Sustainable Offices

The cultural place-maker Ximena Caminos presents “marine acupuncture,” an innovative practice combining high art and deep science to target critical pressure points within our oceans and fostering environmental awareness through art and action-driven conservation. The ReefLine will be a 7-mile underwater public sculpture park, snorkel trail, and hybrid reef off Miami Beach’s shoreline. Conceived by Ximena Caminos and developed by the BlueLab Preservation Society, the ReefLine nonprofit team collaborates with the architecture firm OMA, as well as marine biologists, researchers, architects, and coastal engineers to design the master plan. Caminos’ lecture, followed by a conversation with Pedro Alonzo and Charles Waldheim, highlights how this pioneering approach uses human ingenuity to ignite ecological processes that regenerate the reef.

The symposium will be a one-day event held at Pound Hall (tentative) at HLS, accommodating approximately 50 attendees. The event will feature six to seven invited speakers who are experts in environmental justice and heat exposure, a poster session, and a networking session. This event is open to public. The primary purpose of this symposium is to foster collaboration and knowledge exchange in addressing environmental injustice in a world with increasing heat exposure. This symposium is highly multidisciplinary and welcome members from academia, law, policy, and community organizations.

Join the Harvard Human Rights Journal and the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic for a talk by Dr. Daniel Gustafson, Special Representative of the Director-General at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), former Deputy Director-General of the Organization, on “Ensuring the Right to Food in the Face of Climate Change: The Role of UN FAO.”

The talk addresses the interrelations between climate change and global hunger from the perspective of the UN FAO, highlighting how climate change exacerbates food insecurity and hinders the full realization of the right to food, while also examining how food systems contribute to climate change and why their transformation seems essential for both food security and climate mitigation. Dr. Gustafson will provide insights on the UN FAO’s role and current activities, recent challenges and initiatives by countries related to climate change and the right to food. He has over 40 years of international experience working on approaches linking science and policy for food security, sustainable agricultural transformation and capacity development, having been the UN FAO’s Country Representative in Kenya, Somalia, India and Bhutan. Moderated by Professor Emily Broad Leib.

Join the Weatherhead Center Canada Program for their Canada Seminar featuring Emma Gilheany, William Lyon Mackenzie King Postdoctoral Fellow, Weatherhead Canada Program, and Affiliate, Harvard University Native American Program (HUNAP).

Abstract: In this talk, I explore an analytic I have developed called cryo nullius—where icy scapes are perceived by settlers as spectacular, vast, and un-peopled. This perception allows for the conditions of infrastructural violence to manifest in the circumpolar north. I focus in particular on Cold War-era US Air Force radar bases that spanned the circumpolar north as well as present-day Inuit environmental practices to avoid toxicity that has seeped into the land and water from these ruins of technological excess. I argue that Nunatsiavummiut reject this colonial perception of and violence on their sovereign land through the specific materiality of the sub-Arctic. This work is a highly collaborative multi-modal anthropology that engages evidence including archaeological survey, ethnographic research, Inuit oral histories, and archives produced by Inuit governments, missionaries, and the USAF. This project foregrounds Nunatsiavummiut future-making to critique erasures of Indigenous politics and specific environmental harms in discourses of the climate crisis and Anthropocene.

This presentation will examine the impact of climate change on health through patient cases, providing a framework for assessing climate-related health risks and discussing integrative approaches to care. It will also explore how environmental factors influence integrative medicine, including the role of nature-based therapies in supporting patient well-being, focusing on adapting these strategies for low-income communities and urban areas with limited access to green spaces.

Wynne Armand, MD
Associate Director, Mass General Center for the Environment and Health
Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School

Barbara Walker, PhD
Integrative Health and Performance Psychologist, University of Cincinnati, College of Medicine

Passing environmental policy is difficult, because of the – reasonable – concern that it will increase costs. But implementation often leads to systemic changes that make environmental regulation cheaper and easier to implement than expected.

In the Energy Policy Seminar, Beth DeSombre will examine domestic and international regulations to protect the ozone layer, and aspects of the U.S. Clean Air Act regulating power plant and automobile emissions, identifying four specific pathways through which system changes contribute to decreasing costs: disruption of standard operating procedures, innovation, increased availability of alternatives, and creation of enabling mechanisms. Understanding how the implementation of regulations can decrease costs can suggest better or worse approaches to crafting and implementing policy.

Learn about Harvard’s “Museum of Trees” and what it takes to keep North America’s first public arboretum open to all. Presented by Danny Schissler, Head of Operations and Project Management at the Harvard University Arnold Arboretum. Join us on Wednesday, April 20, from 2-3 pm at the Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Building 2, Room 102 (Harvard ID required), or join via Zoom at hsph.me/arnoldarboretumsustainability.

Hear a keynote speech from Dr. Amruta Nori-Sarma about extreme heat and environmental justice within the context of public health. This will be followed by two panels titled Mobilizing Resources for Heat Solutions and Continuing the Work for Environmental Justice. The event will end with a reception and poster session. Snacks and refreshments will be provided.

For centuries, sea monsters have adorned maps, serving as both warnings and wonders of the unknown ocean. These artistic depictions reflected early attempts to understand the deep, blending legend with reality. From krakens to serpents, cartographers illustrated creatures based on sailors’ tales, inspiring fear, and curiosity. Over time, these mythical beasts influenced marine biology, shaping early studies of unknown species. Join us as we explore the fascinating history of sea monsters on maps and their role in unraveling the mysteries of the ocean.

Schools and departments across the University are partnering with the Charles River Conservancy for a morning of cleaning up trash, microplastics, and debris to support a cleaner, healthier Charles River. The CRC will provide a brief education on the local river watershed and provide tools and training. All Harvard community members and their family and friends are welcome to participate!