Head in the Clouds

Wed, 15 May 2013 07:11:33 GMT

Sarvesh Garimella is a graduate student interested in using laboratory studies and models to understand how natural and anthropogenic aerosols affect the formation and persistence of ice and mixed-phase clouds in the atmosphere and ultimately the climate system.

Video by Helen Hill, MIT

Climate Change Policy that Makes Economic Sense

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 20:30:46 GMT

A webcast recorded on April 10, 2013, featuring Professor Christopher Knittel of the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Forging a New Direction in Climate Research

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 21:30:47 GMT

Research aimed at predicting future climate activity has primarily focused on large and complex numerical models. While this approach has provided some quantitative estimates of climate change, those predictions can vary greatly from one model to the next and produce doubts in the projected outcome.

In this Faculty Forum Online broadcast, Professor Kerry Emanuel ’76, PhD ’78 discussed a new approach to climate science that emphasizes basic understanding over black box simulation. After Emanuel presented a brief overview of climate research, he took questions from the worldwide MIT community via video chat. Watch the video then visit the Slice of MIT blog and continue the conversation in the comments.

In 2006, Emanuel was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He is the author of What We Know about Climate Change, a book The New York Times called “the single best thing written about climate change for a general audience.”

Massachusetts Confronts Climate Change: Action at the Intersection of Science, Technology and Policy

Sun, 27 Jan 2013 08:05:32 GMT

A discussion hosted by the MIT Energy Initiative and the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.

Cumulus, cirrus, stratus: what clouds say about climate change

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:22 GMT

What happens when particles in the atmosphere, especially manufactured ones, interact with water vapor and temperature to form clouds in a changing climate?

Watching the Arctic Melt, part 1

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:22 GMT

Symposium on the Arctic Ocean

Watching the Arctic Melt, part 2

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:22 GMT

Patrick Heimback

Watching the Arctic Melt: Ecosystem Adaptation

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:22 GMT

Carin Ashjia

Watching the Arctic Melt: Geopolitics

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:22 GMT

Rear Adm. Richard Pittenger, USN

Watching the Arctic Melt: Profiling Under the Ice

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:22 GMT

John Toole

Watching the Arctic Melt: Robotic Exploration

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:22 GMT

John Leonard & Hanu Singh

Watching the Arctic Melt: Surveying with Sound

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:22 GMT

Art Baggeroer & Henrik Schmidt

Building a new agenda, part 1

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:21 GMT

The Future of the Oceans

Building a new agenda, part 2

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:21 GMT

The Future of the Oceans

Discussion forum

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:21 GMT

The Future of the Oceans

Ocean resource and energy use, part 1

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:21 GMT

The Future of the Oceans

Ocean resource and energy use, part 2

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:21 GMT

The Future of the Oceans

Ocean resource and energy use, part 3

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:21 GMT

The Future of the Oceans

Ocean resource and energy use, part 4

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:21 GMT

The Future of the Oceans

Ocean resource and energy use, part 5

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:21 GMT

The Future of the Oceans

Ocean resource and energy use, part 6

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:21 GMT

The Future of the Oceans

Policy perspective

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:21 GMT

The Future of the Oceans

Life in the oceans, part 1

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:20 GMT

The Future of the Oceans

Life in the oceans, part 2

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:20 GMT

The Future of the Oceans

Life in the oceans, part 3

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:20 GMT

The Future of the Oceans

Life in the oceans, part 4

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:20 GMT

The Future of the Oceans

Life in the oceans, part 5

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:20 GMT

The Future of the Oceans

Life in the oceans, part 6

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:20 GMT

The Future of the Oceans

Ocean climate and environment, part 4

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:20 GMT

The Future of the Oceans

Ocean climate and environment, part 1

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:19 GMT

The Future of the Oceans

Ocean climate and environment, part 2

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:19 GMT

The Future of the Oceans

Ocean climate and environment, part 3

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:05:19 GMT

The Future of the Oceans

Engineering a Cooler Earth: Panel Discussion

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 08:05:34 GMT

Recorded 11/19/12

Technology Water Supply, Desalination and Energy

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 08:06:51 GMT

Recorded 12/15/11

Understanding Arctic Sea Ice

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 14:56:25 GMT

Read more about Principal Research Scientist Patrick Heimbach's work in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT News, the MITgcm website, and the website for NASA's ECCO2.

About the animation: The simulation was conducted with the MIT coupled ocean-sea ice general circulation model, or in short, MITgcm. The configuration was constructed as part of the Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean Phase II, or ECCO2 project. It was run by project partners Gunnar Spreen and Dimitris Menemenlis at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on NASA's supercomputer "Pleiades" at the Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. Tim Sandstrom at NASA's Advanced Supercomputing Division performed the visualization of the simulations.

Image Credits:
Earth System Research Laboratory, NOAA, http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/projects/arcpac/
European Space Agency (ESA) CryoSat Mission, http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cryosat/
National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) Earth Observatory, http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (NASA/GSFC), http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/sets/
National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Alfred-Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), http://www.awi.de/

The World's Chemistry in Our Hands: Global Environmental Challenges Past and Future

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 07:09:55 GMT

Professor Susan Solomon
Ellen Swallow Richards Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Science at MIT

Dean of Science's Colloquium: “The World’s Chemistry in Our Hands: Global Environmental Challenges Past and Future”

September 13, 2012

Humans have faced a series of global environmental chemistry challenges in the past half-century, including ozone depletion, the use of lead products, and more. In this colloquium, Professor Solomon will explore how combinations of science, public policy, and citizen engagement can lead to solutions; she will also probe how the lessons learned can inform key challenges of the 21st century, especially climate change.

Solomon has led two expeditions to Antarctica and had a glacier named after her. She is the author of several books and influential scientific papers in climate science, and has been honored with numerous prestigious awards, including the 1999 National Medal of Science (the highest scientific honor in the US) and the Grande Medaille (the highest award of the French Academy of Sciences). A member of the National Academy of Sciences, the French Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society, and the Acadameia Europaea, Solomon also co-led the science assessment of the most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Time Magazine named Solomon as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2008.

Outside her core-scientific interests, Susan is the author of The Coldest March, a popular book on Antarctic history which stemmed from her frequent Antarctic sojourns during the late 80's and early 90's. Her book was selected among '2001 Books of the Year' lists of The New York Times, The Economist (UK), and The Independent (UK).

The Dean's colloquium series was established to recognize and celebrate scientists who have chosen innovative, non-traditional career paths and been unusually successful. Past speakers have included Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies and Edward Scolnick, former President of Merck Research Laboratories.

The SQUID, the planetary scientist and a lot of little bits of moon rock

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 07:03:50 GMT

Benjamin Weiss is conducting laboratory magnetic studies on rocks from Mars, the Moon, and Earth to understand the evolution of planets, magnetism, and life. He is using SQUID microscopy, a new technique several orders of magnitude more sensitive than standard SQUID moment magnetometry that makes high-resolution magnetic maps of room temperature samples.

His research team is broadly interested in the role of magnetic fields on planets in the early solar system. This area of research has all sorts of interesting implications--from the climatic history of Mars to the formation of planets.

In this interview he talks about his research and how he originally got interested in the field of paleomagnetism.

Video credit: Helen Hill

Cambridge Science Festival - What's Your Question? - Rivers of Ice

Thu, 31 May 2012 17:30:11 GMT

From the high Himalayas to the poles, the world’s glaciers are melting. What does this mean for your community and our shared Earth? David Breashears presents his stunning new images of the Himalayan glaciers to mark the MIT Museum’s opening of its special exhibition by GlacierWorks: Rivers of Ice: Vanishing Glaciers of the Greater Himalaya.

Along with David Breashears, the symposium brings together scientists and community members to debate your questions about our climate, environment, water supply and much more.

Speakers:
Graham Cogley, Professor of Geography, Trent University
Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director, Center on U.S.-China Relations, Asia Society
Susan Solomon, Professor, Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Ellen Swallow Richards Chair, MIT
James Wescoat, Aga Khan Professor, Department of Architecture, MIT
Moderated by: Marco Werman, host of PRI's The World

Part of the Cambridge Science Festival: http://www.cambridgesciencefestival.org/2012Festival/2012ScheduleofEvents/RiversofIce.aspx

When Life's a Plastic Beach - Adventures in Geomorphology

Fri, 25 May 2012 07:03:20 GMT

Geomorphologist Taylor Perron loves figuring out how landscapes tick. His group is particularly intersted in how patterns emerge in landscapes (from river networks to ripples in sand at the shoreline), how climate, and especially rainfall and sunlight, influence landscape, and the landscapes that occur on other planets and moons and how they differ from what is seen on Earth.

In this video Taylor shares two research projects:

"Landscapes on the Move" focuses on Taylor's work modeling river valley evolution. Speeding up the process from hundreds of thousands of years to just a few minutes, Taylor reveals what a dynamic process the evolution of topography is.

In "Ripples in Rocks - A Day at the Plastic Beach" Taylor compares time-lapse video from a laboratory wave-tank with computer animations in an exploration of how ripple structures get set into rock, and the geometries they exhibit.

Read more about Taylor's work to predict the speed of valley spread in the MIT News article The hills are evolving .

Video credit: Helen Hill

Historical Perspectives on Climate Change: Scientific, Technological, and Social Dynamics

Thu, 10 May 2012 17:30:11 GMT

Historical Perspectives on Climate Change: Scientific, Technological, and Social Dynamics

Jim Fleming, Professor of Science, Technology, and Society, Colby College

Tuesday, May 8

How have scientists gained awareness and understanding of phenomena that cover the entire globe and that are constantly changing on time scales ranging from geological eras and centuries to decades, years, and seasons? How was this accomplished by individuals immersed in and surrounded by the phenomena? How were privileged positions created and defined? The answers are varied and worthy of extended reflection.

This talk argues that scientific, technological, and social dynamics play essential roles in the study of climate dynamics.

About the speaker

Jim Fleming is Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Colby College. He has earned degrees in astronomy (BS Penn State), atmospheric science (MS Colorado State) and history (Ph.D. Princeton) and has held a number of major fellowships and lectureships, including the Charles A. Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History at the Smithsonian Institution, the Roger Revelle Fellowship of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the H. Burr Steinbach Lectureship at MIT/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, the Gordon Cain Conference Fellowship at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, a Woodrow Wilson Center policy scholarship, and a Scholar’s Award from the US National Science Foundation. He is a fellow of both the AAAS and the American Meteorological Society (AMS), contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC-AR4), founder and first president of the International Commission on History of Meteorology, and series editor of Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology. Jim’s books include Meteorology in America, 1800-1870 (Johns Hopkins, 1990), Historical Perspectives on Climate Change (Oxford, 1998), The Callendar Effect (AMS Books, 2007), and his latest, Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control (Columbia, 2010), winner of the 2011 Sally Hacker Prize from the Society for the History of Technology and the Louis J. Battan Author’s Award from the AMS. He is deeply invested in building the community of historians of the geosciences and connecting the history of science, technology, and medicine with public policy. New work includes a book on the emergence of atmospheric science and a biography of the carbon dioxide molecule.

MIT Museum Talkback 360 - Visualizing Science: The Changing Arctic Ice

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 07:03:20 GMT

April 17, 2012

Visualizing Science: The Changing Arctic Ice

Explore the Arctic ice cap with photographer Chris Linder, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientist John Toole, and MIT oceanographer Patrick Heimbach. See stunning images from the pole, explore the latest data from deep beneath the cap’s surface, and find out how such information can be used to forecast global environmental change.

2012 Freeman Lecture: "Climate Change and Water Resources: Characterizing Uncertainties for Decision Makers"

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 20:30:09 GMT

Richard N. Palmer, Ph.D.
Department Head and Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering,
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Recorded 4/23/12

Scientific evidence tells us that global climate is changing. However, precise impacts on natural and man-made systems are less certain. Estimating climate change impact on river flow, water supply reliability, and ecosystem response requires careful application of global or regional circulation models, hydrologic models, and ecosystem response models. This presentation addresses each type of model, but focuses on characterizing climate information uncertainty when advising large-scale, public decision making. We begin by describing forecasted impacts of climate change on the US. Next, techniques to translate these broad climate shifts to the watershed scale in a fashion useful for decision making are described. We then address how best to frame this information for decision makers.

The presentation contains examples of the use of general circulation model output in past water resources studies. The examples highlight how stakeholder engagement in evaluating potential climate change impacts significantly improves the understanding of uncertainty, increasing the likelihood that the results will be used in real decision making. The presentation concludes by discussing limits of these techniques and suggests how such limits may be overcome by the next generation of engineers and scientists.

EAPS in Brief: Atmospheric Chemist Colette Heald

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 07:03:18 GMT

Atmospheric chemist Professor Colette Heald joined MIT this spring as an Assistant Professor with a joint appointment in EAPS and Civil and Environmental Engineering.

She received her BS in Engineering Physcs from Queen's Universityin Kingston, Ontario (she is originally Canadian), in 2000, and a PhD (2005) in Earth and Planetary Science from Harvard where she worked with Professor Daniel J. Jacob on the use of satellite observations of atmospheric composition to quantify the sources and intercontinental export of pollutants. Most recently, after spending two years at the University California Berkeley as a NOAA Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellow where she focused on the sources and climate sensitivity of organic aerosols, Heald was an assistant professor in the Atmospheric Science Department at Colorado State.

Heald is interested in global atmospheric composition and chemistry, and interactions of these with the biosphere and climate system,including the study of both particles and gases in the troposphere, their sources, sinks, transformations, long range transport and environmental impacts. Using observations of the atmosphere at all scales: from ground stations, aircraft campaigns and satellite sensors with global models of chemistry and climate, she works at the intersection of modeling and observational analysis, with a strong emphasis on the integration of the two.

In this short video, Heald talks about the research questions she is working on and the techniques she uses.

You can read more about her work at Atmospheric Chemistry and Composition @ MIT

Knight Seminar: Charles Marshall

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 07:03:29 GMT

Knight seminar with Charles Marshall, Department of Integrative Biology, UC Berkeley: "Gauging Ecosystem Response to Climate Change"

September 22, 2011

Knight Seminar Preview: Charles Marshall

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 20:30:42 GMT

Knight seminar with Charles Marshall, Director, Museum of Paleontology, Department of Integrative Biology, UC Berkeley

"Gauging Ecosystem Response to Climate Change"

September 22, 2011

Weather in a tank

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 07:03:36 GMT

Since 2001, Lodovica Illari and her colleague John Marshall have worked to make rotating fluid dynamics more intuitive for undergraduate students studying weather and climate, using a demonstration aptly named "Weather in a Tank."

Climate

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 07:03:19 GMT

With Ronald Prinn

About the event
With its daylong MIT Environmental Research Forum held on December 15, 2011, the Environmental Research Council (ERC) fulfilled its charge from Provost L. Rafael Reif to "provide a detailed blueprint for building a strong environmental initiative" at MIT.

Coinciding with the Provost's December 7 release of the ERC Report: Implementing the MIT Global Environment Initiative, the forum brought to life the council's vision for a new approach to environmental problem solving — one that integrates MIT's "core strengths in scientific, engineering and social research to better understand the global environment and manage our role in it through technological and social innovation."

Process and Report of the ERC

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 07:03:19 GMT

With Dara Entekhabi

About the event
With its daylong MIT Environmental Research Forum held on December 15, 2011, the Environmental Research Council (ERC) fulfilled its charge from Provost L. Rafael Reif to "provide a detailed blueprint for building a strong environmental initiative" at MIT.

Coinciding with the Provost's December 7 release of the ERC Report: Implementing the MIT Global Environment Initiative, the forum brought to life the council's vision for a new approach to environmental problem solving — one that integrates MIT's "core strengths in scientific, engineering and social research to better understand the global environment and manage our role in it through technological and social innovation."

Provost's Welcome and Introduction to the ERC

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 07:03:19 GMT

L. Rafael Reif discusses the Environmental Research Council (ERC)

Basic Research with Real-World Impact

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 07:03:18 GMT

Community and Communication: Open Panel Discussion

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 07:03:18 GMT

From left to right: John Lienhard, John Sterman, Ernest Moniz, Ronald Prinn, L. Rafael Reif, Dara Entekhabi, James Yoder, Sallie "Penny" Chisholm, James Wescoat, John Marshall

About the event
With its daylong MIT Environmental Research Forum held on December 15, 2011, the Environmental Research Council (ERC) fulfilled its charge from Provost L. Rafael Reif to "provide a detailed blueprint for building a strong environmental initiative" at MIT.

Coinciding with the Provost's December 7 release of the ERC Report: Implementing the MIT Global Environment Initiative, the forum brought to life the council's vision for a new approach to environmental problem solving — one that integrates MIT's "core strengths in scientific, engineering and social research to better understand the global environment and manage our role in it through technological and social innovation."

Contamination Mitigation

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 07:03:18 GMT

Ecological Resilience

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 07:03:18 GMT

With Sallie "Penny" Chisholm

About the event
With its daylong MIT Environmental Research Forum held on December 15, 2011, the Environmental Research Council (ERC) fulfilled its charge from Provost L. Rafael Reif to "provide a detailed blueprint for building a strong environmental initiative" at MIT.

Coinciding with the Provost's December 7 release of the ERC Report: Implementing the MIT Global Environment Initiative, the forum brought to life the council's vision for a new approach to environmental problem solving — one that integrates MIT's "core strengths in scientific, engineering and social research to better understand the global environment and manage our role in it through technological and social innovation."

Industry: Synthetic Chemicals and Materials in the Environment: Do We Need a New Way to Design These Products?

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 07:03:18 GMT

With Philip Gschwend

About the event
With its daylong MIT Environmental Research Forum held on December 15, 2011, the Environmental Research Council (ERC) fulfilled its charge from Provost L. Rafael Reif to "provide a detailed blueprint for building a strong environmental initiative" at MIT.

Coinciding with the Provost's December 7 release of the ERC Report: Implementing the MIT Global Environment Initiative, the forum brought to life the council's vision for a new approach to environmental problem solving — one that integrates MIT's "core strengths in scientific, engineering and social research to better understand the global environment and manage our role in it through technological and social innovation."

Life Sciences: The Human Body: Superhighway of Environmental Gene Flow

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 07:03:18 GMT

With Eric Alm

About the event
With its daylong MIT Environmental Research Forum held on December 15, 2011, the Environmental Research Council (ERC) fulfilled its charge from Provost L. Rafael Reif to "provide a detailed blueprint for building a strong environmental initiative" at MIT.

Coinciding with the Provost's December 7 release of the ERC Report: Implementing the MIT Global Environment Initiative, the forum brought to life the council's vision for a new approach to environmental problem solving — one that integrates MIT's "core strengths in scientific, engineering and social research to better understand the global environment and manage our role in it through technological and social innovation."

Oceans

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 07:03:18 GMT

MIT Environmental Research Forum

Oceans - John Marshall, Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Oceanography, Program in Atmospheres, Oceans and Climate, Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, MIT

Social Policy: Can Adaptation Save Us from Climate Change?

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 07:03:18 GMT

With Michael Greenstone

About the event
With its daylong MIT Environmental Research Forum held on December 15, 2011, the Environmental Research Council (ERC) fulfilled its charge from Provost L. Rafael Reif to "provide a detailed blueprint for building a strong environmental initiative" at MIT.

Coinciding with the Provost's December 7 release of the ERC Report: Implementing the MIT Global Environment Initiative, the forum brought to life the council's vision for a new approach to environmental problem solving — one that integrates MIT's "core strengths in scientific, engineering and social research to better understand the global environment and manage our role in it through technological and social innovation."

Sustainable Societies

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 07:03:18 GMT

With John Sterman

About the event
With its daylong MIT Environmental Research Forum held on December 15, 2011, the Environmental Research Council (ERC) fulfilled its charge from Provost L. Rafael Reif to "provide a detailed blueprint for building a strong environmental initiative" at MIT.

Coinciding with the Provost's December 7 release of the ERC Report: Implementing the MIT Global Environment Initiative, the forum brought to life the council's vision for a new approach to environmental problem solving — one that integrates MIT's "core strengths in scientific, engineering and social research to better understand the global environment and manage our role in it through technological and social innovation."

Technology: Water Supply, Desalination and Energy

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 07:03:18 GMT

With John Lienhard

About the event
With its daylong MIT Environmental Research Forum held on December 15, 2011, the Environmental Research Council (ERC) fulfilled its charge from Provost L. Rafael Reif to "provide a detailed blueprint for building a strong environmental initiative" at MIT.

Coinciding with the Provost's December 7 release of the ERC Report: Implementing the MIT Global Environment Initiative, the forum brought to life the council's vision for a new approach to environmental problem solving — one that integrates MIT's "core strengths in scientific, engineering and social research to better understand the global environment and manage our role in it through technological and social innovation."

Water

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 07:03:18 GMT

With James Wescoat

About the event
With its daylong MIT Environmental Research Forum held on December 15, 2011, the Environmental Research Council (ERC) fulfilled its charge from Provost L. Rafael Reif to "provide a detailed blueprint for building a strong environmental initiative" at MIT.

Coinciding with the Provost's December 7 release of the ERC Report: Implementing the MIT Global Environment Initiative, the forum brought to life the council's vision for a new approach to environmental problem solving — one that integrates MIT's "core strengths in scientific, engineering and social research to better understand the global environment and manage our role in it through technological and social innovation."

Savings Plans and the Climate

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:01:41 GMT

Relating savings strategies to how we address a shifting climate.

Climate's Dusty Clues

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:23:41 GMT

David McGee is a paleoclimatologist whose work focuses on reconstructing past changes in extra tropical atmospheric circulation and hydrology. He has explored this area through studies of dust blown out of the world's drylands and deposited in the ocean; changes in dryland water balance as reflected in closed-basin lakes; and studies of precipitation source and amount recorded in stalagmites. These studies involve a variety of types of data, but at the center of all of them are uranium-series isotopes, which are used for dating in terrestrial deposits and determination of accumulation rates in marine sediments. David joins the PAOC faculty as an assistant professor in January 2012. He comes to MIT from a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Minnesota, where he held a joint appointment at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

Serious Energy, Serious Innovation - Kevin Surace - MIT Club of Northern California

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:08:22 GMT

How Inc Magazine's 2009 Entrepreneur of the Year built a clean energy company
Hear CEO Kevin Surace describe how he injected his entrepreneurial clean tech vision to create the most innovative company ever to hit the building materials industry.

How did Serious Energy bring a high-tech “walk through walls” mentality to the building materials industry in order to challenge technological barriers that have gone unquestioned in the building industry for decades?

How does Serious Energy achieve high-performing, energy-efficient building materials?

Kevin will describe the vision and technology that led Serious Energy to successfully retrofit all 6514 windows on the Empire State Building as well as ship over 2 million energy efficient drywall panels and do 70,000 building projects over the last seven years.

Introducing Atmospheric Chemist Susan Solomon

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 16:22:19 GMT

Susan Solomon is widely recognized as a leader in the field of atmospheric science. She is well known for having pioneered the theory explaining why the ozone hole occurs in Antarctica, and obtaining some of the first chemical measurements that helped to establish the chlorofluorocarbons as its cause. She is also the author of several influential scientific papers in climate science, including one on the irreversibility of the climate change problem, and a popular book on Antarctic history, The Coldest March [selected among '2001 Books of the Year' lists of the New York Times, the Economist (UK), and the Independent (UK)]. Among her many awards, she received the 1999 National Medal of Science (the highest scientific honor in the US), as well as the Grande Medaille (the highest award of the French Academy of Sciences) and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the French Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society, and the Acadameia Europaea. Susan has been a scientist at NOAA since 1981, and an adjoint professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder since 1982. She also co-led Working Group I of the most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize and is the author of several books. Time magazine named Solomon as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2008.

In this interview she talks about her work and some of the things she is looking forward to at MIT as she joins the faculty in January 2012.

A Brit, his computer and prepping for a greenhouse whodunnit

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:46:51 GMT

Matt Rigby is a Research Scientist in the Center for Global Change Science. An atmospheric chemist by training, his particular interest is in determining the sources and sinks of greenhouse gases. To determine their sources and sinks, Rigby uses measurements of the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere together with computer models (a lot like the models used to produce weather forecasts) to work backwards from where a gas is observed to where it must have come from. Doing this he can then seek to work out what the sources are or what the destruction rates for the various gases are.

Computational Sustainability Seminar: Enabling a Sustainable Energy Infrastructure - a role for Information Technology

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:15:48 GMT

Sponsored by CSAIL

David Culler, Professor and Chair of Computer Science
Associate Chair of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
Faculty Director of i4Energy at the University of California, Berkeley

After 150 years of industrial (r)evolution, as we contemplate how to arrest the rise in global temperature we must ask how we can bring Information Technology, which has brought such advances in productivity and performance, to bear on efficiency and sustainability. The problems of energy, climate, and sustainability are not crisp, clean technology challenges; they are complex Cyber-Physical Systems challenges. In this talk, we explore how to apply lessons of the Internet, i.e., design principles for building distributed and robust communications infrastructures, to develop an architecture for a cooperative energy network that promotes reduction in use and penetration of renewable sources. We explore how pervasive information can improve energy production, distribution and use. We investigate how design techniques for scalable, power proportional computing infrastructures can translate to the design of a more scalable and flexible electric infrastructure, encouraging efficient use, integrating local or non-dispatchable generation, and managing demand through awareness of energy availability and use over time. Our approach is to develop a cyber overlay on the energy distribution system in its physical manifestations: machine rooms, buildings, neighborhoods and regional grids. A scaled series of experimental energy networks demonstrate monitoring, negotiation protocols, control algorithms and Intelligent Power Switches integrating information and energy flows in a datacenter, building, and campus. We seek to understand broadly how information enables energy efficiencies: through intelligent matching of loads to sources, via various levels of aggregation, power proportional design, and by managing how and when energy is delivered to demand, adapted in time and form to available supply. Together these offer a path to a comsumer-centric grid with supply-following loads.

Stephanie Dutkiewicz follows the motion of the ocean, its nutrients, and phytoplankton

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 14:43:19 GMT

A research scientist in MIT's Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Science department, Stephanie Dutkiewicz focuses on biogeochemical cycling and phytoplankton distribution in the ocean. Her research follows the circulation of the ocean, from the surface waters to the depths, and back. Within that cycle, Stephanie focuses on another cycle: she models how oceanic circulation affects the flux of carbon and other nutrients, how the consequent availability of these nutrients drives phytoplankton distributions, and how changes in the phytoplankton community in turn drive changes in nutrient distribution.

Stephanie's work begins with 3-Dimensional modeling of how ocean waters move and mix, an effort accomplished through collaboration with MIT research scientist Jeffrey Scott. She then overlays information on how carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and other nutrients move on top of these computer simulations.

Next, Stephanie models the biological component. "The oceans are responsible for about 50% of primary production," explains Stephanie. "So 50% of the sunlight that is taken into the body of plant-like organisms (phytoplankton) occurs in the ocean." These organisms take up carbon and other nutrients and, upon dying, some fraction sink to the bottom of the ocean, carrying those nutrients with them.

But not all phytoplankton are created equal-- some species are better able to act as carbon sinks than others. Phytoplankton structure and type is driven by ocean circulation and the distribution of nutrients. Large species pull more carbon into deep ocean reservoirs when they sink; smaller species less.

As climate change affects ocean circulation and nutrient availability, some species may become "winners", filling ecological niches and spreading to new geographical regions. Other species may die out. Stephanie models how these community structures change in the future, and how those changes in turn affect carbon cycling.

Unfortunately, it seems climate change favors mostly the smaller species, resulting in less of a carbon sink. "Understanding climate change means understanding feedbacks," says Stephanie. "If the ocean takes up less carbon, that's a feedback into the carbon system."

During her 12 years at MIT, Stephanie has contributed to the development of the Joint Program's Integrated Global Systems Model (IGSM) and collaborated with the MIT Climate Modeling Initiative and the Darwin Project. "I really like the group of people I'm working with. Developing this model has been quite exciting-- it's a good place to be."

The Siberian flood basalts and the end-Permian extinction

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:54:07 GMT

A team of researchers from 8 countries is trying to understand the links between the largest continental volcanic eruption (the Siberian flood basalts) and the largest extinction in Earth history (the end-Permian). Funded by NSF, we are in the middle of a five-year interdisciplinary project looking at paleontology, geochronology, crustal rocks, volcanic rocks, paleomagnetism, and gravity to try to understand the connections between these events. This video shows one aspect of our project through our 2010 field trip; more information can be found on siberia.mit.edu.

Doctoral student Timothy Cronin asks how plants affect our climate

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 21:23:42 GMT

Researchers at the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change describe their research and why it is important

Postdoc Qudsia Ejaz counts indirect emissions from biofuels

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 21:13:50 GMT

Researchers from the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change describe their research and why it is important

Research Scientist Erwan Monier examines uncertainty in climate change

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 21:08:00 GMT

Recently promoted from post-doc to research scientist, Dr. Erwan Monier works on quantifying uncertainty in future climate change using model simulations. "There are a lot of things about the earth system that we don't know," explains Erwan, "We have to take uncertainty into account so that we can get at the probability of future climate change." Using tools like the Integrated Global Systems Model (IGSM) framework, Erwan examines potential temperature change ranges based on different emissions scenarios.

For example, Erwan poses questions like: "how probable is it that the US will warm by, say, four degrees by the end of this century?" The Joint Program has done a substantial amount of work on uncertainty in global temperature changes, and Erwan's work continues this line of research on a region by region basis, focusing on specific parts of the world at a time.

"I think this research is very important because this is the type of information that is needed by policy makers so that they can actually make good decisions about what we need to do to reduce climate change," says Erwan. "It's also important for the public, because I think there's a lot of doubts - with these methods you can show that even with a lot of uncertainty, we have ideas of the range of warming that we'll likely see by the end of the century--and you can actually give them numbers."

Erwan and his colleagues also analyze the impact of different policies on future emissions scenarios and the subsequent impact on climate these policies would cause. He is trying to answer questions such as: if specific climate policies are enforced, what will be the expected reduction in emissions, the expected change in temperature, and the expected impacts on climate in terms of such events as floods, droughts, and heat waves?

After running numerous model scenarios and analyzing the data for significant changes in temperature, his preliminary results demonstrate the drastic emissions reductions needed to achieve the 2 degree Celsius target for global warming discussed by policymakers around the world. "Unless we implement really stringent policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the [2 degree Celsius] target will be very difficult to achieve. The aim is to figure out what we need to do to reach those goals and the challenge is how to translate this information into meaningful action." His research also shows that even if the 2 degree target in global warming was reached, many regions of the world would experience much higher warming than 2 degree Celsius and thus suffer serious environmental consequences.

Erwan finds the chance that his research results will be turned into real action much more likely at MIT. Speaking about his opportunities within the Joint Program, Erwan states "We are not just doing science for science; we are actually aiming at using it for action. I think that is very important. And that is something that, for me, is new. I've never really thought about research scientists interacting with policy makers or people in Washington DC. But there are a lot of people at the Joint Program who have a network of people who are directly influenced by the results that we are getting and can actually do something about it."

Bill Joy's Energy Quest

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 04:00:00 GMT

The technologist turned venture capitalist describes his approach to investing in technologies that can avert climate change.

Rethinking Climate Change: The Past 150 Years and the Next 100 Years

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 04:00:00 GMT

04/21/2011 4:00 PM Wong AuditoriumJohn Reilly, Co"director of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change; Senior Lecturer, Sloan School of Management ; Kerry Emanuel, '76, PhD '78, Professor of Atmospheric Science; Ronald Prinn, SCD '71, TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Science, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences; Chris Knittel, William Barton Rogers Professor of Energy Economics, MIT Sloan; School of Management ; Ernest Moniz, Director, MIT Energy Initiative; Sarah Slaughter, 82, SM'87, PhD 91, Associate Director for Buildings & Infrastructure, MIT Energy InitiativeDescription: At a time of great political paralysis around climate change internationally -- and apparent backtracking by American politicians and the public on the science of global warming itself -- there are "reasons to rethink our approach," says moderator John Reilly. He hopes to "create a civil discourse that helps us understand better the varied concerns of people on the topic." Panelists sketch the past, present and future of climate change. Kerry Emanuel reviews the science of climate change, noting that the greenhouse effect discovery dates back to the 18th century, and that by the end of the 19th, scientists had already begun worrying that consumption of fossil fuel and the accompanying release of CO2 would lead to an increase in surface temperatures of 5-6 degrees C. Modern science with its ice core measurements has tracked dramatic temperature changes on earth over tens of millions of years. But the last 100 years have been unprecedented, with the famous hockey stick illustration capturing the connection between human industry and increased CO2 release. When scientists run some models forward, they show temperature increases ranging from 1.5 to 4çC. While these projections contain uncertainty, says Emmanuel, "this does not mean we should do nothing." Diverse climate change reconstructions agree: the warmest years of the past century were 1998, 2005 and 2010. "This is happening in real"time," says Ronald Prinn, and whether or not "Florida has a cold winter," warming is occurring "at a rate that should worry us all." The amount of heat the earth absorbs is simply much greater than it can bounce back into space, courtesy of greenhouse gas already accumulated in the atmosphere, and increasingly, by the secondary impacts of climate change such as the melting of ice sheets. At MIT, Prinn's group runs models that factor in clouds, ocean mixing, and varying levels of greenhouse gas emissions. In a "business as usual" model, with no real efforts to rein in fossil fuel use, Prinn puts the risk of a temperature increase higher than 4çC at 85%. If we manage to stabilize CO2 emissions at 550 parts per million (we're at 472 today), there is still a 25% chance of getting greater than 2çC change. Prinn worries about the instability of the arctic tundra and permafrost, which stores 200 times the amount of current human emissions in carbon, as well as the acidification of oceans, placing plankton, basis of all ocean life, at risk. Against this bleak backdrop, MIT newcomer Chris Knittel describes the policy options for tackling climate change. He acknowledges the "dismal and frustrating science" of environmental economics, which had counted on the equivalent of a carbon tax to discourage carbon emissions, only to meet a wall of political rejection. Carbon pricing lowers demand for the fuel intensive products that matter the most in climate change, and whether in the form of cap and trade, or a direct tax, also spurs technologies aimed at fuel efficiency or encouraging alternative fuels. The nation's fuel standards, set to rise to 35.5 mpg by 2016 are modest, believes Knittel, and subsidies seem to encourage carbon intensive activities rather than reducing them (nb:corn and cellulosic ethanol). States like California are more ambitious, but recent court rulings blocked its cap and trade policy "for environmental justice reasons." "The question is whether we can substantially decrease energy and carbon intensity while accommodating economic growth," says Ernest Moniz. New technologies that emerge must drive the cost of carbon "very, very low" if they are to make a major impact. With cheap coal the primary fuel generating electricity in the U.S., Moniz offers a "Michelin guide type rating" of possible alternative, 'carbon"free' fuels: At the top are renewables such as solar; nuclear; and coal with capture and sequestration. Natural gas doesn't really figure, since it does not wean society effectively from carbon. Moniz believes the best fuel technologies require substantial innovations to bring down their prices. The nuclear industry may want to try small modular reactors of 50"300 megawatts, rather than the 1600 megawatt behemoths that after Fukushima, are even more controversial. Carbon capture and sequestration will require brand new approaches and full"scale testing. Moniz believes solar technology is making the most rapid progress, specifically in silicon photovoltaics, courtesy in part of work in novel materials at MIT. Also, the "global, peanut"sized industry" of batteries may play a "huge role in transforming the picture" of electric vehicles, possibly making them economically feasible in a decade." Sarah Slaughter believes the incredible challenge of climate change might make possible wholesale transformation of infrastructure, energy, and other resource systems. She cites New York City's planning efforts to adapt to sea level rise, which would likely flood the sewer system. All communities must think ahead, for hurricanes, or other disasters likely to flow from warming, but rather than replicate what exists today, says Slaughter, planners should focus on "building the world we want to live in." MIT and its partners around the world hope to develop "ground breaking technologies" to help transform communities and make them safer, and healthier. Slaughter envisions solutions such as district"wide heating and cooling, and describes a system introduced in Kenya that converts agricultural waste into fuel for cooking food. "There is an opportunity to do things right as we move forward," she concludes. About the Speaker(s): Energy, environmental, and agricultural economist John Reilly focuses on understanding the role of human activities as a contributor to global environmental change and the effects of environmental change on society and the economy. A key element of his work is the integration of economic models of the global economy as it represents human activity with models of biophysical systems including the ocean, atmosphere, and terrestrial vegetation. By understanding the complex interactions of human society with our planet, the goal is to aid in the design of policies that can effectively limit the contribution of human activity to environmental change, to facilitate adaptation to unavoidable change, and to understand the consequences of the deployment of large scale energy systems that will be needed to meet growing energy needs.Host(s): School of Science, MIT Energy Initiative

The Role of International Negotiations in Addressing the Climate Challenge

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 04:00:00 GMT

04/21/2011 3:00 PM Wong AuditoriumTodd Stern, US Special Envoy for Climate Change, US Department of StateDescription: With frightening evidence for climate change mounting around the globe, from droughts and massive forest fires to melting glaciers and rising sea levels, you might think nations would wish to work together to meet such a grave threat. Instead, as U.S. climate negotiator Todd Stern reports, there has been only modest progress internationally in facing up to the challenge of climate change. Stern starts by describing the kinds of devastation beginning to ravage the planet and the perils we face as a result. He also acknowledges the shameful drift from fact to opinion among American political leaders when it comes to dealing with the science of climate change, and the companion drop in poll numbers of Americans deeply concerned by the problem. Nevertheless, Stern notes that the Obama administration has remained true to its policy of tackling the problem, focusing on clean energy R&D to transform the economy and cut emissions. He recounts proudly that investments made by the U.S. government are leading to advanced vehicle batteries, electric charging structures over the nation, and a vast increase in energy production from wind, solar and geothermal sources. But progress internationally is much harder to come by. There are deep divisions among nations who gather to discuss the way forward under the umbrella of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). The main cause of acrimony involves a "firewall" between developed and developing nations, which sprang up in 1992 when the UN began work on an international treaty to reduce global warming. According to Stern, developing nations have approached these climate conventions insisting that legally binding commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions fall primarily on developed nations, which are responsible historically for the lion's share of CO2 output. The problem with this argument today, says Stern, is that many of these developing nations have evolved such strong economies in the past decade that they are closing in on developed nations in emissions. Stern believes the U.S. cannot agree to a treaty that doesn't take into account this reality; and that the U.S. must insist instead that certain countries "graduate" from the category of lower to higher emitter when they meet the right criteria, and then assume an appropriate set of obligations. Stern has been involved in international negotiations for a long time, watching the ebb and flow of effort and politics around the climate issue. His hope is that the next UNFCC convention prove "a cooperative and mutually beneficial platform for combating climate change," rather than "a platform focused mostly on rhetorical thrust and parry." About the Speaker(s): Todd Stern plays a central role in developing the U.S. international policy on climate and is the President's chief climate negotiator, representing the United States internationally at the ministerial level in all bilateral and multilateral negotiations regarding climate change. Stern also participates in the development of domestic climate and clean energy policy. Stern brings extensive experience in the private sector and government. Before joining the Obama Administration he was a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he focused on climate change and environmental issues, and a partner at the law firm WilmerHale, where he served as Vice Chair of the Public Policy and Strategy Group. Stern served in the White House from 1993 to 1999. As Staff Secretary, he played a central role in preparing the key issues of domestic, economic and national security policy for the President's decision, as well as handling a number of special assignments. From 1997 to 1999, he coordinated the Administration's initiative on global climate change, acting as the senior White House negotiator at the Kyoto and Buenos Aires negotiations. At Treasury, from 1999 to 2001, Stern advised the Secretary on the policy and politics of a broad range of economic and financial issues, and supervised Treasury's anti"money laundering strategy. Previously, from 1990"93, Stern served as Senior Counsel to Senator Patrick Leahy on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he advised Senator Leahy on intellectual property, telecommunications and constitutional issues. After leaving the government, Stern was an Adjunct Lecturer at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and a Resident Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Stern is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Host(s): School of Science, MIT Energy Initiative

Energy 101: U.S.-China Partnership on Climate Change

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 02:51:12 GMT

In this short interview, Dr. Hengwei Liu addresses the main aspects of a potential U.S.-China Partnership on Climate Change. This video is a follow-up of Dr. Liu's talk for the MIT Energy Club's Energy 101 Series. Dr. Liu is a Research Associate at TUFTS University and one of the Co-founders of MIT-China Energy and Environment Research Group (MIT-CEER). Video by Cristina Botero, cbotero@mit.edu, April 2011

Master's student Paul Kishimoto makes complex climate and economic models user-friendly

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 18:51:40 GMT

Researchers from the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change describe their research and why it is important

Master's student CuiCui Chen examines the future role of biofuels

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 17:58:13 GMT

Originally from China, Cuicui Chen joined the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change as a Masters degree candidate in the fall of 2010. Before arriving at the Joint Program Cuicui studied carbon abatement policies, but became interested in biofuels when she recognized the large role they played in an energy-constrained world, and the much-debated implications biofuel production has on food and land issues. She is currently researching the economics of biofuel and working to develop representation of the biofuels sector in the Emissions Prediction and Policy Analysis (EPPA) model.

Cuicui earned her undergraduate degree at Tsinghua University in China in environmental engineering, but was drawn to the Joint Program because she found that "at least in China, some environmental problems cannot be solved with only technology or engineering; economics and politics also play a very important role in environmental problem solving."

One of the questions she is trying to answer with her current research is: how will the Renewable Fuel Standard in the US and the Renewable Energy Directive in the EU affect biofuel production, and what will the implications for food prices and land use change be?

The first step in determining how climate or energy policies will influence the development of the biofuel sector is modifying the EPPA model to accurately incorporate biofuels policies and production. "I am trying to make EPPA more realistic and more meaningful in terms of representing biofuel policies and technologies," explains Cuicui. This information will be important to biofuel producers and will inform policy decisions on renewable energy.

Upon completing her Masters program, Cuicui plans on continuing her education with a PhD in economics. She hopes to work on environmental and development economics in developing countries.

Master's student Megan Lickley measures the risks of climate change on coastal energy infrastructure

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 21:33:48 GMT

A Masters student in the Technology and Policy Program, Megan Lickley studies the impact of climate change on coastal energy infrastructure. In particular, she is looking at how sea level rise and hurricanes will change over time, and how these changes will affect petroleum refineries, offshore wind facilities, or nuclear power plants located along the eastern US coast.

Prior to joining the Joint Program, Megan used her background in mathematics and modeling to study ocean dynamics and tidal power in her native Canada. Now in the preliminary stages of her work, she is using different models to anticipate how hurricane frequency and intensity will change over the coming century in order to analyze the amount of potential storm surge that could threaten energy infrastructure along the coast.

"It is an interesting problem when you're looking at economics too," explains Megan. "We must not only look at existing infrastructure, but we also need to consider future developments to understand what infrastructure could be in harm's way in the next 50, 100 years. Information on the impacts of climate change will be useful for the Department of Energy as they make decisions on where to invest in future developments and to what extent they should be investing in flood protection from sea level rise and storm surge."

Megan became interested in her project when she visited the Joint Program. "This is a very stimulating group to be a part of," notes Megan. "There is a variety of work going on surrounding emissions scenarios and policy and their resulting impacts on climate change. These are the big questions of the future that we should be addressing now and I am excited to be surrounded by people looking to address these questions."

Doctoral Student Dan Chavas asks how meteorological changes affect hurricane size

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 21:18:35 GMT

A self-described 'weather geek', doctoral candidate Dan Chavas is fascinated by hurricanes. More specifically, he is interested in what factors influence hurricane development and how large a given storm will become. As he describes, "right now, we have no capacity to predict how big or small a hurricane will be. Sometimes they're big; often they're small. I am trying to understand the mechanisms and processes that determine the size of a particular hurricane."

Using weather models, Dan is investigating how specific changes in meteorological conditions impact the final size of an eventual hurricane. By relating initial weather conditions to the final storms that they produce, Dan hopes to improve our ability to predict how large forming storms will eventually become. "If we can predict that," he explains, "it's useful because these storms impact people's lives--they make landfall and destroy things, and a bigger storm affects a bigger area." By allowing us to predict the final size of a forming storm, Dan's work may enable us to better prepare for and respond to emerging hurricanes. As both the frequency and intensity of severe weather events could increase with climate change, this predictive capacity may become increasingly important.

Discussing his work, Dan describes hurricane research as an "open area," saying, "There is a lot of research to be done in the field, which makes it kind of exciting... we still don't really understand how hurricanes form; we are not very good at predicting when they are going to get stronger or weaker. There are a lot of fundamental things that we don't understand still." For this reason, he may continue to study how hurricanes develop after completing his doctorate. However, Dan is also interested in the policy side of things and would like to work at the nexus where science meets decision-making. For now, Dan is enjoying his work with the Joint Program and being involved with "a lot of interesting people doing a lot of interesting work."

Spring 2011, by Danya Rumore

Air Pollution Trends and Impacts: Assessing Transportation in Context of Global Change

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 04:00:00 GMT

03/29/2011 4:00 PM Noelle Eckley Selin, Assistant Professor; Engineering Systems Division; Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary SciencesDescription: It is a complicated matter mapping the movement of pollution in the atmosphere, but Noelle Eckley Selin models not just the chemistry of the atmosphere as it absorbs emissions and responds to climate change, but its potential impact over time on human health and world economies. She takes a systems approach "to understanding how past, present and future human activities influence pollution, and its impact." Her goal: to provide good science for policy decisions. Selin notes the dominating contribution of motor vehicles to air pollution. Something like 56% of nitrous oxides (NOx) flow from cars and trucks, and more from construction, lawn and garden equipment. These gases form smog and ozone, which constitute a major threat to human health, in the form of increased cases of asthma and cardiovascular disease, she says. The EPA has "ratcheted down" its allowance of permissible NOx emissions, and for particulates, but, Selin says, recent health research "suggests there is no threshold for ozone damages beyond background level." Pollution impact of these gases is a moving target not just in health research, but also around climate change, where ozone and particulates are known "climate forcers." However, says Selin, the feedbacks between climate and emissions are quite complicated, and "a policy win on climate doesn't necessarily mean a win on air pollution." To help achieve "win"win scenarios" addressing both air pollution and climate, Selin and her colleagues are hard at work on a battery of studies that couple methodologies, modeling air pollution impacts on the economy ("looking at how economic activities and choices influence pollution controls;" projecting health effects of ozone and particulates concentrations in 16 global regions; and the negative economic impacts resulting from pollution related health issues. Unlike other work that focuses on running scenarios focused on single topics, Selin says, "We're taking multiple models, to give more of a range of expected outcomes. We're developing ways to deal with scale, uncertainty, and computational issues." Integrating models from the social sciences and atmospheric sciences, and factoring in uncertainties, Selin's group hopes to offer reasonably accurate pictures of impacts globally through mid"century. Studies focused on Europe show economic and health costs of air pollution in the hundreds of billions of dollars, with damages steadily accumulating. Pollution hampers economic growth, and mortality rises as well worldwide. Conversely, vehicle pollution controls, muzzling emissions, can keep economies moving. About the Speaker(s): Noelle Eckley Selin uses atmospheric chemistry modeling to inform decision"making strategies on climate change, and air and mercury pollution. She received her Ph.D. in 2007 from Harvard University in Earth and Planetary Sciences. Prior to that, she was a research associate with the Initiative on Science and Technology for Sustainability at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. She has also been a visiting researcher at the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen, Denmark, and have worked on chemicals issues at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.Host(s): School of Engineering, Transportation@MIT

Master's student Caleb Waugh studies the impact of air pollutant emission policies on the adaptation of alternative vehicles

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 17:20:34 GMT

fall, Caleb Waugh will graduate with a Masters degree from the Technology and Policy Program at MIT. His research focuses on the impact of alternative vehicles--such as hybrid or plug-in hybrid vehicles--on emissions of greenhouse gases and air quality pollutants, and the impact of those emissions on the economy. While at the Joint Program, Caleb worked to develop a framework within the Emissions Prediction and Policy Analysis (EPPA) model to examine air pollutant abatement costs and the kind of policies needed to influence adaptation of alternative vehicles.

"To get some of these alternative technologies adopted, you need policy to provide some sort of an incentive," explains Caleb. "If it is the case that alternative drive-train vehicles really would decrease carbon emissions or air quality emissions in a cost effective manner, then the adoption of those vehicles would be a good thing and it would be nice to know what sort of policy incentives we would need to get them adopted."

The significance of Caleb's research is that it provides a decision-making framework for policymakers. "Instead of just hypothesizing on whether a certain policy will have a certain effect, we can actually go in and conduct a rigorous analysis of a specific policy. In this case, my work will help policymakers or companies and businesses that are interested in adoption of alternative vehicles understand what sort of policy environment they might need for the vehicles to penetrate the market. The results also allow us to see how much these vehicles could reduce emissions."

With Caleb's model developments, researchers will be able to perform integrated assessment ofmany different climate, air pollution, and energy policies simultaneously in a single modeling frameworkIn addition to studying the effects or air pollution policy on alternative vehicle adoption, there are additional benefits to having detailed representation of air pollutant abatement opportunities in the EPPA model, such as the ability to analyze human health benefits of air pollution policy.

With his background in electrical engineering and his strong interests in the economic and environmental impacts of energy, Caleb was a key contributor to Joint Program research. "Working in the Joint Program has been an absolute privilege," Caleb notes. "They are a wonderful group of people. We work hard but we also have a lot of fun... a lot of having a wonderful graduate school experience isn't so much the research as the people that you are working with, and I couldn't think of a better group of people to work with as a graduate student."

Environmental Energy Economist Niven Winchester investigates the economic impacts of climate policies

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 17:16:32 GMT

A visiting scientist since June 2009, Niven Winchester has officially joined the Joint Program as an Environmental Energy Economist. A native of New Zealand, Niven broadly focuses his research on evaluating the economic costs and impacts of climate change policies and new technologies. Currently, he is interested in how climate policies affect what is called 'leakage': the shifting of greenhouse gas emissions from nations with stricter climate policies to countries without climate policies.

One proposed policy option for reducing this 'leakage' is to impose border carbon adjustments, such as tariffs on embodied greenhouse gases. For example, nations with climate policies may place a tax on imported goods to adjust for the greenhouse gases that would have been emitted if the products had been produced domestically. Interested in the effectiveness of this type of policy, Niven is exploring how tariffs actually impact leakage, and at what economic costs (See Report Summary 192 on Page 5).

To examine the effects of policies like carbon tariffs, Niven and his colleagues in the Joint Program employ large-scale models of the world's economy, "building up, layer-by-layer, pieces of information about different aspects of the climate story, about different technologies or different policies" in order to understand how policy changes and technological developments will impact both greenhouse gas emissions and the economy.

Niven's work suggests that carbon tariffs can cause significant economic distortions and may not be good for overall economic activity. Based upon these findings, Niven reasons that encouraging nations without climate policies to adopt minor efficiency actions--rather than imposing carbon tariffs on imported goods from these nations--will likely be a more cost-effective way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, particularly in developing countries.

Given the lack of political progress on federal climate policies, Niven and his colleagues are now shifting their focus toward analyzing alternative policies, such as bio-fuel mandates and state-level programs. According to Niven, the modeling framework can not only be employed to analyze the impacts of particular technological developments or climate policies, but it also "can be used to look at the impact of climate change if we don't do any action."

Master's student Arthur Gueneau models potential impacts on agricultural yield

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 17:07:05 GMT

A Masters student in MIT's Technology and Policy Program, Joint Program research assistant Arthur Gueneau studies the impacts of climate change on agriculture. Originally from France, Arthur is driven by the question: "How do we feed the world? How do we feed nine billion people in 2050?" This is a particularly important question given changing climatic conditions.

Seeking to improve our understanding of how climate change will impact future agricultural yields, Arthur is currently in the process of validating a new model, called CliCrop, which calculates crop yields based upon climatic information. To do this, he plugs historical meteorological data for a given year into CliCrop and then compares the model's projected crop yields with actual crop data that was recorded in that year. By comparing the model's outputs with actual historical crop yield data, Arthur can verify how accurately the model calculates agricultural yield based upon climatic variables, such as precipitation and temperature.

His findings for far? "The model seems to be relevant; it seems to be working."

Once CliCrop is validated, the next step will be to insert global climate projections into the model to see how future changes in precipitation and temperature will affect regional agricultural yields. Improving our understanding of how climate change will impact crop production throughout the world will allow us to better prepare for the effects of 'climate stress' on the food system and to develop new policies and adaptation strategies accordingly.

When asked about his work with the Joint Program, Arthur says, "I love what I am doing because it is really interesting and it has lots of impacts." For this reason, he plans to continue studying the potential impacts of climate change on agriculture and is particularly interested in exploring possible adaptation strategies for increasing agricultural resilience to climate stress.

DUE Tackling Big Problems

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 16:32:38 GMT

Technology Day 1993 - "Riding the Wave of Innovation: The Ocean and MIT"

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 20:51:49 GMT

MIT's 1993 Technology Day, on the theme "Riding the Wave of Innovation: The Ocean and MIT," takes place on June 4, 1993. Speakers featured in the morning symposium include Sylvia Earle, "Exploring the Ocean with Unmanned Vehicles;" Robert Spindel, "Measuring the Ocean Environment;" Carl Wunsch '62, "Effects of the Ocean on Global Climate;" William Koch '62, "Technology for the America's Cup." Francis Ogilvie is the moderator. The event concludes with Paul Gray accepting for MIT two gifs from America's Cup winner Bill Koch '62: a boat model of "America [Cubed]" (the winning boat designed at MIT) given to the MIT Hart Nautical Collections, and a half-scale silver model of the America's Cup Trophy given to the MIT Athletic Department. [ T3051, T3052, T3053]

Jen Morris- Climate Policy Design

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 17:31:34 GMT

Students and researchers from the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change talk about their research and why it's important.

Economic Policy Challenges: Microeconomics and Regulation

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 05:00:00 GMT

01/27/2011 3:45 PM KresgeNancy L. Rose, PhD '85, Charles P. Kindleberger Professor of Applied Economics, MIT; Dennis W. Carlton, SM '74 PhD '75, Katherine Dusak Miller Professor of Economics,; Booth School of Business, University of Chicago; Richard Schmalensee, '65 PhD '70, Howard W. Johnson Professor of Economics and Management, MIT; Hal Varian, '69, Chief Economist, Google; Mark McClellan, PhD '93, Leonard D. Schaeffer Chair in Health Policy Studies, Brookings InstitutionDescription: Given its contributions to policy and practice in such key sectors as healthcare, industrial organization and technological innovation, and energy and the environment, microeconomics may not be getting the kind of respect, or at least attention, it deserves, these panelists suggest. The field helped "produce a revolution in antitrust thinking" in the U.S., says Dennis Carlton. Since the 1960s, the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission have tapped the talent of dozens of PhD economists, who came up with notions like offering incentives (by way of lower fines and leniency) to those who admit participating in corporate cartels. This "simple idea" led to regulatory policy "with large payoffs," says Carlton. Simulations and modeling help determine whether the government will approve a merger, or step in when corporations become too big. "Emerging hot topics" in antitrust and industrial organization include the use of product bundling; patent law, especially in high tech; control and use of information over the internet; and privacy issues. Richard Schmalensee calls attention to microeconomics' generally unrecognized impact on energy and environmental regulations. For instance, cost benefit analysis was applied to the process of making federal environmental rules, and is now "a bipartisan thing a part of good government." And much of the country moved away from a traditional model of regulating electric utilities, giving greater scope to competition, after some deep economic thinking about incentives. That's the good news. Schmalensee finds it "frankly amazing" and occasionally infuriating how economic thinking has not been applied to energy and environmental policy: the idea of drilling our way to energy independence; and the pursuit of renewable energy as a way of tackling climate change while side"stepping market mechanisms to achieve environmental goals. Schmalensee says he loves "the sun and the wind, but let's get serious." "We live in a time of combinatorial innovation," says Hal Varian, where digital age inventors can combine components in novel ways, across great distances, in real time. Even small companies "can be born global," says Varian, becoming in effect "micro multinationals." Varian sees a transformation of business processes, a "nanoeconomics of the firm," where the highly networked, computerized organization "makes life more efficient." There are hundreds of billions in savings when knowledge workers can instantly track information on the web, he says, and host master copies of work "in the cloud" rather than on paper. Another hallmark of the new organization, exemplified by his company Google, is "experimentation and continuous improvement," accomplished by such technologies as search engines and voice recognition software that learn on the go. Varian sees econometrics as particularly useful in modeling new ventures, and believes that the increasing amount of data generated by the private sector could soon prove useful to the federal government, "enabling a better handle on what's going on in the economy." Economic modeling had a tremendous impact on healthcare reform legislation, and as public debate rages, economic analysis remains essential in determining which policies will prove practicable, says Mark McClellan. Some key questions awaiting evidence and investigation: On the supply side, can changing the way providers get paid (traditionally fee for service) stem rising health care costs? On the demand side, will consumers accept health insurance plans designed around payment tiers intended to reduce use, with greater out of pocket costs for beneficiaries? An instructive model for setting up a system offering choice and cost efficiencies may be the 2006 Medicare prescription drug benefit, which McClellan himself implemented. Seniors overwhelmingly switched to cheaper generic and preferred drugs offered by their plans. While government subsidized, the program "is currently running 40% below actuarial and CBO projections." About the Speaker(s): Nancy Lin Rose is also Director of the National Bureau of Economic Research program in Industrial Organization. Rose's research focuses on the empirical analysis of firm behavior and the economics of regulation. Rose was a faculty member of the MIT Sloan School of Management from 1985"1997, and has been a member of MIT's Department of Economics faculty since 1994. She received the MIT Undergraduate Economics Association Teaching Award in 2000 and 2004. Rose was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2004"2005, a George and Karen McCown Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Hoover Institution in 2000" 2001, and fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences in 1993"94. She is the recipient of a Faculty Award for Women Scientists and Engineers from the National Science Foundation as well as faculty fellowships from the John M. Olin Foundation and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. She has served on the Board of Editors of the American Economic Review and the Journal of Industrial Economics and as associate editor for several journals. Rose has been on the American Economic Association Executive Committee, the Board of the AEA's Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession, and on program committees for the AEA and the Econometric Society annual meetings. She serves as an independent director for CRA International and Sentinel Investments Funds. Host(s): Office of the President, MIT150 Inventional Wisdom

John Sterman - "A Banquet of Consequences" - 2010 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 18:20:49 GMT

"A Banquet of Consequences: Systems Thinking and Modeling for Climate Policy" is a presentation given by John Sterman, Jay W. Forrester Professor of Managment, MIT Sloan School of Management; Professor of System Dynamics and Engineering Systems, MIT; Director, MIT System Dynamics Group at the MIT System Design and Management's 2010 Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges Conference on October 21, 2010. Please reference the link below for John Sterman's presentation http://sdm.mit.edu/systems_thinking_conference_2010/presentations/sterman.pdf

Report Card on President Obama: MIT Experts Assess President Obama on Afghanistan, Climate, and the Economy

Tue, 09 Nov 2010 05:00:00 GMT

11/09/2010 4:30 PM Bartos theaterRichard Samuels, Ph D, '80, Ford International Professor of Political Science, Director, Center for International Studies; Henry D. Jacoby, Professor of Management, MIT Sloan; Barry Posen, Ford International Professor of Political Science at MIT, Director Security Studies Program; Simon Johnson, Ronald A. Kurtz (1954) Professor of Entrepreneurship, Professor of Global Economics and Management, MIT Sloan School of ManagementDescription: President Obama scored abysmally on his mid"terms. A trio of MIT professors renders harsh judgment on the president half"way through his administration, and their assessments may leave listeners "weeping or depressed," in the words of moderator Richard Samuels. National security expert Barry Posen reviews the administration's strategy and implementation of the war in Afghanistan. This conflict was adopted by the president and many Democrats as "the right war" following the wrong"headed invasion of Iraq, says Posen. But after investing tens of thousands more troops, and nearly $100 billion a year in Afghanistan, there remains uncertainty about how to complete the mission: to clear out the Taliban, secure critical regions, and build up a successful Afghan police force and government. While the Pentagon seems to support an "open"ended project aimed at defeating the Taliban," the president appears intent on limiting the venture, with the aim of drawing down troops beginning in July 2011. But Posen is skeptical of the overall project: Afghan politics are corrupt, rife with ethnic rivalries, and the administration is incompetent, so the idea of setting up a government "to compete with the Taliban probably won't work well." Though there are frequent reports of killing Taliban leaders, "many doubt the Taliban can be killed off as fast they regenerate," and there is little chance of serious negotiation with them. The creation of a functioning Afghanistan "looks like a costly, lengthy gamble," but the strategy is driven by politics, says Posen: "Democrats are quite concerned not to appear authors of defeat." The U.S. missed a vital opportunity to take the lead in addressing climate change, says Henry "Jake" Jacoby. Early on, the Obama administration "hurt prospects for progress," putting healthcare reform first when it had a choice between "the health of the people and the planet." And the administration didn't forcefully back either the House or Senate versions of climate legislation, which attempted to produce an "economically rational" approach to pricing greenhouse gas emissions. Then came the recession, which doomed any chance for moving climate legislation forward, since it "made imposing costs very difficult," says Jacoby. What troubles him more is that the Obama administration has essentially "given the pulpit over to people against any action, and deniers." Republicans seem to be winning the war of public opinion, claiming that measures against climate change will strangle the economy, and are now pressing to relieve the EPA of its power to regulate CO2. The "outlook is dark," says Jacoby. "The word carbon is not said in polite company, and won't be said in Washington." While it is a "terrific achievement" that we avoided another Great Depression, Simon Johnson is still "giving out failing grades" to this administration. Although Obama and his economic advisers basically got it right with the stimulus, they shockingly departed from best practices around banking policy, he believes. When major banks flounder, you close some of them down, fire managers, eliminate boards of directors, but "whatever you do, you cannot provide these banks with an unconditional bailout," he says. Rewarding banks for bad behavior is plain shocking and leaves us in "a very awkward and unpleasant position." By making banks too big to fail and sidestepping tough financial reform, he says, recovered banks will fight all the harder against any effort to be reined in. "By building implicit subsidy schemes into the structures in which banks survive," we are stuck with "a few banks with excessive power," and the "administration is responsible for setting us up for serious trouble down the road." About the Speaker(s): Richard J. Samuels is also the Founding Director of the MIT Japan Program. In 2001 he became Chairman of the Japan"US Friendship Commission, an independent Federal grant"making agency that supports Japanese studies and policy"oriented research in the United States. In 2005 he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Samuels served as Head of the MIT Department of Political Science between 1992"1997 and as Vice"Chairman of the Committee on Japan of the National Research Council until 1996. Grants from the Fulbright Commission, the Abe Fellowship Fund, the National Science Foundation, and the Smith Richardson Foundation have supported nine years of field research in Japan. Samuels' next book, Securing Japan, will be published in 2007 by Cornell University Press. His previous books include Machiavelli's Children: Leaders and Their Legacies in Italy and Japan, a comparative political and economic history of political leadership in Italy and Japan,and "Rich Nation, Strong Army": National Security and the Technological Transformation of Japan,and The Business of the Japanese State: Energy Markets in Comparative and Historical Perspective. His articles have appeared in International Organization, Foreign Affairs, International Security, The Journal of Modern Italian Studies,and The Journal of Japanese Studies. Samuels received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1980.Host(s): School of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences, Center for International Studies

The Energy/Climate-Change Challenge and the Role of Nuclear Energy in Meeting It

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 04:00:00 GMT

10/25/2010 4:00 PM Wong AuditoriumThe Honorable John P. Holdren, '65, SM '66, Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the PresidentDescription: In a meaty lecture that serves as a concise and comprehensive primer on the twin challenge of energy and environment, John Holdren lays out the difficult options for contending with a world rapidly overheating. "There is no question the world is growing hotter," says Holdren, "and we do have a pretty good handle on influences on climate that are changing the average temperature of the Earth," he says. Since the mid"19th century, there has been a 20"fold increase in the world's use of energy, the preponderance of which comes from burning fossil fuels. The U.S. is 82% dependent on these fuels, and the rest of the world is racing to catch up. If all nations continue business as usual, says Holdren, by 2030 energy use will increase by about 60% over 2005 levels, with fossil fuels comprising about 70% of world energy use. While there is legitimate concern about the economic, political and security risks of fossil fuel dependence, he says, CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions that result from fossil fuel combustion pose an immense, immediate threat to the planet. From urban and regional air pollution to massive wildfires and fierce storms that bring coastal inundation, dramatic climate disruption is upon us and demands action now. In order to avoid the biggest risks, such as a temperature increase of several degrees centigrade, we must "sharply change the ratio of energy used essentially immediately," Holdren says. But it would cost around $15 trillion to convert the world's fossil fuel dependent energy system into something less destructive, and this conversion would take too long, even if nations could agree on an alternative system. So we are confronted with striking a balance between mitigation and adaptation. Scientists think stabilizing CO2 emissions at 450 parts per million by 2030 might give humanity a shot at avoiding a planet with temperatures as high as those 30 million years ago (when crocodiles swam off Greenland and palm trees swayed in Wyoming). Looking to cut CO2 emissions drastically, the Obama Administration is intent on achieving changes in vehicle fuel efficiency, promoting public transportation and other measures. But realistically, adaptation must also come into play, including changes in agricultural practices, engineering defenses against rising coastal waters, and warding off tropical diseases. The longer we wait, says Holdren, the more expensive mitigation and adaptation become. The wrenching changes needed across the board to reach the ambitious goal of 450 ppm require "barrier"busting incentives," and cannot be accomplished without eliminating "perverse incentives" that encourage business as usual. Holdren believes carbon pricing is essential and inevitable, despite the current climate in Washington. Nuclear power has a critical role to play in this transformation -- including the elusive goal of fusion reactors -- but it must be part of a larger surge in R&D spending on new energy technology ($15 billion versus the current $4 billion per year). The political will to meet this challenge remains a sticking point, and so scientists must do a better job explaining climate change to people, says Holdren. Since there is no silver bullet for the problem, he concludes, "we have got to do it all. If you look at the magnitude of the challenge and the amount by which we must reduce the ratio of greenhouse gas emissions to useful energy supplied to the economy, we can leave no stone unturned, and that's what we're trying to get done." About the Speaker(s): John P. Holdren, President Obama's "Science Czar," previously served as Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy and Director of the Program on Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, as well as professor in Harvard's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Director of the independent, nonprofit Woods Hole Research Center. From 1973 to 1996 he was on the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, where he co"founded and co"led the interdisciplinary graduate"degree program in energy and resources. Holdren holds advanced degrees in aerospace engineering and theoretical plasma physics from MIT and Stanford and has specialized in energy technology and policy, global climate change, and nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as foreign member of the Royal Society of London. A former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, his awards include a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship, the John Heinz Prize in Public Policy, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, and the Volvo Environment Prize. He served from 1991 until 2005 as a member of the MacArthur Foundation's board of trustees.Host(s): School of Engineering, Nuclear Science and Engineering

Reclaiming the Moral Life of Philanthropy

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 04:00:00 GMT

09/27/2010 4:30 PM e14"633Gara LaMarche, President and CEO, The Atlantic PhilanthropiesDescription: Gara LaMarche believes the nation's charitable organizations have lost "moral clarity," growing more concerned with "the fix, the intervention, than about reasons for doing or caring about what is right." After many decades laboring in large, private foundations, LaMarche has an intimate perspective on this drift in philanthropic mission and practice. He draws several telling examples from his own experience. As head of the Texas Civil Liberties Union in the mid"1980s, LaMarche failed to sway diehard capital punishment legislators with the "traditional ACLU rights talk," which was viewed either as starry"eyed idealism or dangerous radicalism. He took a radically different tack, and "argued in pragmatic practical terms" that the state couldn't afford to imprison so many, and that depriving prisoners of educational opportunities merely forced released inmates back to crime. This argument prevailed briefly, during a tough fiscal climate, but when the state was flush, it invested in more prisons. The result: Texas today holds four times as many prisoners as it did 20 years ago. LaMarche says "Pragmatic terms didn't work." His Atlantic Philanthropies poured millions into comprehensive health reform legislation, which resulted in the "most significant advance for the social safety net in over 40 years." Yet the law yielded no political benefits, says LaMarche, because the administration "erred in framing the healthcare campaign largely around costs, not around morality and justice." As a result, there is no match for the backlash -- "ferocious passion" around the issue of governmental and fiscal overreach. LaMarche also cites immigration reform as a case where philanthropy could have spurred action based on the "scope of injustice," but instead relied on political tactics, such as splitting conservatives, and "fixing a broken system." Technocracy, he says, "is no match for the virulent passion of the other side." Philanthropies have become sidetracked by public opinion and establishing metrics for their performance. They retreat to safe positions, and "erode what moral authority they have" by protecting their own self"interest, especially around tax distinctions. LaMarche says it is possible to strike a balance between the goals of effective philanthropy, and tackling social inequities and large, complex problems such as climate change. This means speaking out in the current "toxic political environment" with a coherent world view about "what is right," while not getting lost in polling and problem"solving, which risks "losing what gains we've made because the story of which those are part has no moral." About the Speaker(s): Gara LaMarche leads The Atlantic Philanthropies, an international grantmaking foundation dedicated to bringing about lasting changes in the lives of disadvantaged and vulnerable people. Atlantic focuses on four critical social challenges: Ageing, Children & Youth, Population Health, and Reconciliation & Human Rights. LaMarche joined Atlantic in April 2007 to lead the organization through its final chapter as the foundation plans to disburse its remaining endowment and complete active grantmaking by 2016. Before joining Atlantic, LaMarche served as Vice President and Director of U.S. Programs for the Open Society Institute, established by George Soros. Earlier, he was Associate Director of Human Rights Watch, and served in a variety of positions with the American Civil Liberties Union. LaMarche has written numerous articles on human rights and social justice issues for major national publications, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post. He serves on the boards of StoryCorps, The White House Project, the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy and the Leadership Council of Hispanics in Philanthropy.Host(s): School of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences, Center for International Studies

Looking Ahead to the Future of NASA

Mon, 10 May 2010 04:00:00 GMT

05/10/2010 3:00 PM 32"123Gen. Charles Bolden, NASA AdministratorDescription: From the MIT News Office: NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden Jr. defended President Barack Obama's controversial plans for the U.S. space agency's future and touted the president's plan to invest billions of dollars in basic science research. Some in Congress have criticized Obama's proposal to cancel the Constellation program, which would have sent humans to the moon by 2020, saying such a move will effectively cede U.S. space leadership to other nations. But Bolden noted that the White House's plan would also invest an additional $6 billion in NASA over the next five years, including a 60"percent increase in earth sciences research funding, as well as a 20"percent increase in planetary sciences research. Such an expansion could revitalize NASA's ties with institutions like MIT, which has played an instrumental role in the agency since NASA was founded in 1958. Bolden said NASA was going through what he called a "difficult, but very interesting" period. As a former astronaut who completed four space flights, Bolden expressed sadness about the prospect of ending NASA's space"shuttle fleet, admitting he is "emotionally attached" to the shuttle program. But he insisted that NASA is "committed" to Obama's new era of space exploration, which calls for a flexible path approach for NASA to gain progressively more experience, such as a lunar fly"by or exploration of asteroids, before making a trip to Mars. The plan also calls for developing a "heavy"lift" system to launch spacecraft into deep space, as well as technologies to protect humans from long"term radiation. In the future, NASA would lease vehicles from private companies to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station. "The president, with my full agreement, made a change - a big change," Bolden said of Obama's decision to undertake a new direction for NASA, adding that the agency's fundamental goal "to boldly advance the human presence beyond the cradle of Earth," has not changed, and that Mars remains an "especially compelling target." Bolden outlined several tracks that NASA has proposed to achieve its goals, such as developing robotic technologies to scout new targets and test precision landings. He said the agency remains focused on using the International Space Station to learn more about human health issues, referring to ongoing work by ISS researchers to develop a salmonella vaccine. He pledged NASA's commitment to develop a commercial launch industry for carrying humans into low Earth orbit, but said that the agency was still fine"tuning specific operations details, such as whether a crew would be trained at NASA facilities. He also said the agency was honoring Obama's request to collaborate with other countries like Saudi Arabia to foster science research. When pressed to name a timetable for a manned mission to Mars, Bolden said it was "pretty vague," but that if NASA started to develop the architecture for a heavy"lift launch vehicle right now, it could be as soon as the early 2020s that a spacecraft orbits the moon, and maybe 2025 for a spacecraft or robot to land on an asteroid. Those advances could make travel to Mars a reality by 2030, he said. Host(s): School of Engineering, Massachusetts Space Grant Consortium

The Clean Energy Revolution

Mon, 03 May 2010 04:00:00 GMT

05/03/2010 4:30 PM Copley Place MarriottBrian Dumaine, Sr., Editor at Large, Fortune Magazine; Nancy Floyd, Founder & Managing Director Nth Power; Scott Stern, Visiting Professor, MIT Sloan School of Management; Kevin Surace, CEO, Serious MaterialsDescription: Beyond guts, a great business plan, and friends with deep pockets, clean energy entrepreneurs will need patience and perhaps most of all, a favorable policy environment to succeed. Fortune magazine editor Brian Dumaine leads a discussion with panelists from the worlds of venture capital, academia and industry on "how to build a winning green tech company." Nancy Floyd sees talented and practical entrepreneurs "solving problems we see in front of us." Some of these may be "game changers," although they are "certainly not science experiments." Her firm insists that investment"worthy renewable energy ventures must not pose an additional cost premium, which means that projects must be "at grid parity or below." She also dismisses the notion that a great idea will be totally disruptive, completely upending or bypassing current powers in the energy and utility industries. "I think that's a stupid strategyYou need to engage those incumbents in a smart way. That's the only way to get companies launched here." The good news is that there are "many, many companies requiring less than $50 million that may have a huge impact on core technologies." Kevin Surace's company replaced 6,500 windows on the Empire State Building with new energy efficient glass, saving the owner $410 thousand per year. Green tech, he passionately believes, "has to pay back, and pay back fast, or cost less up front." Government subsidies for energy conservation, and public incentives for consumers to buy green don't last forever, so entrepreneurs need to create a cost"saving product that will sell itself. Surace sees market"friendly green tech as vital to turning around the U.S. economy, bringing manufacturing back home, and reducing the nation's $16 trillion debt. But while he believes that "the best business plans don't require government intervention," Surace acknowledges not only the necessity of government backing in such giant energy startups as solar installations, but a wholesale shift in the regulatory environment. "The solution to all of this nobody wants to talk about is a carbon tax." "We need an ecosystem for energy that is more developed," agrees Scott Stern, who worries that the U.S. has squandered its global leadership role in addressing climate change, and is currently in political gridlock around comprehensive energy and climate change legislation. In spite of this paralysis, Stern recommends that entrepreneurs look ahead and invent for the future. "Right now, we have bad prices for carbon We must think down the road: How will the institutional environment for paying for energy change over time, and how will the institutional environment for supporting energy infrastructure change?" Stern suggests that eventually, society will recognize that the cost of emitting carbon will be more expensive than a carbon tax. This is a long"term challenge that poses an opportunity to entrepreneurs to develop "a range of technical options." Stern hopes that some of these new energy products might eventually diffuse through the market and become universally adopted, as did semiconductors and the Internet. About the Speaker(s): Brian Dumaine, Sr. oversees Fortune magazine's international coverage and its European and Asian editions. He also directs Fortune's green technology and environmental policy stories. He is the author of the The Plot To Save The Planet: How Visionary Entrepreneurs and Corporate Titans Are Creating Real Solutions To Global Warming. Dumaine has worked at Fortune for 28 years in various writing and editing positions including assistant managing editor. He has won numerous journalism awards and written more than 100 feature stories for the magazine, including covers such as "America's Toughest Bosses," "The Innovation Gap," and "America's Smartest Young Entrepreneurs." Throughout his career, he has produced investigative pieces as well as articles on marketing, investing, technology, and corporate crime. Host(s): Alumni Association, MIT Enterprise Forum

Lunch with a Laureate: Eric Chivian

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 04:00:00 GMT

In 1978, in his last years of residency in psychiatry at Mass General Hospital, Eric Chivian decided to do something bold.

Denialism: Media in the Age of Disinformation

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 04:00:00 GMT

04/27/2010 7:00 PM MuseumMichael Specter, Staff Writer, The New Yorker; Chris Mooney, Discover Blogger and Knight Fellow ; Shannon Brownlee, Instructor, The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice; Shankar Vedantam, National Science Writer, The Washington PostDescription: A few hundred years after the Enlightenment, western civilization is rushing back to the Dark Ages. The causes are debatable, but, argue these science journalists, the public increasingly rejects the findings of science, from climate change to evolution, and is turning away from rationality and reason in general. "People are afraid of anything that will hammer away at their preconceived notions," says Michael Specter. He points to the fanatic opposition in some quarters to genetically engineered foods, and the worship of organic products. Almost everything we eat is the result of genetic modification, he notes, and "organics kill people, too." It doesn't make sense to think that returning to "the old ways" will keep us healthy and supply the world with food. "We're hurting ourselves in lots of ways," says Specter, when people insist on believing what they want. Human nature plays a big part in feeding denialism, believes Chris Mooney. "We all ... argue against information that contradicts our existing worldview." The unfortunate evolution of media in the digital age is feeding our inherent "confirmation bias," and today "Americans with different political leanings construct different realities." We must "give up" on the idea that truth triumphs and society advances as more people become critical thinkers. Concludes Mooney, "We have to work with the media and brains we have, and seek realistic change." Shannon Brownlee had an "epiphany" a decade ago when she realized that prostate cancer tests did not lead to a lower risk of dying, as researchers suggested, but instead to potentially harmful treatment. Her "awakening" led her to perceive "how much of medicine we take on faith." Brownlee's journalistic beat now involves the frequent occurrence of "bad science" in medicine. She believes we are not all that far removed from the days when medicine was based on "four humors of disease" and bleeding was the key remedy. Health care, on which Americans spend more than anything else, depends on "the perception of science as its underpinning"_ a terrible delusion, she implies. To contend with denialism, says Shankar Vedentam, we need a more nuanced view, one that recognizes its different shapes: One type rejects events from the past for which we have evidence, and another kind "says I'm not willing to trust projections of what will happen in the future." Climate change falls in the latter category, as people "are being asked to trust data rather than their intuitions." Some summers feel cold, and some winters feel hot, for instance. Also, he says, partisanship now holds sway in all aspects of life, with people swearing loyalty to particular positions in unrelated areas, and to fellow members of their "team." Given indifference to facts, good information "paradoxically, horrifyingly can amplify the effects of bad information," believes Vedentam. Just look at the explosive growth of the Obama birther movement, in spite of ample evidence that the president was indeed born in Hawaii. Panelists see no easy antidote to this large"scale retreat from reason. Specter recommends that schools teach statistics, and Brownlee concurs that kids "should know what a big denominator and small numerator means." Vendantam argues for a nonpartisan approach to such issues as climate change, and Mooney thinks hard scientists and social scientists should be "in better dialog" to craft an effective approach to the big scientific and policy questions of our time. About the Speaker(s): Michael Specter has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1998. His most recent book, Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives, was published on October 29, 2009. Specter writes often about science, technology, and public health. Specter came to The New Yorker from The New York Times, where he had been a roving foreign correspondent based in Rome. Earlier, Specter worked at The Washington Post, where, from 1985 to 1991, he covered local news, before becoming the paper's national science reporter and, later, the newspaper's New York bureau chief. In 1996 he won the Overseas Press Club's Citation for Excellence for his reporting from Chechnya. He has twice received the Global Health Council's annual Excellence in Media Award, first for a 2001 article about AIDS, and second for his 2004 article "The Devastation," about the ethics of testing H.I.V. vaccines in Africa. He also received the 2002 AAAS Science Journalism Award, for his article, "Rethinking the Brain," about the scientific basis of how we learn. Chris Mooney is a science and political journalist and commentator and the author of three books, including the The Republican War on Science, and Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future, co"authored by Sheril Kirshenbaum. They also write "The Intersection" blog together for Discover blogs. Moponey has also been a visiting associate in the Center for Collaborative History at Princeton University. For the summer of 2010, he is a Templeton"Cambridge Fellow in Science and Religion. He is also a contributing editor to Science Progress and a senior correspondent for The American Prospect magazine. Mooney's 2005 article for Seed magazine on the Dover evolution trial was included in the volume Best American Science and Nature Writing 2006. In 2006, Chris won the "Preserving Core Values in Science" award from the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals. His 2009 article for The Nation, "Unpopular Science" (co"authored with Sheril Kirshenbaum) will be included in Best American Science Writing 2010. Shannon Brownlee is a writer and essayist whose book, Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer, was named the best economics book of 2007 by New York Times economics correspondent, David Leonhardt, and is being used by legislators and policy makers to craft health care reform legislation. A former senior editor at U.S. News & World Report, her work has appeared in a wide variety of publications including the Atlantic Monthly, Discover, Glamour, More, Mother Jones, New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, Slate, and Time, among others. In 2008"2009, Brownlee served as a visiting scholar at the National Institutes of Health, and is a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Scholar. In 2010, Brownlee received two awards from the American Society of Journalists and Authors: the June Roth Award for Medical Journalism, and the ASJA's award for Reporting on a Significant Topic. Other honors include the Association of Health Care Journalists Award for Excellence, the Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Reporting, the National Association of Science Writers Science"in"Society Award, and the Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. She holds an M.S. in Marine Sciences from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Shankar Vedantam writes about science and human behavior. He authored the weekly Department of Human Behavior column in The Washington Post from 2006 to 2009. He is the winner of several journalism awards and was a 2009"2010 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. He previously worked at the Philadelphia Inquirer, Knight"Ridder's Washington Bureau, and New York Newsday. Vedantam has a master's degree in journalism from Stanford University and an undergraduate degree in electronics engineering. He is interested in the history of conflict over the theory of evolution, the changes over time of religious theories concerning the creation of the universe, and the effects of religious faith on health. He has written about the interplay between neuroscience and spirituality, an area he would like to explore further. Host(s): Office of the Provost, MIT Museum

MITEI Press Briefing - Part 3 - Sterman, Ortiz, Greenstone

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 14:43:06 GMT

These research presentations were given as part of a press briefing on March 5, 2010. - John Sterman: C-ROADS (Climate-Rapid Review and Decision Support) Policy Simulation Model - Luis Ortiz: The Liquid Metal Battery, a Grid-Storage Solution for Dispatchable Renewable Energy - Michael Greenstone: Unequal Burdens: Predicting the Mortality Impacts of Climate Change in the US and India

Transportation in Contemporary Society: A Complex Systems Approach

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 05:00:00 GMT

03/09/2010 4:00 PM 3"270Joseph Sussman, J R East Professor of Civil and Environmental EngineeringDescription: In the nineteen fifties and sixties, students of transportation focused on building infrastructure and applied lessons from the physical sciences to designing mobility. Mobility was facilely linked to the engines of economic growth and expanding GDP. In time, that perspective was replaced by a focus on transportation systems and networks. There was a newfound emphasis on environmental impacts, land use, and intermodal freight. There was also a growing concern on unpriced externalities. Today, Joseph Sussman explains, with many of those problems still unsolved, transportation has entered a new phase-- a period of immense complexity or CLIOS, which stands for complex, large scale, interconnected, open and sociotechical is an acronym that is becoming the mantra of transportation engineers. While it is not as far"reaching as "chaos" to a physicist, it is an approach with far"reaching consequences for the transportation field. To participate in "Complexity 101" engineers must take account of stochastic systems, difficulties relating cause and effect, and non"linear behaviors. They must also recognize complex feedback loops between macro and micro issues; time scale anomalies, and evaluative complexity brought by new stakeholders. Sussman observes, " Even if we could wish away behavioral complexity, it would not mean that we know what we should do." He says that transportation engineering must now embrace management, the social sciences and planning and he warns us eschew narrow representations of complex systems because they are implicitly easier to solve. Sussman walks us through the new tools of math and advanced technology which have evolved with with CLIOS. In earlier times engineers could not respond with full information, disaggregate demand analysis, or real time operational data. He cites the need to apply these to find new solutions and designs--particularly ones that incorporate flexibility, reliability, and sustainability. Sussman terms these the "bilities". Taking flexibility as an example, he notes that some transportation providers, and particularly the airlines, are creating tailored and customized services for users. Sussman poses whether the concept of flexibility could be extended to highway travel and " pay as you go". Likewise, in automobile design, we are moving away from crash worthiness to a concept of crash avoidance. At a more macro level, Sussman says that we can now solve problems of a scale that seemed unthinkable 5 or 10 years, i.e., problems that were seen to be beyond our computational scope. Sussman observes a growing connection between economics and transportation. "We are moving toward a period where new technology and mathematical solutions allow us to better recognize and value previously un"priced externalities". Increasingly, he views transportation as a regionally scaled enterprise that can be managed at the scale of the metropolitan regional level. That aligns us, he says, with economists who have long talked about metro based regions as the economic engine of society. He also says there is a need for a large national vision on the scale of the one that created the national highway infrastructure. Sussman endorses the view that the American people yearn for a big vision and are tired of cycles of crisis and doom. Host(s): School of Engineering, Transportation@MIT

Sustainable Accessibility: A Grand Challenge for the World and for MIT

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:00:00 GMT

02/09/2010 4:00 PM 3"270John Sterman, PhD '82, Forrester Professor of Management and Engineering Systems, and; Director, System Dynamics Group, MIT Description: Transportation systems, as we know them today, will simply not sustain the worlds' growing population. Imagine a projected population of nine billion individuals. If this future population had mobility patterns like drivers in the United States, there would be a staggering 7.6 billion motor vehicles, using 440 million barrels of oil and producing 62 billion tons of CO2 per year. John Sterman says it is self"evident that our current transportation model simply will not scale. But, since the gross world product (GWP) is growing at 3.2% annually, and doubles every twenty years, our current model of development is an overture for environmental disaster. It is clear to Sterman that we need to think differently about the problem. People need access to goods, services, people, and opportunities. This access is what traditional forms of transportation provide. We also need to see transportation in its complexity, and expect that our planning efforts will have totally unintended, unexpected "rebound" effects. Sterman provides two examples of these rebound effects. The first examines the relationship between reducing traffic congestion and mass transit. Traditionally, the solution to traffic congestion has been one of supply and demand, and new roads are built to accommodate the increase in vehicle traffic. But, notes Sterman, augmenting road capacity just does not work: When new capacity is added, new vehicle trips, or longer ones, are encouraged. These trips quickly fill up the new road capacity, which produces a spiral of more severe traffic congestion. Meanwhile, some portion of these new auto trips come at the expense of public transit, which, upon losing riders, then reacts by either cutting service, or increasing fares. This downward spiral of public transit has a feedback loop which increases the attractiveness of driving. Sterman observes that planning is chaotic if we don't pay attention to these feedback loops and really think through what it is people want to achieve. A different, but equally complex set of feedback loops, has been the undoing of the alternative fuels industry. Over a thirty"year horizon, three countries, namely Brazil, New Zealand, and Argentina each developed a national policy and provided incentives to reduce their dependence on foreign oil. Unfortunately, none of their fuel programs grew large enough to achieve sufficient scale economies. Sterman characterizes these new starts as "sizzle and fizzle". He cautions us from repeating their mistakes as a current initiative gets underway to develop a hydrogen vehicle and fueling network in California. Having volume and scale will help us go down the learning curve, and we also need to bring many groups into the problem solving" these include vehicle manufacturers, fuel retailers, suppliers, and consumers. But, technology alone will not solve the problem. Sterman says we should prepare for the counter"intuitive lessons of transportation, and recognize that we will achieve better results if we make driving less attractive. Host(s): School of Engineering, Transportation@MIT

The Road from Copenhagen

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 05:00:00 GMT

Following the United Nations Climate Change Conference held in December 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark, a five-member panel reviews the pros and cons of the events that took place.

Climate Collaboratorium--Commenting on Plans

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 20:25:57 GMT

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