Category Archives: Institutions

Universities, etc.

Opening the talks

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Burke lecture panorma by Colm MacCárthaighWhile we still have great expectations of the upcoming talks in Copenhagen are all fine and dandy, it’s a rather elite event about a topic that touches us all. There have been efforts to democratize the discussion, such as the Museum of Science’s, “World Views on Global Warming,” but participation is still limited to those who can be physically present. Of course, you have another chance to do so at a follow-up session tomorrow (12/5) morning. MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence has also launched a new project, the Climate Collaboratorium, to allow people to share, vote on and discuss ideas about reducing emissions on a large scale.

TechTV

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logo-mit-techtv

If you’ve got time and bandwidth to kill, you might want to check out TechTV. In the spirit of OpenCourseWare, MIT hosts videos of various guest lectures and conferences. For instance, Energy forecast for the rest of the century. Although I don’t personally agree with all of the professor’s interpretations—many conflict with the more pragmatic views portrayed in “Sustainable Energy,” which is incidentally available via OCW—it was an interesting presentation, and could probably serve as a good introduction for the uninitiated nevertheless. I also appreciated his putting the scope of human influence in perspective by comparing it with natural flows. It reminded me of prolific environmental author Vaclav Smil’s excellent Cycles of Life : Civilization and the Biosphere.

MIT Sustainablility Summit Friday April 24th

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Just another reminder of the MIT Sustainability Summit-Starting this Friday:

Location: Walker Memorial Building 50 142 Memorial Drive Cambridge, MA 02139
Click here for more details
Description: The MIT Sustainability Summit, Discovering New Dimensions for Growth, brings together students, engineers, business leaders, academics, environmental activists, and public servants to discuss how we can most effectively support each other as we face the opportunities and challenges of transitioning to a sustainable world.

For questions contact:
Catharina Lavers clavers@MIT.EDU
Start Time: 9:30
Date: 2009-04-24

MIT Introduces new Solar Car

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solarcar-1-enlarged-1

This car will be competing in October in the World Solar Challenge race across Australia. About a dozen team members are expected to go to Australia for the race, although only four will drive the solar car in the competition. By the way, the car’s name is Eleanor and when the sun shines, it will do 55 mph all day long.

Green is the New Crimson

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harvard_green

Harvard University has opened a Office of Sustainability. This marks the formalization of the long running Campus Green Initiative at Harvard. The creation of this organization is tied to the University’s long-term energy use. The goal they are aiming for is simple:

30% reduction from 2006 campus-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 2016.

The office has an interesting business model for funding insofar as only 20% of their operating expenses comes from the Harvard’s general fund. The other 80% is generated from working with various University departments on a fee-for-service basis to produce energy and cost savings on building maintenance and construction, and to help each department adopt green policies in operations and procurements. Way to go Harvard!