Energy (and Other) Events Monthly - November 2026

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

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

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

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

http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com - notes on lectures and books
http://solarray.blogspot.com - renewable energy and efficiency
http://zeronetenrg.blogspot.com - zero net energy links lis
http://cityag.blogspot.com - city agriculture links list

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Index
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The 2026 Midterms: What's at Stake for the United States and Europe?
Tuesday, October 27
9:00 - 10:00am EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.gmfus.org/event/2026-midterms-whats-stake-united-states-and-europe

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Accelerating Environmental Forecasting Symposium
Tuesday, October 27
10:00 am – 7:30 pm
BU, Duan Family Center for Computing & Data Sciences, 665 Commonwealth Avenue, Room 1750
RSVP at https://www.bu.edu/hic/accelerating-environmental-forecasting-symposium-registration/

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Why do ecosystems have optimum temperatures?
Tuesday, October 27
12:00 - 1:00pm
Online
RSVP at https://eaps.mit.edu/events/sls-lucas-vargas-zeppetello-uc-berkeley/

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CSAIL FORUM with Jacob Andreas: Training Language Models to Talk About Themselves
Tuesday, October 27
12:00pm to 1:00pm EDT
Online
RSVP at https://mit.zoom.us/meeting/register/xcG1LggiQZWAH2xBP1F4Qw#/registration

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How Institutions Listen: Civic Data, AI, and the Path to Public Trust
Tuesday, October 27
12 PM - 1:30 PM
Boston University Institute for Global Sustainability, 111 Cummington Mall, #Suite 149 Boston, MA 02215
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/how-institutions-listen-civic-data-ai-and-the-path-to-public-trust-tickets-2001227920582

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AI, Ethics, and the Future of Civil Society | Human Learning, Machine Intelligence Speaker Series
Tuesday, October 27
1 – 2 p.m.
Harvard, Askwith Hall, Longfellow Hall, 13 Appian Way, Cambridge
And online
RSVP at https://calendar.gse.harvard.edu/en/36YmkP6/g/10QsMNq3CB/ai-ethics-and-the-future-of-civil-society-or-human-learning-machine-intelligence-5a5YUc2j5iL/overview

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​Progress in the Face of Pushback: Grantham Institute Annual Lecture 2026 with Anne Hidalgo
Tuesday, October 27
1:30pm - 4:30pm ET [5:30 PM - 8:30 PM GMT]
Register to See Address in London, United Kingdom
And online
RSVP at https://luma.com/uyqc0kwq

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What Remains: AI, Death, and Loss
Tuesday, October 27
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM ET
Harvard Law School, 1557 Massachusetts Ave., Lewis Hall, 5th floor, Cambridge, MA 02138
And online
RSVP at https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/what-remains-ai-death-and-loss

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The Practice of Wisdom
Tuesday, October 27
6:00pm
Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-practice-of-wisdom-panel-at-the-cambridge-public-library-tickets-1996508984116

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The Next Fix: The Winners and Losers in the Future of Drugs
Tuesday, October 27
7:00pm
Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Coolidge Corner, Brookline, MA 02446-2908
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/kojo-koram-with-quinn-slobodian-and-shaleen-title-tickets-1993696130796

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The Multisensory Future of Food
Wednesday, October 28
12:00pm — 1:00pm ET
Online
RSVP at https://mit.zoom.us/j/92390116463

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The Promise and Peril of the Intelligence Community-Policy Relationship
Wednesday, October 28
12:00pm to 1:30pm EDT
MIT, Building E40, 496, 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge, MA 02142
And online
Livestream at https://www.youtube.com/@mitsecuritystudiesprogram5272/streams

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As Climate Disruption Increases, Should We Consider Solar Geoengineering Approaches to Rapidly Cool the Earth? A Conversation at the Nexus of Science, Justice and Policy
Wednesday, October 28
5:00pm–7:00pm ET
149 Woods Hole Road,Falmouth, MA
And online
RSVP at https://www.woodwellclimate.org/?event=woodwell-climate-conversations-should-we-consider-solar-geoengineering

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Baldwin: A Love Story
Wednesday, October 28
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM
Boston Public Library in Copley Square, 700 Boylston Street, Boston MA 02116
And online
RSVP at https://bpl.bibliocommons.com/events/6a3c61b6c52cdc3600ecaceb

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Judicial Dialogues on Health and Climate Change: Emerging Standards, Comparative Trajectories, and Future Directions
Thursday, October 29
9 a.m.–5 p.m.
Harvard Law School, Milstein East C, Wasserstein Hall, 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
And online
RSVP at https://petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/events/details/judicial-dialogues-health-climate-change/

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Insurance: a catalyst for financial resilience
Thursday, October 29
11am EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.omfif.org/meetings/insurance-a-catalyst-for-financial-resilience/

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After the Flush: Rethinking the Future of Human Waste
Thursday, October 29
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall Multipurpose Room, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA 02155
And online
RSVP at https://tufts.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_u1H1XPBNRiCzRY20Bz__jQ#/registration

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Grassroots Water & Climate Solutions from Cameroon
Thursday, October 29
12 PM - 1 PM EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/grassroots-water-climate-solutions-from-cameroon-tickets-2000510786615

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Building Lasting Impact – Lessons from Nature Everywhere Communities
Thursday, October 29
1 PM - 2 PM EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/building-lasting-impact-lessons-from-nature-everywhere-communities-tickets-2000441441201
Cost: $0 - $100

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Drifting to a Wider War?
Thursday, October 29
2:00 PM
Online
RSVP at https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/ev/reg/v5nmaq5

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Responding to Ebola: Leadership, Partnership, and the Challenge of Containment
Friday, October 30
9 – 10 a.m.
Online
RSVP at https://globalhealth.harvard.edu/event/coffee-session-responding-to-ebola/

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The Breakdown with Erica Chenoweth and Steve Levitsky
Friday, October 30
2:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ybWH05DyRxWqkA2eflelNQ#/registration

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Ethel Kennedy: The Extraordiinary Life and Bold Legacy
Friday, October 30
6:30 - 7:30pm
Location Kennedy Library, Columbia Point, Boston, MA 02125
And online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ethel-kennedy-the-extraordinary-life-and-bold-legacy-tickets-1997568863243

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Performing Memory & Shaping Transformation
Sunday, November 1
2:00pm to 3:00pm EST
MIT, Building W97, 160, 345 Vassar Street, Cambridge MA 02139
RSVP at https://theater.mit.edu/event/performing-memory-shaping-transformation/

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The Politics of Climate Expertise
Monday, November 2
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Princeton, 300 Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ
And online
RSVP at https://environment.princeton.edu/event/the-politics-of-climate-expertise/

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The US Energy Transition: What is the Same; What Has Changed; and What Could Be with Philip Deutch, NGP Energy Technology Partners
Monday, November 2
1:30pm - 2:20pm ET [4:30pm to 5:20pm PT]
Stanford, Shriram Center, 104, 443 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305
Livestream
RSVP at https://events.stanford.edu/event/stanford-energy-seminar-11022026

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Coastal Resilience: Influence of shape on near-coast structures” by Maria Garlock
Tuesday, November 3
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Princeton, Briger Hall Auditorium, 11 Ivy Lane, Princeton, NJ
And online
RSVP at https://environment.princeton.edu/event/hmei-faculty-seminar-by-maria-e-moreyra-garlock/

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Hyperscale: The Ambition and Excess of Big Tech's Data Empires
Tuesday, November 3
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02138-3820
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/paris-marx

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The Day After: A Transatlantic Assessment of Midterm Election Results
Wednesday, November 4
9:00 - 10:00am EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.gmfus.org/event/day-after-transatlantic-assessment-midterm-election-results

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Exploring Progress: The Second Nature Action 100 Company Benchmark
Wednesday November 4
10:00 AM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://ceres-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/6217914065413/WN_fmPcZmJFSeaqZ-lmjgX7Eg#/registration

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Massachusetts Geothermal: Learning from the Ground Up
Wednesday November 4
10:00 AM - 3:00 PM
Massachusetts State House, 24 Beacon St, Boston, MA 02133
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSduF76ZdocGHT6P9HSKUDtp54P5-NMDWBmREGReM-m92REeuQ/viewform

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Hip-Hop Civics: Connected Learning in the Digital Streets
Wednesday, November 4
12:00pm to 1:00pm EST
MIT, Building 10, 105, 222 MEMORIAL DR, Cambridge, MA 02139

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Flood Connectivity and Prediction in Urbanscapes
Wednesday, November 4
2pm - 3pm ET [4 p.m. – 5 p.m. (MST)]
Arizona State University, Walton Center for Planetary Health, Room 160, 777 E University Dr Tempe AZ 85281
And online
RSVP at https://specialevents.asu.edu/ereg/newreg.php?eventid=894063&

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Profiles in Cowardice: A Study of Collaboration in the Trump Era
Wednesday, November 4
6:00pm
Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jacob-weisberg-at-the-cambridge-public-library-tickets-2002566006834

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The Thermal Revolution Gala
Wednesday, November 4
6:30 PM - 9:30 PM
Old South Meeting House, 310 Washington Street, Boston, MA 02108
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-thermal-revolution-gala-tickets-2003031680677
Cost: $10 - $1000

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Costs of Scale: Mapping the Challenges of AI
Wednesday, November 4
7pm
Boston College, Gasson Hall, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Newton, MA 02467
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/kate-crawford-costs-of-scale-mapping-the-challenges-of-ai-tickets-1989265395347

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The climate emergency brake: are we acting fast enough on methane?
Thursday, November 5
7 AM - 8 AM EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-climate-emergency-brake-are-we-acting-fast-enough-on-methane-tickets-2003596686625

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The Role of the Ocean in Midlatitude Climate
Thursday, November 5
9:30 - 10:30am
MIT, Building 55-110, Cambridge, MA
And online
RSVP at https://eaps.mit.edu/events/houghton-lecture-the-role-of-the-ocean-in-midlatitude-climate/

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Project Finance Strategies for Climate Tech Innovators / Sustainability Lunch Series
Thursday, November 5
11:45 AM – 12:45 PM EST (GMT-5)
MIT, Building E51-335, 100 Main Street, Cambridge, Mass 02142-1347
RSVP at https://sloangroups.mit.edu/sustain/rsvp_boot?id=1937016

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Climate, food, and power: Lessons from now, directions for the future
Thursday, November 5
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall Multipurpose Room, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA 02155
And online
RSVP at https://tufts.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_UgZMSddaSF-ZOalxvUKt7g#/registration

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Are Our Democracies Resilient Enough?
Thursday, November 5
4pm
Boston College, Gasson Hall, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeeXmTh8leKGTp_sJzHRtbwYw4prAvyrBbsOZb_DGlZziVPSQ/viewform

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When AI Becomes a Companion: Understanding Their Relationship with Psychological Well-Being
Thursday, November 5
4:00pm — 5:00pm ET
Online
RSVP at https://zoom.us/j/91647096870#success

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Harvard Voices on Climate Change: Extreme Heat & Health
Thursday, November 5
4:30 PM-5:30 PM ET
Online
RSVP at https://web.cvent.com/event/877ae415-22d1-4ee5-9aad-01976f1ea800/register

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We Protect Us: Neighborism & the Renewal of Democracy in Minneapolis
Thursday, November 5
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM
Tufts, Goddard Chapel, 3 The Green, Medford, MA
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/solomont-speaker-series-rev-dr-susie-hayward-tickets-2002090996064

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Bitter Honey: Big Ag’s Threat to Bees and the Fight to Save Them
Thursday, November 5
5:30pm - 6:30pm ET [3:30 - 4:30 p.m. PST]
University of CA, 132 Mulford Hall, Berkeley, CA
And online
RSVP at https://events.berkeley.edu/events/event/329871-espm-seminar-series-jennie-durant

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The Influence of Anthropogenic Emissions on the Extratropical Circulation
Friday, November 6
2:30 - 3:30pm
Online
RSVP at https://eaps.mit.edu/events/houghton-lecture-the-influence-of-anthropogenic-emissions-on-the-extratropical-circulation/

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Whose Landscape? The Alps Between Nation and Planet
Saturday, November 7
12:30 PM - 4:00 PM
SwissnexBoston420 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://swissnex.org/boston/event/whose-landscape-the-alps-between-nation-and-planet/


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Energy and Climate Conference 2026: Powering a Resilient Future
Sunday, November 8
8:30 AM - 5 PM
Klarman Hall, 113 Western Avenue, Boston (Allston), MA 02163
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/energy-and-climate-conference-2026-powering-a-resilient-future-tickets-1997469697636
Cost: $32.50 - $64

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Using Observations to Understand the Pattern Effect and its Contribution to Climate Sensitivity
Monday, November 9
12:00 - 1:00pm
MIT, Building 55-110, Cambridge, MA
And online
RSVP at https://eaps.mit.edu/events/houghton-lecture-paocq-using-observations-to-understand-the-pattern-effect-and-its-contribution-to-climate-sensitivity/

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Linking ecological and economic models: Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP) and the use of ecosystem service information in decision-making
Monday, November 9
12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Princeton, 300 Wallace Hall, Princeton NJ
And online
RSVP at https://cpree.princeton.edu/events/2026/linking-ecological-and-economic-models-gross-ecosystem-product-gep-and-use-ecosystem

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Green Energy Consumers Fall Meeting
Monday, November 9
5 PM - 8 PM
Artists For Humanity, 100 West 2nd Street, Boston, MA 02127
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/green-energy-consumers-fall-meeting-tickets-2001889844414
Cost: $10

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Better Tech: Putting People First in Cyberspace
Monday, November 9
6:00pm
Harvard Science Center, Hall D, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/francine-berman-at-the-harvard-science-center-tickets-1997982372059

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Coming Home: Crisis, Fire, and Recovery
Monday, November 9
6:30 – 8 p.m.
Harvard Graduate School of Design, Piper Auditorium, Gund Hall, 48 Quincy St., Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.gsd.harvard.edu/event/coming-home-crisis-fire-and-recovery/

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Introduction to Solar Radiation ModificationMechanisms, impacts, and governance
Tuesday, November 10
9am - 10am EDT [11:00am - 12:00pm (MST)]
Online
RSVP at https://www.pembina.org/event/introduction-solar-radiation-modification

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Forever No More: PFAS Toxicity, Replacements, and the Future of Responsible Materials Discovery
Tuesday, November 10
2:30 PM - 4 PM
Boston University Institute for Global Sustainability, 111 Cummington Mall, Suite 149 Boston, MA 02215
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/igs-convergent-conversations-pfas-tickets-2003408867854

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Sustainability Showcase Keynote: Kevin Patel, Youth Environmental Justice and Climate Activist
Tuesday, November 10
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm EST
Penn State, 112 Kern Building, University Park, PA 16802
And online
RSVP at https://sustainability.psu.edu/event/sustainability-showcase-keynote-kevin-patel-youth-environmental-justice-and-climate-activist/

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KSJ + STS Fall Lecture - The Fight for Facts: Evidence in an Age of Doubt
Tuesday, November 10
4:30pm EST
MIT, The Nexus at Hayden Library, Building 14S-130, 160 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdaCDY6I8pmWbOKtkgSUKSAuKfqeNUr8gKjKD47hejguVpEPA/viewform

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Media Lab MOSAIC
Tuesday, November 10
4:30pm — 6:30pm ET
MIT Media Lab, E14 - 3rd Floor Atrium, 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge, MA
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeSMW24Tf1XP6x8uxn9UNJ7aOitQIhAnGmVpmdWHQIFL743Kw/viewform
Please RSVP by November 6, 2026

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Reporting on Injustice and Vulnerability
Tuesday, November 10
5pm to 6:30pm
Boston College, Devlin Hall, 255 Beacon Street, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467

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Beautiful Particulars: How AI's Attention to the Smallest of Differences Is Reshaping Our Biggest Ideas
Tuesday, November 10
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02138-3820
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/weinberger26

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Taking Stock: Documenting the Economic Record of Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Inflation Reduction Act, and CHIPS and Science Act
Wednesday, November 11
12:00PM - 1:00PM
Online
RSVP at https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/events/taking-stock-documenting-the-economic-record-of-bil-ira-and-chips/

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Monthly Dose of Climate Hope! with Sammy Roth
Wednesday, November 11
1 PM - 2 PM EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/monthly-dose-of-climate-hope-with-sammy-roth-tickets-2001230428082

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Earth’s Greatest Enemy: A Conversation with Director Abby Martin
Wednesday, November 11
7:00 pm - 8:00 pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://masspeaceaction.org/event/earths-greatest-enemy-a-conversation-with-abby-martin-newdate/

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Climate Change and Conflict in Africa
Thursday, Novermber 12
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall Multipurpose Room, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://as.tufts.edu/environmentalstudies/news-events/hoch-cunningham-lecture-series#nov12

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Carlson Lecture — The Ocean Carbon Sink: Facts, Fictions, and Opportunities
Thursday, November 12
6:30pm to 7:30pm EST
New England Aquarium, Simons Theatre, 1 Central Wharf, Boston, MA
And online
RSVP at https://alumevents.mit.edu/event/carlsonlecture2026/summary

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Infrastructure in a Time of Flux: Methods, Conditions, and Situations, Symposium
Thursday, November 12
6:30 – 8 p.m.
Harvard Graduate School of Design, Piper Auditorium, Gund Hall, 48 Quincy St., Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.gsd.harvard.edu/event/infrastructure-in-a-time-of-flux-methods-conditions-and-situations/

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Endangered Canyons of Utah: Photos & Action for Northeast Sierra Club
Thursday, November 12
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM (Eastern)
Online
RSVP at https://act.sierraclub.org/events/details?formcampaignid=701Po0000263jPBIAY&mapLinkHref=

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Forgotten Histories and Possible Futures of Circular Economies
Friday, November 13
9:30 AM - 3:30 PM
MIT, The Nexus at Hayden Library, Building 14S-130, 160 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/forgotten-histories-and-possible-futures-of-circular-economies-tickets-1997914702658

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MIT Energy & Climate Night
Friday November 13
6PM - 10PM
MIT Museum | 314 Main St., Cambridge, MA
RSVP at https://luma.com/kaeo9e5b

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Upcoming US 4 Billion Dead Call
Saturday, November 14
1pm EST [10 AM PST]
Online
RSVP at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/wJ2yhnviRyGKkNX_zJVgSA

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Climate Finance in an Overshoot World
Monday, November 16
12:00 PM - 1:15 PM ET
Harvard, Rubenstein 414ab, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge, MA
And online
RSVP at https://hksexeced.tfaforms.net/f/registration?e=a4oPp000001lGC1IAM

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Food Beyond Earth: What Space Can Teach Us About the Future of Food
Tuesday, November 17
12:00pm — 1:00pm ET
Online
RSVP at https://www.media.mit.edu/events/angelo-vermeulen-gastronomy-and-beyond/

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From Ashes to Acres: How Partnerships are Reshaping Wildfire Recovery
Tuesday, November 17
12:00 PM (EST)
Online
RSVP at https://trellis.net/webinar/from-ashes-to-acres-how-partnerships-are-reshaping-wildfire-recovery/

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From Professional to Partisan: Civil-Military Norm Replacement in Eroding Democracies
Wednesday, November 18
12:00-1:30pm
Livestream at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG5ooD8Ydk4vd83Ac8VNEoQ

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Starr Forum: AI and Global Power: Democracy, Competition, and Control
Wednesday, November 18
4:30pm to 6:00pm EST
MIT, Building E51, 115, Wong Auditorium, 70 MEMORIAL DR, Cambridge, MA 02142
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScJ-V3Zfdwgk5NQ_6ZiNWAXLyu_y1tGP6WoL29J1dWZSFlxng/viewform

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The Strait of Hormuz and Climate Action
Wednesday, November 18
5 PM - 6 PM EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sustainable-solutions-presents-the-strait-of-hormuz-and-climate-action-tickets-2002292078507

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Good Refugees, Bad Refugees: Borders and Belonging in Southeast Europe
Wednesday, November 18
5 – 6:30 p.m.
Harvard, S354 CGIS South, 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/good-refugees-bad-refugees-borders-and-belonging-in-southeast-europe-tickets-2003144670633

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Resonant Landscapes: Listening with Nature and History
Thursday, November 19
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall Multipurpose Room, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://as.tufts.edu/environmentalstudies/news-events/hoch-cunningham-lecture-series#nov19

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Co-Benefits, Dis-Benefits; What CDR means for mitigation deterrence, air quality and health
Public Webinar
Thursday, November 19
1pm EDT [11:00am (MDT)]
Online
RSVP at https://www.pembina.org/event/canco2re-webinar-co-benefits-dis-benefitss

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Arrested Development: The US-Iran War in Historical Perspective
Thursday, November 19
4:30 – 6 p.m.
Harvard, CGIS Knafel 262, 1737 Cambridge St., Cambridge
RSVP at https://cmes.fas.harvard.edu/event/arrested-development-us-iran-war-historical-perspective

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Crutch or Catalyst? How AI Is Changing the Ways We Relate
Thursday, November 19
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM ET
Harvard Law School, 1557 Massachusetts Ave., Lewis Hall, 5th floor, Cambridge, MA 02138
And online
RSVP at https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/crutch-or-catalyst-how-ai-changing-ways-we-relate

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Open Science, AI, and Future of Scientific Publishing
Thursday, November 19
5:30 PM - 8:00 PM
SwissnexBoston, 420 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://swissnex.org/boston/event/open-science-ai-and-future-of-scientific-publishing/

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Climate & War
Friday, November 20
12 PM - 3 PM EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-war-tickets-1989267322110

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Energy Security Sustainability Delivered
Monday, November 23
12:00 PM - 1:15 PM ET
Harvard, Rubenstein 414ab, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge, MA
And online
RSVP at https://hksexeced.tfaforms.net/f/registration?e=a4oPp000001kjUbIAI&_gl=1*145uuzn*_gcl_au*Mzg0MjUwMTU5LjE3OTI3MjY3MDY.*_ga*NTg4NjE4NzUxLjE3ODQ1NzcxMzY.*_ga_72NC9RC7VN*czE3OTI3MjY3MDYkbzUkZzEkdDE3OTI3Mjc3MjkkajEkbDAkaDY5ODgzNTU4

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COP31 Debriefing: What's Next for Global Climate Action?
Monday, November 30
12:00pm to 1:30pm EST
MIT, Building 10, 105, 222 MEMORIAL DR, Cambridge, MA 02139
And online
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfO55rPYGl4QQ9Ko0cQR6A0MUEJF4TIsFdGnCmqOiniKC1SQQ/viewform

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Robert Lempert
Monday, November 30
12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Princeton, 300 Wallace Hall, Princeton NJ
And online
RSVP at https://cpree.princeton.edu/events/2026/tba

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What the Iran War Reveals about American Airpower
Wednesday, December 2
12:00-1:30pm
Livestream at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG5ooD8Ydk4vd83Ac8VNEoQ

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The Breakdown with Erica Chenoweth and Steve Levitsky
Wednesday, December 2
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM ET
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_S6LSjd0VSvGAHL-7eHCCQg#/registration

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Protecting carbon and communities: Transforming boreal fire management into a climate solution
Thursday, December 3
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall Multipurpose Room, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://as.tufts.edu/environmentalstudies/news-events/hoch-cunningham-lecture-series#dec3

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The Expertise Economy
Thursday, December 3
4 – 5 p.m.
Harvard, Knafel Center, 10 Garden St., Cambridge
And online
RSVP at https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2026-david-h-autor-lecture-3

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MIT D-Lab Fall 2026 Student Showcase
Thursday, December 3
7:00pm to 8:30pm EST
MIT, Building N51, 310, 265 MASSACHUSETTS AVE, Cambridge, MA 02139

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The Utility Business Model & The Year in Energy
Friday, December 4
9:00 AM – 12:30 PM
Foley Hoag LLP, 155 Seaport Boulevard, 17th Floor Boston, MA 02210
And online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/12-4-2026-new-england-energy-roundtable-tickets-2003640106495?aff=oddtdtcreator
Cost: $0 - $110

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Events
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The 2026 Midterms: What's at Stake for the United States and Europe?
Tuesday, October 27
9:00 - 10:00am EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.gmfus.org/event/2026-midterms-whats-stake-united-states-and-europe

The implications of the 2026 midterm elections will be felt far beyond Washington, DC. Join GMF for a conversation on the electoral landscape, the key races that could determine control of Congress, and the political dynamics shaping the campaign.

Panelists will discuss what unified or divided government could mean for US leadership and the transatlantic relationship, and explore how major foreign policy developments are influencing domestic politics, voter sentiment, and the broader election landscape.

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Accelerating Environmental Forecasting Symposium
Tuesday, October 27
10:00 am – 7:30 pm
BU, Duan Family Center for Computing & Data Sciences, 665 Commonwealth Avenue, Room 1750
RSVP at https://www.bu.edu/hic/accelerating-environmental-forecasting-symposium-registration/

As our planet faces accelerating environmental changes, accurate predictive tools are essential to understanding and protecting vulnerable ecosystems and the critical services they provide. This symposium brings together a convergent community across the environmental sciences, computer science, data science, statistics, and machine learning to establish Boston University’s leadership in environmental forecasting, highlighting four focal areas of research: shared, scalable cyberinfrastructure and advanced methodological frameworks; tropical zoonotic disease; coastal and marine ecosystems; and urban ecosystems. Together, these interdisciplinary efforts lay the groundwork for real-time ecological predictions that empower better environmental stewardship and decision-making.

This symposium builds on the work established in the “Environmental Forecasting: From Computational Tools to Scientific Insight” Focused Research Program.
MICHAEL DIETZE, PHD, Professor, Earth and Environment, CAS
JONATHAN HUGGINS, PHD, Assistant Professor, Mathematics & Statistics, CAS, Founding member of Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences

Agenda:
This will be updated as we get closer to the event date. Click on a session row to expand and view talk information.
Speaker photo and bio coming soon.
Time Session Topic
10:00 am “Workshop: Easy, Scalable Data Analysis and Forecasting with ProbPipe” with Jonathan Huggins +
12:00 – 1:00 pm | Networking Lunch + Poster Session +
1:00 pm Keynote: “Better Predictions for Better Policy for Biodiversity Protection” with Mark Urban +
1:40 pm “BloomBoard: An Interactive Dashboard for Chl-a Forecasts in the Gulf of Maine” with Cami Webb +
1:55 pm “Beyond Predictions: Building Actionable Forecasts” with Tracy Fanara +
2:15 pm “Sustained Ocean Observing for Decision Making and Marine Forecasting” with Cameron Thompson +
2:35 pm – 2:50 pm | Break
2:50 pm Keynote: “Collaborative probabilistic outbreak forecasting to support public health decision-making” with Nick Reich +
3:30 pm “Environmental Determinants of Infectious Diseases and Forecasting” with Kayoko Shioda +
3:45 pm “From El Niño to Dengue: Climate Forecasts as Early Warning for Vector-Borne Disease” with Kris Karnauskas +
4:05 pm | Break
4:20 pm “Simple yet Flexible Probabilistic Workflows Using ProbPipe” with Jonathan Huggins +
4:35 pm “A Brief Tour of BirdCast: Continent-Scale Modeling and Forecasting of Bird Migration”
with Dan Sheldon +
4:55 pm “Forecasting Tree Growth and Death in a City” with Jenny Bhatnagar +
5:10 pm “Accidental Selection in Urban Environments Can Alter Plant-Environment Interactions” with Meghan Blumstein +
5:30 pm – 7:30 pm | Symposium Group Dinner
Finalizing collaborations and charting the next phase of BU Environmental Forecasting leadership.

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Why do ecosystems have optimum temperatures?
Tuesday, October 27
12:00 - 1:00pm
Online
RSVP at https://eaps.mit.edu/events/sls-lucas-vargas-zeppetello-uc-berkeley/

Lucas Vargas Zeppetello (UC Berkeley)
The observed relationships between temperature, vapor pressure deficit, and gross primary productivity at the ecosystem scale are known to be non-linear; productivity increases with both temperature and vapor pressure deficit up to a critical threshold known as the optimum, above which it declines dramatically. In this talk, I will present a new hypothesis that explains ecosystem optimum values for temperature and vapor pressure deficit by considering the joint influence of water stress on both plant biology and energy exchange between Earth’s land surface and the overlying atmosphere without incorporating any direct temperature or humidity stress on photosynthesis or transpiration. Using eddy covariance observations, idealized theory, and a model that includes both a biochemical representation of photosynthesis and a physical representation of land-atmosphere coupling, I demonstrate that neither biotic temperature stress nor stomatal closure induced by high vapor pressure deficit are required to explain the existence of ecosystem optimum values for temperature or vapor pressure deficit; the influence of ecosystem-scale water stress on stomatal closure is sufficient to explain the observed behavior.

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CSAIL FORUM with Jacob Andreas: Training Language Models to Talk About Themselves
Tuesday, October 27
12:00pm to 1:00pm EDT
Online
RSVP at https://mit.zoom.us/meeting/register/xcG1LggiQZWAH2xBP1F4Qw#/registration

Abstract: Current language models (LMs) can converse knowledgeably and in depth about a wide range of topics. But these same models are surprisingly bad at talking about themselves: They struggle to describe their internal decision-making processes, judge the correctness of their own outputs, or answer user questions about their behavioral tendencies. I'll present some procedures we've recently developed for training LMs to introspect, and observations we've made about how introspection training shapes model behavior, and show that better introspection improves both predictability and user control.

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How Institutions Listen: Civic Data, AI, and the Path to Public Trust
Tuesday, October 27
12 PM - 1:30 PM
Boston University Institute for Global Sustainability, 111 Cummington Mall, #Suite 149 Boston, MA 02215
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/how-institutions-listen-civic-data-ai-and-the-path-to-public-trust-tickets-2001227920582

Join Eric Gordon in conversation with Nigel Jacob and Anne Short Gianotti as they talk about his new book, "How Institutions Listen.”

On October 27th, join a conversation between Eric Gordon, the director of the Center for Media Innovation & Social Impact (MISI), Nigel Jacob, former co-chair of Boston's Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics, and Anne Short Gianotti, BU Professor of Earth & Environment. The three will talk about Eric's new book, How Institutions Listen: Civic Data, AI, and the Path to Public Trust, and explore the current state of public engagement in cities and how new technologies are transforming practices and exposing new vulnerabilities.

Lunch will be provided.

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AI, Ethics, and the Future of Civil Society | Human Learning, Machine Intelligence Speaker Series
Tuesday, October 27
1 – 2 p.m.
Harvard, Askwith Hall, Longfellow Hall, 13 Appian Way, Cambridge
And online
RSVP at https://calendar.gse.harvard.edu/en/36YmkP6/g/10QsMNq3CB/ai-ethics-and-the-future-of-civil-society-or-human-learning-machine-intelligence-5a5YUc2j5iL/overview

SPEAKER(S) Chloé Bakalar, Former AI Ethics Lead at OpenAI and former Chief Ethicist at Meta
Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University

AI is reshaping how we gather information, build knowledge, and make decisions at an unprecedented pace, changing not only individual cognition but the fabric of society. What would it take for civil society to remain resilient? What should we expect from those creating these technologies, and what role should education play? Join us for a conversation on the path forward for public life.

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​Progress in the Face of Pushback: Grantham Institute Annual Lecture 2026 with Anne Hidalgo
Tuesday, October 27
1:30pm - 4:30pm ET [5:30 PM - 8:30 PM GMT]
Register to See Address in London, United Kingdom
And online
RSVP at https://luma.com/uyqc0kwq

​Around the world, the leaders driving the most ambitious climate action are increasingly finding themselves at the centre of political polarisation, misinformation campaigns, and public backlash. Yet history shows that transformative change has rarely been achieved by following the path of least resistance. From redesigning cities and defending climate science to challenging vested interests, bold leadership often demands the willingness to go against the grain and withstand intense scrutiny.

​In this keynote address, Anne Hidalgo, former Mayor of Paris, Global Ambassador for the Global Covenant of Mayors and one of Europe's most influential urban climate leaders, will reflect on her experience leading the transformation of one of the world's largest cities. From reclaiming streets for people and expanding active transport to tackling air pollution and embedding climate resilience into urban planning, she will examine how sustained political opposition and misinformation became defining features of delivering change. Drawing on lessons from Paris, Hidalgo will explore what it takes to build trust, maintain conviction under pressure, and deliver tangible benefits of ambitious climate action.
​About the speaker

​In 2014, Anne Hidalgo became the first woman to be elected Mayor of Paris, after serving as First Deputy Mayor of Paris from 2001 to 2014. A member of the Socialist Party, she had graduated with a Master of Advanced Studies in social law before becoming a labour inspector and going on to serve as an adviser to three Ministers under the Lionel Jospin Government. In 2020, she was re-elected Mayor of Paris, with an ambitious programme designed to transform Paris into a zero-carbon city by 2050. She successfully led Paris's bid to host the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. As Mayor of Paris until March 2026, Anne Hidalgo pursued an ambitious policy agenda focused on housing for families and universal, inclusive public services, working to improve air quality, combat climate change and adapt the city to the climate challenge, reducing car use, greening public spaces and prioritising pedestrians. She fulfilled a promise first made in 1988 to make the Seine swimmable again, ending a ban that had been in place for over a century. She has equally championed these issues on the international stage. In December 2015 in Paris, she organised the climate summit for local leaders, a major side event of COP21. She chaired the C40 Cities Leadership Group and served as President of the International Association of Francophone Mayors (AIMF) and Co-Chair of the World Organization of United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG). Today, she continues in her role as Global Ambassador of the Global Covenant of Mayors, working on climate leadership with mayors around the world.

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What Remains: AI, Death, and Loss
Tuesday, October 27
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM ET
Harvard Law School, 1557 Massachusetts Ave., Lewis Hall, 5th floor, Cambridge, MA 02138
And online
RSVP at https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/what-remains-ai-death-and-loss

Leah Plunkett
Kathleen Coleman
Stacey Wales
Our online lives increasingly outlast us, leaving our likeness with loved ones grappling with challenging but eternal questions of legacy, loss, and law. How does this digital afterlife change the ways we grieve, remember, and honor the wishes of those who have died?

Join Stacey Wales, whose family created the world's first courtroom AI-generated victim impact statement depicting her late brother (resulting in a sentence recently vacated), Christopher Pelkey; Harvard Law School lecturer and BKC Faculty Associate Leah Plunkett; and Harvard professor Kathleen Coleman, who teaches an interdisciplinary course on loss, for a conversation about the legal, psychological, and ethical complexities of AI and death.

Who decides what happens to the data we leave behind, and who can access, inherit, or use it? How might an ongoing digital presence offer comfort, prolong grief, or transform our relationships with those we have lost? What happens when the wishes of the deceased conflict with the needs of the bereaved, or when personal remembrance becomes part of a public proceeding? Drawing on Wales’ experience alongside legal scholarship and perspectives on loss, the conversation will explore how digital afterlives intersect with longstanding rituals of mourning, and what responsibilities families, technology companies, and public institutions hold toward both the living and the dead.

Speakers
Kathleen Coleman is the James Loeb Professor of the Classics at Harvard University. Her research interests include Latin literature, history, and culture in the early Roman Empire, including arena spectacles. She teaches a course on loss in the Program in General Education at Harvard College (GENED 1131).

Leah Plunkett is the inaugural Executive Director of Harvard Law School Online and Associate Dean of Learning Experience and Innovation (LXI) at Harvard Law School. She is also the Meyer Research Lecturer on Law at HLS and a faculty associate with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Her scholarship focuses on digital privacy and the digital lives of kids, families, and communities.
Stacey Wales is the visionary and script author behind the pioneering Chris Pelkey AI avatar, having conceived the groundbreaking concept and scripted the statement that made global courtroom history. A former CEO and COO, she currently works at Infosys and serves as Board Chair of the Knots for NICU Foundation. Her work explores the intersection of emerging AI technology, judicial precedent, and victim advocacy.

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The Practice of Wisdom
Tuesday, October 27
6:00pm
Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-practice-of-wisdom-panel-at-the-cambridge-public-library-tickets-1996508984116

Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Davíd Carrasco, the Neil L. Rudenstine Professor of the Study of Latin America at Harvard University, Arthur Kleinman, the Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor of Anthropology at Harvard, Stephanie Paulsell, Professor Emerita at Harvard Divinity School, and Michael Puett, the Walter C. Klein Professor of Chinese History and Anthropology at Harvard, for a discussion of their new book, The Practice of Wisdom: Five Quests. They will be joined in conversation by Rev. Matthew Ichihashi Potts—Minister in the Memorial Church and Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard University.

About The Practice of Wisdom
A master class from four renowned Harvard professors—an anthropologist, a physician, a theologian, and a historian—on discovering wisdom in challenging times.
In moments of uncertainty, to whom do we turn for solace and insight? How can we endure and overcome our own suffering? Harvard University professors Davíd Carrasco, Arthur Kleinman, Stephanie Paulsell, and Michael Puett turn to great thinkers, artists, and religious traditions not for definitive answers, but for lessons we can bring to our own quests for wisdom. Wisdom, they find, is not an abstract ideal but a way of living formed by caring for others and through everyday practices of solitude, ritual, and art. Based on their celebrated Harvard course, The Practice of Wisdom helps us brave loneliness, grief, and crises and bring beauty, healing, and spiritual significance into our lives.

Wisdom, they teach, is an ongoing quest—a practice to be lived and deliberately cultivated. Through five interwoven chapters, we travel from Chinese temples and Hindu ashrams to Emily Dickinson’s Homestead and US-Mexico borderlands. We encounter philosopher William James on the power of the subconscious after trauma; theologian Howard Thurman on solitude as a source of dignity; Toni Morrison on the interplay between mercy and goodness; writer John Phillip Santos on generational wisdom; physician Paul Farmer on medical compassion; and Confucius on ritual as a way of breaking the patterns that entrap us. We hear from Wendy Doniger, the eminent scholar of Hinduism, whose reflections present wisdom as a lifelong, unfinished art of seeking meaning, balance, and purpose.

Threaded throughout this short but powerful book is the image of the labyrinth: life as a series of turns that carry us through adversity and loss to hard-won clarity and grace. Led by teachers who have walked these paths, lost their way, and carried on, we learn the art—and practice—of living wisely.

Bios
Davíd Carrasco, Neil L. Rudenstine Professor of the Study of Latin America at Harvard University, is Director of the Moses Mesoamerican Archive, author of The Religions of Mesoamerica, City of Sacrifice, and Quetzalcoatl and the Irony of Empire. Photo Credit: Timothy Greenfield Sanders

Arthur Kleinman has taught for over forty years in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and in the Department of Anthropology, where he is Rabb Professor. He is the author of The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing, and the Human Condition and The Soul of Care: The Moral Education of a Husband and Doctor. Photo Credit: Torben Eskerod

Stephanie Paulsell is Professor Emerita at Harvard Divinity School and a long-standing columnist at the Christian Century. She is the author of Religion Around Virginia Woolf and coeditor of Toni Morrison: Goodness and the Literary Imagination. Photo Credit: Jeffrey Blackwell

Michael Puett, Walter C. Klein Professor of Chinese History and Anthropology and Director of the Asia Center at Harvard University, is the author of The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life and To Become a God: Cosmology, Sacrifice, and Self-Divinization in Early China. Photo Credit: Charles Michael
The Rev. Matthew Ichihashi Potts, Minister in the Memorial Church and Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard University, previously served as Professor of Religion and Literature and of Ministry Studies at Harvard Divinity School. He is the author of Cormac McCarthy and the Signs of Sacrament: Literature, Theology, and the Moral of Stories and Forgiveness: An Alternative Account.

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The Next Fix: The Winners and Losers in the Future of Drugs
Tuesday, October 27
7:00pm
Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Coolidge Corner, Brookline, MA 02446-2908
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/kojo-koram-with-quinn-slobodian-and-shaleen-title-tickets-1993696130796

From America’s plantation-turned-prison known as Angola in Louisiana to the psychedelic boom of Silicon Valley, The Next Fix tracks a seismic shift in global drug policy. Kojo Koram—legal scholar and acclaimed author of Uncommon Wealth—travels across five continents to examine how criminalized substances are being rebranded as commodities in a new billion-dollar industry. Legal cannabis dispen­saries now trade in what once led to life sentences. Psychedelics have become fertile ground for biotech. But for all these developments, prisons still swell with underprivileged users and addicts, and enforcement falls hardest along lines of race and class.

This is not a polemic for or against legalization. It is a powerful, clear-eyed reckoning with how we got here—and what kind of future is taking shape in a world addicted to economic “fixes” every bit as much as it is troubled by drugs. Combining report­age, political analysis and vivid personal testimony, The Next Fix tells the untold story of drugs, capital­ism and inequality in the twenty-first century.

Kojo Koram is an author and professor, teaching at the School of Law at Loughborough University. He is the author of Uncommon Wealth: Britain and the Aftermath of Empire (John Murray 2022)

Quinn Slobodian is professor of international history at Boston University, and the author of several books including mostly recently Muskism with Ben Tarnoff. His previous book, Hayek’s Bastards, won the National Book Critics Circle award for for Criticism.

Shaleen Title is a lawyer and activist focused on the regulation of emerging industries, including cannabis and AI. She directs the Parabola Center for Law and Policy, serves as of counsel at Rudick Law Group, and teaches at Roger Williams University.

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The Multisensory Future of Food
Wednesday, October 28
12:00pm — 1:00pm ET
Online
RSVP at https://mit.zoom.us/j/92390116463

Professor Charles Spence is an experimental psychologist at the University of Oxford and Head of the Crossmodal Research Laboratory. His research focuses on understanding how people perceive the world around them—particularly how our brains integrate information from different senses including smell, taste, sight, hearing and touch to create the rich multisensory experiences that characterize daily life.

As a Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford, Professor Spence's work explores how a better understanding of the human mind can inform the design of multisensory foods, products, interfaces and environments. He serves as a consultant for multinational companies on multisensory design and has become a multi-award winning expert in the field of multisensory perception and neuroscience-inspired design. His research has attracted international recognition, with appearances in major media outlets and talks at prestigious venues discussing the psychology of food, taste, and sensory experience.

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The Promise and Peril of the Intelligence Community-Policy Relationship
Wednesday, October 28
12:00pm to 1:30pm EDT
MIT, Building E40, 496, 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge, MA 02142
And online
Livestream at https://www.youtube.com/@mitsecuritystudiesprogram5272/streams

Amy McAuliffe will give a presentation at the MIT Security Studies Program's Wednesday Seminar.

Summary: Amy McAuliffe will discuss the Intelligence Community's (IC) mission and features of a “proper” IC-policy relationship, using Sherman Kent's framework, as well as her own experience as a senior CIA executive. She’ll discuss in detail examples of when this relationship worked well and produced a well-informed US policy decision and when it did not. Examples will include Libya's decision to relinquish WMD in 2003, Iraq-WMD, the capture and death of Osama bin Ladin, and the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA).

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As Climate Disruption Increases, Should We Consider Solar Geoengineering Approaches to Rapidly Cool the Earth? A Conversation at the Nexus of Science, Justice and Policy
Wednesday, October 28
5:00pm–7:00pm ET
149 Woods Hole Road,Falmouth, MA
And online
RSVP at https://www.woodwellclimate.org/?event=woodwell-climate-conversations-should-we-consider-solar-geoengineering

As climate disruption intensifies, the urgency to identify what can protect people and ecosystems is growing. Solar geoengineering—approaches that could temporarily reflect sunlight and rapidly cool the Earth—is emerging as a serious area of scientific research and policy discussion.

Could these approaches play a role alongside emissions reductions and adaptation? How can they be responsibly researched? What might we learn by studying them now, and how can we ensure that decisions about these technologies are guided by rigorous science, international cooperation, and principles of justice?
Join Woodwell Climate for a forward-looking conversation about the risks and potential of solar geoengineering—and exploring how better understanding these technologies today could help us make better-informed choices about our climate future.

Woodwell Climate Conversations is a monthly event series designed to engage our community and foster meaningful discussion about climate change and its impacts.
This series provides a platform for both in-person and virtual discussions, workshops, and presentations.

Join us each month as we bring together experts, thought leaders, and community members to explore the latest climate science, the work being done at Woodwell Climate Research Center, and the steps we can all take toward a sustainable future.

Doors open at 5:00pm, events start at 6:00pm in the Harbourton Auditorium.
This event will be offered both in-person and virtually, please register in advance.

Featuring
Peter Frumhoff, Senior Science Policy Advisor
Dr. Shuchi Talati, Founder & Executive Director, The Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering (DSG)

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Baldwin: A Love Story
Wednesday, October 28
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM
Boston Public Library in Copley Square, 700 Boylston Street, Boston MA 02116
And online
RSVP at https://bpl.bibliocommons.com/events/6a3c61b6c52cdc3600ecaceb

Join us in person or online over Zoom Webinar to hear author Nicholas Boggsspeak about his recent bestselling biography of James Baldwin, Baldwin: A Love Story, in celebration of LGBTQ+ History Month! Joining Nicolas in Conversation is author and professor, Jesse McCarthy.
After the hour-long talk, Nicholas Boggs will sign copies of Baldwin during a signing facilitated by our local, independent bookseller, Trident Booksellers.

Nicholas Boggs is the author of the New York Times bestselling biography, Baldwin: A Love Story (FSG, 2025), winner of the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography, the Stonewall/Israel Fishman Nonfiction Award, and the Randy Shilts Nonfiction Award. It was named a Top Ten Book of 2025 by Time Magazine and The Atlantic, and a New York Times Notable Book of the year. In addition, it was recognized with an Audie Award for Best Audiobook in History/Biography. Also the co-editor of Baldwin's collaboration with French artist Yoran Cazac, Little Man, Little Man: A Story of Childhood (2018), Boggs' research and writing have been supported by fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Humanities Center, the Gilder Lehrman Center and Beinecke Library at Yale, the Scholars-in-Residence Program at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the Leon Levy Center for Biography, as well as a 2023 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant. He was educated at Yale (BA), American University (MFA), and Columbia (PhD). He lives in New York City.

Jesse McCarthy is John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities and of the Social Sciences at Harvard University. He is the author of The Blue Period: Black Writing in the Early Cold War, Who Will Pay Reparations on My Soul? and a novel, The Fugitivities. His writing on literature, politics, and the arts has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, and The New York Review of Books. He also serves as an editor at the magazines The Point and Public Books.

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Judicial Dialogues on Health and Climate Change: Emerging Standards, Comparative Trajectories, and Future Directions
Thursday, October 29
9 a.m.–5 p.m.
Harvard Law School, Milstein East C, Wasserstein Hall, 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
And online
RSVP at https://petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/events/details/judicial-dialogues-health-climate-change/

This one-day conference will convene judges, litigators, and scholars from Africa, Europe, and Latin America for a comparative examination of the evolving relationship between climate change, the right to health, and judicial enforcement.

Please join us for the full day or for what your schedule permits.
Agenda
9–9:15 A.M.
Welcome Remarks
I. Glenn Cohen, James A. Attwood and Leslie Williams Professor of Law and Deputy Dean, Harvard Law School; Faculty Director, Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology & Bioethics, Harvard Law School
Gerald L. Neuman, J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign, and Comparative Law; Director of the Human Rights Program, Harvard Law School
Alicia Ely Yamin, Lecturer on Law; Senior Fellow, Director of the Global Health and Rights Project, Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology & Bioethics, Harvard Law School

9:15–10:45 A.M.
PANEL 1
International Courts: Emerging Standards on the Evolving Climate-Health Nexus
Recent advisory opinions have placed climate-related health harms at the forefront of international adjudication, prompting courts and tribunals to articulate legal standards concerning prevention, due diligence, vulnerability, reparations, and intergenerational justice. While these decisions emerge from distinct legal regimes, they also reveal an evolving dialogue on how international law should respond to the human consequences of climate change. This panel explores where these emerging approaches converge, where they diverge, and how they may shape the future development of climate-health jurisprudence across international and regional courts. Judge Leonardo Nemer Caldeira Brant, International Court of Justice
Judge María Teresa Infante Caffi, International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea
Honorable Lady Justice Suzanne Mengue, Judge, African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights
Judge Darian Pavli, European Court of Human Rights
Judge Patricia Pérez Goldberg, Inter-American Court of Human Rights
Moderator: Gerald L. Neuman, J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign, and Comparative Law; Director of the Human Rights Program, Harvard Law School10:45–11 A.M. Break
11 A.M.–12:15 P.M.
PANEL 2
Domestic Courts: Judicial Reasoning, Remedies, and Institutional Legitimacy on Health in a Warming World
Climate-health disputes increasingly reach constitutional and apex courts through challenges to public authorities’ responses to mitigation, adaptation, environmental regulation, and public health protection. These cases require courts to reconcile constitutional rights, scientific uncertainty, and long-term climate risks while preserving democratic legitimacy and institutional balance. This panel explores how domestic courts are shaping the constitutional architecture of climate governance through standards of review, evidentiary approaches, remedies, and dialogue with international and regional jurisprudence. Justice Natalia Ángel Cabo, Vice President, Constitutional Court of Colombia
Mr. Alfredo Gutiérrez Ortiz Mena, former Justice, Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation
Justice Isaac Lenaola, Judge of the Supreme Court of Kenya; President of the Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone
Dr. Andreas L. Paulus, Professor of Public and International Law, Georg-August University of Göttingen; former Justice, Federal Constitutional Court of Germany
Moderator: Alicia Ely Yamin, Lecturer on Law; Senior Fellow, Director of the Global Health and Rights Project, Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology & Bioethics, Harvard Law School
12:15–1:45 P.M.Lunch and Visual Presentations of Impacts of Extreme Heat in India
12:15–1 P.M.
Slides from COMMUNITY HATS Project, Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability, Harvard University
Community HATS is a worker-led research collaboration among members of the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India and researchers at Harvard and CEPT University. Using environmental sensors, wearables, and mobile data collection alongside women’s own accounts, the study tracks how heat affects the health, productivity, and income of informal workers in India.
Community HATS is as much about community knowledge as scientific measurement. Data from this project are regularly reviewed with informal workers throughout India- both participants and non-participants alike- through individualized reports, social-media campaigns, and in-person workshops. Together, the photography, and data document harms at a scale and specificity that climate-health law and policy must now confront.
1:15–1:45 P.M.
Short Film and Open Discussion with Robert Meade
The short film, One Hot Day, follows three women in occupations common across India’s informal economy: farming, vegetable vending, and home-based garment stitching. Heat disrupts their productivity during the day, affecting assets and income streams, and when they come home expecting a few hours of rest, heat does not afford even that respite. The strategies women devise to cope burden them with yet more work that is unpaid and unrecognized.
Robert Meade, COMMUNITY HATS, Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability, Harvard University; Research Scientist, Harvard Medical School
1:45–3 P.M.
PANEL 3
Scholarship and Research: Normative Frameworks, Interdisciplinary Evidence, and the Future Architecture of Climate-Health Adjudication
This panel examines how emerging scholarship is reshaping the conceptual foundations of climate-health adjudication. Moving beyond doctrinal analysis, it explores norm convergence and divergences, as well as evidentiary challenges, and theoretical innovations that can better capture the complexity of climate-related health harms, differentiated vulnerability, and ecological interdependence. Bringing together perspectives from international and comparative law, disability rights, environmental justice, public health, and climate governance, the discussion considers how academic research can and should inform the next generation of climate jurisprudence while also identifying the limits of adjudication and the complementary roles of other actors and institutions. Jackie Dugard, Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of Human Rights in Political Science, Columbia University
Benjamin Franta, Associate Professor of Climate Litigation, University of Oxford Sustainable Law Programme Michael Stein, Director and Professor, Harvard Law School Project on Disability
Samvel Varvastian, Senior Lecturer in Law, School of Law and Politics, Cardiff UniversityModerator: Thalia Viveros-Uehara, HGHI-Salata Burke Climate and Health Fellow; Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law; Visiting Scholar, Global Health and Rights Project, Petrie-Flom Center, Harvard law School
3–3:15 P.M.Break
3:15–4:30 P.M.
PANEL 4 Advocates and Litigators: Strategies, Evidence, and the Expanding Contours of the Climate-Health Docket
As climate-health litigation expands across jurisdictions, advocacy groups and litigators are redefining how climate-related health harms are translated into legal claims, evidentiary records, and judicial remedies. This panel explores the strategic choices that shape when advocates decide to bring climate-health cases—from framing rights and selecting plaintiffs to building scientific evidence, addressing causation, and designing remedies capable of producing meaningful protection. It will also address when advocacy strategies beyond the courts are necessary or more strategic. Drawing on experiences from domestic, regional, and international climate-related advocacy, the discussion examines both the opportunities and the limits of litigation as a tool for advancing climate justice.Rebecca Brown, President and CEO, Center for International Environmental Law
Kristen Casper, General Counsel, Greenpeace International
Tyler Giannini, Clinical Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Catalina Martínez Coral, Vice President for Latin America and the Caribbean, Center for Reproductive Rights
Moderator: Aminta Ossom, Lecturer in Law and Senior Clinical Instructor, Harvard Law School
4:30–4:45 P.M.
A View from the World Health Organization: Health Resilience amid Climate Change
Vanessa Kerry, MD MSc., WHO Director General’s Special Envoy for Health Resilience; Director, Global and Climate Health Policy, Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Associate Professor, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Chief Executive Officer, Seed Global Health
4:45–5 P.M.Closing and Wrap-Up
Alicia Ely Yamin, Lecturer on Law; Senior Fellow, Director of the Global Health and Rights Project, Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology & Bioethics, Harvard Law School

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Insurance: a catalyst for financial resilience
Thursday, October 29
11am EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.omfif.org/meetings/insurance-a-catalyst-for-financial-resilience/

Extreme storms, wildfires and floods have devastated communities and nations globally, endangering lives and costing billions in losses. Insurance may be a key to unlocking greater resilience across the financial sector. Innovative mechanisms, including catastrophe bonds and other insurance-linked instruments, combined with insurers’ risk assessment and management techniques, will be critical to understanding and managing physical risk.
This roundtable brings together insurers, ratings agencies, investors and regulators to discuss how insurance, both as an industry and as a tool, can catalyse better financial decision-making across markets.

Speakers
Jaclyn de Medicci Bruneau, Director, Insurance Ceres
Dave Jones, Former California Insurance Commissioner; Director, Climate Risk Initiative, Center for Law, Energy & the Environment
Emeritus; UC Berkeley School of Law
Tasneem Mayet, Senior Manager, Accenture
David McNeil, Vice President, Climate Research & Nature Strategy

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After the Flush: Rethinking the Future of Human Waste
Thursday, October 29
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall Multipurpose Room, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA 02155
And online
RSVP at https://tufts.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_u1H1XPBNRiCzRY20Bz__jQ#/registration

What happens when the modern toilet goes flush? Where does this waste go and what eventually becomes of it? Who is responsible for its management and who is implicated in its afterlives? And is it all just waste or might it be something more? This talk, based on Kawa’s new book of the same title, draws on long-term ethnographic research in the American Midwest to investigate these questions while also considering more radical alternative approaches to sanitation and ways of relating to bodily excess.

Speaker Name Dr. Nick Kawa, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the Ohio State University

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Grassroots Water & Climate Solutions from Cameroon
Thursday, October 29
12 PM - 1 PM EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/grassroots-water-climate-solutions-from-cameroon-tickets-2000510786615

Discover how everyday neighborhood initiatives halfway across the globe mirror the exact actions needed to safeguard our local watersheds.
Clean water begins at the community level, whether along the riverbanks of West Africa or in our own backyards.
Join us for our October Winter Webinar and discover how everyday neighborhood initiatives halfway across the globe mirror the exact actions needed to safeguard our local watersheds. Learn practical, grassroots strategies for reducing plastic pollution and restoring local water resources.

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Building Lasting Impact – Lessons from Nature Everywhere Communities
Thursday, October 29
1 PM - 2 PM EDT
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/building-lasting-impact-lessons-from-nature-everywhere-communities-tickets-2000441441201
Cost: $0 - $100

Join the Children & Nature Network for an inspiring virtual conversation featuring community leaders who are transforming how their cities prioritize nature-based solutions for children and families.

While many communities recognize the need for nature-based solutions to address interconnected challenges—from climate resilience and pediatric mental health to physical activity—implementing a project is only the first step. Creating true, lasting impact requires shifting the underlying ways our organizations, policies, and local partnerships work together- in other words, systems change.

In this webinar, we bring together leaders from five successful Nature Everywhere Communities to share their "on-the-ground" experiences. Drawing on findings from our recent Ripple Effects Mapping evaluation, these leaders will discuss how they built sustainable, long-term change.

What You’ll Learn:
Discover the 7 practical lessons communities are using to shift local systems, build capacity, and ensure nature access is equitable and enduring.
Learn how "backbone" organizations and strong network coordination can align daily efforts, secure resources, and sustain momentum.
Hear firsthand how prioritizing relationships, fostering youth leadership, and co-designing with community members transforms power dynamics and builds long-term local ownership.
Explore how to frame nature access as a multi-benefit solution that advances existing community priorities, from climate action to public health.

Who Should Attend:
This session is designed for local nonprofit and community organization staff, city and municipal employees and leaders (especially parks & recreation, public works and sustainability departments), outdoor program leaders and educators, municipal planners, public health advocates and local funders who are looking to scale nature-based work. Whether you are an existing Nature Everywhere Community or exploring how to start a movement in your region, this webinar will provide actionable insights to help you build a greener, more equitable future for children.
Join us to see how, when communities move at the speed of trust, lasting transformation is entirely within reach.

Panelists:
Grace Parker, She/Her, Project Manager, Prescribe Outside
Jane Tesner Kleiner, She/Her, Program Manager, Lower Columbia Nature Network
Monica Brinkerhoff, She/Her, Associate Vice President, Early Childhood Education at United Way of Tucson and Southern Arizona
Cynthia Walter, She/Her, Green Schoolyards Manager, Green Umbrella Climate Collaborative
Curry Rosato, She/Her, Program Manager & Education Leader, City of Boulder Open Space & Mountain Parks

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Drifting to a Wider War?
Thursday, October 29
2:00 PM
Online
RSVP at https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/ev/reg/v5nmaq5

Padraig O'Malley, the John Joseph Moakley Distinguished Professor of Peace and Reconciliation, will be joined by General George Casey (ret.) and Dr. Nigel Hamilton.Register to attendWhat two World Wars tell us about how the wars in Russia /Ukraine/ Iran/ U.S. / Houthi/ Saudi Arabia/ Yemen could ignite a third.

Padraig O' Malley will be joined by General George Casey (ret) and Dr. Nigel Hamilton.

Dr. Hamilton is the author of numerous award-winning books, including the "FDR at War "trilogy, widely regarded as the standard work on President Franklin D. Roosevelt as U.S. Commander in Chief during WWII.

General George Casey served 41 years in the U.S. Army following his graduation from Georgetown University. He is an accomplished leader & authority on strategic leadership.

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Responding to Ebola: Leadership, Partnership, and the Challenge of Containment
Friday, October 30
9 – 10 a.m.
Online
RSVP at https://globalhealth.harvard.edu/event/coffee-session-responding-to-ebola/

SPEAKER(S) Marie Roseline Belizaire, MD, MPH, MSc, A-FETP, PhD, Emergency Director, WHO Africa
Yap Boum II, PhD, Head of Emergency Preparedness and Response, Africa CDC; Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Mbarara University of Science & Technology; Co-Founder, iDocta; Co-Founder, Kmerpad

The 2026 Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has presented significant challenges for outbreak response, highlighting the complexities of responding to fast-moving health emergencies in resource-constrained settings. What can the current response teach us about the strengths and vulnerabilities of today’s global health emergency systems?

This conversation will bring together Dr. Marie-Roseline Darnycka Belizaire, Emergency Director for the World Health Organization (WHO) in Africa, and Prof. Yap Boum II, Head of the Emergency Preparedness and Response Division at Africa CDC, to examine how countries and partners coordinate during a fast-moving outbreak. They will discuss the importance of national leadership, cross-border coordination, community trust, health-system capacity, financing, and international partnerships, as well as what is needed to strengthen outbreak preparedness and response beyond the current crisis.

This webinar is free and open to the public and will conclude with a live Q&A session.

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The Breakdown with Erica Chenoweth and Steve Levitsky
Friday, October 30
2:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ybWH05DyRxWqkA2eflelNQ#/registration

Join Erica Chenoweth and Steven Levitsky for the ninth session of The Breakdown, a webinar series on the ongoing struggle for American democracy. Each month, Chenoweth and Levitsky will break down key developments, reflect on this moment’s historical precedents both at home and abroad and offer evidence-based reflections on the path forward.

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Ethel Kennedy: The Extraordiinary Life and Bold Legacy
Friday, October 30
6:30 - 7:30pm
Location Kennedy Library, Columbia Point, Boston, MA 02125
And online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ethel-kennedy-the-extraordinary-life-and-bold-legacy-tickets-1997568863243

From her working-class Chicago roots to her decades as a fearless champion of human rights, Ethel Kennedy: The Extraordinary Life and Bold Legacy charts the many lives of a woman who became an American icon — full of grace, grit, and an unshakeable instinct for speaking truth to power. Human rights lawyer, activist, and New York Times-bestselling author Kerry Kennedy draws on personal memory and her mother's private papers to discuss a truly extraordinary life. Former Congressman and U.S. Special Envoy to Northern Ireland for Economic Affairs Joseph P. Kennedy III moderates.

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Performing Memory & Shaping Transformation
Sunday, November 1
2:00pm to 3:00pm EST
MIT, Building W97, 160, 345 Vassar Street, Cambridge MA 02139
RSVP at https://theater.mit.edu/event/performing-memory-shaping-transformation/

A panel to explore the role of site-responsive art in addressing turbulent cultural moments while revealing new possibilities for healing.
Artists and scholars discuss how their practices connect place, architecture, theater, and film to engage collective memory.
Nisa Ari, Associate Professor, History of Art, MassArt
Mark Jarzombek, Professor, Architecture (History, Theory + Criticism) , MIT
Dr. Hala Nassar, Associate Professor/Theater Scholar, Bethlehem University, Palestine
Debra Wise, Co-Founder Central Square Theater and Catalyst Collaborative@MIT
Moderated by Dr. Sahar I. Ullah (Playwright/Director, Hijabi Monologues)

Curated by Blythe de Oliveira Foster (Lecturer, MIT Theater Arts)

The talk will be 2p - 3p, with a light reception following from 3p - 3:30p

Free and open to the public

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The Politics of Climate Expertise
Monday, November 2
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Princeton, 300 Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ
And online
RSVP at https://environment.princeton.edu/event/the-politics-of-climate-expertise/

Noah Zucker, assistant professor of Politics, will present “ The Politics of Climate Expertise.” This seminar will be held in-person (PUID holders only) and available via livestream (open to all).

Zucker is an Assistant Professor of Politics at Princeton University, specializing in international and comparative political economy. He studies the political economy of climate change, with associated interests in bureaucracy, finance, identity, and labor. His work has appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, and World Politics. He has received awards from the American Political Science Association for best dissertation on science, technology, and environmental politics; best paper in political economy; best paper in comparative politics; best paper on democracy and autocracy; and best paper on women, gender, and politics. Zucker received his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University in 2022. Prior to joining the Princeton faculty, he was an assistant professor at the London School of Economics and postdoctoral fellow at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance.

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The US Energy Transition: What is the Same; What Has Changed; and What Could Be with Philip Deutch, NGP Energy Technology Partners
Monday, November 2
1:30pm - 2:20pm ET [4:30pm to 5:20pm PT]
Stanford, Shriram Center, 104, 443 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305
Livestream
RSVP at https://events.stanford.edu/event/stanford-energy-seminar-11022026

The Stanford Energy Seminar has been a mainstay of energy engagement at Stanford for nearly 20 years and is one of the flagship programs of the Precourt Institute for Energy. We aim to bring a wide variety of perspectives to the Stanford community – academics, entrepreneurs, utilities, non-profits, and more.

About the talk
Phil Deutch is one the most experienced energy technology investors in the United States having begun investing in the space in 1997. This seminar will examine what drivers are the same in energy technology; what drivers are new; and what the future might hold. Philip Deutch, Partner and Co-Head Energy Transition, NGP Energy Technology Partners

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Coastal Resilience: Influence of shape on near-coast structures” by Maria Garlock
Tuesday, November 3
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Princeton, Briger Hall Auditorium, 11 Ivy Lane, Princeton, NJ
And online
RSVP at https://environment.princeton.edu/event/hmei-faculty-seminar-by-maria-e-moreyra-garlock/

The High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI) will host a seminar by Maria E. Moreyra Garlock, Daniel Tsui Professor in Engineering, on Tuesday, November 3. Maria is the third speaker in the Fall 2026 HMEI Faculty Seminar Series.

It is well known that the shape of a large-scale structure has an important influence on its performance and material efficiency. For example, the proper shape of a tall building can reduce wind drag forces and vortices (e.g. Burj Khalifa), the proper shape of a long-span roof can reduce undesirable bending stresses (e.g. Dulles Airport), and the proper shape of a bridge results in efficiency (e.g. Verrazzano Narrows). However, the influence of shape on near-coast structures (such as near-coast bridges, floodbarriers, and free-surface breakwaters) subject to wave action has not been extensively explored. This presentation examines the performance of variously shaped near-coast structures subject to wave actions. Using both experimental and numerical studies, the shapes examined are concave, convex, trapezoid, T-shape, hypar faced, and perforated facades. Overall, this research points to opportunities to enhance our coastal resilience.

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Hyperscale: The Ambition and Excess of Big Tech's Data Empires
Tuesday, November 3
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02138-3820
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/paris-marx

About Hyperscale
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2026 FINANCIAL TIMES & STANDARD CHARTERED BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD

An eye-opening account of how the data center boom is pushing our planet past its breaking point

Underlying our seamless access to AI, cryptocurrency, and unlimited cloud storage is a hulking, costly physical infrastructure. Massive data centers full of energy-hungry chips and processors power everything we do online. Scrambling to meet dubious market demand, the tech giants have leveraged our planet in pursuit of a market monopoly.

In Hyperscale, journalist Paris Marx uncovers the excesses of hyperscale data processing. He exposes the deceptive, exploitative ways tech companies are siphoning energy and resources from vulnerable communities in their pursuit of digital power, abandoning the pretense of social responsibility.

Amid energy shortages and tech-induced battles over drinking water, Marx makes a powerful case for technology that promotes the social good over the bottom lines of tech billionaires. He joins the incredible efforts of people and movements pushing back against the profit-driven interests of Big Tech, illuminating a path toward the sustainable future we all deserve.

The AI boom and its infrastructural demands have accelerated our many modern catastrophes. With razor-sharp reporting and incisive analysis, Marx shows us that the greatest threat is not the specter of AI overlords but a global environmental disaster already in the making.

Bios
Paris Marx is a journalist, host of the acclaimed podcast Tech Won’t Save Us, and author of Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation. He lives in Newfoundland, Canada.
Becca Lewis is an assistant professor of media studies at MIT. Her work explores cultural and political histories of Silicon Valley and the internet. She has published widely on right-wing movements and their digital media practices, as well as the history of right-wing influence in the high-tech industry. Her current book project examines the roots of Silicon Valley's "techno-fascist" turn.

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The Day After: A Transatlantic Assessment of Midterm Election Results
Wednesday, November 4
9:00 - 10:00am EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.gmfus.org/event/day-after-transatlantic-assessment-midterm-election-results

Join GMF for a discussion examining the impact of the US midterm election results on US domestic politics, Congress, and American foreign policy priorities. Experts will explore key issues such as transatlantic trade and cooperation, defense and security, and the Middle East. They will also assess the new Congress' ability to influence policy and the issues on which the executive branch will continue to lead.

Speakers:
Kristina Kausch, Deputy Managing Director and Senior Fellow, South and Wider Europe, GMF
Carrie Lee, Managing Director and Senior Fellow, Democracy and Security Network, GMF
Claudia Major, Senior Vice President, Transatlantic Security, GMF
Penny Naas, Brussels Office Director, Transatlantic Foundation President, and Senior Vice President for Innovation and Competitiveness, GMF
Moderator:
Ian Lesser, Distinguished Fellow, GMF

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Exploring Progress: The Second Nature Action 100 Company Benchmark
Wednesday November 4
10:00 AM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Online
RSVP at https://ceres-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/6217914065413/WN_fmPcZmJFSeaqZ-lmjgX7Eg#/registration

Amid escalating risks of nature and biodiversity loss, where does corporate action stand? Join this webinar to explore the recently released results of the second Nature Action 100 Company Benchmark, which assesses the performance of 100 major companies across eight priority sectors in taking key steps to protect and restore ecosystems. Coming two years after the launch of the investor-led initiative's first benchmark, hear about the areas where companies are making the most progress and where more action is needed to effectively reduce risk, protect shareholder value, and safeguard the resilience of the global economy, natural environment, and communities.

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Massachusetts Geothermal: Learning from the Ground Up
Wednesday November 4
10:00 AM - 3:00 PM
Massachusetts State House, 24 Beacon St, Boston, MA 02133
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSduF76ZdocGHT6P9HSKUDtp54P5-NMDWBmREGReM-m92REeuQ/viewform

Join us at the State House as the LeGUp Research Consortium summarizes (for all audiences!) the state of knowledge on networked geothermal, and presents a new data-based geothermal potential study for our Commonwealth. We’ll then share updates from the growing research and project ecosystem, and MassCEC will showcase our growing industry ecosystem.

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Hip-Hop Civics: Connected Learning in the Digital Streets
Wednesday, November 4
12:00pm to 1:00pm EST
MIT, Building 10, 105, 222 MEMORIAL DR, Cambridge, MA 02139

What can hip-hop teach us about building more participatory and equitable media futures? Drawing from ethnographic research, creative practice, and community-engaged scholarship, Professor Jabari Evans examines hip-hop as a form of civic media through which urban communities create knowledge, build networks, and make themselves visible. He connects these practices to emerging questions about digital platforms, artificial intelligence, and the “clout economy,” asking whose voices, values, and cultural practices will shape the technologies of tomorrow.

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Flood Connectivity and Prediction in Urbanscapes
Wednesday, November 4
2pm - 3pm ET [4 p.m. – 5 p.m. (MST)]
Arizona State University, Walton Center for Planetary Health, Room 160, 777 E University Dr Tempe AZ 85281
And online
RSVP at https://specialevents.asu.edu/ereg/newreg.php?eventid=894063&

Urban flood-control systems don't always work as designed and storm drains, pipelines, and surface flows interact in ways current guidelines often miss. This presentation draws on research in southeast Michigan where infrastructure errors caused flooding even without local rain. It also explores ongoing work on real-time urban flood forecasting, combining hydrodynamic modeling, precipitation forecasts, and machine learning to predict flooding days in advance and trace where floodwaters come from. Relevant for anyone interested in urban infrastructure, climate resilience, or flood prediction.

About the Presenter
Valeriy Ivanov is Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Michigan. His research interests involve physical surface and subsurface hydrology, floods, climate science and hydrologic impacts, plant water relations and ecohydraulics. Current research projects focus on Amazon rainforest ecohydrology; climate change and hydrometeorological impacts on reindeer herding in the Arctic; and the development of novel, hybrid first-principles / machine-learning frameworks for fast, real-time assessment of flooding impacts for decision-making. His education includes: 1996 - Diploma in Hydrology obtained at Moscow State University, Russia; 2002 - M.S. and 2006 - Ph.D. obtained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, U.S. In 2006, he pursued Ziff Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Center for the Environment, Harvard University and, in 2007, he began a faculty position at the University of Michigan.

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Profiles in Cowardice: A Study of Collaboration in the Trump Era
Wednesday, November 4
6:00pm
Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jacob-weisberg-at-the-cambridge-public-library-tickets-2002566006834

Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcomeJacob Weisberg—Chair of The Committee to Protect Journalists, former longtime editor of Slate, and the co-founder of the podcast company Pushkin Industries—for a discussion of his new book, Profiles in Cowardice: A Study of Collaboration in the Trump Era. He will be joined in conversation by Noah Feldman—Arthur Kingsley Porter University Professor, Chair of the Society of Fellows, and founding director of the Julis-Rabinowitz Program on Jewish and Israeli Law, all at Harvard University.

About Profiles in Cowardice
A devastating reckoning with the people and institutions whose failure to stand up to Trump’s brazen grab for authoritarian power has been particularly shocking and consequential.

It may be scant solace, but history will be particularly harsh to a subset of Trump enablers with a few key things in common: They have money and power. They represent intuitions that are central in determining whether America remains a free, functioning democracy or not. And they absolutely know better. History starts now.

In Profiles in Cowardice, Jacob Weisberg has written one of the first defining books of the Trump Era—how this pitch-black political moment happened, why so few resisted, and what it reveals about the character of American leadership.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon, and Big Tech. Stephen Schwarzman, Blackstone, and Wall Street. Brad Karp, Paul, Weiss, and Big Law. Mitch McConnell and the United States Senate. Eight individuals in all, together forming an entwined network of power in America, and a new way to understand how authoritarianism can take root in an open society—not by overthrowing institutions, but by bending and bullying them into submission.

The book is a masterful study of the ways people create rationalizations to justify basic human instincts such as greed, vanity and fear—above all fear. Fear is the great enemy of democracy, and the book illuminates how it operates, how it disguises itself, and how it spreads. The book is timeless: its profiles are case studies, but they are also mirrors. They ask readers to examine their own instincts, their own silences, their own thresholds for action. This is not a morality tale with easy villains. It is an attempt to describe the moral mechanics of democratic failure. By studying that failure up close, we may better understand what courage truly requires—and why it is so rarely summoned when it matters most.

Bios
Jacob Weisberg is the author of books including Ronald Reagan (2016), The Bush Tragedy (2008), and In an Uncertain World (2003), co-written with former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin. A native of Chicago, he is the former longtime editor of Slate and the co-founder of the podcast company Pushkin Industries. He serves as Chair of The Committee to Protect Journalists and is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books. Photo Credit: Deborah Needleman
Noah Feldman is the Arthur Kingsley Porter University Professor, Chair of the Society of Fellows, and founding director of the Julis-Rabinowitz Program on Jewish and Israeli Law, all at Harvard University. He specializes in constitutional studies, with particular emphasis on power and ethics, design of innovative governance solutions, law and religion, and the history of legal ideas. A policy & public affairs columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, Feldman also writes for The New York Review of Books and was a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine for nearly a decade. He hosts the Deep Background podcast, an interview show that explores the historical, scientific, legal and cultural context behind the biggest stories in the news. Feldman is the author of 10 books, including his latest, To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024).

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The Thermal Revolution Gala
Wednesday, November 4
6:30 PM - 9:30 PM
Old South Meeting House, 310 Washington Street, Boston, MA 02108
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-thermal-revolution-gala-tickets-2003031680677
Cost: $10 - $1000

Join us to plot and plan how thinking thermal together can change the world for the better!

This year, HEET’s annual celebration and fundraiser will honor the revolutionary history around us by gathering in the Old South Meeting House. This space hosted the conversations that led to the Declaration of Independence 250 years ago. Now we invite you to gather here to #ThinkThermal as a path to our energy independence! Join us for lively conversation, food and beverage, and the 3rd annual Golden Geo Awards.

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Costs of Scale: Mapping the Challenges of AI
Wednesday, November 4
7pm
Boston College, Gasson Hall, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Newton, MA 02467
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/kate-crawford-costs-of-scale-mapping-the-challenges-of-ai-tickets-1989265395347

As AI systems grow in scale, their costs are growing with them, often hidden from view. In this talk, Kate Crawford maps three interlocking challenges of generative AI. First, control failures: as models become more complex and opaque, the ability to predict and audit their activity is lagging dangerously behind. Second, climate risks: the vast energy, water, and mineral demands of data centers are placing growing pressure on planetary systems. Third, cognitive offloading: as we delegate thinking to machines, we risk eroding the human capacities of reflection, memory, discernment and creativity. Together, these costs demand a rethinking of AI’s trajectory.

Kate Crawford is a leading scholar of artificial intelligence. She is a Professor at the University of Southern California, where she founded the Knowing Machines Research Group. She is also the inaugural chair of AI and Justice at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, and a Distinguished Fellow at the Weizenbaum Institute in Berlin. Her best-selling book Atlas of AI has won multiple international prizes, been translated into fourteen languages, and was named a best book of the year by The Financial Times. She has advised policymakers around the world, including the United Nations, the European Parliament, and she is on the AI Council of President Sanchez of Spain. She also makes large-scale research installations which have been exhibited at hundreds of museums around the world. Her latest visual work Calculating Empires won the Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale 2025, the Grand Prize of the European Commission for art and technology, and the Boghossian Art Prize. It is currently exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, and is in their permanent collection. TIME 100 named Crawford as one of the world’s most influential people in AI.
Cosponsored by the University Core Curriculum, the Boston College Center for Psychological Humanities & Ethics, and the Gerson Family Lecture Fund.
All Lowell Humanities Series lectures are free and open to the public. Registration via Eventbrite is required for in-person attendance.

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The climate emergency brake: are we acting fast enough on methane?
Thursday, November 5
7 AM - 8 AM EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-climate-emergency-brake-are-we-acting-fast-enough-on-methane-tickets-2003596686625

Join Green Alliance and Changing Markets Foundation for this upcoming online event.
In November, Prime Minister Andy Burnham will travel to Turkey for the COP31 climate conference. This presents a major opportunity for the UK government to address the need to cut emissions of methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases.

COP31 marks the halfway point for the Global Methane Pledge, launched at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021 with the aim of cutting methane emissions worldwide by 30 per cent by 2030. It is also a year since the UK government published its Methane Action Plan.

At a landmark moment for UK methane leadership, join Green Alliance and Changing Markets Foundation for a webinar unpacking what the UK’s story will be on methane at COP31, our international responsibility and how we are really doing on efforts to cut methane emissions.

Green Alliance will launch its Methane Policy Tracker at this event, revealing the UK’s progress in a global context, setting the backdrop for our expert commentators to explore recent progress on methane action, the value of going further, and COP31’s potential to motivate greater global momentum towards reaching this important goal.

Changing Markets Foundation will also present findings from a new investigation into the misinformation holding back methane action, including the online backlash against Bovaer, a feed additive designed to reduce methane emissions from cattle. They will also unveil new data mapping livestock methane emissions across the UK and EU, revealing which farming systems are responsible for the greatest emissions and where action is most urgently needed.
There will be plenty of time for an audience Q&A.
Panellists
Chair: Clare Carlile, investigative reporter, DeSmog
Sir David King, chair, Climate Crisis Advisory Group
Liam Hardy, head of research, Green Alliance
Nusa Urbancic, CEO, Changing Markets Foundation
Professor Paul Behrens, University of Oxford

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The Role of the Ocean in Midlatitude Climate
Thursday, November 5
9:30 - 10:30am
MIT, Building 55-110, Cambridge, MA
And online
RSVP at https://eaps.mit.edu/events/houghton-lecture-the-role-of-the-ocean-in-midlatitude-climate/

This talk will explore two aspects of extratropical atmosphere/ocean interactions: (1) the processes that drive observed extratropical sea-surface temperature (SST) variability; and (2) the processes by which that variability influences the overlying atmosphere. The observational analyses highlight several aspects of the role of the ocean in extratropical climate. They suggest that ocean dynamical processes damp rather than drive low-frequency SST variability and thus act to mute the amplitude of observed decadal climate variability. They also reveal that SST variability in the western boundary currents has a more pronounced impact on the overlying atmosphere than indicated by previous work, but that the response is obscured at large spatial scales. Finally, they provide insights into the spatial scales at which the extratropical oceans have a demonstrable effect on extratropical climate variability.

About this year’s Houghton Lecturer:
David Thompson is a professor in the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University and in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, UK. His research focuses on the physical processes that govern large-scale climate variability and change, with an emphasis on analyzing and diagnosing the observed climate system. His work has examined the dynamics of extratropical climate variability, the role of the atmospheric circulation in climate change, the imprint of stratospheric ozone depletion on surface climate, the role of the stratosphere in climate variability, and atmosphere–ocean coupling.

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Project Finance Strategies for Climate Tech Innovators / Sustainability Lunch Series
Thursday, November 5
11:45 AM – 12:45 PM EST (GMT-5)
MIT, Building E51-335, 100 Main Street, Cambridge, Mass 02142-1347
RSVP at https://sloangroups.mit.edu/sustain/rsvp_boot?id=1937016

What does it take to move a breakthrough clean energy technology from prototype to deployed project? Join us for lunch with Ben Wolkon (MBA ’16), Founder & CEO of Avarna, working at the intersection of cutting-edge sustainable technology and the capital markets that bring them to scale.

Drawing on his experience financing early and growth-stage companies, Ben will explore the project finance landscape, key investor expectations, and practical strategies for entrepreneurs and impact investors navigating climate tech deployment. Whether you're building climate solutions or investing in them, this conversation will provide essential frameworks for translating innovation into sustainable impact.

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Climate, food, and power: Lessons from now, directions for the future
Thursday, November 5
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall Multipurpose Room, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA 02155
And online
RSVP at https://tufts.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_UgZMSddaSF-ZOalxvUKt7g#/registration

There is widening gap between large-scale decision-making and on-the-ground realities of food insecurity. Drawing on experience that spans secondary analyses of environmental and health data alongside small-scale, community-based research, Khristopher draws from his experience at high-level decision-making forums—from IPCC expert meetings to COP30— which often diverge from community needs and lived experience. The presentation reviews findings from community-based work in small island settings, outlines the magnitude of global climate-related nutrition challenges with key statistics, and illustrates relevant mechanisms linking human and planetary health through food systems. Although climate is used as the primary lens in this talk, similar gaps emerge whether the driver is the food economics, policy, or agriculture, underscoring a central concern for global food security.

Speaker Name Dr. Khristopher Nicholas, Assistant Professor of Agriculture, Food and Environment at Tufts University

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Are Our Democracies Resilient Enough?
Thursday, November 5
4pm
Boston College, Gasson Hall, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeeXmTh8leKGTp_sJzHRtbwYw4prAvyrBbsOZb_DGlZziVPSQ/viewform

Peter-Michael Huber has held the Chair of Public Law and State Philosophy at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich since 2002. Previously, he taught at the universities of Münster, Augsburg, Jena and Erlangen-Nuremberg. From 2010 to 2023, Huber was a judge at the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe. In 2009 and 2010 he worked as Thuringian Minister of the Interior.

In Germany in the twenty-first century, liberal democracy enjoys widespread support. But according to former federal constitutional judge Peter-Michael Huber, growing polarization among the German people may imperil the very rule of law upon which the country’s political order depends. At a time when polarization is on the rise in Western Europe and the wider democratic world, the implications of Professor Huber’s analysis are significant.

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When AI Becomes a Companion: Understanding Their Relationship with Psychological Well-Being
Thursday, November 5
4:00pm — 5:00pm ET
Online
RSVP at https://zoom.us/j/91647096870#success

Join us for our online seminar series event hosted by MIT Media Lab’s Advancing Humans with AI (AHA) research program! This event features Yutong Zhang, PhD student in Computer Science at Stanford University, who studies how socio-technical systems shape human social interactions.
Talks are all recorded and made available afterwards on YouTube, linked on each event webpage.

Abstract
People are forming companionship-like bonds with AI chatbots. Over time, those bonds may come at the expense of in-person relationships, and of our psychological well-being.

At Stanford, Yutong Zhang studies how socio-technical systems shape human social interactions. In this session of the AHA Seminar Series, she shares findings from surveys and real conversation histories of over 1,000 Character.AI users, showing that the link between AI companionship and well-being depends on people’s offline social lives and how they use chatbots.

A year later, her team found that users who engaged more kept engaging, and that this sustained use was linked to declines in well-being, largely explained by spending less time with people in person.

She’ll also discuss how AI companionship may reshape our social networks, and how we can design more responsible chatbots that support healthy social connection. We hope you join us for an intriguing seminar and engaging Q&A!

Speaker Bio
Yutong Zhang is a PhD student in Computer Science at Stanford University. Her research explores how sociotechnical systems shape human social interactions, and how these systems can be designed to support healthier, more sustainable social relationships. She holds an M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford, with a focus on human-computer interaction, and a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

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Harvard Voices on Climate Change: Extreme Heat & Health
Thursday, November 5
4:30 PM-5:30 PM ET
Online
RSVP at https://web.cvent.com/event/877ae415-22d1-4ee5-9aad-01976f1ea800/register

The Salata Institute and the Harvard Alumni Association invite you to the latest installment of Harvard Voices on Climate Change, a virtual series featuring Harvard faculty and fellows on different dimensions of the climate challenge

Featuring Satchit Balsari, Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School, this session will explore the growing threat of extreme heat and its impact on human health. From the risks facing workers and vulnerable communities to the mounting pressures on health systems and cities, the discussion will examine how rising temperatures are reshaping public health—and what can be done to better protect people in a warming world.

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We Protect Us: Neighborism & the Renewal of Democracy in Minneapolis
Thursday, November 5
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM
Tufts, Goddard Chapel, 3 The Green, Medford, MA
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/solomont-speaker-series-rev-dr-susie-hayward-tickets-2002090996064

What does it mean to be a good neighbor amid trauma, violence, and fear? How might pluralism and interfaith solidarity help communities resist nationalism and authoritarianism – and renew democracy from the ground up? Join Rev. Dr. Susie Hayward, A02, F06 for a lecture and conversation exploring the ethic and practice of “neighborism” that emerged in response to ICE’s Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis. Drawing on her experience alongside faith leaders, organizers, and immigrant communities, Hayward will consider what Minneapolis can teach us about resisting fear, rebuilding civic trust, and creating communities in which everyone belongs. Please note this event is in-person only. All are welcome. It will be video recorded and house on Tisch College's YouTube channel following the talk. Sponsored by the Office of Religious & Philosophical Life and Tisch College at Tufts University.

About the Speaker
Rev. Dr. Susie Hayward, A02, F06, is the Minister for Justice Organizing and Adult Faith Formation at Minneapolis’ Creekside United Church of Christ. She has spent two decades working in human rights, peacebuilding, and teaching in Minneapolis, Washington, DC, and Boston. After years studying religion, violence, and peace at Harvard and Tufts, practicing Buddhism in Nepal, and working on-the-ground for peace in Sri Lanka, Hayward joined the Religion and Peacebuilding program at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), where for fourteen years she led efforts to understand religious dimensions of conflict and advance efforts engaging religious actors and organizations in peacebuilding. Hayward also helped build the Religion and Public Life program at Harvard Divinity School. She is part of the Freedom Trainers, a network of experienced educators and organizers working to counter democratic backsliding by equipping people with the skills and strategies of noncooperation, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University. Read less

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Bitter Honey: Big Ag’s Threat to Bees and the Fight to Save Them
Thursday, November 5
6:30pm - 7:30pm ET [3:30 - 4:30 p.m. PST]
University of CA, 132 Mulford Hall, Berkeley, CA
And online
RSVP at https://events.berkeley.edu/events/event/329871-espm-seminar-series-jennie-durant

Jennie Durant
Jennie Durant, an ESPM alum, is a writer, researcher, and author whose work explores why bees and other pollinators are declining, and what it will take to build a more just and sustainable food system. Her writing weaves together science, agriculture, environmental policy, and human stories to make complex ecological issues accessible to a broad audience.

In her book, Jennie Durant takes readers behind the scenes to reveal the human and ecological cost of industrial farming for bees, beekeepers, and all of us who depend on them. “Bitter Honey” exposes the crisis threatening the nation’s bees and spotlights the advocates working to protect them for generations to come.
This weekly ESPM seminar will be held in 132 Mulford Hall and via Zoom. There will be a social hour afterwards from 4:30pm - 5:30pm in the Mulford Courtyard.
Speaker: Jennie Durant, Researcher and Author

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The Influence of Anthropogenic Emissions on the Extratropical Circulation
Friday, November 6
2:30 - 3:30pm
Online
RSVP at https://eaps.mit.edu/events/houghton-lecture-the-influence-of-anthropogenic-emissions-on-the-extratropical-circulation/

Featuring David Thompson, Colorado State University
This talk will provide an overview of research on the atmospheric circulation response to climate change and of how my observational research has contributed to the broader narrative. A range of evidence indicates that changes in the atmospheric circulation under climate change will have a pronounced effect on weather and climate over the next century. In many regions, these effects are expected to exceed the signal of global warming itself. However, much of the evidence remains inconclusive, and the key mechanisms are still unclear. The talk will begin with a review of the original evidence that climate change influences the atmospheric circulation, and will then trace how our understanding has evolved over the past several decades, including the contributions of my own research.

About this year’s Houghton Lecturer:
David Thompson is a professor in the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University and in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, UK. His research focuses on the physical processes that govern large-scale climate variability and change, with an emphasis on analyzing and diagnosing the observed climate system. His work has examined the dynamics of extratropical climate variability, the role of the atmospheric circulation in climate change, the imprint of stratospheric ozone depletion on surface climate, the role of the stratosphere in climate variability, and atmosphere–ocean coupling.

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Whose Landscape? The Alps Between Nation and Planet
Saturday, November 7
12:30 PM - 4:00 PM
SwissnexBoston420 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://swissnex.org/boston/event/whose-landscape-the-alps-between-nation-and-planet/

Join us for a conversation on ownership, representation, and the image of the Alps, followed by a guided tour of the exhibit On Location: Drawing the Outdoors at the Harvard Art Museums.

The image of the Swiss Alps has never been shaped by Switzerland alone. Foreign Romantics—including Turner, Ruskin, and Byron—helped construct the mythology that still surrounds the Alpine landscape today.

Two hundred and fifty years later, that same landscape can be understood on a much larger scale: as part of a planetary system of glaciers, biodiversity corridors, and atmospheric records that extend far beyond national borders. So who has ever really owned the image of the Alps? And what role do cultural institutions—from museums and embassies to organizations like Swissnex—play in navigating the space between national identity and planetary responsibility?

Presented in conjunction with the Harvard Art Museums exhibition On Location: Drawing the Outdoors (September 18, 2026–January 17, 2027), this event explores how the image and meaning of the Alps have been shaped across cultures, institutions, and time. Through conversation and art, the afternoon invites us to reconsider the Alps not simply as a symbol of Switzerland, but as a landscape whose meaning, image, and future are shared.

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Energy and Climate Conference 2026: Powering a Resilient Future
Sunday, November 8
8:30 AM - 5 PM
Klarman Hall, 113 Western Avenue, Boston (Allston), MA 02163
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/energy-and-climate-conference-2026-powering-a-resilient-future-tickets-1997469697636
Cost: $32.50 - $64

Powering a Resilient Future: Innovation, Security and Action, a student-run conference at HBS
Join us for a thoughtful and dynamic day of programming exploring the future of energy resilience and climate action. As the world confronts intensifying climate risks and evolving energy security challenges, this conference brings together leading voices from industry, policy, academia, and venture capital to examine how innovation and action intersect to build a more resilient future.

Through a mix of keynote conversations, expert panels, and pitch competition, attendees will dig into the pressing questions shaping the energy and climate landscape today, from grid resilience and clean energy innovation to the policy and security dynamics redefining the sector. The pitch competition will spotlight standout climate tech startups, giving founders the stage to showcase bold solutions in front of investors, industry leaders, and peers. Don't miss the chance to see what's next in climate innovation.

Whether you're a student, founder, investor, or industry professional, this is a chance to connect with a community committed to driving meaningful progress on some of the most urgent challenges of our time.

Schedule: Our morning keynote speaker is Lord Browne, Chairman and Co-founder of BeyondNetZero, and former CEO of BP and afternoon keynote speaker is Rick Needham, CCO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems.
Panel Events will be around the following topics and speakers (speakers will be added as they are confirmed):
Energy Security: TBD
Grid Transformation Panel: Professor Le Xie (Harvard SEAS, PJM Board), Chris Root (Dash Power Partners) and more
Heat Adaptation Innovation Panel: Lynn Schenk (HBS BEI) and more
Energy and Climate Finance Panel: Jim Matheson (HBS), Anil Achyuta (EIP), Frank O'Sullivan (S2G) and more
Emerging Markets Panel: Vikram Gandhi (HBS) and more
Nuclear Energy Panel: Sully Crevecoeur
(HBS, Socotec) and more

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Using Observations to Understand the Pattern Effect and its Contribution to Climate Sensitivity
Monday, November 9
12:00 - 1:00pm
MIT, Building 55-110, Cambridge, MA
And online
RSVP at https://eaps.mit.edu/events/houghton-lecture-paocq-using-observations-to-understand-the-pattern-effect-and-its-contribution-to-climate-sensitivity/

Featuring David Thompson, Colorado State University
The “pattern effect” refers to the dependence of climate sensitivity on the spatial structure of temperature change. Evidence for the pattern effect and its role in climate change is derived almost entirely from numerical experiments. In this talk, I will explore the structure and role of the pattern effect in climate change using a range of observational data sets. The results provide an observational estimate of the role of the pattern effect in climate variability on monthly timescales. Consistent with numerical simulations, the observations indicate large negative climate feedbacks over the western Pacific. However, unlike the results of such experiments, they also indicate equally large positive feedbacks over the stratocumulus decks of the subtropical Pacific and large negative feedbacks over land. Land areas are not considered in current numerical simulations of the pattern effect, but the observations indicate that they account for roughly 80% of the global-mean negative internal feedback on monthly timescales. The talk will conclude with a discussion of the differences between observed and simulated estimates of the pattern effect across a range of model configurations, the reasons for these differences, and their implications for simulations of climate change.

About this year’s Houghton Lecturer:
David Thompson is a professor in the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University and in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, UK. His research focuses on the physical processes that govern large-scale climate variability and change, with an emphasis on analyzing and diagnosing the observed climate system. His work has examined the dynamics of extratropical climate variability, the role of the atmospheric circulation in climate change, the imprint of stratospheric ozone depletion on surface climate, the role of the stratosphere in climate variability, and atmosphere–ocean coupling.

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Linking ecological and economic models: Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP) and the use of ecosystem service information in decision-making
Monday, November 9
12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Princeton, 300 Wallace Hall, Princeton NJ
And online
RSVP at https://cpree.princeton.edu/events/2026/linking-ecological-and-economic-models-gross-ecosystem-product-gep-and-use-ecosystem

Speaker, Stephan Polasky, Regents Professor, University of Minnesota
Achieving sustainable development that simultaneously meets ecological and economic objectives requires integrating the value of natural capital and ecosystem services into economic and financial decisions. At the landscape scale, integrated methods can show how to achieve maximum feasible combinations of various ecological and economic objectives, such as biodiversity conservation, carbon sequestration, and economic returns to agricultural crops, grazing, and timber production. At the macro-economic scale, there is widespread recognition of the need to move beyond GDP as a measure of progress, in part because GDP fails to measure many contributions of nature to economic activity and human well-being. Gross ecosystem product (GEP) is a measure of the aggregate value of ecosystem services that can complement measures of GDP. We use extensive biophysical and economic data to calculate the quantity and price of more than 35 ecosystem services in 250 countries and territories using globally available data and standardized methods. We discuss data and methodological challenges in calculating GEP and opportunities to improve such calculations. We also discuss possible paths forward on integrating the value of nature into important economic and financial decisions.

Biosketch: Dr. Stephen Polasky is a Regents Professor and the Fesler-Lampert Professor of Ecological/Environmental Economics at the University of Minnesota where he has a joint appointment in the Departments of Applied Economics and Ecology, Evolution & Behavior. He is co-founder of NatCap TEEMs (The Earth-Economy Modelers) at the University of Minnesota, which is part of the Natural Capital Alliance. He served as co-chair of the Business and Biodiversity Assessment for the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). He is currently a coordinating lead author for Nature’s Contribution to People for the 2nd IPBES Global Assessment and was a coordinating lead author for the 1st IPBES Global Assessment. He served as a Senior Staff Economist for the President’s Council of Economic Advisers and on the Board of Directors for The Nature Conservancy. He was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2010.

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Green Energy Consumers Fall Meeting
Monday, November 9
5 PM - 8 PM
Artists For Humanity, 100 West 2nd Street, Boston, MA 02127
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/green-energy-consumers-fall-meeting-tickets-2001889844414
Cost: $10

Join us and hear about our work to empower consumers and communities to speed a just transition to a zero-carbon future.
This is an evening of networking, celebrating progress, and preparing for the challenges that still lie ahead. Tickets are $10, and all are welcome.

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Better Tech: Putting People First in Cyberspace
Monday, November 9
6:00pm
Harvard Science Center, Hall D, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/francine-berman-at-the-harvard-science-center-tickets-1997982372059

Harvard Book Store, the Harvard University Division of Science, and the Harvard Library welcome Francine Berman—founder and head of the Public Interest Technology Initiative at UMass Amherst, co-chair of the Berkman Klein Center Working Group on Public Interest Technology, and the 2019–2020 Katherine Hampson Bessell Fellow of the Harvard Radcliffe Institute—for a discussion of her new book, Better Tech: Putting People First in Cyberspace. She will be joined in conversation by Alyssa Goodman—Robert Wheeler Willson Professor of Applied Astronomy at Harvard University. The presentation will take place in Hall D of the Harvard Science Center, located at 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge.

Bios
Francine Berman is founder and head of the Public Interest Technology Initiative at UMass Amherst, co-chair of the Berkman Klein Center Working Group on Public Interest Technology, and the 2019–2020 Katherine Hampson Bessell Fellow of the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. A pioneer and community builder in public interest technology, Berman’s new book, Better Tech: Putting People First in Cyberspace, focuses on the societal impacts of technology and explores how we can better build, use, and manage technology to increase its benefits and reduce its risks for the people it serves. Berman is the former head of the San Diego Supercomputer Center and was appointed by President Obama to the National Council on the Humanities, where she served from 2016 to 2025. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and serves as a Trustee of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Alyssa Goodman is the Robert Wheeler Willson Professor of Applied Astronomy at Harvard University. Her work explores the structure of the Milky Way, star formation, data visualization, and how scientists make predictions. She co-founded The Prediction Project, an interdisciplinary initiative examining forecasting across science, history, and everyday life.

Harvard Science Book Talks
The Harvard Science Book Talks series is a collaboration between the Harvard University Division of Science, the Harvard Library, and Harvard Book Store. The series features talks by the authors of recently published books on a variety of science-related topics and is open to both the Harvard community and to the general public.

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Coming Home: Crisis, Fire, and Recovery
Monday, November 9
6:30 – 8 p.m.
Harvard Graduate School of Design, Piper Auditorium, Gund Hall, 48 Quincy St., Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.gsd.harvard.edu/event/coming-home-crisis-fire-and-recovery/

SPEAKER(S) Dana Cuff
Dr. Dana Cuff, an educator, scholar, designer, and activist who explores how design can contribute to building more just and equitable cities, work on rebuilding after the 2025 Eaton Fire in Altadena and the housing crisis in Los Angeles.

In 2006, Cuff founded cityLAB, a research and design center that initiates experimental projects to explore more equitable metropolitan possibilities. Starting in 2019, cityLAB expanded its social and political engagement by creating long term partnerships with community organizations in the region, first in the Westlake/MacArthur Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, and after the devastating fires of 2025, in Altadena. cityLAB has developed sustainable, high-performance, low-cost housing prototypes for infill sites ranging from backyards to schoolyards. Cuff will address the lab’s projects with a focus on its community-led, post-fire initiatives.

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Introduction to Solar Radiation ModificationMechanisms, impacts, and governance
Tuesday, November 10
9am - 10am EDT [11:00am - 12:00pm (MST)]
Online
RSVP at https://www.pembina.org/event/introduction-solar-radiation-modification

Global emissions are still rising, and the gap between climate commitments and climate reality keeps widening. As that gap grows, solar radiation modification (SRM), a set of proposed approaches to reflect a small amount of sunlight back to space, is moving from the scientific fringe into mainstream climate conversations.
SRM is not a substitute for cutting emissions, and it raises serious questions about risk, equity and who gets to decide. That is why understanding it matters now. To help build a shared foundation, the Pembina Institute is launching two primers: one on the science of SRM and one on its governance.

Join us for a conversation with leading experts as we walk through what SRM is, what we know and don’t know about its potential impacts, and what governance challenges lie ahead. Whether you are new to the topic or looking to sharpen your understanding, this session will help you start engaging with an emerging area that is likely to shape climate policy for years to come.

Speakers
Burgess Langshaw Power, PhD Candidate, University of Waterloo
Dan Visioni, Assistant Professor, Cornell University

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Forever No More: PFAS Toxicity, Replacements, and the Future of Responsible Materials Discovery
Tuesday, November 10
2:30 PM - 4 PM
Boston University Institute for Global Sustainability, 111 Cummington Mall, Suite 149 Boston, MA 02215
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/igs-convergent-conversations-pfas-tickets-2003408867854

Join us for an event series to build interdisciplinary research connections across BU that address real-world challenges.

The Convergent Conversations event series, hosted by Boston University's Institute for Global Sustainability (IGS), aims to forge new connections through meaningful dialogue. Each event will feature BU faculty members from different disciplines as well as voices from organizations to address the potential impact of the research.

The third event in our series “Forever No More: PFAS Toxicity, Replacements, and the Future of Responsible Materials Discovery” is on November 10. Speakers include:
Julian Cyr (State Senator, Massachusetts Senate);
Jennifer Schlezinger (Professor, Environmental Health, School of Public Health);
Joerg Werner (Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, IGS Core Faculty);

This conversation will be moderated by Emily Ryan (Professor, Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering, College of Engineering; IGS Associate Director).

Light refreshments will be served.

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Sustainability Showcase Keynote: Kevin Patel, Youth Environmental Justice and Climate Activist
Tuesday, November 10
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm EST
Penn State, 112 Kern Building, University Park, PA 16802
And online
RSVP at https://sustainability.psu.edu/event/sustainability-showcase-keynote-kevin-patel-youth-environmental-justice-and-climate-activist/

Join Sustain Penn State for its Sustainability Showcase Series featuring environmental justice activist Kevin Patel. Patel’s keynote talk will be Tuesday, November 10, 4:00 p.m. (EST) in 112 Kern and streamed online. The event is free and open to all; pre-registration for online attendance is required at this registration link.
Kevin Patel is founder of OneUpAction (relaunching as the Earth Era Institute this September) and a lifelong climate activist. Patel works to help marginalized youth fight for their communities with the goal of mitigating the impacts of the climate crisis by unifying through community events and forming youth-led chapters. He has collaborated with multiple different organizations from National Geographic to the Los Angeles County government. He will be visiting Penn State on November 9 and 10, 2026 for a keynote, conversations with students, and more.

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KSJ + STS Fall Lecture - The Fight for Facts: Evidence in an Age of Doubt
Tuesday, November 10
4:30pm EST
MIT, The Nexus at Hayden Library, Building 14S-130, 160 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdaCDY6I8pmWbOKtkgSUKSAuKfqeNUr8gKjKD47hejguVpEPA/viewform

The Program in Science, Technology, and Society and the Knight Science Journalism Program invite you on Tuesday, November 10th at 4:30 pm in the Nexus at Hayden Library (14S-130) for a special lecture, "The Fight for Facts: Evidence in an Age of Doubt," that explores the rise of evidence-based thinking, the power of scientific consensus, and the forces that work to distort, undermine, and dismiss facts.

Featuring
Helen Pearson, KJS Fellow, Senior Editor at Nature, and Author of “Beyond Belief.”
Naomi Oreskes, Professor of the history of science at Harvard University and author of “Why Trust Science?”

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Media Lab MOSAIC
Tuesday, November 10
4:30pm — 6:30pm ET
MIT Media Lab, E14 - 3rd Floor Atrium, 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge, MA
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeSMW24Tf1XP6x8uxn9UNJ7aOitQIhAnGmVpmdWHQIFL743Kw/viewform
Please RSVP by November 6, 2026

Are you curious about cutting-edge research and technology? Would you like to connect with other students who are passionate about inclusion and community at MIT? Are you looking for ways to get involved with the Media Lab—one of MIT’s most innovative environments? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then we’ve got a special event for you!

Media Lab MOSAIC seeks to introduce undergraduate students from MIT and the greater Boston area to the innovative environment of the MIT Media Lab, highlighting its programs and initiatives. Designed as both an informational and community-building experience, Media Lab MOSAIC will allow students to explore opportunities within the Media Lab while engaging with student groups across MIT.

The program will include a tour of the MIT Media Lab's cutting-edge labs, an introduction to the Program in Media Arts & Science (MAS), and a panel discussion featuring student experiences. Through interactive sessions and shared experiences, the event aims to foster relationships, inspire cross-cultural collaboration, and deepen students' connection to the Media Lab.

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Reporting on Injustice and Vulnerability
Tuesday, November 10
5pm to 6:30pm
Boston College, Devlin Hall, 255 Beacon Street, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467

While fulfilling different roles, journalists, religious leaders, and social workers are often at the forefront of attending the lives and stories of people experiencing vulnerability. Join Akiba Solomon (senior editor at The Marshall Project), Rocío Calvo (founding director, Latinx Leadership Initiative, BC School of Social Work) and the Rev. Liz Walker (Founder of “Can We Talk… network) for an interdisciplinary conversation on reporting and interacting with vulnerable populations. From how to do so with care, building trust and obtaining meaningful consent to avoiding retraumatization and protecting your own well-being, the conversation will cover practical tools and ethical considerations when doing this type of work. Moderated by Andrea Patiño Contreras (video journalist, Institute for the Liberal Arts fellow).

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Beautiful Particulars: How AI's Attention to the Smallest of Differences Is Reshaping Our Biggest Ideas
Tuesday, November 10
7:00pm
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02138-3820
RSVP at https://www.harvard.com/event/weinberger26

Harvard Book Store welcomes David Weinberger—researcher at Harvard metaLAB, long-time affiliate of the Harvard Berkman Klein Center, and bestselling author of Everyday Chaos—for a discussion of his new book, Beautiful Particulars: How AI's Attention to the Smallest of Differences Is Reshaping Our Biggest Ideas. He will be joined in conversation by Martin Wattenberg—computer scientist and artist, currently building and studying AI systems at Google DeepMind.

About Beautiful Particulars
A fresh and eye-opening new explanation of AI—and how its focus on specifics is changing our ideas about ourselves and our world.

From a Harvard researcher, philosopher, entrepreneur, former comedy writer, and bestselling author.
Amid the clamor about AI, Beautiful Particulars poses a unique question: Not how does our use of AI change what we do, but how is the idea of AI already subtly yet fundamentally reshaping how we think about ourselves and our world?

In clear, engaging, and even humorous prose, David Weinberger offers a new perspective on how machine learning works and how it may already be changing our basic and deepest ideas. Through lively examples, he shows that AI’s success—with all its risks and dangers—is taking us past our millennia of reliance on laws and principles by revealing what morality, free will, creativity, causality knowledge, and even reality itself look like now that we’re able to let the particulars speak their tiny truths.

The author poses questions not usually asked: What does a coin look like to AI? When AI gives you evidence that the earth is round, why are its own reasons for saying that so different? Why does an AI image generator create a “selfie” of ancient Aztec warriors with broad smiles that it “believes” are historically unlikely? If AI becomes conscious but bodiless, could it still make good moral decisions? Why is the world so much better at being causal than AI could ever “understand”? How does AI show us that genuine creativity is not about a “spark” but about moments that feel right? And how can you take the temperature of a joke?

Beautiful Particulars offers a new—and hopeful—perspective on how machine learning works, and how that’s already changing how we understand what it means to be human in the age of AI.
Bios
David Weinberger writes and speaks about the effect of the technology on ideas, from a background in innovative tech companies and a Ph.D. in philosophy. In six books and countless articles in major publications he has explored how the Internet and now AI are reshaping the core concepts by which we understand ourselves and our world. David is currently a researcher at Harvard metaLAB, and a long-time affiliate of the Harvard Berkman Klein Center. A former philosophy professor, he directed the Harvard Library Innovation Lab, was a journalism fellow at Harvard's Shorenstein Center, an adviser to high tech companies and to presidential campaigns, and a Franklin Fellow at the U.S. State Department. For four years he was embedded in Google AI humanities and ethics groups as a part-time writer/editor-in-residence. He edits the Strong Ideas open access book series for MIT Press.
Martin Wattenberg is a computer scientist and artist. He is currently building and studying AI systems at Google DeepMind. His checkered career includes stints as a Harvard professor, a startup founder, and a financial journalist.

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Taking Stock: Documenting the Economic Record of Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Inflation Reduction Act, and CHIPS and Science Act
Wednesday, November 11
12:00PM - 1:00PM
Online
RSVP at https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/events/taking-stock-documenting-the-economic-record-of-bil-ira-and-chips/

SPEAKER
Julie Su, Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice, New York City
MODERATOR
Heather Boushey, Professor of Practice, Kleinman Center

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Inflation Reduction Act, and CHIPS and Science Act reshaped U.S. industrial policy. Join the EconClimate Lab to explore what these investments have achieved, where the evidence falls short, and how policymakers can better measure success.

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Monthly Dose of Climate Hope! with Sammy Roth
Wednesday, November 11
1 PM - 2 PM EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/monthly-dose-of-climate-hope-with-sammy-roth-tickets-2001230428082

Get your monthly dose of climate hope with Sammy Roth —Climate-Colored Goggles Substack author and former LA Times climate columnist
Come learn from Sammy Roth, the former Los Angeles Times climate columnist who's betting that culture — not just policy — is the next great lever for climate progress!

For years, Sammy covered climate change and clean energy for the LA Times and USA Today Network, watching firsthand as U.S. climate politics made real progress but never fast enough. His conclusion: public opinion needs to catch up to the urgency of the crisis, and the industries that shape how we see the world — movies, TV, sports, music, advertising, video games — are our best chance at moving the needle quickly.

That's the idea behind his newsletter Climate-Colored Goggles, where Sammy writes about climate and culture, encouraging America's most influential storytellers to get in the game.

In conversation with Sam Matey-Coste, Editor-in-Chief at Climate Action Now, Sammy will talk about why cultural storytelling matters as much as policy, where the hope lies after the midterm elections, and how public opinion functions as real leverage against the fossil fuel industry.
Come learn from Sammy, bring your questions, and leave with a fresh, hopeful lens on where climate progress is coming from next!

About Our Featured Expert
Sammy Roth is a former climate columnist for the Los Angeles Times, where he wrote the weekly Boiling Point newsletter and hosted the Boiling Point podcast. He now writes the independent newsletter Climate-Colored Goggles, exploring how movies, TV, sports, and other cultural institutions can help drive climate progress. He previously reported for the Desert Sun and USA Today.

About Our Interviewer
Sam Matey is Editor-In-Chief at Climate Action Now and authors Your Daily Dose of Climate Hope, a Substack newsletter. Sam wears many hats as a climate journalist, environmental scientist, data scientist, and GIS analyst. Sam is also the author of The Weekly Anthropocene, a weekly Substack newsletter on progress towards a better relationship between humanity and our biosphere.

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Earth’s Greatest Enemy: A Conversation with Director Abby Martin
Wednesday, November 11
7:00 pm - 8:00 pm EST
Online
RSVP at https://masspeaceaction.org/event/earths-greatest-enemy-a-conversation-with-abby-martin-newdate/

Earth’s Greatest Enemy, the second feature film project by Abby Martin, is a groundbreaking anti-imperialist environmental documentary. It exposes the devastation caused by the U.S. military, the world’s biggest and most unaccountable polluter, and chronicles inspiring stories of grassroots resistance to toxic military bases.
Join us to hear Abby discuss the making of the film and how we can use it for political organizing.

Exempt from international climate agreements and rarely scrutinized in mainstream reporting, the Pentagon is the world’s single largest institutional polluter—spewing carbon, contaminating water, and scarring landscapes across the globe. Combining investigative journalism, striking visuals, and stories from impacted communities, this film challenges audiences to rethink the hidden costs of a global military empire and its planetary consequences. Provocative, urgent, and eye-opening, this is a documentary that will change how you see both the military and environmentalism.
Watch the trailer: Earth’s Greatest Enemy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=KRFzt0HzA_n91ja-&v=YX3aAnGwmLo&feature=youtu.be

Abby Martin: Over the course of a 20-year career as an independent journalist, Abby has interviewed countless heads of state, celebrities, politicians, and academics. Her uncompromising style has made her a standard-bearer of advocacy journalism, and one of the most well-known alternative media figures in the country.

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Climate Change and Conflict in Africa
Thursday, Novermber 12
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall Multipurpose Room, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://as.tufts.edu/environmentalstudies/news-events/hoch-cunningham-lecture-series#nov12

Is climate change contributing to civil conflict in Africa? And if so, through what mechanisms? This talk examines the link between rising aridity in pastoral Africa and the outbreak of farmer-herder conflicts across the continent.
Speaker: Dr. Eoin McGuirk, Associate Professor of Economics at Tufts University

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Carlson Lecture — The Ocean Carbon Sink: Facts, Fictions, and Opportunities
Thursday, November 12
6:30pm to 7:30pm EST
New England Aquarium, Simons Theatre, 1 Central Wharf, Boston, MA
And online
RSVP at https://alumevents.mit.edu/event/carlsonlecture2026/summary

The Lorenz Center is pleased to present the 2026 John H. Carlson Lecture, in partnership with the New England Aquarium and the Lowell Institute.

FEATURING
Dr. Marina Lévy, Oceanographer and Senior Scientist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, LOCEAN–IPSL Sorbonne Université

Can whales help mitigate human-induced climate change? What about mangroves, kelp forests, or the trillions of microscopic organisms drifting through the ocean and capturing carbon through photosynthesis?

The ocean absorbs about a quarter of the CO₂ we emit, so it seems natural to imagine that ocean life is doing the work much as forests do on land. But the real story is more complex.

Join oceanographer Marina Lévy on an exploration of the ocean’s extraordinary carbon machine. From forests on land to underwater forests, from microscopic phytoplankton to the web of marine life and the global ocean circulation, we will follow carbon through the ocean to discover what actually makes it one of the planet’s great carbon sinks and why that matters as the ocean warms and its circulation changes.

And if we understand how this remarkable machine works, could we help it absorb even more CO₂? We will explore some of the emerging ideas for using the ocean to remove carbon from the atmosphere, along with their promises, limitations, and unanswered questions.
In person at the Simons Theatre, Central Wharf, Boston
– OR – via live stream with pre-registration.
Free and open to the public. Students and families welcome.
Doors open at 5:30 with exhibits from MIT students and climate scientists in the Simons Theatre lobby.
Register by November 11

ABOUT OUR SPEAKER
Dr. Marina Lévy is an oceanographer and senior scientist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), based at LOCEAN–IPSL at Sorbonne University in Paris, France. She is currently director of the Ocean Institute of the Sorbonne University Alliance.

Her research explores how ocean circulation, climate and marine ecosystems interact, from the dynamics of phytoplankton to the ocean carbon cycle and its response to human-induced climate change. She has contributed to understanding how physical processes shape marine ecosystems and influence the ocean carbon cycle.
Dr. Lévy is also strongly engaged at the interface between science and society. She leads the scientific coordination of the international Starfish Barometer, an annual assessment of the state of the ocean, and contributes to efforts to bring ocean science into public debate and policy.

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Infrastructure in a Time of Flux: Methods, Conditions, and Situations, Symposium
Thursday, November 12
6:30 – 8 p.m.
Harvard Graduate School of Design, Piper Auditorium, Gund Hall, 48 Quincy St., Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.gsd.harvard.edu/event/infrastructure-in-a-time-of-flux-methods-conditions-and-situations/

Infrastructure in a Time of Flux: Methods, Conditions, and Situations, an exhibition curated by Rahul Mehrotra and Dan Borelli, examines how architecture, engineering, urban design, and planning respond to a world increasingly defined by environmental disruption, political instability, technological transformation, migration, and rapidly changing patterns of habitation.

This symposium brings together designers, architects, humanitarian workers, and historians to reflect on the exhibition’s three themes and a case study: Methods, Conditions, Situations, and Kumbh Mela.

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Endangered Canyons of Utah: Photos & Action for Northeast Sierra Club
Thursday, November 12
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM (Eastern)
Online
RSVP at https://act.sierraclub.org/events/details?formcampaignid=701Po0000263jPBIAY&mapLinkHref=

Join us for a presentation by Harvey Halpern that details the myriad threats to our public lands in Utah and the citizens proposal to preserve over 9 million acres of these spectacular lands as permanent Wilderness. Harvey will orient us to what the term Wilderness means, types of National land, and foundational protection legislation like the 1964 Wilderness Bill and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976. America’s Redrock Wilderness Act (H.R.2467 & S.1193) currently has over 70 co-sponsors in the U.S. House of Representatives and 18 in the Senate - let's advocate to get it more! This presentation will particularly highlight Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monuments and President Trump's illegal reduction in size, of each of these by 90% over the summer.

About Harvey Halpern: He has been professionally photographing Wilderness since 1978 with particular emphasis on the canyons of Southern Utah. By focusing for so long and hard on one region, he has been able to get into some truly remote areas. He delights in challenging the viewer’s perspective on size, color, and perspective itself. Harvey named two canyons in the Escalante area and has a canyon (Hard Day Harvey) named after him. You can check out Harvey's photographs at https://www.canyontales.com/harveyhalpern/

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Forgotten Histories and Possible Futures of Circular Economies
Friday, November 13
9:30 AM - 3:30 PM
MIT, The Nexus at Hayden Library, Building 14S-130, 160 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/forgotten-histories-and-possible-futures-of-circular-economies-tickets-1997914702658

Cross-disciplinary conversations about scrap metal bridging environmental history, waste management, and material circulation.
Forgotten Histories and Possible Futures of Circular Economies

Please join us for the "Forgotten Histories and Possible Futures of Circular Economies" symposium on Friday, November 13 from 9:30-3:30. This first-of-its-kind interdisciplinary event will bring together leading historians, social scientists, and engineers to discuss how past innovations in recycling--of metals in particular--helped societies navigate crises and how those models might inform sustainable manufacturing today. The event is sponsored by the MIT Human Insight Collaborative (MITHIC) and MIT History and will host a free lunch for registered participants!

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MIT Energy & Climate Night
Friday November 13
6PM - 10PM
MIT Museum | 314 Main St., Cambridge, MA
RSVP at https://luma.com/kaeo9e5b

COME LEARN ABOUT ENERGY INNOVATIONS AND THE LATEST CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH IN THE ENERGY AND CLIMATE SPACE!Date:

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Upcoming US 4 Billion Dead Call
Saturday, November 14
1pm EST [10 AM PST]
Online
RSVP at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/wJ2yhnviRyGKkNX_zJVgSA

4 Billion people could die this century (by 2050) according to the Planetary Solvency Report produced by the British Insurance Industry and the University of Exeter.

To stay in the loop, please sign up for the US Whatsapp Announcement chat. https://chat.whatsapp.com/JKnUwmstkr67tVJn6jsA5v
Thank you for being part of 4 Billion Dead (4BD).

I am writing to you as I have an important request and an opportunity for you to get involved in 4 Billion Dead here in America. As you know, 4BD’s mobilization and organizing have really taken off. We received over $100 000 in committed donations during our first few global calls. Thousands of people from around the globe have signed up and attended our online events; our meetups are the biggest in the world on the global crisis we face. But most of the mobilization so far has been in the UK, it’s time we get rolling in America!

We will be meeting on a nationwide call this November 14, at 1:00 PM EST or 10:00 AM PST.

Whether you are new to organizing or if you are a seasoned organizer, there is a place for you in the organization. We will guide you through setting up your own groups and mobilizing for 4BD in your community. We cannot do this alone - everyone has something special to add - so it’s so important that you sign up if you are able to come!

America is a big country - and we need to find ways to organize ourselves. It’s crucial that you come to the call and that we figure out how to make 4BD work here in America. Please feel free to reply to this email with questions or comments.

We really hope to see you (virtually) soon, 4 Billion Dead America 4bd-admin@proton.me

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Climate Finance in an Overshoot World
Monday, November 16
12:00 PM - 1:15 PM ET
Harvard, Rubenstein 414ab, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge, MA
And online
RSVP at https://hksexeced.tfaforms.net/f/registration?e=a4oPp000001lGC1IAM

In this Energy Policy Seminar, Bella Tonkonogy, Senior Director of Global Programs at Climate Policy Initiative, will discuss the future of climate finance in a world that has failed to limit warming to 1.5°C over pre-industrial levels.

Professor Joe Aldy will moderate. Q&A to follow. Lunch will be served.
Registration: RSVP required. A Harvard University ID is required for in-person attendance; all are welcome to attend via Zoom.

Recording: The seminar will be recorded and available to watch on the Belfer Center's YouTube channel.

About the Speaker:
Bella Tonkonogy is Senior Director, Global Programs at Climate Policy Initiative, an analysis and advisory organization that works to accelerate climate investment around the world. A globally recognized climate finance and policy expert, Bella has advised governments, investors, and businesses for more than 20 years on practical instruments, approaches, and policies that address climate change and support economic development.

Bella’s work has supported the mobilization of more than USD 4.5 billion for climate investments in developing economies and the implementation of pragmatic reforms to increase the effectiveness of public finance and the international financial architecture. Bella also recently served as a Senior Advisor on climate change to US Treasury Secretary Yellen to advance policies on climate, trade, and competitiveness.

Bella holds an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management, an MSc from Imperial College London, and a BA from the University of California-Berkeley.

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Food Beyond Earth: What Space Can Teach Us About the Future of Food
Tuesday, November 17
12:00pm — 1:00pm ET
Online
RSVP at https://www.media.mit.edu/events/angelo-vermeulen-gastronomy-and-beyond/

Drawing on his work in space research and his experience as commander of the NASA-funded HI-SEAS Mars simulation, Angelo Vermeulen explores how extreme environments change how we think about food. Bioregenerative life support systems such as the European Space Agency’s MELiSSA program circulate matter through microorganisms, plants, technological infrastructure and the inhabitants themselves. Waste becomes a resource, making humans active components of a deliberately constructed ecology. Yet food cannot be reduced to metabolism alone. During HI-SEAS, cooking became a space for creativity, cultural exchange and social cohesion. Bringing these perspectives together, the talk examines food as both biological necessity and social infrastructure, and asks what designing food systems beyond Earth can teach us about circularity, resilience and the future of food on our own planet.

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From Ashes to Acres: How Partnerships are Reshaping Wildfire Recovery
Tuesday, November 17
12:00 PM (EST)
Online
RSVP at https://trellis.net/webinar/from-ashes-to-acres-how-partnerships-are-reshaping-wildfire-recovery/

For decades, the Arbor Day Foundation has helped communities recover after disaster strikes, providing trees to help people and places heal. As wildfires grow more frequent and severe, our approach is changing too.

Join us for a look at how the Foundation, together with corporate and local partners, has expanded wildfire recovery to meet what communities need right now while staying committed for the long term. You’ll hear about our newest near-term recovery work, how local partnerships help get trees to the people and places that need them most, and why long-term commitment matters when restoring landscapes and communities.

This session features speakers from Procter & Gamble and AT&T, who will share why their companies invest in wildfire recovery and what effective corporate partnership looks like on the ground.
You’ll learn:
How the Foundation’s wildfire recovery model has evolved, with a focus on California
What new near-term recovery efforts look like and how they fit with community and long-term reforestation work
How corporate and community partners work together to speed recovery and build resilience
Insights from P&G and AT&T on aligning business commitments with lasting community impact
Whether you lead sustainability, corporate giving, or community relations, you’ll leave with a clear picture of how partnership can turn recovery into lasting resilience.

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From Professional to Partisan: Civil-Military Norm Replacement in Eroding Democracies
Wednesday, November 18
12:00-1:30pm
Livestream at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG5ooD8Ydk4vd83Ac8VNEoQ

Risa Brooks, Marquette University
Summary: The paper that Professor Risa Brooks will present in this seminar explains how political leaders transform professional militaries into partisan aligned forces in eroding democracies. Building from theories of norm change, it conceptualizes the process as one of "norm replacement," using examples from the United States and beyond to illustrate the argument.

Bio: Dr. Risa Brooks is Allis-Chalmers Professor of Political Science at Marquette University, a non-resident fellow in the Future Security program at New America and non-resident Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She is the author of Shaping Strategy: The Civil-Military Politics of Strategic Assessment (Princeton University Press), coeditor (with Elizabeth Stanley) of Creating Military Power: The Sources of Military Effectiveness (Stanford University Press), and coeditor (with Lionel Beehner and Daniel Maurer) of Reconsidering American Civil-Military Relations: Politics, Society and Modern War (Oxford University Press). Her research has appeared in academic journals such as The Annual Review of Political Science, International Security and Security Studies and her commentaries have been featured in Foreign Affairs, War on the Rocks, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. Brooks received her Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego, and formerly held positions as Senior Fellow at West Point’s Modern War Institute, research associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, U.K. and postdoctoral fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. Her primary research interests lie in questions related to U.S. and comparative civil-military relations, military effectiveness, strategic assessment and military professionalism.

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Starr Forum: AI and Global Power: Democracy, Competition, and Control
Wednesday, November 18
4:30pm to 6:00pm EST
MIT, Building E51, 115, Wong Auditorium, 70 MEMORIAL DR, Cambridge, MA 02142
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScJ-V3Zfdwgk5NQ_6ZiNWAXLyu_y1tGP6WoL29J1dWZSFlxng/viewform

Speaker: Jake Sullivan is a former US national security advisor and currently the Kissinger Professor of the Practice of Statecraft and World Order at the Belfer Center, Harvard Kennedy School. He also served as the 28th assistant to the president for national security affairs (national security advisor) where he focused on artificial intelligence (AI) as a top national security priority. In the Obama administration, he served as national security advisor to then-Vice President Biden, director of the policy planning staff at the U.S. Department of State, and deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Moderator:
Deb Roy is professor of Media Arts and Sciences, MIT, and director of the MIT Center for Constructive Communication (CCC). He also leads research in designing human-AI systems that foster dialogue, listening, and deliberation in ways that build civic muscle.
Refreshments will be served after the event in the main lobby.

Free & open to the public.
A recording will be posted on YouTube following the event.

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The Strait of Hormuz and Climate Action
Wednesday, November 18
5 PM - 6 PM EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sustainable-solutions-presents-the-strait-of-hormuz-and-climate-action-tickets-2002292078507

Join Lama Elhatow, program coordinator and lecturer for the MS in Environmental Sciences and Policy and MS in Energy Policy and Climate programs, for a webinar with energy and climate experts Andrei Covatariu and Christopher Day examining a central question: Could instability or closure of the Strait of Hormuz accelerate the global transition to renewable energy – or deepen reliance on fossil fuels?

As a critical route for oil and natural gas, disruption in the Strait could raise energy prices, expose vulnerabilities in fossil fuel-dependent economies, and intensify energy security concerns. The panel will explore how these pressures may affect investment in solar, wind, and battery storage; the short- and long-term climate consequences; and the ways geopolitics can reshape energy policy and the path toward a low-carbon future. Attendees will gain insight into the connections among energy security, global markets, renewable energy, and climate action.

About Our Speakers
Andrei Covatariu is an international energy and climate change expert focused on the geopolitical, economic, and social dimensions of the energy transition. He serves as a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center and a Nonresident Fellow at the Payne Institute for Public Policy. He also holds leadership and advisory roles with GLOBSEC, the Middle East Institute, Energy Policy Group, the Climate and Water Initiative, UNECE, and the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency.
Christopher Day is a lecturer in the MS in Energy Policy and Climate program at Johns Hopkins with experience in energy, finance, consulting, academia, and government. He has worked on international energy projects, advised the World Bank, led intelligence teams at the U.S. Department of Energy, and held energy leadership roles at ABN AMRO and Enron. Day holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Johns Hopkins SAIS, and Georgetown University.

Sustainable Solutions Series Overview
The Sustainable Solutions Speaker Series is presented by the MS in Environmental Sciences and Policy and the MS in Energy Policy and Climate programs at Johns Hopkins University. Each talk features scholars and practitioners working to tackle ‘wicked’ environmental, energy, and climate problems. Speakers take us through how they leverage technology, policy, the private sector, markets, research, and field work to form innovative and lasting solutions. From water insecurity to climate adaptation, natural resource conflict to energy transitions, and food insecurity to sustainable agriculture, this series features the depth and breadth of Johns Hopkins University faculty and our greater community as we work toward a sustainable future.

We are committed to ensuring an inclusive and accessible experience for all participants. To request additional accessibility for this event, please contact us at aapevents@jhu.edu.

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Good Refugees, Bad Refugees: Borders and Belonging in Southeast Europe
Wednesday, November 18
5 – 6:30 p.m.
Harvard, S354 CGIS South, 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/good-refugees-bad-refugees-borders-and-belonging-in-southeast-europe-tickets-2003144670633

SPEAKER(S) Danilo Mandić, Associate Senior Lecturer, Sociology Department, Harvard University
Anastasija Mladenovska, A.M. Candidate in Regional Studies—REECA, Harvard University

Who gets to be a “good” refugee, and who is cast as a threat? What determines whether displaced people are welcomed, tolerated, or turned away? Southeast Europe, historically a crossroads of migration, displacement, and contested national identities, offers a fascinating lens through which to examine these questions.
Drawing on Dr. Mandic's forthcoming book, Bad Refugees: Geopolitics, Stigma and Forced Migration, this talk explores how nationality, ethnicity, geopolitical interests, and public narratives shape distinctions between “deserving” and “undeserving” refugees with particular attention to Southeast Europe.

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Resonant Landscapes: Listening with Nature and History
Thursday, November 19
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall Multipurpose Room, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://as.tufts.edu/environmentalstudies/news-events/hoch-cunningham-lecture-series#nov19

How do we hear the natural world? How has music shaped and reflected our understanding of the environment across time? This lecture explores the deep and evolving relationship between the nature of music and the music of nature. After sampling from both human-created musical works and from the sonic textures of ecosystems, we will consider the connections between sound and place as well as the role of listening as such in an age of environmental crisis.

Speaker: Dr. Jeremy Eichler, Assistant Professor of Music at Tufts University

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Co-Benefits, Dis-Benefits; What CDR means for mitigation deterrence, air quality and health
Public Webinar
Thursday, November 19
1pm EDT [11:00am (MDT)]
Online
RSVP at https://www.pembina.org/event/canco2re-webinar-co-benefits-dis-benefitss

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is a necessary part of the climate response, but its value can't be measured solely by tonnes of CO2. Deploying CDR at scale has ripple effects well beyond the climate system, and understanding those effects is essential to getting CDR right.

There is an urgent need to understand whether growing reliance on carbon removal could delay or weaken near-term emission reductions across sectors such as transportation, industry, and oil and gas production. This question is particularly important in Canada, where many emissions-intensive sectors are also major sources of air pollution, and where pollution burdens are unevenly distributed across communities.

This webinar examines CDR through systems, societal, and air quality lenses, characterizing how and where CDR might enable mitigation deterrence, and how these pathways can consequently alter co-pollutant emissions, population exposures, and health outcomes.

Two CanCO2Re researchers, Daniel Posen and Feras Abdulla, collaborating with an air quality expert, Marianne Hatzopoulou, will examine how CDR affects air quality to identify optimal deployment strategies that deliver climate benefits without undermining public health.

Join us to unpack the co-benefits and dis-benefits of different CDR pathways: where CDR strengthens mitigation efforts, where it can work against them, and what “doing CDR well” looks like.

About CanCO2Re
This session is part of the CanCO2Re webinar series, which brings together experts from across disciplines to advance Canada's understanding of carbon dioxide removal. The series is a program of the CanCO2Re initiative, a national research effort that connects researchers across 11 fields of study, from engineering and climate science to law, economics, and communications, through institutions including the University of Calgary, University of Alberta, University of Toronto, Simon Fraser University, and the Pembina Institute.

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Arrested Development: The US-Iran War in Historical Perspective
Thursday, November 19
4:30 – 6 p.m.
Harvard, CGIS Knafel 262, 1737 Cambridge St., Cambridge
RSVP at https://cmes.fas.harvard.edu/event/arrested-development-us-iran-war-historical-perspective

SPEAKER(S) Nader Hashemi, Director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and Associate Professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University

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Crutch or Catalyst? How AI Is Changing the Ways We Relate
Thursday, November 19
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM ET
Harvard Law School, 1557 Massachusetts Ave., Lewis Hall, 5th floor, Cambridge, MA 02138
And online
RSVP at https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/crutch-or-catalyst-how-ai-changing-ways-we-relate

As AI becomes increasingly embedded in our lives, it has taken on roles as a therapist, a friend, even a lover. When we allow AI systems into our communities and our closest circles, what happens to our agency, our inner lives, and our ability to form relationships with other people? Join MIT professor and author Sherry Turkle and podcaster and tech & culture critic Bridget Todd for a conversation about what we gain and lose when we delegate acts of attention and companionship to systems designed to be available and responsive in our times of need.

What does the evidence show about human-AI relationships? What about human-AI emotional reliance? Where do we draw the line? Is there even a line to be drawn? Moderated by Dean Sean Kelly, Turkle and Todd will bring their personal experiences and research findings to bear on an emerging field with little consensus — and very high stakes. This conversation will consider how engagement with AI is reshaping what we expect from friendship, family, and community, and what responsibilities belong to technology companies, public institutions, and each of us as users of technology and creatures of belonging.

Speakers
Sean Dorrance Kelly is Dean of Arts and Humanities and Teresa G. and Ferdinand F. Martignetti Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University, and the leader of the Public Culture Project. Before joining the Harvard faculty in 2006, Dean Kelly taught philosophy at Stanford and Princeton. Dean Kelly is the author of a New York Times bestseller, All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age.
Bridget Todd is a MacArthur Foundation Tech in the Public Interest Fellow, an affiliate of Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center, creator of iHeart Media's hit podcast There Are No Girls On The Internet, and host of Mozilla Foundation’s multi-award-winning podcast exploring ethics in AI IRL: Online Life is Real Life. She recently co-authored Love at First Prompt: AI and the Future of Intimacy, an audiobook produced by Simon & Schuster.

Sherry Turkle is the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT and the founding director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self. She is the author of Alone Together, Reclaiming Conversation, and The Empathy Diaries. In September 2026, Turkle published Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines, which traces the impact of AI-mediated communication through the lifecycle—from children’s earliest attachments to end of life decisions.

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Open Science, AI, and Future of Scientific Publishing
Thursday, November 19
5:30 PM - 8:00 PM
SwissnexBoston, 420 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02138
RSVP at https://swissnex.org/boston/event/open-science-ai-and-future-of-scientific-publishing/

Science is changing — more and more data is publicly available, and AI tools are making it easier than ever to parse. Join Swissnex and Frontiers to explore how scientific publishing is adapting to the changing research landscape.

Academic researchers are rapidly moving from publishing only articles to a broader package of scholarly outputs, including datasets, code, protocols, and workflows. A new system of open data is emerging that is findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR), holding the promise of accelerated scientific discovery. At the same time, open science presents opportunities for AI parsing and integration in the discovery and publishing processes. Researchers are navigating a new decentralized landscape of voluminous data, spread across repositories and platforms, with the promise of AI-driven science as a new scientific partner to navigate the overflow of information.

How should scientists, universities, libraries, and academic publishers navigate these new research ecosystems? Are there promising ways to integrate the diverse functions of publishers, data and code repositories, and preservation platforms? And what role will AI play in these processes? Join Swissnex and Frontiers for a discussion on the future of scientific publishing, including a demonstration of how one publisher is pushing the integration of data generation, compliance, peer review, and dissemination. Speakers from Harvard, Boston University, Suffolk University, and Frontiers will cover journal editing, research data management, research administration, science journalism, and AI-ready data.

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Climate & War
Friday, November 20
12 PM - 3 PM EST
Online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-war-tickets-1989267322110

Climate, Humanity, Rights & Unity: United Actions For a Just & Regenerative Future
The Climate Emergency Mobilization Task Force presents:
Climate & War

Program TBD, Stay Tuned!
Spread the WORD!
Hope to see you soon.
Plea$e DONATE!
Website: https://www.cemtf.org/
Please Like CEMTF's FB page & Follow CEMTF & X: @CEMTF1 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cemtf

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Energy Security Sustainability Delivered
Monday, November 23
12:00 PM - 1:15 PM ET
Harvard, Rubenstein 414ab, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge, MA
And online
RSVP at https://hksexeced.tfaforms.net/f/registration?e=a4oPp000001kjUbIAI&_gl=1*145uuzn*_gcl_au*Mzg0MjUwMTU5LjE3OTI3MjY3MDY.*_ga*NTg4NjE4NzUxLjE3ODQ1NzcxMzY.*_ga_72NC9RC7VN*czE3OTI3MjY3MDYkbzUkZzEkdDE3OTI3Mjc3MjkkajEkbDAkaDY5ODgzNTU4

In this Energy Policy Seminar, Mark Brownstein, Senior Vice President at Environmental Defense Fund, will give a talk entitled, "Energy Security Sustainability Delivered." Professor Joe Aldy will moderate. Q&A to follow. Lunch will be served.
Registration: RSVP required. A Harvard University ID is required for in-person attendance; all are welcome to attend via Zoom.

Recording: The seminar will be recorded and available to watch on the Belfer Center's YouTube channel.

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COP31 Debriefing: What's Next for Global Climate Action?
Monday, November 30
12:00pm to 1:30pm EST
MIT, Building 10, 105, 222 MEMORIAL DR, Cambridge, MA 02139
And online
RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfO55rPYGl4QQ9Ko0cQR6A0MUEJF4TIsFdGnCmqOiniKC1SQQ/viewform

Join us for a timely debriefing on the outcomes of COP31 — the UN climate conference in Antalya, Türkiye. As global climate governance shifts from pledges to implementation, this discussion will unpack key decisions from the summit, assess their implications for international cooperation, climate finance, and adaptation, and explore new ideas and paths forward.

Co-organized with the MIT Climate Policy Center and the MIT Climate Project.
RSVP here to sign up for in-person or Zoom attendance.

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Robert Lempert
Monday, November 30
12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Princeton, 300 Wallace Hall, Princeton NJ
And online
RSVP at https://cpree.princeton.edu/events/2026/tba

Speaker
Robert Lempert, Professor of Policy Analysis, Pardee Rand Graduate School
Robert Lempert is a principal researcher at RAND and director emeritus of RAND’s Frederick S. Pardee Center for Longer Range Global Policy and the Future Human Condition. His research focuses on climate risk management and decision-making under conditions of deep uncertainty. Dr. Lempert was a coordinating lead author for Working Group II of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report and the inaugural president of the Society for Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty (http://www.deepuncertainty.org). A Professor of Policy Analysis in the Pardee RAND Graduate School, Dr. Lempert is an author of the book Shaping the Next One Hundred Years: New Methods for Quantitative, Longer-Term Policy Analysis.

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What the Iran War Reveals about American Airpower
Wednesday, December 2
12:00-1:30pm
Livestream at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG5ooD8Ydk4vd83Ac8VNEoQ

Kelly Grieco, Stimson Center
Summary: The prevailing theory of airpower rests on two core propositions. First, air superiority is necessary for victory, winning the contest for the medium and high-altitudes—fighter against fighter, and fighter against surface-to-air missile—enables strategic attack, and strategic attack compels political concessions. Second, once that contest is won, whatever still threatens from below it is a force protection problem, a matter of defending aircraft on the ground and personnel, rather than a continuing contest for control of the air. The U.S. war with Iran tested both propositions—and both failed. The United States achieved and maintained air superiority as the theory defines it, using it to strike the full range of strategic targets, including Iran’s senior leadership. Yet these attacks neither produced operational or strategic paralysis nor compelled political concessions. Instead, while the United States controlled the blue skies, Iran denied the air littoral—the low-altitude airspace, e.g. typically below 15,000 feet—using dispersed, numerous, and mobile missiles and drones to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed and end the war on Iranian terms. This talk develops an alternative theory of air control centered on the air littoral and air denial, emphasizing distributed rather than integrated air defense, and explores the implications for airpower theory, U.S. strategy, and force design.

Bio: Kelly A. Grieco is a Senior Fellow with the Reimagining US Grand Strategy Program at the Stimson Center, where she researchers US foreign policy and defense policy, addressing questions about military strategy, force structure, alliances, air operations, and the future of war. Her work focuses on the future of airpower, including air denial, drone warfare, and emerging operational concepts, as well as the role of U.S. alliances and security architectures in the Indo-Pacific and Europe. Her research has appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, Lawfare, War on the Rocks, Defense News, Breaking Defense, The Washington Quarterly, International Politics, Parameters, Strategic Studies Quarterly, The Los Angeles Times, among other publications. In 2024, she received the Christopher Coker Prize for the best paper in security studies for the co-authored article "Can Drones Coerce?" published in International Politics. She is also an Adjunct Professor in the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University. Before joining the Stimson Center, she was a Senior Fellow with the New American Engagement Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and an Assistant Professor at the Air Command and Staff College. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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The Breakdown with Erica Chenoweth and Steve Levitsky
Wednesday, December 2
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM ET
Online
RSVP at https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_S6LSjd0VSvGAHL-7eHCCQg#/registration

Join Erica Chenoweth and Steven Levitsky for the tenth session of The Breakdown, a webinar series on the ongoing struggle for American democracy. Each month, Chenoweth and Levitsky will break down key developments, reflect on this moment’s historical precedents both at home and abroad and offer evidence-based reflections on the path forward.
Speakers include:
Erica Chenoweth, Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at Harvard Kennedy School
Steven Levitsky, David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies and Professor of Government at Harvard University

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Protecting carbon and communities: Transforming boreal fire management into a climate solution
Thursday, December 3
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Curtis Hall Multipurpose Room, 474 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA
And online
RSVP at https://as.tufts.edu/environmentalstudies/news-events/hoch-cunningham-lecture-series#dec3

Climate change is intensifying boreal wildfires. While fire is a natural process in these northern ecosystems, fires are burning more frequently and severely, with impacts ranging from local to global. Northern Indigenous communities are losing critical ecosystems that support traditional ways of life; smoke from Canadian wildfires is filling lungs across North America; and catastrophic fires are burning deeper into the soil—releasing ancient carbon, accelerating permafrost thaw, and worsening the impacts of climate change across the globe.

In this talk, Kayla dives into the work Woodwell is stewarding to better understand how fire management could be used, shaped, and transformed to better protect communities while minimizing greenhouse gas emissions from wildfire on carbon and permafrost-rich landscapes. This effort involves science, policy, people, compromise and a lot of humility.

Speaker: Kayla Mathes, Research Scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center

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The Expertise Economy
Thursday, December 3
4 – 5 p.m.
Harvard, Knafel Center, 10 Garden St., Cambridge
And online
RSVP at https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2026-david-h-autor-lecture-3

SPEAKER(S) David H. Autor, Daniel (1972) and Gail Rubinfeld Professor Head of the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
David H. Autor will illuminate how new technologies shape the evolution of work, with human expertise at the center of the framework. What matters is not which jobs are “exposed” to technology but how technology changes the expertise required to perform the job. This lens explains how rules-based computing reshaped work over the past four decades and makes novel predictions for the learning-based era of artificial intelligence we have now entered. Where will AI commoditize human labor where it will act as a force multiplier for human expertise, and what would have to be true for the second outcome to prevail?

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MIT D-Lab Fall 2026 Student Showcase
Thursday, December 3
7:00pm to 8:30pm EST
MIT, Building N51, 310, 265 MASSACHUSETTS AVE, Cambridge, MA 02139

Final presentations, posters, and prototypes from students in five Fall 2026 MIT D-Lab classes:
D-Lab: Development
D-Lab: Gender and Development
Design for Scale
Applications of Energy in Global Development
Humanitarian Innovation

Following a welcome and overview from MIT D-Lab staff, attendees will have the opportunity to speak with student teams and view all the posters and prototypes on display throughout the D-Lab space!
Refreshments will be served.

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The Utility Business Model & The Year in Energy
Friday, December 4
9:00 AM – 12:30 PM
Foley Hoag LLP, 155 Seaport Boulevard, 17th Floor Boston, MA 02210
And online
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/12-4-2026-new-england-energy-roundtable-tickets-2003640106495?aff=oddtdtcreator
Cost: $0 - $110

Join us on December 4th for a New England Energy Roundtable examining two of the industry’s most important questions:
How should the utility business model evolve to meet today’s challenges?

What were the most important developments shaping energy policy, markets, and planning in 2026?

The program will feature two moderated discussions bringing together leaders from government, industry, advocacy, and academia.
Panel I - The Utility Business Model and the Regulatory Compact

For a century, the regulatory compact has operated as a bargain: utilities receive a monopoly franchise and an opportunity to earn a fair return, while accepting an obligation to serve every customer at a just and reasonable rate. Today, rising supply and distribution costs, increased public policy charges on customer bills, new competitors at the grid edge, changing technology, and shifting risk are testing that bargain.

This panel will return to first principles: what utility regulation and the regulatory compact are intended to deliver, where the current model is under strain, and whether it needs repair, replacement, or a different approach. Each panelist will offer a brief opening perspective, and a moderated discussion with audience questions will follow.

Panelists: Ari Peskoe, Director, Electricity Law Initiative, Harvard Law School
Caroline Hon, Vice President, New England Regulation & Pricing, National Grid
Julia Frayer, Partner and Managing Director, London Economics International
Michael Lee, Founder, Distributed Grid; (former CEO, Octopus Energy U.S.)
Moderator: Matt Nelson, Apex Analytics

Panel II - The Year in Energy: Shifts, Surprises, and What’s Next

What changed in energy during 2026? What surprised us? And what should New England be paying attention to as we head into 2027?

This panel will bring together influential voices from across the region to reflect on a year of shifting expectations, changing policy priorities, affordability concerns, clean energy progress, and evolving customer and system needs. The conversation will begin with reflections on the developments that mattered most in 2026, before turning to some of the year’s biggest challenges and opportunities, and priorities for the year ahead. The session will feature enhanced audience engagement, including live polling and audience feedback.

Panelists: Celina Cunningham, Acting Commissioner, Maine DOER
Casey Bowers, Interim President and Executive Director, ELM
Andy Frank, Deputy Commissioner, Connecticut DEEP
Dan Dolan, President, New England Power Generators Association
Moderator: Lauren Gage, Apex Analytics