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.

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 2: Comparative Energy Systems

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:08:00 GMT

Description: This lecture provides a general overview of various energy systems on a global scale as well as a comparison of energy consumption in correlation to GDP, industry, and recent growth. Instructor: Richard Schmalensee

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 20: Social Movements

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:07:54 GMT

Description: This lecture explores drivers of movements, such as interest groups and changing preferences, and how they affect environmental movements as well as the formation of public policy, efforts, and parties. Instructor: Richard Schmalensee

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 21: U.S. Environment Policy

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:07:54 GMT

Description: This lecture focuses on the politics of regulation through a series of case discussion surrounding the EPA and setting emissions standards in response to air pollution, coal emissions, and acid rain. Instructor: Richard Schmalensee

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 11: Business Decisions in Reality: CHP at Hexion

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:07:53 GMT

Description: This lecture features a facilitated discussion of combined heat and power (CHP) and the Hexion case study, which challenges students to consider a sample net present value analysis and its implications. Instructor: Richard Schmalensee

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 14: Innovation and Energy Business Models

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:07:53 GMT

Description: The lecture highlights how technology maturity, scale, scope, and capabilities of innovations affect the business model for that new innovation. Discussion about energy at different phases of innovation ensues. Instructor: Donald Lessard

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 15: Non-Renewable Energy Resources

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:07:53 GMT

Description: This lecture focuses on the state of non-renewable energy on the global market. Classic hotelling theory is covered in the beginning, and then oil, coal, and natural gas markets are analyzed over the across geographies and time. Instructor: Richard Schmalensee

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 1: This Course and The U.S. Energy System

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:07:45 GMT

Description: This lecture provides an overview and motivations for the class, as well as an introduction to the U.S. energy system. A brief history of the state of U.S. energy is given through a series of graphs and data. Instructor: Richard Schmalensee

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 12: Organizational Decision-Making: Biodiesel at MIT

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:07:44 GMT

Description: This lecture features a facilitated case discussion of barriers against organizational change as present in the Biodiesel at MIT case study. Instructor: Richard Schmalensee

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 13: Developing Profitable Strategies

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:07:44 GMT

Description: This lecture focuses on business strategies, drivers of competitive advantage, and factors that affect product value. A facilitated discussion of the Husky case highlights value-based and differentiating strategies. Instructor: Richard Schmalensee

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 17: (Yesterday's and) Today's Electric Power System

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:07:44 GMT

Description: This lecture focuses on electric power systems, grid architecture, and transmission systems. Baseload units and peaking units are compared, as are various market models, and state and federal regulations. Instructor: Richard Schmalensee

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 22: Economic Development & Green Growth

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:07:44 GMT

Description: This lecture features a guest speaker, Bob DiMatteo, the CEO and chairman of MTPV. He speaks about micron-gap thermalphotovoltaics and entrepreneuship in the energy field. Later, a short lecture is given on the green growth model. Instructor: Bob DiMatteo, Richard Schmalensee

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 19: Making Public Policy

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:07:33 GMT

Description: This lecture focuses on the development of public policy and the roles that interest groups and factions play in governance. The creation of America's democracy is used as an example, followed by EPA regulation. Instructor: Richard Schmalensee

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 10: Normative Frameworks for Business Decisions

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:07:32 GMT

Description: This lecture introduces how economic concepts including net present value, discount rates, and time value impact energy services and the energy market. Risk-return analyses and investment strategies are also discussed. Instructor: Richard Schmalensee

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 16: Shale: Opportunities & Challenges

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:07:32 GMT

Description: This lecture focuses on hydraulic cracking, or fracking, and its environmental consequences and impact on policy as seen from the perspectives of key stakeholders. Discussion includes a thought experiment about having a shale resource in Massachusetts. Instructor: Richard Schmalensee

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 18: Tomorrow's Electric Power System

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:07:32 GMT

Description: This lecture focuses on future challenges that await grid technology on the policy, economic, and technological fronts. RD&D and dynamic pricing are offered as avenues toward solutions, though the primary issues still rests in policy and regulation. Instructor: Richard Schmalensee

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 6: Climate Science and Policy

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:07:31 GMT

Description: This lecture presents the issues of time-scales and uncertainties as barriers to climate change. Three views on discounting are discussed as well as strategies for reducing global costs, adapting to new technologies, and reducing CO2 emissions. Instructor: Richard Schmalensee, Susan Solomon

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 8: Economics of Energy Demand

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:07:31 GMT

Description: The lecture focuses on how to estimate, calculate, and predict energy demand. Considerations for short-run and long-run demand are taken, and the efficiency paradox is also discussed. Instructor: Richard Schmalensee

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 9: Energy Use by Individuals and Households

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:07:31 GMT

Description: This lecture frames decisions affecting energy use as framed by social science and factors that influence decision-making. The lecture makes use of a research study conducted on towel reuse, and a class discussion of group identities. Instructor: Susan Silbey

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 3: U.S. Energy Problems

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:07:30 GMT

Description: This lecture focuses on energy issues during the recent history of the U.S., ranging from the creation of the EPA to the problems faced by the Obama administration. A computer model is used to demonstrate projections and issues surrounding negotiations. Instructor: Richard Schmalensee

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 5: Path Dependence in Energy Systems

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:07:30 GMT

Description: This lecture focuses on path dependence and the obstacles discouraging changes in energy systems. Several examples of energy systems are given, including those unable to be changed as well as those that were changed in light of path dependence. Instructor: Richard Schmalensee

Harnessing Microbes for Carbon Dioxide Sequestration

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 18:31:26 GMT

Hector Hernandez, assistant professor in chemical engineering, describes how Le Chatelier's principle and the effects of pressure on solubility relate to his research on harnessing microbes to remove carbon dioxide from the environment. Hector envisions that his research could someday be used to decrease greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

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 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

Engineering a Cooler Earth: Panel Discussion

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 08:05:34 GMT

Recorded 11/19/12

LGO Webinar: Aaron Fyke, Energy Cache

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 08:06:04 GMT

Amidst a perfect storm battering funding for renewable energy companies, Aaron Fyke, LGO ’02, was able to model a grid-level energy storage system that would satisfy risk-averse customers by leveraging the cheapest, densest materials and a proven technology. The company Fyke founded, Energy Cache, stored renewable energy using “gravel on ski lifts” in a California pilot installation that has attracted worldwide media attention and funding from such investors as Bill Gates.

Technology Water Supply, Desalination and Energy

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 08:06:51 GMT

Recorded 12/15/11

Putting it together: the modular car

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 16:00:40 GMT

With the 10^5 Competition, MIT's Vehicle Design Summit (VDS) will leverage distributed innovation to build a better car.

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.

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

At the intersection of biology and physics in the ocean

Fri, 18 May 2012 20:30:11 GMT

Mick Follows is a Senior Research Scientist in the Program in Atmospheres, Oceans and Climate, part of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, at MIT. Together with the other members of the Marine Biogeochemical Modeling group (researchers Stephanie Dutkiewicz, and Oliver Jahn, postdocs Sergio Vallina, and Anne-Willem Omta, and graduate students Sophie Clayton, Chris Kempes, Emily Zakum and Keisuke Inomura) he is trying to understand the global carbon cycle and global plankton populations using a combination of simple models, data analysis and numerical simulations of the ocean.

A major focus of the group’s current work is The Darwin Project: An interdisciplinary, interdeparmental effort at MIT to model marine ecosystems and understand how they are regulated by, and feedback upon, the environment.

In this video, which grew out of a Plenary Lecture at the Spring 2012, American Geophysical Union, Ocean Sciences meeting in Salt Lake City,UT, "Modeling Marine Microbes: From Molecules to Ecosystems", Mick talks about the past, present and future of marine ecosystem modeling. In particular he explains how his group uses numerical simulations to understand the organization of plankton populations and how advances in cell biology and microbiology might inform future models.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to the ECCO2 and Darwin Project teams for their contributions to this work. Particular thanks goes to Oliver Jahn for creating the animations used in this video.

Video credit: Helen Hill

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.

Building the #Knowosphere: MITEI Earth Day Colloquium with Andrew Revkin

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 20:30:09 GMT

The NYT's Andrew Revkin on how new ways to share and shape ideas can help build durable progress on a finite planet.

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."

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."

Energy 101: Biofuels

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 08:03:11 GMT

In this short video, Dr. Mark Mba Wright gives a broad overview of biofuels: from what they are to their technological requirements and challenges.

Sarah Garlick: "Wild Stone: Climbing the unclimbed, from the Arctic to Arabia"

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:02:52 GMT

JAN 31, 2012 Sarah Garlick: "Wild Stone: Climbing the unclimbed, from the Arctic to Arabia," With professional photography, audio clips, and short videos, Garlick tells stories from her latest two expeditions: a journey to the granite big walls of South Greenland, and an exploration of the Wadi Rum desert in Jordan. Garlick's presentation focuses on the common core of both expeditions: a quest to find—and climb—untouched cliffs in some of the world's wildest locations. Garlick talks about what it takes to be an expedition climber in the modern era, from discovering an objective and putting together a team, to the inevitable ups and downs of the journey itself. Wild Stone shares stories and images of Garlick';s 2010 expedition to Greenland, where she and her three teammates established a new, 2,000-foot free route up a remote granite wall. This expedition was supported by the prestigious Copp-Dash Inspire Award. The presentation also premiers new photography and video footage from an expedition to the Wadi Rum desert in Jordan last winter, where Garlick and fellow climber Caroline George established a new sandstone adventure route called Uprising (5.11).

ASSET4 ESG: Using the Company Level Template

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:02:51 GMT

This video demonstrates how to access a sampling of company-level environmental, social, and governance data using ThomsonReuters' Datastream.

Adolescence & Earth

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:04:06 GMT

From the 'Cool Shorts: Climate Change on Web Video' Independent Activities Period 2012 course. The class, co-sponsored by Knight Science Journalism at MIT, focused on the production of several short videos about climate change, meant for web distribution. The goal will be to explore, visualize or enliven topics around climate science with visual/dramatic originality, surprise, suspense or humor. Reaching a broad audience is the intent.

Extinction

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:04:06 GMT

Cool Shorts from MIT IAP course Molly Ruggles 2012

Can I Go Out And Play?

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:30:06 GMT

BLOSSOMS: How Biotechnology Helps Clean Up the Environment? (Arabic with English Subtitles)

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:36:09 GMT

The objective of this lesson is to introduce students to one of the most important issues affecting human life and health in the 21st century, the application of modern biotechnology to the problems of environmental pollution.

Reinventing the City @ MIT: Urban Ecology

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 19:59:19 GMT

Claudia Octaviano models electricity and oil sectors in Mexico

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 14:46:37 GMT

Though trained as an environmental economist, Claudia Octaviano is currently working towards her PhD in the Engineering Systems Division at MIT. But an economist among engineers isn't as odd as it sounds; Claudia's program integrates engineering, social sciences, and policy to address environmental issues.

"The idea within the Engineering Systems Divisions is that these are very complex issues that you won't be able to solve just by looking at technology, or with just the economics," she explains. "You need to integrate the three parts. They call it Complex Systems Analysis."

Originally from Mexico, Claudia studied the costs to society from power plant pollution, moving on to air quality and evaluation techniques at Yale, and finally focusing on climate change. Her work with Mario Molina and the Mexican Minister of Energy, on developing energy pathways that could lead Mexico towards long-term economic development, led her to MIT in 2009.

Claudia's work in the Joint Program centers on determining Mexico's mitigation potential through the use of sectoral approaches. By implementing policies to decarbonize the electricity sector, for example, Mexico could trade emissions with other countries that have either economy-wide or sectoral cap-and-trade systems. Because the electricity sector contributes a big share of emissions, a sectoral cap could result in a significant environmental benefit. However, focusing only in one sector of the economy means higher costs and efficiency loss when compared to an economy-wide cap-and-trade system.

Still, Claudia's opinion on the matter is: "Do you want an everything-or-nothing situation, or do we start with something? The International Energy Agency proposes that large developing countries can start [mitigation measures] through sectoral trading. It could be a first approach to an [economy-wide] cap-and-trade system."

Claudia works to improve the Joint Program's Emissions Prediction and Policy Analysis (EPPA) model to more accurately reflect the electricity and oil sectors in Mexico. Her research will reveal which technologies will become important in Mexico under different future climate policy scenarios. These findings will also determine the costs of alternative mitigation options.

Political will does not seem to be a barrier to addressing climate change in Mexico, Claudia explains. In fact, she believes the Mexican administration is very willing to address climate change but lacks funds. Yet beyond the issue of money, she also feels that capacity building and technology transfers from developed countries are crucial. "We can do a lot if we learn to prioritize and if we accelerate the state-of-the-art technologies available."

Looking forward, Claudia draws inspiration from Dr. Mario Molina. "He is very influential. People don't always want to hear only economic equations-- they want to hear a story. We need someone like Dr. Molina to tell a story. I have my model... now how do I tell a story about it?"

CO2GO

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 16:08:50 GMT

A project by the SENSEable City Lab, MIT. Today, more than a third of global CO2 emissions are generated by transportation. CO2GO, a new type of smartphone application, is an effective tool that assists in making smarter individual transportation choices to collectively reduce carbon emissions in cities.

The 'Artificial Leaf'

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 21:16:53 GMT

An "artificial leaf" made by Daniel Nocera and his team, using a silicon solar cell with novel catalyst materials bonded to its two sides, is shown in a container of water with light (simulating sunlight) shining on it. The light generates a flow of electricity that causes the water molecules, with the help of the catalysts, to split into oxygen and hydrogen, which bubble up from the two surfaces. Read more about this work at http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/artificial-leaf-0930.html

Installing the Dev Desktop as a Drupal development environment on your local computer

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 14:17:29 GMT

This is a basic 3-minute screencast that covers downloading the Dev Desktop application from the Acquia website ( http://network.acquia.com/downloads/7.x) and installing it on your local computer.

Civic Media Session: "Design for Vulnerable Populations"

Wed, 04 May 2011 14:00:46 GMT

Designers often want to help people that they perceive as being in need -- whether those affected by natural or human-caused disasters, the economically or physically disadvantaged, or those who are on the losing end of a cultural power dynamic. However, naive attempts to "help" through simplistic techno-centric design can be at best ineffective, and at worst counter-productive.

What can designers do to better connect with the communities and individuals they wish to serve? How can design projects avoid patronizing attitudes and economic colonialization? How can a designer be effective in promoting social change while following their conscience?

This panel brings together designers who have worked in the mental health industry, international development, the prison system, and community environmental action to discuss what has worked and what hasn't, and what approaches designers can take to increase their chances of success.

Charlie DeTar (Moderator) Co-founder of Between the Bars, a blogging platform for prisoners. Fellow at the Center for Future Civic Media, and PhD student at the MIT Media Lab.
Patricia Deegan Creator of the CommonGround web application which supports shared decision making in psychopharmacology consultation. Adjunct Professor at the Dartmouth College School of Medicine and at Boston University, Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences.
Liz Barry Director of Urban Environment at Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science, a collaborative developing inexpensive and community-led means to explore environmental and social issues; Co-founder of TreeKIT, an initiative to collaboratively measure, map, and manage urban forests.
Nathan Cooke Born and raised in California, USA, Cooke works at MIT's D-Lab documenting technologies and working with students on design projects. He has previous experience working for Frog Design in San Francisco and at Autodesk as part of their Sustainability division.

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

A Method for Green Design -- Professor Steven Eppinger

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 19:02:33 GMT

LGO Web Seminar Series

Professor Steven Eppinger

A Method for Green Design

Presentation Date: April 30, 2010

Abstract: When LFM/LGO and SDM alumni took my Product Design and Development class, we did not teach a method for design for environment (DFE). This back-to-the-classroom web seminar is intended to fill this gap with a brief session highlighting some emerging best practices in this important area. Based on a recently completed chapter (to be published next year in my Product Design and Development textbook), I will highlight some of the ways that businesses can think about the environmental impact of their products and how they can work effectively to reduce or eliminate these impacts.

Bio: Steven D. Eppinger is Professor of Management Science at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He also holds the General Motors Leaders for Global Operations Chair and has a joint appointment in MIT's Engineering Systems Division. Prof. Eppinger served as Deputy Dean of the MIT Sloan School from 2004 to 2009. He has created an interdisciplinary product development course in which graduate students from engineering, management, and industrial design programs collaborate to develop new products. He also teaches MIT's executive programs in the areas of product development and complex project management. Prof. Eppinger has co-authored a leading textbook entitled Product Design and Development published by McGraw-Hill. Currently in its fourth edition, the text is used by hundreds of universities around the world. Dr. Eppinger's research is applied to improving complex design processes in order to accelerate industrial practices. He is a pioneer in development of the widely used Design Structure Matrix method for managing complex system design. He has authored over seventy articles in refereed academic journals and conferences. He has received MIT's Graduate Student Council Teaching Award, the Sloan School's Award for Innovation and Excellence in Management Education, and twice has received the ASME Best Paper Award in Design Theory and Methodology. Prof. Eppinger received S.B., S.M., and Sc.D. degrees from MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering before joining the MIT faculty in 1988.

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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]

Sloan Energy Finance Forum (2010)

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 22:37:14 GMT

This video was produced for the 2010 Sloan Energy Finance Forum, which was titled "The Life Cycle of Energy Finance." Held on December 3, 2010, the forum focused on the big picture of financing energy projects. This event was sponsored by the MIT Sloan Energy & Environment Club.

The Response to the Gulf Oil Spill

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 21:50:51 GMT

This talk was given on December 14, 2010 as part of the MITEI Seminar Series. Juliette Kayyem was the Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs in the Department of Homeland Security. Rear Admiral Peter Neffenger was the Deputy National Incident Commander for the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Response.

2010 David J. Rose Lectureship in Nuclear Technology

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 13:59:34 GMT

Dr. John Holdren '65 SM '66 delivers the 2010 Rose Lecture on the Energy / Climate-Change Challenge and the Role of Nuclear Energy in Meeting It.

Financial Re-Engineering

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 04:00:00 GMT

10/01/2010 9:00 AM e14"633Bengt Holmstrom, Paul A. Samuelson Professor of Economics; Andrew W. Lo, Harris & Harris Group Professor, Director, MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering; Robert C. Merton, Ph.D. '70, MIT Sloan School of Management Distinguished Professor of Finance; Jiang Wang, Mizuho Financial Group Professor of Finance; William Wheaton, Director, MIT Center for Real Estate, Professor, MIT Department of Economics Description: Like a contemporary "whodunit" with a global crime scene, the financial meltdown has left behind countless victims, and lots of pointing fingers. The reasons for the collapse are debated by this group of estimable economists, some of whom worry that without really understanding what happened, we are in for a repeat episode. Moderator William Wheaton starts the discussion by suggesting that the interconnected global system of financial markets may be inherently unmanageable and overly risky, due to its complexity. Andrew Lo sees both peril and promise in these markets. Securitization, the bundling and trading of debt assets, "effectively allows ordinary borrowers that typically had to go through banks to tap into the power of global capital markets." But there are "unintended consequences: Technological innovations outstrip our ability to understand them." Financial transactions in a world of 8 billion people can become too complex, leading to uncontrollable systemic risk and disaster, much the way small brushfires swiftly grow and consume millions of acres. Robert Merton does not believe the complexity of trading securities or derivatives is at issue, but rather, human management: "Get those people with antennas out of the financial system, and put in people with some common sense." Financial institution overseers need a "much higher level of skill set and training," says Merton. They don't need to be "quants," but require "intuition as to the risk characteristics of these instruments." This means understanding that risk often changes in a "complex, nonlinear way." The tools required by modern finance are there, and do work, he asserts, "and they're explainable without some off the shelf, weird theory." Bengt Holmstrom describes how most financial systems are structured around trust that adequate collateral exists in a product, even when "you have no clue what assets lie behind it." So "opacity is the very typical characteristic of liquidity and banking has never been, and no doubt will ever be anything but opaque." Yet there must be enough, or good enough collateral "so people don't have to ask questions." Back in 2006, when people began "to feel nervous about the quality" of securitized products, in 2006 and 2007, he says, they clung to faith in the products. With trillions of dollars rolling over every morning, "if you say 'Stop, guys, I just want to see the papers,' it's over. The market stops right there." Holmstrom thinks new science is required "to understand how a collapse like this happened." However the crisis emerged, panelists think more steps should be taken to avert another one. Jiang Wang believes a "critical step" would be gathering information "relevant to systemic risk," because the market does not currently provide sufficient information on that." Holmstrom's "first reaction --a Band"Aid -- is to pull back," raising collateral requirements in the markets. Lo suggests an independent federal agency along the lines of the National Transportation Safety Board to "focus on the science and engineering merits of various financial proposals, and to study and monitor the financial system to measure systemic risk in a convincing, compelling way." Merton believes it may be possible to track systemic risk better, using new methods of economic analysis, but ultimately believes, "We'll always have crises, not because we're stupid, but because we are willing to take risks to get the benefits." About the Speaker(s): William Wheaton holds a joint appointment in the Departments of Economics and Urban Studies and Planning. An authority on regional economics, Wheaton is a principal in a consulting firm that provides market analyses for development companies active in the market for commercial space. A member of the MIT faculty since 1972, Wheaton helped to develop the field of urban economics by pioneering the theory of how land, location, and housing markets jointly operate. He also specializes in the problems of urban infrastructure and local government finance. He has written numerous articles in scholarly journals throughout the world, and is a co"author of Urban Economics and Real Estate Markets, the first text book to cover both real estate applications and economics. Wheaton helped organize the MIT Center for Real Estate, and teaches the program's core course in Real Estate Economics. He was the first economist to apply econometric methods to the forecasting of real estate markets, and is a principal in Torto Wheaton Research, a globally"recognized real estate consulting firm that works with the real estate industry to analyze the fluctuations and trends of the market. Wheaton received a B.A. in Economics from Princeton University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Over the years he has worked with many U.S. governmental agencies, as well as the World Bank and the United Nations.Host(s): School of Architecture and Planning, MIT Center for Real Estate

Hines: The Man, The Company

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 04:00:00 GMT

10/01/2010 1:00 PM e14"633Gerald D. Hines, Founder and Chairman, HinesDescription: An iconic figure in real estate development, Gerald D. Hines relates lessons learned over his half"century career to an admiring industry audience. Leveraging know"how in mechanical systems and project management, and not a small amount of chutzpah, Hines opened a one"man office in 1957 Houston, intent on buying, renovating and managing his own buildings. From this tiny start"up, the Hines development business has grown into an international powerhouse, controlling $22 billion in assets, and employing 3,300 people in 245 cities dealing with hundreds of millions of square feet of commercial, residential and mixed"use projects. Hines ticks off a handful of reasons for this spectacular success. First, he believes in "quality architecture" and mechanical systems that provide good service at low cost. When buildings embody these principles, he says, you can "mitigate risk in any economic cycle." Such architects as Philip Johnson and Kevin Roche have drawn tenants to his buildings. You want to be the "last to lose occupancy and the first to gain it back," says Hines. Second, he advocates a steadfast commitment to sustainable technologies, which also "makes good business sense." Even in the era prior to LEED standards, Hines sought ways to streamline buildings for greater operating and energy efficiencies. Other lessons he imparts: there are opportunities in acquiring existing buildings if you are "sure you can add value;" and "mixed use development makes for better communities and a better world." The average tenure for Hines' employees runs in the decades, and the company's organizational structure contributes in great part to this retention rate, as well as to its global successes. Hines describes the autonomy top managers enjoy in their various divisions. The company also offers these managers 50% of equity in new ventures. The "people leading the project have something to lose," says Hines, and a great deal to gain as well. Hines sees a real estate landscape that is a lot tougher to break into today, and one fraught with great uncertainty, especially in current economic times. He was chairman of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank in the early 1980s, and witnessed a bust that "wiped out the real estate industry." He sees parallels today to those times, and warns his listeners, "Button down your hatches, guys, it could come overnight." About the Speaker(s): Gerald D. Hines grew a one"man operation into one of the largest real estate investment, development and management firms in the world. Since its inception in 1957, Hines has developed or acquired more than 980 projects in 245 cities globally and 17 countries, representing more than 330 million square feet of commercial, residential, mixed"use and industrial projects. The Hines firm controls assets valued at approximately $22.9 billion and partners with major institutional investors as well as individual investors through the Hines REIT. Hines is an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and has received the Urban Land Institute's J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development. An industry pioneer in aesthetics and sustainability, Hines has championed and supported real estate architecture and urban planning programs at Harvard, Yale and Rice universities; the College of Architecture at the University of Houston is named in his honor. Host(s): School of Architecture and Planning, MIT Center for Real Estate

Re-Engineering Buildings: Innovations in Building Technology

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 04:00:00 GMT

10/01/2010 11:00 AM e14"633Tony Ciochetti, Chairman, MIT Center for Real Estate; John Ochsendorf, Associate Professor, Department of Architecture; Alex (Sandy) Pentland, PhD '82, Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, and Director of Human Dynamics Research, MIT Media Lab; Sarah Slaughter, 82, SM'87, PhD 91, Associate Director for Buildings & Infrastructure, MIT Energy InitiativeDescription: The built environment consumes a very large share of the nation's energy, and so offers rich opportunities for reducing our overall carbon footprint. MIT researchers share innovations that could soon radically alter the energy profile, as well as form and function, of buildings. Their work may prove invaluable to those in the real estate or construction industries seeking not just efficiency, but a good investment. Pumping gas into a car, we can get a good sense of its energy costs, says John Ochsendorf. But when it comes to buildings, which are huge capital investments, "we have practically no literacy" around energy performance. Now we are entering a "new frontier," says Ochsendorf, as pressure builds to achieve substantial, swift reductions in energy consumption. He is helping to develop new metrics for measuring the amount of energy a building uses over its entire lifespan, from construction through many years of occupancy. Ochsendorf maps the material and energy flow involved in producing a can of Coke, from the extraction of minerals for aluminum smelting, to the French beets used in its sugar syrup, and suggests that this level of detail should be available for our buildings as well. This means "lifecycle assessment with rigorous benchmarking of building performance," down to the CO2 emissions per square foot. Ochsendorf is working with concrete and cement manufacturers to help them achieve steep reductions quickly, and to design buildings that use local waste material such as clay, and operate with zero net energy use. The value of buildings derives from their capacity to "protect and enhance the health, safety and well"being of occupants and communities," says Sarah Slaughter. There are measurable benefits, too: Acoustically quiet classrooms improve student retention, and reinforced buildings can withstand hurricanes and earthquakes. Slaughter is interested in using "low impact development" for healthy, resilient buildings. She takes a "system of systems" approach, examining first the interaction of systems within a building. Could use of rainwater capture, for instance, decrease the need for non"potable water, or could "daylight harvesting" permit the downsizing of artificial lighting? Slaughter next considers the building's connections to the larger environment, including its neighborhood and region. She sees a "value"added chain" that ultimately includes municipalities and state and federal agencies. By targeting the right links in the chain, one can achieve both performance enhancement and cost efficiencies. This leads to "clearly demonstrable bottom"line benefits -- less than a year payback for some upgrades" as well as improved buildings that "allow people to complete their organizational missions more effectively." Alex (Sandy) Pentland hopes to make buildings more productive and efficient, but focuses on people rather than structures. He has devised methods for mapping human activities, following cellphone and other wireless signals. For example, Pentland can track face to face meetings taking place in an organization, and troubleshoot areas of low"productivity. He describes changing the time for coffee breaks in a Bank of America call center, and saving that business $15 million. He has detailed how "tribes" of people move about in cities, and can make astonishingly accurate predictions about where and when these groups go to eat and the kinds of things they buy. Real estate developers could look at transportation patterns, for instance, and build stores in places convenient to a target group. These tools are powerful enough to reveal socioeconomic patterns, such as crime rates, disease and even life expectancy among different groups. Data mapping, believes Pentland, will prove increasingly useful to many institutions, although it presents some perils around privacy issues. About the Speaker(s): Tony Ciochetti leads the Center for Real Estate's mission to improve the global built environment through industry relevant research and to promote more informed professional practice. Prior to his appointment at MIT, Ciochetti was the Director of the Center for Real Estate Development and a Professor of Finance at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Ciochetti is also a visiting Professor in the Department of Land Economy at Cambridge University in England. His teaching areas of expertise include Commercial Real Estate Development and Real Estate Finance. He has created or taught courses in these areas at MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, Cambridge University, the University of Wisconsin"Madison, Indiana University, and the University of North Carolina"Chapel Hill. Ciochetti's research interests lie in two broad areas: commercial mortgage credit risk and the role of real estate within pension plan portfolios. His work has appeared in leading scholarly journals, including Real Estate Economics, and the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, among others. Ciochetti is currently the President of the Real Estate Research Institute, where he is also an academic fellow, and serves on the Board of Directors of Real Estate Economics. Ciochetti received his B.A. in Finance from the University of Oregon, and both his M.S. and Ph.D. in Real Estate and Urban Land Economics from the University of Wisconsin"Madison. Host(s): School of Architecture and Planning, MIT Center for Real Estate

Moving Ahead: Engineering Challenges of Deep Water Drilling and Future Oil Resource Recovery

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 04:00:00 GMT

09/28/2010 4:15 PM E14"674Andrew J. Whittle, ScD '87, Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Nancy Leveson, Professor, Aeronautics and Astronautics; Roland Pellenq, Visiting Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering; Kim Vandiver, Dean for Undergraduate Research & Professor, Mechanical EngineeringDescription: To keep up with demand, the oil industry ventures increasingly farther and deeper offshore, extracting resources as fast as possible in often hazardous conditions with newly minted technology. So to these panelists, the BP Deepwater Horizon accident did not come as a complete surprise. However, they view the disaster from distinctly different perspectives. "The same things happen all the time" in major accidents, states Nancy Leveson. There are flaws in the "safety culture" of the industry, including a sense that its enterprise is inherently "more risky" and accidents inevitable --"the price of production." Leveson notes that "being 35 thousand feet in the air in a metal cylinder is not a safe thing, but the commercial aerospace industry has made it safe." Industry leaders don't believe that safety pays and consequently they merely comply with regulations. Rather than seeking systemic fixes, they blame operator error or technical failure. Nevertheless, says Leveson, "Complex systems migrate toward states of high risk, so the oil industry should "must change its culture" and implement safeguards. "We can't make things perfectly safe but we can make them a lot safer than they are." Cement, used for thousands of years in construction, is only now revealing its secrets to scientists. Roland Pelenq is interested in how cement responds chemically, and at the atomic scale, to extremes in pressure and temperature, such as those found in the depths of offshore drilling sites. He speculates that mistakes in cement formulation might lead to calamitous structural flaws. A specific cement chemistry (calcium and silica primarily) determines the setting process. Ordinary cement grows from liquid to solid in 10 hours, as nano"sized bricks line up in layers. Oil well cement must be mixed with a different ratio of calcium and silica, or it won't cohere correctly when deep under water. Pelenq says, "If I'm a cement guy working for the oil industry, I want setting as fast as possible." The industry uses extra silica to speed up the process. But, suggests Pelenq, with the Deepwater Horizon well, "the setting process kinetics may not have worked." Kim Vandiver offers a brief tour of tension leg platforms, the highly complicated and enormous structures developed to get oil out of Gulf waters. While the "feet are quite elastic," says Vandiver, wave energy can lead to stress. This technology becomes really susceptible to vibration at depths of around a mile -- the kind of depth the Deepwater Horizon rig was drilling in. As the oil industry drills deeper, it means "from the point of view of production technology always operating on a frontier," says Vandiver. He is working on a dynamic absorber for tension leg platforms so they can take the stress of ocean current and pressure 6,000 feet down, much the way a tall building can be reinforced to withstand high winds. Vandiver comments that the relentless drive to extract oil as fast as possible from ever deeper water flows from our "insatiable demands on the product." He concludes, "To slow down the industry and make progress more carefully, practice more conservation." About the Speaker(s): Andrew Whittle received his B.Sc. 1981, from the Imperial College of Science and Technology, and his Sc.D. in 1987, from MIT. His research focuses on geotechnical engineering, constitutive models for geomaterials, analysis methods for foundations, excavations and tunnels,in situ test methods, and ground improvement. Whittle has received the J. James R. Croes Medal from the American Society of Civil Engineers.Host(s): School of Science, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences

Perspectives on the Unfolding Spill: Evidence of the Environmental Impacts of the Event

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 04:00:00 GMT

09/28/2010 1:30 PM E14"674Dr. Maria T. Zuber, E.A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics, Head of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, MIT ; ; Eric Adams, Lecturer, Civil and Environmental Engineering; Elizabeth Kujawinski, Associate Scientist, Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry, WHOI; Jerry Milgram, Professor Emeritus, Mechanical EngineeringDescription: While the government declared an end to the oil spill at the Macondo well on September 19, 2010, research into the causes and impacts of the Gulf disaster is ongoing. At the kickoff panel of a three"part symposium, three scientists discuss what they are learning about the disposition of the nearly 5 million gallons of oil, as well as gas and chemicals, injected into Gulf waters following the blowout. A decade ago, a group of oil companies, including BP, sponsored a series of controlled releases of oil and methane off the coast of Norway. Much of what we know about underwater spills comes from these studies, says Eric Adams, who "laments" the lack of follow up research into deeper waters. Scientists learned that the light gas "provided a buoyant engine for crude migration," and that as this oil mix gushed from the site of injection, it formed small droplets. The Gulf spill, like these studies, involved oil mixed with natural gas. Much of this oil was similarly atomized, suggests Adams, and reduced in size further by chemical dispersants. The resultant miniature droplets could take as long as a year to rise to the surface, and are deposited at different layers in the water. Adams and others hope to create models for how oil diffused into water around the Deepwater Horizon site, and how the particles disperse over time. Using an ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometer, Elizabeth Kujawinski has been sampling sea water at different distances from the well head to identify the presence of oil and dispersants. In particular, she wants to know how these components spread into Gulf waters. With help from the EPA, Kujawinski and her team learned the chemical signature of Corexit, the key dispersant used in the Gulf spill, where it was used heavily for the first time under water. She is busy "quantifying the molecule" in samples from various cruises, and comparing these samples to control batches of sea water. Says Kujawinski, "Our data is providing new insight into compounds that haven't been observed before" and making it possible to track dispersant chemicals, and oil, through the complex Gulf ecosystem in the months ahead. All those booms laid out to protect fragile wetlands looked like swimming noodles from the air, and may have had just about the same impact, suggests Jerry Milgram. These booms, with their underwater curtains and floating foam tops, permit oil to go under or over whenever the current gets too strong. Oil containment simply won't work against energetic wind and waves. Decades ago, Milgram attempted to design booms that rode the waves better in gently agitated seas, and he came up with oil collection gadgets as part of these devices. They were too expensive "and fell into disuse." Once the oil escapes, booms and skimmers are a waste of resources. Says Milgram, "When it comes to surface cleanup and open sea, use your money for something better." About the Speaker(s): Maria Zuber studies the structure and evolution of planets and has been an innovator in the application of spacecraft laser ranging and radio tracking systems to map the topography and gravity fields of the planets. Zuber has led or co"led spacecraft instrument investigations to the Moon and Mars, and she is involved in future missions to Mars, Mercury, and the asteroids Ceres and Vesta. The topographic map of Mars produced by her laser altimeter on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft is the most accurate topography model for any planet, including Earth. Zuber received her B.A. in Astrophysics (honors) and Geology, from the University of Pennsylvania in 1980, her Sc.M. in Geophysics in 1983, and her Ph.D. in Geophysics in 1986, both from Brown University. Host(s): School of Science, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences

Planning the Response: Establishing the Impacts and Identifying the Parties at Risk

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 04:00:00 GMT

09/28/2010 3:00 PM E14"674Amy Glasmeier, Department Head, Professor of Geography and Regional Planning, DUSP; Wyman Briggs, Preparedness Specialist, US Coast Guard; Earthea Nance, Assistant Professor, Department of Urban Studies, University of New Orleans) ; James Thu (Dien) Bui, Mary Queen of Vietnam Community Development CorporationDescription: The Deepwater Horizon disaster spread through not just a vast coastal ecosystem, but into diverse human communities lining the Gulf, many entirely dependent on the sea for their livelihoods. These three panelists describe their involvement in quite disparate response projects, which began shortly after the oil began gushing, and in some areas, continue today. Working for the federal government, Wyman Briggs observed firsthand the massive resources brought to bear on the 4.9 million barrel spill: 48 thousand responders from 500 agencies and 20 different countries working at the peak of the emergency; 870 miles of boom and hundreds of skimming vessels deployed; 411 controlled burns of oil, and 770 thousand gallons of dispersant deposited. In spite of this armada reining in and attacking the mess, the technology (much of it unimproved in decades) left 26% of the oil unaccounted for. Scientists believe it is traveling in a "significant plume" deep in Gulf waters, says Briggs. And armies of people are still "working in marshes and walking the beaches" scooping up tarballs, sampling water, studying the effectiveness of dispersants and burning, and mapping out restoration and remediation The spill made one thing clear, says Earthea Nance: the "relationship between economic development decisions and the impact on the environment." She frames this disaster in terms of "shrimp vs. petroleum," and as "the latest in a cumulative series of cascading disasters" for coastal communities rocked hard by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav, and the 'great recession.' Nance organized hearings where economically struggling residents voiced great concern about the "loss of a way of life and culture, which is based on the environment." They also worried that their air, water and soil are contaminated. Nance brought groups from Alaska affected by the Exxon Valdez spill to talk about their multi"decade trauma with legal claims, and the demise of fisheries. Gulf communities, she says, want to be more involved in monitoring the impacts to their environment. There is a major opportunity here, Nance believes, to train the long"term unemployed for new, green jobs. When the BP rig blew, the timing could not have been worse for the 4,500 Vietnamese "Americans plying Gulf waters for shrimp, says James Dien Bui. Katrina left these seasonal workers saddled with debt, and the loss of another income"producing spring proved devastating to these family businesses. Bui led hundreds of focus groups from Alabama to Louisiana to discuss the challenges of Vietnamese" American communities, and found them craving "access to accurate and timely information," in language and forms they could understand. Some of these people are victimized by "predatory lawyers" offering instant cash for entering class action suits. Most of all, they want their jobs back. Bui is focusing on two priorities: helping residents with disaster claims; and creating "one"stop business centers" for job training and placement in such sustainable projects as an aquaculture park. One recent success: catering locally sourced food to create healthy meals in a New Orleans charter school. About the Speaker(s): Amy Glasmeier was previously on the faculty at Penn State and the University of Texas at Austin, and was the John Whisman Scholar of the Appalachian Regional Commission. She holds a B.S. in Environmental Studies and Planning from Sonoma State University and an M..A and Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley. Her publications consist of more than 50 scholarly articles and several books, including Manufacturing Time: Global Competition in the World Watch Industry, 1795"2000 (Guilford Press, 2000); and From Combines to Computers: Rural Services and Development in the Age of Information Technology with Marie Howland (SUNY Press, 1995). Her most recent book,An Atlas of Poverty in America: One Nation, Pulling Apart 1960"2003 (Routledge Press, 2005), examines the experience of people and places in poverty since the 1960s, looks across the last four decades at poverty in America and recounts the history of poverty policy since the 1940s.Host(s): School of Science, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences

Splendor, Destruction, and the Shift from Awe to Action in Environmental Documentary

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:11:53 GMT

Speaker: Jeanne Marie Kusina, Bowling Green State University. Moderator: Madeleine Clare Elish, MIT. Abstract: This presentation discusses the role of digital media in the field of environmental ethics. There is a long, rich tradition of wildlife and natural history filmmaking devoted to documenting fact while dramatizing the content in a way that frequently inspires awe, respect, or reverence for nature. Whereas environmental ethicists often share these sentiments, for many their discourse resides primarily in academic forums of rigorous philosophical analysis and rational thought. Yet in his Treatise on Human Nature, David Hume argues that reason alone is an insufficient motivator of ethical action. According to Hume, unless there is already a moral sense and inclination toward benevolence in place, a disconnect remains between education and virtuous action. I argue that new media present one possibility for attempting to bridge this lacuna. In recent years, exponential growth in the accessibility of digital content through a variety of dissemination channels as well as marked increases in the availability of digital recording devices and editing software has helped to democratize what was once a fairly narrow niche of environment-oriented filmmaking. Moreover, in addition to a surge in popularity, environmental video documentaries have demonstrated a gradual shift from more conventional aims of observation toward direct efforts to invoke an ethical sensibility in the audience. This content, I will demonstrate, is less concerned with exhibiting natural splendor than with placing an ethical demand upon the viewer by presenting compelling visual representations of destruction, disappearance, and loss.

Annual Technology Day Report 2010

Sat, 05 Jun 2010 04:00:00 GMT

06/05/2010 KresgeDr. Susan Hockfield, President, MITDescription: Note: This video has some audio problems, which get resolved at early on with some help from an audience member, presumed to be a Course VI alum. MIT President Susan Hockfield delivers a general update on the Institute to MIT Alumni gathered in Kresge for the annual Technology Day event. Focusing first on everyone's most pressing concern, Hockfield provides an overview of the Institute's finances, and reports on a campus"wide response to the economic downturn that has resulted in a leaner and stronger MIT. Going forward with a balanced budget, MIT is benefitting from The Idea Bank, a community"wide on"line discussion that produced hundreds of ideas on how to reduce expenses. Many of these changes required an examination of business practices aimed at more efficient, streamlined operations. One highly visible change involved the reorganization of the MIT News Office, and the MIT Home Page with Technology Review which created a more unified approach to external communication, and an overall leaner operation. One result? MIT's website is now the most visited university website in the world. Hockfield also updates on major building projects, including the celebrated opening of the new Media Lab (Bldg. E14), and the much"anticipated new Sloan building (Bldg. E62) in 2011. Additionally, as the Koch Institute for Integrated Cancer Research (Bldg. 76) nears completion, she provides details on the plan to bring 12 biologists and 12 engineers together as they take on the cancer research in new ways that speak to the MIT interdisciplinary approach to solving very big problems. Initiatives begun the past year include new programs in leadership, energy, sustainability, entrepreneurship and finance. Questions from the audience include MIT's role in trying to solve the oil leak in the gulf (MIT faculty are on the case), MIT's help in providing insight and analysis on the causes of the global economic crisis challenges in the banking industry, more on solar energy and the challenges of energy storage, the upcoming MIT 150 celebration, the job climate for MIT grads (considerably better than most), and work at the Sloan School in sustainability and fostering entrepreneurship. About the Speaker(s): Susan Hockfield has served as the sixteenth president of MIT since December 2004. A strong advocate of the vital role that science, technology, and the research university play in the world, she believes that MIT can best advance its historic mission of teaching, research, and service by providing robust and sustained support for the ideas and energies of its faculty and students. A noted neuroscientist whose research has focused on the development of the brain, Dr. Hockfield is the first life scientist to lead MIT and holds a faculty appointment as professor of neuroscience in the Institute's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Under her leadership, MIT has launched a major Institute"wide initiative in energy research and education and continues to expand its activities at the intersection of the life sciences and engineering, with a particular focus on cancer research. The Institute has also embarked on a sustained effort to strengthen support for student life and learning, including undergraduate curriculum renewal, and is undertaking major campus construction and renovation projects with a combined value of approximately three"quarters of a billion dollars. Before assuming the presidency of MIT, Dr. Hockfield was the William Edward Gilbert Professor of Neurobiology and provost at Yale University. She joined the Yale faculty in 1985 and was named full professor in 1994. While at Yale, she played a central role in the university's leadership, first as dean of its Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (1998"2002), with oversight of more than 70 graduate programs, and then as provost, the university's chief academic and administrative officer. Dr. Hockfield earned her B.A. in biology from the University of Rochester and a Ph.D. from the Georgetown University School of Medicine, while carrying out her dissertation research in neuroscience at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She was an NIH postdoctoral fellow at the University of California at San Francisco in 1979"80, and then joined the scientific staff at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York in 1980. She served as director of the Laboratory's Summer Neurobiology Program from 1985 to 1997, concurrent with her teaching post at Yale, and more recently as a trustee of the laboratory. Her memberships in professional societies include the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Society for Neuroscience. Host(s): Alumni Association, Alumni Association

The Perfect Oyster

Wed, 19 May 2010 17:40:53 GMT

The definition of a "perfect oyster" depends a lot on whether you're a fisherman or a conservationist. But can conservation efforts create an environment that will preserve everyone's perfect oyster?

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.

Crossroads 2010: The Environment

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 16:04:56 GMT

Introduction by Dr. Edgar Blanco, MIT

Transportation, the Built Environment and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Developing Cities

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 04:00:00 GMT

04/06/2010 4:00 PM 3"270Chris Zegras, Ford Career Development Assistant Professor of Transportation and Urban Planning, MITDescription: It seems that income and travel are inextricably linked. As communities gain wealth and prosperity, their travel footprint increases. While this relationship affords benefits to those in developed nations, it is not scalable. Global population is projected to increase by nearly 2 billion people by 2030. If this newly added population drove just 3,000 kilometers a year, they would emit more tonnes of C02 annually, more than all the countries of Latin America emit today. "The world simply cannot afford to add another Latin America", says Chris Zegras. Zegras observes that fundamentally, people do not desire travel . they wish to have accessibility. Travel is a derived demand, prompted by our activities. If we could make better use of telecommunications, or, if our cities were more compact, perhaps we would find less need for vehicle trips. This is not a new concept for Americans. Nearly 100 years ago, planners envisioned "garden cities" where urban space could be better designed to promote community and neighborhood. Zegras and his students are modeling the trajectory of travel and growth in the developing world" primarily Asia and South America. In Santiago, Chile there has been a large growth of the middle class, accompanied, not surprisingly by an increase in automobile ownership. However, vehicle ownership and rising income are only part of the explanation. The research has noted that distance to the Central Business District, and proximity to Santiago's Metro system are also important factors. Neither urban density nor income entirely explains the picture of travel behavior. In Jinan, China the research team has compared travel in four distinctly different types of neighborhoods, and conducted a survey with 9 areas and 300 households per district. Counter intuitively, the data shows vehicle trips are more prevalent in higher density. These are new style developments consisting of very tall residential superblocks. In fact, looking at total energy consumption, the superblocks use more mega joules of energy than households in more traditional or older Chinese neighborhoods. At the end of the day, Zegras notes that there is a complex, and perhaps reflexive mechanism between the built environment and travel. The built environment may simply not provide enough accessibility to get us to a different standard, and behaviorally, people may cling to their implicit "travel time budgets". If they are able to reduce their daily travel on the one hand, might they then accumulate the savings, so to speak, and take one longer, leisure trip at month"end on an airplane? Measuring the carbon footprint of transportation within the built environment is difficult and there is "leakage". If we save in one area, we might spend in another. About the Speaker(s): Chris Zegras teaches graduate"level courses in urban transportation planning, statistics, and land use"transportation planning in the Department of Urban Studies at MIT, where he has also co"taught urban design and planning studios and Practica in Beijing, Santiago de Chile, and Mexico City. He currently serves as the MIT Lead for the MIT"Portugal Program Transportation Systems Focus Area. He is also a member of the Campus Energy Task Force of the MIT Energy Initiative. Zegras previously worked as a Research Associate at MIT's Laboratory for Energy & the Environment. He also spent 6 years with the International Institute for Energy Conservation (IIEC) in Washington, DC and Santiago de Chile. He has consulted widely on transportation, land development, environment, and finance, including for the International Energy Agency, the Government of Peru, the World Bank, the U.S., Canadian, and German overseas development agencies, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. Zegras holds a BA in Economics and Spanish from Tufts University, and the Master in City Planning, the Master of Science in Transportation, and the Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Planning from MIT Host(s): School of Engineering, Transportation@MIT

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

AeroAstro Safety Lecture

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:19:17 GMT

AeroAstro Department Senior Technical Instructor discusses lab and shop safety rules and procedures. Recorded in May 2009.

Frances Beinecke - Can We Meet the Planet's Deadline?

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:02:12 GMT

Abstract Current science tells us that we must act now in order to prevent the worst impacts of global warming. The international community, mean- while, is meeting this December in Copenhagen to negotiate a new climate regime. Is the United States moving fast enough to meet these deadlines? Will we pass a clean energy and climate law in time to emerge as a leader at the international talks? Frances Beinecke will answer these questions, and discuss the political outlook for passing a climate law this fall. She will also talk about the role MIT students can play in developing clean energy technologies, including super-efficient electronics, hybrid batteries, and carbon capture for coal plants. In the end, reaching climate goals will require not just technical know-how, but civic engagement as well, and Beinecke will talk about how MIT students can get involved. About the Speaker Frances Beinecke is the president of the NRDC, one of the United States' most influential environmental action groups. The NRDC uses law, science, and the support of 1.2 million members and online activists to advance comprehensive solutions to today's biggest environmental challenges. Under Ms. Beinecke's leadership, the organization has launched a new strategic campaign that sharply focuses NRDC's efforts on curbing global warming, moving America beyond oil, reviving the world's oceans, saving endangered wild places, stemming the tide of toxic chemicals, and accelerating the greening of China. Ms. Beinecke has worked with NRDC for more than 30 years. This Colloquium took place on October 7, 2009.

President Susan Hockfield speaking on energy research in Washington, DC on March 23, 2009

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 20:38:12 GMT

The Most Important Number in the World

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:30:44 GMT

Science has given us, in the last 18 months, a real bottom line for the planet: a CO2 concentration above which, as NASA's Jim Hansen has put it, we can't maintain the "planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life is adapted." We need a movement to get that scientific truth across to as many folks as possib Bill McKibben, a scholar in residence at Middlebury College, an American environmentalist and prolific writer on related topics, will be calling on MIT students to join a global movement to share that alarming scientific truth to as many folks as possible. The CIS Starr Forum, entitled "The Most Important Number in the World," will be on Monday, April 13, at 4:30 PM, in the Wong Auditorium.

Engineering for the Ecological Age: Lessons from History

Fri, 01 May 2009 04:00:00 GMT

05/01/2009 2:00 PM Bartos theaterJohn Ochsendorf, Associate Professor, Department of ArchitectureDescription: John Ochsendorf, a structural engineer, "fell in love with archaeology" during college. His senior thesis at Cornell involved a 600"year"old Incan suspension bridge made entirely out of grass. Ochsendorf learned that this apparently primitive structure owed its astonishing longevity to regular rebuilds by the locals (during a community festival), and the use of renewable, biodegradable resources. While Cornell's engineering faculty couldn't see the point of this research -- "grass bridges over highway overpasses"? -- Ochsendorf realized that historical structures held important lessons for modern building technology. The grass bridge raised several problems that now consume Ochsendorf's academic and professional life. First, how to consider the whole life of a product when designing it, of particular import since "the 21st century is going to be a wild ride in terms of natural resources," says Ochsendorf. Some building costs increase over time, consuming material and labor while deteriorating (nb: New York's 1903 Williamsburg Bridge, with $1 billion in repairs, and still unsafe at any speed). Ochsendorf suggests alternatives: making permanent structures with high quality construction and reusable materials (such as Roman stone arch bridges); very temporary structures, such as the grass bridge, or a Japanese pavilion made out of recycleable paper; or modular structures designed to change over time. Ochsendorf created "a medieval building for the 21st century," a sustainable home made out of waste clay tiles, rammed earth from local chalk, and a heavy green roof on which sheep graze. Ochsendorf also studies the integrity of existing historical structures: how to guarantee the safety of a medieval cathedral, or a 19th"century train station. The Pantheon's stood for 2000 years, a brittle structure that inevitably develops cracks. Engineers today can't say for sure "if something will fall down." Ochsendorf is creating engineering tools to vouch for the masonry, steel and concrete holding up both historical treasures and more commonplace infrastructure. He is also working on high tech tools so engineers can examine building designs before construction to ensure "safe results," and to create structures that will consume less energy and emit fewer greenhouse gases during their lifetimes. As composers know Mozart, and philosophers know the works of Plato, concludes Ochsendorf, the next generation of engineers must review the works of their forebears, if they're to maintain existing infrastructure, and create better designs for the future. About the Speaker(s): John Ochsendorf is a structural engineer and architectural historian who works to preserve historic structures and to reinterpret ancient technologies for contemporary use. Ochsendorf has studied a variety of alternative engineering traditions, including hand"woven, fiber suspension bridges of the Inca Empire. He has also investigated suspension and cable"stayed bridges in Japan. More recently, Ochsendorf has explored the structural safety of such historic monuments as French and Spanish Romanesque churches. Ochsendorf received a B.Sc. (1996) from Cornell University, an M.Sc. (1998) from Princeton University, and a Ph.D. (2002) from Cambridge University. He received the National Endowment for the Arts Rome Prize for 2007"2008, and was a Fulbright Scholar at the Escuela T_cnica Superior de Arquitectura, Madrid, Spain. Host(s): School of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences, Program in Science, Technology and Society

Climate Change in a Changing World: Meeting the Needs of Humanity and the Planet

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 04:00:00 GMT

04/22/2009 7:00 PM Simmons HallSteven Hamburg, Chief Scientist, Environmental Defense FundDescription: The "dominant story of the next century" will be one of either gloom or redemption, says Steven Hamburg, depending on how humanity chooses to address climate change. To date, Earth's inhabitants have not meaningfully acknowledged this choice. Yet Hamburg retains a streak of optimism, based on his belief that bringing the impact of climate change home to individuals may stimulate a constructive response. First Hamburg sketches the dire facts: the planet is headed toward at least a 2 degree Celsius increase in temperature in coming decades, with consequences likely to include shifts in crop production, coral reef decline, and rising sea levels that threaten delta populations with devastating storm surges. From Hamburg's perspective, there's no serious argument that humans are major drivers of this rapid change, which is already negatively affecting many regions of the world. While affluent societies may discuss adaptation, it's already clear that "the losers are those people living on a dollar a day, with no capital." So "the question for each of us is how much change is too much change? How much can we tolerate?" Hamburg's first climate change paper in 1988, which focused on a subject he knows intimately, the ecology of New Hampshire's White Mountains, was met with "total silence." He worries that scientists are still conducting climate change research in a kind of void, with most people relatively oblivious to an unfolding cataclysm. "It's that dissonance that's a challenge for us as a society," he says. As a result, he's working with groups that attempt to communicate how climate change affects the "places we live in and care about." For instance, in Hamburg's White Mountain territory, climate change has led to a much shorter winter, and a pattern of winter warming and cooling that has decimated the once dominant red spruce forests, leaving maples to thrive (for the moment). People everywhere must be persuaded to become "agents of change." Hamburg recounts how the CEO of Walmart enlisted him to help the corporation become more sustainable, which led to the sale of millions of compact fluorescent bulbs (replacing incandescents), major profits, and massive savings in carbon emissions. Corporations are getting it, believes Hamburg (even Rupert Murdoch's chains are going green), seeing that "doing the right thing for society" can save money. But these moves must be accompanied by government regulations, in both developed and developing countries, which will require a "conversationto link impacts in our own worlds and lives, with actions we can take." About the Speaker(s): Steven P. Hamburg is an ecosystem ecologist specializing in the impacts of disturbance on forest structure and function. He came to Brown in 1995 after nine years at the University of Kansas, where he directed the Environmental Studies Program and served as Environmental Ombudsman. Today, Hamburg collaborates with 70 science institutions to create hands"on learning opportunities and exhibits for the public. He has published widely including in Nature and Science and has served as a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Hamburg received his M.F.S. and Ph.D. (in Forest Ecology) from Yale University. He held a post"doctoral position at Stanford University and was a Bullard Fellow at Harvard University. At Brown he is the concentration advisor for the environmental science concentration and serves as Research Director of the Global Environment Program at the Watson Institute in International Studies.Host(s): Dean for Student Life, The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values

Harlan County, Kentucky: What Happened to Elmer's Fishpond?

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 21:58:01 GMT

Elmer Lloyd, a proud former coal miner, struggles to come to terms with his prize fishpond becoming a polluted acid pond at the hands of a coal company.

Harlan County, Kentucky: McKinley Sumner's Disappearing Backyard

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 21:53:30 GMT

McKinley Sumner heard a sound his backyard one day, and realized something wasn't right. When he walked to the edge of his property line, he found tractors from the abutting coal mine digging into his land. Soon he saw his local creek, once clean and healthy, turn brown and muddy. This is the story of McKinley Sumner's fight to protect his property.

National Academy of Engineering Regional Meeting: Sustainable Transportation - Keynote

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:20:30 GMT

The National Academy of Engineering Regional Meeting talks about Sustainable Transportation with a keynote presentation on "Driving Toward Sustainability" given by Daniel Sperling -- Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis, where he is also Acting Director of the Energy Efficiency Center, Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering, and Professor of Environmental Science and Policy.

Sustainable Tim

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:02:02 GMT

See how even MIT's mascot Tim the Beaver gets into the swing of things and stays sustainable with good eco-friendly practices on campus. You could learn a thing or two.

Sustainability at MIT: Greening MIT's Campus and Beyond

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:23:21 GMT

The concept is getting a hands-on workout at MIT through projects that use the campus as a test lab.

Leon Glicksman on Sustainability

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:17:33 GMT

Sustainability@MIT Co-President and Sloan student Adam Siegel interviews Leon Glicksman '59, PhD '64, Co-Chair of the MIT Campus Energy Task Force and gains his input on campus sustainability.

Niki Gomez, Legatum Fellow

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:39:16 GMT

Niki Gomez hails from Sri Lanka and is currently a Sloan Fellow in Innovation and Global Leadership at the Sloan School of Management. Her focus is on solar energy development Sri Lanka.

Opportunities in Infrastructure and Built Environment

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 04:00:00 GMT

09/19/2008 2:45 PM KresgeSarah Slaughter, 82, SM'87, PhD 91, Associate Director for Buildings & Infrastructure, MIT Energy Initiative; Judith Layzer, PhD '99, Linde Career Development Associate Professor of Environmental Policy; Milton Bevington, Domain Director, Building Retrofit Program, Clinton Climate Initiative, Clinton Foundation; Bill Sisson, SF '99, Director of Sustainability United Technologies CorporationDescription: Half the world's population currently lives in cities, and that number is spiraling upward, as urban settlements gobble up most of the world's natural resources and emit the most pollutants. No wonder that these panelists perceive the challenge (and opportunity) of sustainability as much bigger than getting people to switch from incandescent light bulbs to fluorescents. The "latest craze in city governance," says Judith Layer is making your city as sustainable as possible. New York for instance, has vowed to plant one million trees, and convert its entire taxi fleet to hybrids. Chicago is covering its rooftops in green; Toronto composts. Layzer believes there are "good reasons to worry we'll see symbolic commitments with not much done." Cities struggle to undertake systemic change, partly because they don't control the supply and demand mechanism for energy resources such as oil, which helps drive commuting and mass transit behaviors. Cities have also historically supported unfettered growth to keep their tax base high, and when confronted with a sensible, pollution saving plan such as switching traffic lights to LED lightbulbs, cringe at the high upfront costs. Layzer thinks successful urban sustainability initiatives will depend on national governments pricing natural resources appropriately (e.g., eliminating subsidies on fossil fuels); effective local leadership that makes the case for often unpopular schemes like parking fees and congestion pricing; and major coalition building. No amount of green construction will help with reducing greenhouse gases to desirable levels if today's buildings aren't altered to reduce their CO2 emissions, says Milton Bevington. His brief with the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI) in 40 cities worldwide is to provide market"based solutions, not handouts or tax rebates, to get efficient heat and power into millions of residential and commercial buildings. A large part of Bevington's job is educating landlords and others about new financing approaches for retrofitting old buildings. One example: a Chicago bank designed a loan enabling the owners of the city's 550 thousand multifamily housing units to use an "energy performance guarantee" as collateral. Borrowed funds go into reducing water and energy use, and "every single dollar required to pay back the bank" comes from a reduction in energy use. Bevington would like to see more investor"driven financing for energy efficient projects, which he believes could spread swiftly in both rich and poor countries "to change a large sector of the built environment." There's a dilemma brewing for most of the world's big businesses, saysBill Sisson, who is United Technologies' point man in a business consortium effort on energy efficient buildings. While firms recognize the importance of energy efficiency, only 13% are rising to the challenge. Sisson's group seeks to create a roadmap for zero net energy use in buildings, involving technology, improved financial mechanisms, and behavior change. Says Sisson, this is "really about managing risk and directing the future of business in the right way; we see this aspect of buildings as critical for our growth and presence in the market." About the Speaker(s): Sarah Slaughter focuses on issues of sustainability and disaster resiliency in infrastructure and the built environment. She currently coordinates the Sustainable Business Laboratory (S"Lab) and the Sloan Sustainability Initiative. She was CEO of MOCA Systems, Inc., a company she founded based on research she conducted as a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT. She was previously a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Lehigh University, and worked with the Center for Advanced Technology for Large Structural Systems (ATLSS). Slaughter is currently on the Board on Infrastructure and the Constructed Environment in the National Research Council, National Academies of Science, and Vice Chair of the Committee on Sustainable Infrastructure. Host(s): Sloan School of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management

Inventory Optimization in a Retail Multi-Echelon Environment Inventory Optimization

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:49:22 GMT

Rintiya Arkaresvimun

Research Fest 2008

This project developed an inventory model to find the optimal inventory distribution in a retail three-echelon network that enables high target service level at the stores. Using a multi-echelon approach, the optimal network inventory cost can be achieved by low inventory and service level at the intermediate echelon. The study shows the interrelations between echelons that should be considered when developing each echelon's inventory policy.

22-May-08, Session 3 (11:00-12:30)

Energy@MIT

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:18:22 GMT

What's needed to address the global energy challenge? New technologies, new sources of capital, and new ways of thinking. See highlights from the 2008 MIT Energy Conference, and find out how MIT is playing a vital role in finding energy solutions.

Communicating Climate Change

Tue, 06 May 2008 23:18:24 GMT

Science, Advocacy, and Media. Panelists: Naomi Oreskes, Andrew Revkin, Kerry Emanuel, Kevin Conrad, Moderator: Boyce Rensberger, Thursday, April 10, 2008

Recent Videos tagged 'Environment' on MIT Video

Climate Change Policy that Makes Economic Sense

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 2: Comparative Energy Systems

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 20: Social Movements

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 21: U.S. Environment Policy

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 11: Business Decisions in Reality: CHP at Hexion

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 14: Innovation and Energy Business Models

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 15: Non-Renewable Energy Resources

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 1: This Course and The U.S. Energy System

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 12: Organizational Decision-Making: Biodiesel at MIT

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 13: Developing Profitable Strategies

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 17: (Yesterday's and) Today's Electric Power System

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 22: Economic Development & Green Growth

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 19: Making Public Policy

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 10: Normative Frameworks for Business Decisions

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 16: Shale: Opportunities & Challenges

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 18: Tomorrow's Electric Power System

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 6: Climate Science and Policy

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 8: Economics of Energy Demand

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 9: Energy Use by Individuals and Households

Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies - Lecture 3: U.S. Energy Problems

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Harnessing Microbes for Carbon Dioxide Sequestration

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

Watching the Arctic Melt, part 2

Watching the Arctic Melt: Ecosystem Adaptation

Watching the Arctic Melt: Geopolitics

Watching the Arctic Melt: Profiling Under the Ice

Watching the Arctic Melt: Robotic Exploration

Watching the Arctic Melt: Surveying with Sound

Engineering a Cooler Earth: Panel Discussion

LGO Webinar: Aaron Fyke, Energy Cache

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Putting it together: the modular car

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

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

At the intersection of biology and physics in the ocean

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

Read more about the Talkback 360 series at the MIT Museum: http://web.mit.edu/museum/programs/talkback.html

Building the #Knowosphere: MITEI Earth Day Colloquium with Andrew Revkin

Climate

Process and Report of the ERC

Provost's Welcome and Introduction to the ERC

Basic Research with Real-World Impact

Community and Communication: Open Panel Discussion

Contamination Mitigation

Ecological Resilience

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

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

Social Policy: Can Adaptation Save Us from Climate Change?

Sustainable Societies

Technology: Water Supply, Desalination and Energy

Water

Energy 101: Biofuels

Sarah Garlick: "Wild Stone: Climbing the unclimbed, from the Arctic to Arabia"

ASSET4 ESG: Using the Company Level Template

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Extinction

Can I Go Out And Play?

BLOSSOMS: How Biotechnology Helps Clean Up the Environment? (Arabic with English Subtitles)

Reinventing the City @ MIT: Urban Ecology

Claudia Octaviano models electricity and oil sectors in Mexico

CO2GO

The 'Artificial Leaf'

Installing the Dev Desktop as a Drupal development environment on your local computer

Civic Media Session: "Design for Vulnerable Populations"

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

A Method for Green Design -- Professor Steven Eppinger

LGO Web Seminar Series

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

Sloan Energy Finance Forum (2010)

The Response to the Gulf Oil Spill

2010 David J. Rose Lectureship in Nuclear Technology

Financial Re-Engineering

Hines: The Man, The Company

Re-Engineering Buildings: Innovations in Building Technology

Moving Ahead: Engineering Challenges of Deep Water Drilling and Future Oil Resource Recovery

Perspectives on the Unfolding Spill: Evidence of the Environmental Impacts of the Event

Planning the Response: Establishing the Impacts and Identifying the Parties at Risk

Splendor, Destruction, and the Shift from Awe to Action in Environmental Documentary