Past Activities
Dot Earth: Pursuing Progress on a Finite Planet
Andrew Revkin, New York Times Science Reporter
May 24, 2008
Commencement Forum sponsored by the Environmental Change Initiative and the Office of Alumni Relations
The human species has become a global-scale force, nudging the climate and shaping ecosystems in profound ways. In an illustrated talk, Andrew Revkin '78, a prize-winning New York Times reporter and author, will describe his 25-year exploration of efforts to mesh human affairs with Earth's limits, from the Amazon to the North Pole. A book signing will follow the lecture.
Las Gaviotas: An Eco-Village to Reinvent the World
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Las Gaviotas, founded by Paolo Lugari, is an eco-village with a twenty-three year track record of rainforest regeneration, developing more sustainable lives for the inhabitants of the Vichada region of Colombia.
In 1965, when Colombian activist Paulo Lugari was flying over the impoverished region, he mused that if people could live here they could live anywhere. The following year Lugari and a group of scientists, artists, agronomists and engineers took the 15-hour journey along a tortuous route from Bogotá to the Llanos Orientales (eastern plains) bordering Venezuela.
Today, their venture has grown to a village of 200 families that generates its own energy from renewable sources and grows its own food. Inventions from Gaviotas designers—including windmills, high efficiency pumps and solar kettles—are not patented and have spread quickly to villages across the country.
The pine forest they planted for income in the 80’s has become a nursery to over 200 native rainforest species and the community now sells voluntary carbon offsets.
More information:
The Marion Institute
Las Gaviotas
ECI's 2008 spring lecture series titled:
Going Green, Globally:
Scientific, Economic and Political Perspectives
Green is the New Red, White and Blue
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman
Tuesday, April 22 (Earth Day), 6 p.m.
Solomon Center for Teaching, Room 101
Thomas L. Friedman, a world-renowned author and journalist, joined The New York Times in 1981 as a financial reporter specializing in OPEC- and oil-related news and later served as the chief diplomatic, chief White House, and international economics correspondents. A three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, he has traveled hundreds of thousands of miles reporting the Middle East conflict, the end of the cold war, U.S. domestic politics and foreign policy, international economics, and the worldwide impact of the terrorist threat. His foreign affairs column, which appears twice a week in the Times, is syndicated to seven hundred other newspapers worldwide.
Thomas L. Friedman¹s reporting on green technology appeared in a 2007 documentary on the Discovery Channel titled "Green: The New Red, White and Blue," and he is currently working on a book examining the same topics.
Impact of Biofuels on Global Food Security, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and Land-Use Change
Kenneth Cassman, Director of the Nebraska Center for Energy Sciences Research
Thursday, March 20, 7 p.m.
MacMillan Hall, Room 115
Kenneth G. Cassman currently serves as Director of the Nebraska Center for Energy Sciences, and is the B. Keith and Norma F. Heuermann Professor of Agronomy at the University of Nebraska. He received a BSc degree in biology from the University of California--San Diego (1975), and a PhD in Agronomy and Soil Science from the University of Hawaii (1979). His expertise is centered within the disciplines of soil science, agroecology, and plant ecophysiology. Research activities have focused on: (1) plant nutrition, root ecophysiology, soil fertility and nutrient cycling to improve fertilizer efficiency and to reduce negative effects on environmental quality; (2)crop yield potential, soil carbon sequestration, and greenhouse gas emissions in maize-based cropping systems of the USA Corn Belt; (3) the long-term sustainability of intensive crop production systems and global food security. Recently he has focused attention on the role of agriculture in contributing to renewable energy supplies through production of ethanol and biodiesel fuels from cereal, oilseed, and sugar crops, and the environmental impact of expanded biofuel production from agricultural crops.
Innovation and Transatlantic Cooperation on Energy, Climate and Security
Andreas Kraemer, Director of Ecologic
Thursday, April 3, 11:30 a.m.
MacMillan Hall, Room 115
Ecologic - Institute for International and European Environmental Policy is a private not-for-profit think tank for applied environmental research, policy analysis and consultancy with offices in Berlin and Brussels. Founded in 1995, Ecologic is dedicated to bringing fresh ideas to environmental policies and to promoting sustainable development. Ecologic's work programme focuses on obtaining practical results and on enhancing the importance of environmental protection and sustainable resource management in the fields of foreign and security policy, international relations and global governance structures. As an independent, non-partisan body, it undertakes applied research and analysis to increase awareness and understanding of the political, economic and technological forces driving global change.
Combating Climate Change
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
Monday, January 28, 2008
Salomon Hall, Room 101
View VideoWhitehouse has been a strong advocate for environmental protection, health, and conservation throughout his career. He has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court to protect public wetlands from development and sued to block Bush administration efforts to weaken the Clean Air Act. In the Senate, he is a cosponsor of legislation that would significantly reduce global warming pollutants, and has pushed for further inquiry into the security implications of climate change.
Senator Whitehouse's lecture kicked off "Focus the Nation," a week of climate-related events at Brown.
Senator Whitehouse's lecture was cosponsored by EmPOWER and the Environmental Change Initiative.
Rapid Fire Symposium
Energy: Creation, Conservation, Conversion
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Barus and Holley 168
Do you study energy or environmental issues? Are you curious about what your colleagues are doing? Wish you could learn about it all in one place? The Environmental Change Initiative is organizing two rapid-fire symposia in the spring semester to capture the broad range of campus research and activities in these areas. The energy symposium, scheduled for January 31 to coincide with "Focus the Nation," was cosponsored by the Vice President for Research, the Division of Engineering, and the Dean of the College.
We included the full variety of campus and community activities but kept the program short enough to get a taste of everything that’s happening. A reception encouraged follow up conversations and the program and presentations is posted on the web.
The symposium consisted of a series of 5-minute talks by members of the Brown, RISD and Providence communities highlighting the many energy-related projects that are underway. Research talks were grouped early in the afternoon (3:30 pm - 5 pm). Community and other action-oriented projects were presented later in the afternoon (5:30 -6:30), with a networking reception in between.
For more information, call Marty Downs at 401-863-3493.
The Emergence of a Bioeconomy
Thursday, November 29, 2007, 7:00 p.m.
Room 115 MacMillan Hall, Brown University
167 Thayer Street, Providence, RI
Robert Brown
Director, Center for Sustainable Environmental Technologies (CSET), Iowa State University
The bioeconomy will provide society with renewable sources of carbon and energy, in the process reducing our dependence upon imported petroleum and other fossil fuels. Despite the current enthusiasm for ethanol, other biofuels may also play a prominent role as advanced biorefineries are developed. Regardless of the approach to advanced biofuels, these biorefineries face four major barriers to successful commercialization: biomass supply; conversion efficiency; fossil fuel inputs; and determination of the optimal size for an economically viable biorefinery. This talk will review the technology options and the issues surrounding their commercial introduction.
Do Biofuels Make Sense? Their Impacts on Food, Energy and the Environment
Tuesday, October 30, 2007, 7:00 p.m.
Room 115 MacMillan Hall, Brown University, 167 Thayer Street, Providence, RI
David Tilman
Regents' Professor and McKnight Presidential Chair in Ecology, University of Minnesota
The impact on the environment of biofuel production and use can vary dramatically depending on the crops used and how they are grown. Tilman’s research suggests that some high diversity grasslands could actually be net carbon sinks while producing biofuels for human use. He will evaluate the extended impact of biofuels derived from a variety of sources.
Fire and Water: Energy Efficient Technologies for Poor Communities in the Developing World
Thursday, October 11, 2007, 7:00 p.m.
Room 115 MacMillan Hall, Brown University
167 Thayer Street, Providence, RI
Ashok Gadgil
Senior Staff Scientist and Group Leader in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Adjunct Professor in the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley
Ashok Gadgil pursues technical, economic, and policy research on energy efficiency and its implementation — particularly in developing countries. He has several patents and inventions to his credit, among them the “UV Waterworks,” a technology to inexpensively disinfect drinking water in the developing countries, for which he received the Discover Award in 1996 for the most significant environmental invention of the year, as well as the Popular Science award for “Best of What is New – 1996”.
Ashok Gadgil's lecture is the first in a series of six lectures sponsored by Brown's Environmental Change Initiative looking at the relationship between energy and the environment .
Ecological Foundations of Sustainability in a Constantly Changing World
August 7, 2007
Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting, San Jose, CA
ECI members participated in organizing a half-day symposium at Ecological Society of America’s annual meeting. Speakers examined changing definitions of sustainability and explored the ways that current ecological understanding can contribute to a more nuanced and useful approach to sustainability.
S4/ECI Conference
March 17-18, 2006
Impacts of Disaster: Comparing Ecological and Social Resilience
Even the worst disasters leave behind a surviving community. The purpose of this conference is to understand the resilience of both ecosystems and human communities, and the relationship between the two. How do communities rebound, under what conditions is rebuilding more or less successful, what are the long term costs of disasters, and what opportunities are created in their wake? The conference is jointly organized by John Logan (S4) and Osvaldo Sala (ECI), and speakers include a range of disciplines, from sociology to history to marine biology. Every panel will seek to contrast theories and concepts from the perspective of natural and social scientists.
ECI/Global Environmental Program Conference
September 16, 2005
Frontiers of Environmental Change Research: Climate Change Drivers, Impacts, and Policy
ECI and Watson Institute’s Global Environmental Program jointly sponsored a two day conference titled the “Frontiers of Environmental Change Research: Climate Change Drivers, Impacts, and Policy.” It explored emerging new directions within climate change research and assessed areas in which Brown University could make substantial new contributions to current and future studies.