Pursaulia, Bihar, India in 1970. He moved to Toronto, Canada in 1979 and then to the United States in 1983. In 1992 Dr. Jha graduated Magna Cum Laude from Columbia University with a B.A. in economics. He received his M.D. from Harvard Medical Schoolin 1997 and then trained as a resident in Internal Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. He returned to Boston to complete his fellowship in General Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. In 2004, he completed his Master of Public Health degree at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Jha was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2013.
Matt McKnight is General Manager for Biosecurity at Ginkgo Bioworks. Biosecurity at Ginkgo is Ginkgo’s new $200M business unit focused on national security, public health, and pandemic response. Prior to building the Biosecurity business, Matt spent 4 years as Ginkgo’s Chief Commercial Officer and 7 years as an investor at IndUS Growth Partners where he was also the President and COO of Decision Resources Group. Matt has worked supporting business development at Palantir Technologies and is an active seed stage venture investor. Early in his career, he served as an officer in the United States Marine Corps. Matt completed a degree in History at Dartmouth College and is a graduate of the joint degree program at the Harvard Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government where he was a Zuckerman Fellow.
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Catastrophe Capacities Collective Storytelling Harvesting
Wednesday, March 20
1 - 3:30pm EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/catastrophe-capacities-collective-storytelling-harvesting-tickets-838852629797
“Every crisis is in part a storytelling crisis. This is as true of climate chaos as anything else. What the climate crisis is, what we can do about it, and what kind of a world we can have is all about what stories we tell and whose stories are heard.”- Rebecca Solnitwhy we need new stories on climate
Here we are. We are in it.
The climate is fully committed to its unpredictability; heatwaves, wildfires, floods, tropical storms, hurricanes - and climate migration - are increasing in scale, frequency and intensity. Research shows that 3.6 billion people already live in areas highly susceptible to, or impacted by, the climate’s trajectory. Habitat loss, warming acidic oceans, species extinction. The maples sweat now, out of season, write the poets.
What is our commitment? What can we do? Who do we need to be to live our way into and through these times? What capabilities are we being called to cultivate?
Some of us have lived through acute climate catastrophes and are still recovering. Others have been living the ongoingness of water shortages, ecosystem loss, climate conflict and have been adapting, re-shaping and innovating.
“So much is happening, both wonderful and terrible – and it matters how we tell it," Solnit reminds us. And so we turn to our stories to tap our wisdom. We turn to each other to listen, talk about what matters and find the patterns that generate new life. We build a musculature for an unknown future.
We engage in practical hope. We do what change asks of us: To be learners, leaning in…
Our Inquiry, Our Question
Collective Story Harvesting is a powerful community practice for such learning and we invite you to join us in being witnesses to the present and shapers of the future. We are deeply interested in how we can move from reaction to response, from panic to practice as the climate urgencies increase - and be systems learners together around these calling questions:
How do we learn from the stories of people and places so that we may become more intelligent, prepared, resilient, engaged - together?And how can our learning from sites of catastrophe surface patterns & practices that can be useful for climate preparedness in other places?
Two Stories
We have invited a story from Axladitsa and Greece and the experience of Storm Daniel’s 2023 flash flooding which radically shifted the morphology of an entire region.
We will also hear from The Nile, through the voices of communities who have been experiencing the sustained changes that the climate crisis is bringing them - across nine countries who share the impacts of the climate crisis.
Your Participation
This is a highly participatory experience. We’re inviting folks to join us for the whole session as you will be invited to be a keynote listener (yes!). Each participant will listen to particular elements or arcs of the stories and together, with others, explore and discern patterns and insights that will respond to our core question.
We will be in practice together: active listening, witnessing, pattern recognition, emergence, and sense-making.
Bring your notebook or sketchpad, favourite pens, some tea and snacks!
Your Hosts and Visual Harvesters
Vanessa Reid, Valerie Melenec, Maria Scordialos, Zulma Sofia Pattaroyo, Julia Hoffman
The Living Wholeness Institute in partnership with the JFR Foundation's inquiry on Sites of Catastrophe.
“Some people say when we are born we’re born into stories. I say we’re also born from stories." ~ Ben Okri
Editorial Comment: Notes from Joan Didion’s We Tell Ourselves Stories to Live at https://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2023/06/joan-didion-we-tell-ourselves-stories.html
Didion was suspicious of story, for good reasons.
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The Signal and The Response: US Readiness For New Infectious Diseases Threats
Wednesday, March 20
1:30-6:30pm EST
Boston University Trustee Ballroom, 1 Silber Way, 9th Floor, Boston, MA
RSVP at https://www.bu.edu/ceid/2024/01/26/the-signal-and-the-response-us-readiness-for-new-infectious-diseases-threats-march-20-2024/
And Online
RSVP at https://bostonu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_8MwHf0eGRC6iWZ0IHR6-yg#/registration
Are we better off in terms of the technologies, policies, & procedures available to detect emerging infectious disease threats now than we were prior to the COVID-19 pandemic? Have we as a country improved the equity and efficiency of our response to infectious diseases? What challenges still lie ahead to meet these needs? This event will explore the roles that government, academia, and the private sector play in early detection of and response to infectious diseases within the United States.
Agenda
1:30-1:45pm – Opening remarks by Provost Ad Interim Kenneth Lutchen
1:45-2:45pm – Panel Session I – The Signal: Surveillance and Detection
Moderator: Dr. Laura White
Panelists:
Dr. Dylan George, Director, CDC Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics
Dr. Catherine Brown, State Public Health Epidemiologist, Massachusetts Department of Public Health
Dr. John Brownstein, Chief Innovation Officer and Faculty, Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School
Dr. Birgitte Simen, Vice President, Biosecurity Technical Platform, Ginkgo Bioworks
2:45-3:00pm – Break
3:00-4:00pm – Panel Session II – The Response: Mobilizing for Rapid Containment
Moderator: Dr. Cassandra Pierre
Panelists:
Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, Director, Boston Public Health Commission
Dr. Matthew Hepburn, Chief Medical Officer, Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense, Department of Defense
Dr. Vikramjit Mukherjee, Director, Medical ICU and Special Pathogens Program, Bellevue Hospital
Cynthia Spishak, Associate Administrator, FEMA Office of Policy and Program Analysis
4:00-4:15pm – Break
4:15-5:00 – Keynote address by Dr. Paul Friedrichs, Inaugural Director of the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy (OPPR)
5:00-6:30pm – Networking reception
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Climate Tech Media Relations: Crafting Stories for a Greener Future
Thursday, March 21
12 - 1:30pm EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-tech-media-relations-crafting-stories-for-a-greener-future-tickets-847257539107
Join us for an enlightening and engaging webinar on the opportunities and challenges involved in communicating climate technology through media relations.
We will bring together a diverse panel of seasoned reporters from both mainstream and niche climate publications, alongside savvy PR experts from cutting-edge climate tech companies.
Attendees will gain invaluable insights into...
how climate tech is reported and communicated
strategies for engaging with journalists
how media and communications professionals can work together to tell meaningful climate stories
Get ready to dive into discussions that will shape your perspective on how media influences and is influenced by the rapidly evolving world of climate technology.
Panelists:
Mike Munsell, Heatmap News
Leah Garden, GreenBiz Anne-Sophie Garrigou, Climate-KIC
Join us 9 a.m. PT, noon ET, March 21, online for an exchange about how to engage with media and craft stories for a greener future.
Each registrant will receive the recording, takeaways, and event chat after the webinar.
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Inundation District
Thursday, March 21
6 - 8pm EDT
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Columbia Point Boston, MA 02125
And online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/inundation-district-tickets-811597157947
Join the Kennedy Library for a screening of Inundation District, a new film exploring the implications of Boston’s decision to build the Seaport District along its coast at sea level, followed by a panel discussion about the threats of climate change with Joe Christo, Managing Director of the Stone Living Lab, and Sanjay Seth, Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor for Climate and Equity in EPA Region 1, moderated by filmmaker and Boston Globe reporter David Abel.
Please note that the film screening will only be available in-person. The post-film conversation will be available for both in-person and virtual attendees, and will begin streaming at approximately 7:20 PM.
Food and drink options will be available for purchase from our JFK Café before this Forum.
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The Toxic Problem of Poverty + Housing Costs: Lessons from New Landmark Research About Homelessness
Thursday, March 21
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM ET
Harvard Graduate School of Design, Piper Auditorium, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf2iDgn8AkWhNEDp9TTFOW8WxwvrLUDIUB1QhLg4dQDJcsBUA/viewform
This event will also be livestreamed online; no advance registration is necessary.
For over three decades, Dr. Margot Kushel has both cared for people who experience homelessness and studied the causes, consequences, and solutions to homelessness particularly in California, which is home to 30 percent of the people experiencing homelessness in the US. Kushel, who recently led the largest representative study of homelessness in the United States since the mid-1990s, will discuss insights that have emerged from her work as a physician and researcher. Her research has shown that California’s homelessness crisis is primarily due to the lack of housing that low-income households can afford. Moreover, contrary to popular beliefs, the majority of people experiencing homelessness in the state were born in California. She will draw on the findings to discuss policies, programs, and practices that would help people experiencing homelessness and those who are risk of becoming homeless.
Following the lecture, Chris Herbert, the Center’s Managing Director, will moderate a conversation with Kushel, Dr. Jim O’Connell, President of the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, and Peggy Bailey, Vice President for Housing and Income Security at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
The John T. Dunlop Lecture honors a noted labor economist who played a central role in the creation of the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies and its Policy Advisory Board, which plays an important role in supporting housing research at Harvard. A longtime member of the Harvard faculty, Dunlop was dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences from 1969 to 1973, served as US Secretary of Labor in the Ford administration, and worked for every US president from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Bill Clinton. He also was as a mediator in numerous labor-management disputes, where he was known for developing innovative, multi-party agreements.
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Preparing the Electricity System and Wholesale Markets for a Reliable, Affordable and Decarbonized Future
Friday, March 22
9:00 am-12:30 pm
(Networking over breakfast refreshments 8:30-9:00)
Foley Hoag LLP, 155 Seaport Blvd 17th Floor Boston, MA 02210
And online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/3-22-24-new-england-electricity-restructuring-roundtable-tickets-803558875227
Cost: $0 – $110
Convener/Moderator: Janet Gail Besser for Raab Associates, Ltd.
Host: Foley Hoag
Electricity System & Wholesale Markets: the Big Picture
Charles Dickerson, President & CEO, Northeast Power Coordinating Council
Commissioner Katie Dykes, CT Department of Energy & Environmental Protection
Gordon van Welie, President & CEO, ISO New England,Inc.
Reliable electricity at an affordable price has long been considered essential to modern life. Decarbonizing the economy depends in large part on electrification of transportation, buildings and industrial processes, making the reliability and affordability of electricity that much more critical. Is the Northeast electricity system prepared for this challenge? Specifically:
Do we have adequate electricity resources to meet new levels and changing patterns of demand?
Can the system handle the increasing frequency of extreme weather events?
Can we simultaneously reduce carbon emissions and maintain the affordability of the electricity required to power the economy and meet customers’ basic needs?
How do we design our market mechanisms to accomplish all of the above?
This panel will address the big picture: the foundational question of reliability and adequacy of electricity resources, the equally important public policy imperatives to affordably decarbonize the economy, and the system operations and market rules to make it all work.
Charles Dickerson, President and CEO of the Northeast Power Coordinating Council (NPCC), oversees the development, compliance, and enforcement of reliability standards; the coordination of system planning, design, and operations; and the assessment of reliability for New York, New England and eastern Canada. He will report on the NPCC’s reliability requirements and assessment of the electricity system’s projected reliability and resource adequacy.
Commissioner Katie Dykes of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), will speak to policy requirements and expectations for the electricity system and supporting market designs, including the key role these must play in operationalizing the states’ decarbonization mandates while maintaining affordability, as well as safety, reliability and resilience.
Gordon van Welie, President and CEO of ISO New England (ISO-NE),leads its grid operation, market administration, and power system planning activities “to harness the power of competition and advanced technologies to reliably plan and operate the grid as the region transitions to clean energy.” He will discuss the changes the ISO-NE is making to better ensure reliability and resource adequacy, while meeting state public policy requirements and customer and market participant expectations.
Electricity System & Wholesale Markets: Stakeholder Perspectives
Alicia Barton, CEO, Vineyard Offshore
Nathan Hanson, President, LS Power Generation
Liz Anderson, Chief, Energy and Ratepayer Advocacy Division, MA AGO
Dan Sosland, President, Acadia Center
As discussed in the first panel, the NPCC, policymakers and ISO-NE establish the context and framework within which resource providers plan, transact, and operate to provide electricity to meet customer needs and expectations. In our second panel, we hear from a variety of stakeholder perspectives - new clean resource providers, existing generators, consumer advocates, and environmental representatives - on the electricity system, public policy, and market rule changes to support and facilitate the transition to an affordable and reliable decarbonized electricity system. Panelists will also share their insights on potential additional opportunities to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and advance decarbonization.
Alicia Barton, CEO of Vineyard Offshore, will address whether and how public policies and potential market rule changes can elicit and support the new resources (e.g., wind, storage, solar) needed for the decarbonization, as well as the reliability, adequacy, and resilience of the electricity system.
Nathan Hanson, President, LS Power Generation, will discuss whether and how the grid, policy and wholesale market design can continue to support existing generation (such as gas and nuclear) to ensure customer electricity needs are met during (and beyond) the transition to a clean energy and decarbonized electricity future.
Liz Anderson, Chief, Energy and Ratepayer Advocacy Division of the MA Attorney General’s Office, will speak to whether reliability and adequacy requirements, public policies, and market rules are meeting needs and expectations for customer affordability and clean energy.
Dan Sosland, President of Acadia Center, will present an environmental view of electricity system requirements, public policies and market rules, and will discuss whether greater coordination of operations and planning among neighboring regions offers an opportunity for further improvements.
A Few Changes for the Roundtable in 2024
1) New Ticket Category for Roundtable Attendees
We are pleased to announce that in 2024, beginning with our March 22nd Roundtable, there will be a new reduced rate of $25 for: 1) full time students, 2) young professionals under 25, and 3) retirees. This rate applies to both in-person attendance and live-streaming.
2) More Time to Network!
Based on feedback from Roundtable Sponsors and respondents to our recent Roundtable distribution list survey, we understand that one thing Roundtable attendees want is more networking time. We hear you! We are announcing an additional official networking opportunity from 8:30 to 9:00 am. Come early to schmooze with your fellow attendees over coffee and breakfast refreshments!
Editorial Comment: Years and years ago these were free. Then they became expensive. I’m glad to see they are affordable again. Free or high ticket, the New England Electricity Restructuring Roundtable is a great event.
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Fighting Fire With Fire: Austrofascist Resistance to Nazism, 1933-38
Friday, March 22
12:00pm to 1:00pm
Boston College, Stokes Hall South S376, 59-107 College Road, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
Eric Grube (Boston College)
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LEAP Lab: Robot Dog Demo
Saturday, March 23
11:00am to 12:00pm
MIT Welcome Center 292 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/leap-lab-robot-dog-demo-tickets-759907643217
Meet a robotic dog with our friends from the NSF Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions (IAIFI).
IAIFI Fellow Ge Yang and MIT undergraduates Alan Yu and Hannah Gao demonstrate how they have taught their robotic dog to run using reinforcement learning, which trains in a simulated environment through trial and error without explicit instructions for how to do so.
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The Future of Resource Adequacy in a Decarbonized Grid
Monday, March 25
12 – 1:15 p.m.
Harvard Kennedy School, Rubenstein Building, Room 414AB, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge
And online
RSVP at https://www.belfercenter.org/event/energy-policy-seminar-future-resource-adequacy-decarbonized-grid
SPEAKER(S) Conleigh Byers, Environmental Fellow hosted by the Harvard University Center for the Environment and the Belfer Center's Environment and Natural Resources Program
Byers will give a talk on “The Future of Resource Adequacy in a Decarbonized Grid.” Q&A to follow. Buffet-style lunch will be served.
CONTACT INFO Elizabeth Hanlon, ehanlon@hks.harvard.edu
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Roots of Resilience: Art and Heritage as Drivers of Socio-economic Development in the Iron Quadrangle - Brazil
Monday, March 25
12 – 1:15 p.m.
Harvard, CGIS South, S216, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
RSVP at https://drclas.harvard.edu/event/roots-resilience-art-and-heritage-drivers-socio-economic-development-iron-quadrangle?delta=0
SPEAKER(S) Leandro Valiati, Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Creative and Cultural Industries, AHCP - Institute of Cultural Practices; Director, MA Creative and Cultural Industries, The University of Manchester
Moderated by Doris Sommer, Ira Jewell Williams Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures; Director of Graduate Studies in Spanish
Minas Gerais’ Quadrilátero Ferrífero, or Iron Quadrangle, is one of Brazil’s richest cultural, environmental and historical regions, home to two UNESCO World Heritage towns and Brazil’s largest iron ore reserves. The Quadrilátero Ferrífero region offers centuries of history through its architecture, monuments, archaeological sites, culinary, rituals, handicrafts, religious festivals and natural resources. Yet its local communities, natural environment and rich cultural heritage are at imminent risk from catastrophic natural and humanitarian disasters resulting from industrial mining. The closure of some of these sites, due to recent major dam failures, has caused not only contamination of the environment but also the loss of thousands of jobs, affecting directly or indirectly almost one million people.
Despite the unique cultural and national significance of the region, to date, there has been no systematic research to measure the impact of recent disasters on the area’s cultural heritage or on the lives of its local communities. By creating a comprehensive assessment of the heritage value and cultural references present in the Iron Quadrangle, our Roots of Resilience project addressed this need, looking to mitigate environmental risks and prevent further disasters. Beyond this, the project explored the resilience of local communities and focused on the creative potential of local artists and their traditional practices. Another key goal was to enhance the role of cultural heritage in political and educational agendas and influence decisions by policy-makers. Access the full project report here: https://peoplespalaceprojects.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/roots-of-resilience-report-english.pdf[peoplespalaceprojects.org.uk]
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Designing Effective Environmental and Conservation Policies: The Role of Collective Approaches
Monday, March 25
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Princeton, 300 Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ
And online
RSVP at https://environment.princeton.edu/event/designing-effective-environmental-and-conservation-policies/
Kathleen Segerson, board of trustees distinguished professor of economics at the University of Connecticut, will present “Designing Effective Environmental and Conservation Policies: The Role of Collective Approaches.” This seminar will be held in-person (PUID holders only) and available via livestream (open to all).
Segerson is an environmental economist, with a strong interest in collaborative interdisciplinary work. Her research within economics is primarily applied theory focused on the incentive effects of alternative environmental and conservation policy instruments, with applications to groundwater contamination, hazardous waste management, land use regulation, climate change, nonpoint pollution from agriculture, and protection of marine species
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Collisions: The Origins of the War in Ukraine and the New Global Instability
Monday, March 25
6:00 PM ET
Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/michael_kimmage/
Harvard Book Store welcomes MICHAEL KIMMAGE—Professor of History at the Catholic University of America and a Non-resident Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies—for a discussion of his new book Collisions: The Origins of the War in Ukraine and the New Global Instability. He will be joined in conversation by SERHII PLOKHY—director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University.
About Collisions
In Collisions, Michael Kimmage, a historian and former State Department official who focused on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, offers a wide-angle, historically informed account of the origins of the current Russia-Ukraine war. Tracing the development of Ukraine and Russia's fractious relationship back to the end of the Cold War, Kimmage takes readers through the central events that led to Vladimir Putin seizing a large portion of Ukraine--the Crimea--in 2014 and, eight years later, initiating arguably the most intensive military conflict of the entire post-World War II era.
From the halls of power in Washington, Kyiv, and Moscow to the battlefields of Ukraine, Kimmage chronicles Putin's ascendency to the Russian presidency, delves into multiple American presidencies and their dealings with Russia and Europe, and recounts Europe's efforts to bring Ukraine closer to the European Union. He tells the story of how Ukraine went from an embattled country on the edge of Europe to a formidable military power capable of pushing back the Russian military. Just as importantly, Kimmage captures how the current war has transformed multiple centers of power--from China to the United States--and dramatically altered the path of globalization itself. He makes the case that the war in Ukraine has shifted the direction of major macro-trends in world politics, contributing to the fragmentation of international politics, higher inflation, greater food insecurity, and the general collapse of arms control. These intersecting dangers amount to a new age of global instability, born in war and in the collision between Russia and the United States that has brought the world to the brink of a new Cold War.
An authoritative interpretation of possibly the most important geopolitical event of the post-Cold War era, Collisions is essential reading for anyone interested in the origins of this epochal conflict and its ripple effects across the globe.
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Nuclear War: A Scenario
Tuesday, March 26
6:00 PM ET
Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/annie_jacobsen2/
Harvard Book Store welcomes ANNIE JACOBSEN—New York Times bestselling author of Area 51 and Operation Paperclip—for a discussion of her new book Nuclear War: A Scenario.She will be joined in conversation by DR. THEODORE A. POSTOL—Professor of Science, Technology and National Security Policy in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT.
About Nuclear War: A Scenario
Every generation, a journalist has looked deep into the heart of the nuclear military establishment: the technologies, the safeguards, the plans, and the risks. These projects are vital to how we understand the world we really live in: where one nuclear missile begets one in return; where the choreography of the world’s end requires massive decisions made on seconds-notice, with information that is only as good as the intelligence we have.
Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario explores this ticking clock scenario, based on dozens of new interviews with military and civilian experts who have built the weapons; created the response plans; and been responsible for those decisions should they need to have been made. Nuclear War: A Scenario is unlike any other book in its depth and urgency.
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Leveraging data and digitalization to make the grid more visible, resilient, and clean
Wednesday, March 27
1:00pm to 2:00pm
Online
RSVP at https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__XqeHx4SQ9OyJs__bfIZdA#/registration
Climate change presents a call to action to transform the energy ecosystem, requiring us to change how we’ve planned, fueled, and operated the grid over the past 100 years. The United States has set bold decarbonization targets, necessitating sixfold growth in connected renewables annually and triple the current transmission capacity by 2035. This pace of change requires better information about our grid to enable decarbonization while ensuring resilience and affordability. This panel will discuss how a data-enabled and transparent grid facilitates implementation of distributed energy resources (including virtual power plants) and how it empowers us to make optimal decisions about how we build and coordinate the grid of the future.
Immediately following the webinar, you are invited to an optional informal networking session with the panelists, providing a chance for more Q&A, interaction, and career path-based questions and advice. When registering for the webinar, please indicate if you are interested in the networking session to receive the separate networking session Zoom link.
Part of the Women in Clean Energy Series
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Gnoseologies: Wisdom from the Edge. A conversation with anthropologist Paul Stoller
Wednesday, March 27
1 – 2 p.m.
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_OpH7ndMLTBGqBZGYhHDqng#/registration
In this conversation, Paul Stoller discusses his latest book, Wisdom From the Edge in which he describes what scholars can do to contribute to the social and cultural changes that shape a social future of wellbeing and viability. Stoller will talk about how scholars can develop sensuously described ethnographic narratives to communicate powerfully their insights to a wide range of audiences. These insights are filled with wisdom about how respect for nature is central to the future of humankind. Stoller will describe how the ethnographic evocation of space and place, the honing of dialogue, and the crafting of character depict the drama of social life. He will suggest that scholars can borrow techniques from film, poetry, and fiction to expand the appeal of anthropological knowledge and heighten their ability to connect the public to the idiosyncrasies of people and place. In Wisdom from the Edge Stoller underscores the importance of recognizing and applying indigenous wisdom to the social problems that threaten the future.
Paul Stoller is Professor of Anthropology at West Chester University, USA and Permanent Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences at Friedrich Alexander University (FAU) Erlanger-Nuremberg In his more than 30 years of anthropological research and writing, Stoller has focused on Songhay religion in Niger and the life of West African street traders in New York City. Stoller’s work encompasses the study of economic exchange, religion, ethnographic film, and the human quest for wellbeing in turbulent times. In his most recent work he investigates how indigenous wisdom can not only enhance social well-being but also help to heal a troubled world. Stoller has published 16 books, including ethnographies, biographies, memoirs as well as three novels. Since 2010 he has been blogging regularly on culture, politics, and higher education for The Huffington Post and Psychology Today and has become an advocate for a more public and engaged anthropology. In 2013 King Carl Gustav of Sweden awarded him the Anders Retzius Gold Medal in Anthropology. In 2015 the American Anthropological Association presented him the Anthropology in Media Award.
CONTACT Laurie D. Sedgwick, Events Coordinator
ldsedgwick@hds.harvard.edu
617-495-4476
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Why Citizens Don’t Hold Politicians Accountable for Air Pollution
Wednesday, March 27
4 – 5:15 p.m.
Harvard, Ash Center, Conference Room 225, Suite 200N, 124 Mount Auburn Street, Cambridge
RSVP at https://ash.harvard.edu/event/why-citizens-don%E2%80%99t-hold-politicians-accountable-air-pollution
SPEAKER(S) Tariq Thachil
Professor, Madan Lal Sobti Chair for the Study of Contemporary India; Director, Center for Advanced Study of India; University of PennsylvaniaDETAILS You’re invited to a Global Challenges to Democracy Seminar Series event featuring Tariq Thachil, Professor, Madan Lal Sobti Chair for the Study of Contemporary India; Director, Center for Advanced Study of India; University of Pennsylvania.
Urban citizens in low-income democracies rarely hold elected officials accountable for toxic air. To understand why, Thachil will discuss a recent paper co-authored by Shikhar Singh.
Light refreshments will be served.
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Ecologies of a Small New England Town: Paper, People, Politics
Thursday, March 28
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA 02155
RSVP at https://tufts.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__gdko2cCSpe2JbzisKFpnQ#/registration
Three generations of Kerri Arsenault’s family made paper that they bleached white, with toxic byproducts found in the bleaching process. History has shown these abuses to be true, from the cotton fields of Virginia to the paper mill towns of Maine. Yet people continue to work in such industries despite the knowledge and the toxics they accrue. Arsenault will discuss how external landscapes inscribe themselves on internal landscapes, and how power, politics, family, and love shape choices.
Contact Sinet.Kroch@tufts.edu
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Elizabeth Kolbert: H Is for Hope
Thursday, March 28
3pm EST [12:00 PM PDT]
Online
RSVP at https://commonwealthclub.my.salesforce-sites.com/ticket/#/instances/a0F8Z00000lUqmpUAC
Elizabeth Kolbert began reporting on the increasingly devastating effects of climate change in the early 2000s—before Al Gore’s breakthrough documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.” Kolbert’s reporting became the foundation of her book Field Notes from a Catastrophe, which sounded the alarm on the causes and effects of global warming. In the two decades since then, the frequency and intensity of climate-induced disasters has only intensified. And yet, Kolbert’s latest book is titled H Is for Hope: Climate Change from A to Z. So where does she see cause for hope? What is the world finally doing right? And what work still needs to be done?
Join Climate One co-host Ariana Brocious for a live-streamed conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist Elizabeth Kolbert as we unpack the state of the world’s climate and ongoing efforts to mitigate future disaster.
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Planners’ Movie and Meet-up: “Inundation District”
Thursday, March 28
5:30 - 8:30pm EDT
Capitol Theatre, 204 Massachusetts Avenue Arlington, MA 02474
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/planners-movie-and-meet-up-inundation-district-tickets-848510917997
Cost: $10
The Planners' Movie and Meet-up series continues with a screening of Inundation District by David Able and Ted Blanco.
INUNDATION DISTRICT is a feature-length film about the implications of one city’s decision to ignore the threats posed by climate change.
The program will feature an in-person discussion with film co-producer and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Abel (who covers climate change for The Boston Globe)!
In a time of rising seas and intensifying storms, one of the world’s wealthiest, most-educated cities made a fateful decision to spend billions of dollars erecting a new district along its coast — on landfill, at sea level. Unlike other places imperiled by climate change, this neighborhood of glass towers housing some of the world’s largest companies was built well after scientists began warning of the threats, including many at its renowned universities. The city, which already has more high-tide flooding than nearly any other in the United States, called its new quarter the Innovation District. But with seas rising inexorably, and at an accelerating rate, others are calling the neighborhood by a different name: Inundation District.
The 79-minute film, a production by The Boston Globe, premiered in the fall of 2023 as the closing night film of the GlobeDocs Film Festival.
This is yet another event you do not want to miss! Space is limited!
5:30 pm: Networking, appetizers, cash bar
6:30 pm: Showtime
8:00 pm: Discussion
Where: Capitol Theatre, 204 Mass. Ave., Arlington, MA.
Admission: Free for current APA-MA, CPM, MAPP members and students. $10 for non-members.
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Planning the Mid-transition for Just and Sustainable Decarbonization
Monday, April 1
12:00 PM - 1:15 PM ET
R-414ab David T. Ellwood Democracy Lab
And online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_TtOizKkuTca5mRZA9-gJwA#/registration
Join us for an Energy Policy Seminar featuring Emily Grubert, Associate Professor of Sustainable Energy Policy and of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences at the University of Notre Dame. Grubert will give a talk on "Planning the Mid-transition for Just and Sustainable Decarbonization." Q&A to follow. Buffet-style lunch will be served.
Recording: The seminar will be recorded and available to watch on the Belfer Center's YouTube channel (typically one week later). Those who register for this event will automatically receive a link to the recording as soon as it becomes available.
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A Renegades’ History of the Revolutionary Frontier: Contesting Race & Nation on the Borderlands of the New United States
Tuesday, April 2
5:00 PM - 6:15 PM EST
Online
RSVP at https://18308a.blackbaudhosting.com/18308a/A-Renegades-History-of-the-Revolutionary-Frontier
Author: John William Nelson, Texas Tech University
Comment: Colin Calloway, Dartmouth CollegeThis is an online event.
This paper will explore the so-called “white renegades” who cast their lot with Native peoples amid the Revolutionary War on the frontier. By following the personal histories of some of these individuals to Fallen Timbers—where many found themselves in 1794—we can trace how these people continued to subvert cultural boundaries, even as racial divisions became more entrenched through policy and practice during the early republic. In reconstructing their lives, we can begin to conceptualize the multifaceted motivations that led men and women to challenge the hardening divisions developing between white Americans and Indigenous communities during the Revolutionary era.
Join the conversation at the Pauline Maier Early American History Seminar. Seminars bring together a diverse group of scholars and interested members of the public to workshop a pre-circulated paper. Learn more.
Purchasing the $25 seminar subscription gives you advance access to the seminar papers of all seven seminar series for the current academic year. Subscribe at www.masshist.org/research/seminars. Subscribers for the current year may login to view currently available essays. Register to attend online
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Experiments in Utopia: Community Composting and Alternatives to Neoliberal Sustainability
Thursday, April 4
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA 02155
RSVP at https://tufts.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_zKCwxFFxQZWJDy_j7Rvv1A#/registration
In New York City, hundreds of community composters and microhaulers manage the city’s waste while centering sustainability, community space, and neighborhood values. Recent budget cuts leave many of these community-driven projects in jeopardy. This talk makes a call for radical hope in the face of sustainability challenges through exploring the limitations of neoliberal waste management and the power of experimental infrastructures to change the landscapes of urban sustainability.
Contact Sinet.Kroch@tufts.edu
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Next in Science: James Webb Space Telescope
Thursday, April 4
2 – 4 p.m.
Harvard, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
And online
RSVP at https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2024-next-in-science-program
SPEAKER(S) Sierra Grant, Postdoctoral researcher, Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (Germany)
Caroline Morley, Assistant professor, Department of Astronomy, University of Texas
Erica Nelson, Assistant professor, Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the most ambitious project in the history of astronomical investigations. Within the short period of time since it became operational, JWST has been revolutionizing our understanding of the earliest stages of cosmic evolution and the atmospheres of extrasolar planets while producing stunning images that have captured the public's imagination. In this Next in Science program, we will focus on these exciting early results in understanding the universe and the importance of JWST in engaging the public with astronomy.
The Next in Science series provides an opportunity for early-career scientists whose creative, cross-disciplinary, and cutting-edge research is thematically linked to introduce their work to non-specialists, fellow scientists, and one another.
CONTACT INFO events@radcliffe.harvard.edu
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Jonathan Vigliotti: Stories from the Front Lines of Climate Change in Small-town America
Thursday, April 4
3pm EST [12:00 PM PDT]
Online
RSVP at https://commonwealthclub.my.salesforce-sites.com/ticket/#/instances/a0F8Z00000lUr9TUAS
Cost: $10
From massive forest fires in California to hurricanes in Louisiana, receding coastlines in Massachusetts and devastated fisheries in Alaska, the climate catastrophe is already here.
Discussion of the climate crisis has always suffered from a problem of abstraction. Data points and warnings of an overheated future struggle to break through the noise of everyday life. Deniers often portray climate solutions as inconvenient, expensive and unnecessary. Many politicians, focused always on their next election, do not yet see climate as a winning issue in the short run, so they don’t take any action at all. But climate change, and its devastating consequences, has kept apace whether we want to pay attention or not.
CBS News national correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti has seen that crisis unfold for himself, spending nearly two decades reporting across the United States (and the world) documenting the people, communities, landmarks, and traditions we’ve already surrendered. Vigliotti shares with urgency and personal touch the story of an America on the brink.
In his new book, Before It’s Gone, Vigliotti traces his travels across the country, taking him to the frontlines of climate disaster and revealing the genuine impacts of climate change that countless Americans have already been forced to confront. This is the story of America, and Americans, on the edge, and a powerful argument that radical action on climate change with a respect for its people and traditions is not only possible, but also the only way to preserve what we love.
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