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Food Literacy Project Speaker Series: Dr. Claire Bunschoten on Vanilla and How it Shapes American Life

Smith Campus Center, 2nd Floor, Mt. Auburn Room

Dr. Bunschoten is the Abbott Lowell Cummings Postdoctoral Fellow in American Material Culture at Boston University’s American and New England Studies Program. Her manuscript project “examines the politics and social worlds of vanilla—as an ingredient, a flavor, a fragrance, and a euphemism for race—in the context of everyday life in the United States. Cumulatively it explores how vanilla contains multitudes yet communicates the ordinary alongside normative ideological positions as they are tied to class status, ethnicity, gender, and race in the United States.” Registration is encouraged, as seating is limited.

The Environment Forum with Emanuele Coccia | Metropolitan Nature: How Different Species Build Cities

Emerson Hall, Room 105

Human beings were able to develop a stable relationship with the land and abandon the hunter-gatherer lifestyle only when some communities decided to faithfully and stably tie their existence to a relatively small number of trees and shrubs that could provide them with food and shelter. This is how the first city was born: it was this strange act of spatial fidelity to plant life that gave rise to the urban environment. That means that the relationship between different species is not tangentially urban. It is the original urban fact. If this is true, then what we call the countryside is a form of urbanism in which, in addition to the number of people and stones, we also have to conceive how many plants should exist, which ones, how fast they should grow, and so on. Consequently, any form of opposition between city and countryside (or the wilderness") is illusory. The solution to climate change lies not in replacing cities with the countryside or “wilderness,” but in designing cities more radically: extending the culture of urban congestion to a culture of species congestion and biodiversity density. How can we rethink the technological urban model to build planetary interspecies density?

This event is co-sponsored by the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability.

Salata Scholars Seminar Series: Challenges to Native Plants in Residential Landscapes

HUCE 429, 26 Oxford Street, 4th Floor, Cambridge

Salata Scholars Seminars are dedicated to climate, sustainability, and environmental work done by Harvard students and fellows. Its goal is to embrace the interdisciplinary nature of sustainability research that can’t be confined to a single Harvard school and help like-minded people connect with each other. Each week, there will be one or two brief talks followed by vegan dinner and discussion.

Challenges to Native Plants in Residential Landscapes
Sakiko Isomichi, GSD, Master’s student in Landscape Architecture

What Does Trump 2.0 Mean for Climate Change?

Zoom

Join us for a live, virtual event to hear from Harvard faculty about the possible implications of the 2024 U.S. elections. Speakers will address U.S. and global climate policy, the outlook for corporate climate action, and more. Register now and submit a question for the speakers!

Speakers include:
Jim Stock, Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University (moderator)
Jody Freeman, Archibald Cox Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Robert Stavins, A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy & Economic Development, Harvard Kennedy School
Peter Tufano, Baker Foundation Professor, Harvard Business School

Event Series Freecycle Events

Freecycle at Smith Campus Center

Smith Campus Center

Our fall semester Freecycle dates are official: Tuesday, Oct. 15 and Tuesday, Dec. 3! Bring your reusable goods and browse items that others have brought. This popular event promotes reuse and functions like a yard sale, except everything is free.

The effectiveness of China’s emission controls on air quality, deposition and health burdens

PIERCE HALL, ROOM 100F, 29 OXFORD STREET, CAMBRIDGE

A Harvard-China Project Research Seminar with Yu Zhao, Professor, School of Environment, Nanjing University; Alumnus (Postdoctoral Fellow) and Collaborator, Harvard-China Project

Speaker Bio: Dr. Yu Zhao is a Professor in the School of Environment at Nanjing University. His research interests include the quantification and evaluation of air pollutant emissions with multiple measures; analysis of regional and city air quality and its improvement strategy; and assessment of ecological and environmental health effects from energy and climate policies and air pollutant emission controls. He is a former postdoctoral fellow in the Harvard Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and additionally held a research assistantship at the International Institute of Applied System and Analysis, Austria. He is the receipient of the Second-class Award of Jiangsu Provincial Science and Technology Prize and the National Outstanding Ph.D Dissertation Award.

Salata Scholars Seminar Series: Greenwashed Groceries

Harvard Kennedy School 79 John F. Kennedy St, Cambridge, MA, United States

Salata Scholars Seminars are dedicated to climate, sustainability, and environmental work done by Harvard students and fellows. Its goal is to embrace the interdisciplinary nature of sustainability research that can’t be confined to a single Harvard school and help like-minded people connect with each other. Each week, there will be one or two brief talks followed by vegan dinner and discussion.

Greenwashed Groceries
Erin O’Dwyer, T.H. Chan School of Public Health, PhD Candidate in Population Health Sciences

Conifer Collection Tour

Arnold Arboretum

The conifer collection at the Arnold Arboretum is a magical place to visit at any time of the year, as it is especially rich in history and diversity. Docent Cristina Squeff will lead participants through this collection explaining key identification features and sharing relevant stories about individual trees.

The Essential Tree Selection Guide by Henrik Sjöman

Arnold Arboretum

This is a virtual talk held over Zoom.

We know that trees are a key ally in the fight against climate change and urban heat islands, but not every tree works in every situation. Selecting the right tree for your yard or landscape is critical both for the health of the tree and for the strength of the ecosystem services they provide. Botanist and researcher Henrik Sjöman’s new book, “The Essential Tree Selection Guide,” is a valuable new tool for making these tree selection decisions: an A to Z guide of over 550 trees, the book comes complete with explanations of each tree’s ecosystem benefits, its resilience to drought and storms, and key considerations for site placement. Join us on December 8 for a virtual book talk on this invaluable new guide.

Author Henrik Sjöman is Senior Researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Scientific Curator at Gothenburg Botanical Garden, and Honorary Research Associate at Kew Gardens.

Accessibility: This program is held virtually.

Audience: This program is geared towards adults.

Harvard Voices on Climate Change: Building the U.S. Power Grid for AI and Clean Energy

Virtual

The Salata Institute and the Harvard Alumni Association present Harvard Voices on Climate Change, a virtual series featuring Harvard faculty and fellows working on different dimensions of the climate challenge. This session features Ari Peskoe, Director of the Electricity Law Initiative at the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program, and Elizabeth Thom, PhD Candidate in Government & Social Policy at Harvard University. Together, they will explore the critical topic of modernizing the U.S. power grid to support the dual demands of artificial intelligence and a transition to clean energy. This discussion will offer insights into the policy, legal, and technological challenges of grid development, while examining opportunities to drive sustainable innovation. Join us to learn about how these transformative forces are shaping the future of energy and climate solutions.