CSSL provides an opportunity for Harvard students to work together with other students from across the University’s Schools on sustainability projects, to connect and network with sustainability leaders (including faculty, and administration), and to provide feedback and recommendations on Harvard’s sustainability initiatives.
Register by Wednesday, July 3 deadline! Through a series of talks and poster presentations, the workshop aims to promote research exchange of scholars from multiple disciplines and of diverse regional expertise on the status and dynamics of climate resilience studies, as well as to generate policy-relevant knowledge regarding climate resilient development pathways in Southeast Asian countries.
Ermias Kebreab, world-renowned animal scientist and chair of the United Nations Technical Working Group on Feed Additives, will explore methane mitigation strategies that emphasize both global and region-specific targets for addressing the climate crisis. He will also discuss cutting-edge advances in livestock science, with a focus on genetic selection, microbial engineering, and early-life interventions.
Plants have long been deemed passive organisms with “hardwired” or “inflexible” behavior. However, a growing body of empirical research reveals that plants exhibit cognitive capabilities traditionally attributed to animals. And yet, controversies over these scientific findings have recently intensified.
In this talk, Paco Calvo will reflect on the current challenges faced by the field of plant signaling and behavior, including risks of underdelivering and strategies to avoid biases that may lead to overinterpreting results. This talk aims to spark multidisciplinary dialogue around the question of plant cognition and event sentience, and to foster renewed scientific curiosity into the rich cognitive landscape of green companions.
About Paco: Paco Calvo is a renowned cognitive scientist and philosopher of biology, known for his groundbreaking research in the field of plant cognition and intelligence. He is a professor at the University of Murcia in Spain, where he leads the Minimal Intelligence Lab (MINT Lab), focusing on the study of minimal cognition in plants. Calvo’s interdisciplinary work combines insights from biology, philosophy, and cognitive science to explore the fascinating world of plant behavior, decision-making, and problem-solving.
On February 29th, a series of attacks were carried out across Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, by heavily armed criminal gangs. Since that moment, thousands of Haitians have been displaced or rendered homeless. According to the UN, over 1500 people have been killed. Food insecurity has spiked across the country, with severe nutritional impacts, particularly on children. Limits to movement and personal safety have threatened the functioning of the health system and other essential services, resulting in a rapidly changing systemic social crisis. The current events are also occurring within a longer-term crisis in Haiti of weak governance, inequality, and systemic disruptions. New data on population mobility and conflict dynamics helps shed light on how the violence impacts communities across the island and the need for practical and sustained local civil society and health system response efforts. Please join us for an in-depth discussion of the current and evolving violence in Haiti as it continues to impact health and humanitarian needs.
The Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability and the Vice Provost Office for Advances in Learning present Harvard Speaks on Climate Change, a series featuring Harvard faculty working on different dimensions of the climate challenge. In this session, Professor Jody Freeman will discuss the EPA’s greenhouse gas rules for the auto, power, and oil and gas sectors and the SEC’s final rule on climate-related financial risk. Professor Freeman will also explore if these rules were weaker than expected and what lies ahead in the courts. Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability and Director of the Salata Institute, Jim Stock, will host.
This paper examines the impact of women’s political representation on deforestation rates in Brazil. Using close election regression discontinuity design, we show that women, when elected to office, are more likely to drive improved environmental outcomes due to factors such as reduced access to corrupt networks that influence the enforcement of environmental laws at the local level. Altogether, our findings demonstrate that women’s political representation significantly reduces deforestation rates in the Brazil.
This session will be a discussion among presenters reflecting upon the insights shared throughout the series. In addition to identifying themes and throughlines among sessions, we will return to the overarching questions that framed this collaboration: What can an expansive understanding of religion provide in these times of Earth crisis? What is the role of the study of religion in times of catastrophe?
Panelists: Mayra Rivera, Dan McKanan, Teren Sevea, Matthew Ichihashi Potts, Terry Tempest Williams
Moderator: Diane L. Moore, Diane L. Moore, Associate Dean of Religion and Public Life
Climate change poses unprecedented threats to global security. What natural resources are most in danger from international security tensions? How can the United States minimize resource conflicts? Can international cooperation be leveraged to mitigate security risks and increase equitable access to scarce necessities?
National security expert and interdisciplinary research scientist Swathi Veeravalli will address how complex crises are prompting more multidisciplinary cooperation across disparate government agencies and between national governments.
Landscapes are an appealing subject for drawings, but it can be difficult to know where to start. In this program we will learn how to select a landscape, create a sense of depth and volume, and use a variety of marks to capture a dynamic variety of textures.
Can personhood be granted to mountains, lakes, and rivers? What does it mean to be met by another species? How do we extend our notion of power to include all life forms? And what does a different kind of power look like and feel like? Wild Mercy is in our hands. Practices of attention in the field with compassion and grace deepen our kinship with life, allowing us to touch something deeper than hope. Great Salt Lake offers us a reflection into our own nature: Are we shrinking or expanding?
Speaker: Terry Tempest Williams, HDS Writer-in-Residence
Moderator: Diane L. Moore, Diane L. Moore, Associate Dean of Religion and Public Life
The Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability and the Vice Provost Office for Advances in Learning present Harvard Speaks on Climate Change, a new series featuring Harvard faculty working on different dimensions of the climate challenge. In this upcoming session, Harvard Graduate School of Design Professors Holly Samuelson and Jonathan Grinham will discuss how green building design is adapting and evolving in the context of renewable energy sources. The faculty will explore how renewable energy sources are integrated into building design to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and minimize carbon emissions. Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability and Director of the Salata Institute, Jim Stock, will host. This series is part of the collection of VPAL Signature Events and is co-sponsored by the Harvard Alumni Association.
