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The Climate Action Symposia series aims to advance our community’s understanding and expand our capacity to generate solutions for the urgent global challenge of climate change. The six symposia examine the current state of climate science and policy, as well as pathways for decarbonization of the global economy. We will also look at how universities can and should contribute solutions, including MIT’s efforts under our Plan for Action on Climate Change.

The fifth of MIT’s six Climate Action Symposia, The Role of Research Universities and MIT’s Climate Initiatives, will be held virtually on Tuesday, October 20, 2020. Topics will include:

• how research universities can help the world deal with the climate crisis;
• initiatives being developed by MIT to reduce carbon emissions;
• how you can get involved.

RSVP

Chairs: Paula Hammond and Julie Newman, MIT

Schedule

2:30-2:35 pm Welcome

Speaker:

• Richard Lester, Associate Provost, MIT

2:35-2:40 pm Setting the stage

Speakers:

• Paula Hammond, Head, Department of Chemical Engineering, MIT
• Julie Newman, Director of Sustainability and Lecturer, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT

2:40-3:20 pm Panel I: The role of research universities

Moderator:

• Paula Hammond, Head, Department of Chemical Engineering, MIT

Speakers:

• Melissa Nobles, Dean of School of Humanities Arts and Social Science, MIT
• John Deutch, Institute Professor Emeritus Department of Chemistry, MIT

3:20-4:00 pm Panel II: MIT’s low-carbon campus and test bed

Moderator:

• Krystyn Van Vliet, Associate Provost; Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Biological Engineering, MIT

Speakers:

• Joe Higgins, Vice President for Campus Services and Stewardship, MIT
• Julie Newman, Director of Sustainability and Lecturer, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT

4:00-4:30 pm Reflections on Climate Action at MIT

Speaker:

• Maria T. Zuber, E.A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics and Vice President for Research, MIT

Questions? Email [email protected].

Speaker bios and more will be available at climatesymposia.mit.edu.

20/10/2020 at 02:30PM

An exploration of the conflicts raised by building an academic cancer research center with the money and active participation of a petrochemical billionaire.

As caviar-topped sweet potato cubes and gulab jamon skewers circulated, with gold-encrusted living statues posing in the corner, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology community feted last Friday the generous philanthropy of David H. Koch, whose $100 million gift helped build the new cancer research institute that bears his name.

The richest man in New York City stood tall above the crowd, as his wife Julia, brother Charles, and other members of the Koch family shared the glorious moment, captured by fast-snapping photographers. His bodyguards, thick-necked and glowering in ill-fitting suits that bore a small gold Koch Industries pin on the lapel, stood by as cancer researchers, MIT officials, and biotechnology executives enjoyed the open bar and discussed the future of the battle against cancer. The lab technicians who have already been working for weeks in the building were easy to identify by their scruffy haircuts, informal wear, and relative youth, faintly bemused by the mostly middle-aged hobnobbers.

Koch’s name was emblazoned on the nametags worn by the scientists and practically every surface of the new building with a logo that strongly resembles that of his petrochemical conglomerate.

This reception took place in the lobby of the David H. Koch Integrative Cancer Institute after the formal dedication of the building in a party tent wedged in back, where Koch was effusively thanked by politicians and scientists for his generosity and commitment to tackling the disease that kills one in four Americans, about 560,000 a year. Koch Institute scientists described the innovative technologies and research they are bringing to bear to treat cancer, from nanoparticles to deep sequencing. They discussed new breakthroughs in understanding the unique genetic nature of the various diseases that cause cancers to spread in the human body, promising new pathways of treatment for patients.

Strangely, however, during the entire two-hour program, not a single participant mentioned environmental carcinogens or any other external factors in causing cancer. Dr. Alice T. Shaw, a practicing oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, professor at Harvard Medical School, and clinical investigator at the Koch Institute gave an extended discussion of her specialty, lung cancer, about underlying genetic abnormalities, targeted mutations, and smart drugs. Not once did she mention the overwhelming role of cigarette smoking in making the once-rare disease one of the top killers in the world.

Dr. Tyler Jacks, the David H. Koch Professor of Biology and director of the institute, Dr. Jacqueline Lees, the institute’s associate director, and institute professors Dr. Phillip Sharp and Dr. Robert Langer also failed to address environmental causes of cancer during their allotted moments in the program. A lavishly produced video, which tied the launch of the Koch Institute to the celebration of MIT’s sesquicentennial, showed graduate students sitting in a classroom beneath a portrait of David Koch. The film exclusively discussed work to treat cancer, but not the causes.

Why this unusual omission?

From the Wonk Room.

The House Natural Resources Committee is holding a field hearing today “to discuss the responsible expansion of solar energy in California and across the nation” at the University of California, Riverside Palm Desert Graduate Center.

The New York Times discusses the Intervale Green complex, a “new, green, low-income housing development” by the Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation with 128 units, “a large, glass-windowed lobby, two green roofs and a sculpture-filled courtyard.”

Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), Heritage Foundation, Americans for Tax Reform, and local op-eds in North Carolina and Louisiana repeated the “just wrong” lie that an MIT study found cap and trade is a $3100 tax.

By SolveClimate’s Stacy Morford.

The usual court jesters shot off verbal fireworks as a week of hearings got underway on the Waxman-Markey climate bill, but the real attention on Capitol Hill was tuned to a few moderate Democrats who have the power to make or break the bill.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman acknowledged their concerns this morning as EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood were being questioned by the committee.

Praising one of those moderates, former committee chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.), Waxman said he had hoped to see his legislation pass with something like the committee’s 42-1 vote that had secured amendments to the Clean Air Act in 1990. But he added,

“I have my suspicions after listening to the opening statements here that we may not be able to succeed in the same way.”

The statements and questions so far from the committee’s moderate Democrats suggest that winning enough votes will likely mean rewriting the bill’s proposed renewable energy standard to account for regional differences. It may also require free emissions permits and other aid for industries – particularly automotive and energy – that will need to evolve to survive in a carbon-constrained world.

The RES currently proposed in the draft legislation would require utilities to derive 25 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2025.

Mike Ross (D-Ark.) and Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) both expressed concerns that that level would penalize states like theirs that lack the wind power of Texas and the sunshine and geothermal reserves of California. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) said his state could probably reach its current target of 15 percent by 2025, and possibly do better if nuclear and biomass could count, but 25 percent was out of the question.

Jim Matheson (D-Utah) asked Chu if he thought Congress would be overprescribing if it required both an emissions cap and a national renewable energy standard.

Chu has been outspoken in his desire to restore the United States’ place as the world’s leader in energy technology. The RES, he said, is a necessary interim driver of innovation and renewable energy use. The cap won’t start until 2012, and industry will need time to adjust. The RES, meanwhile, will drive renewable energy development by guaranteeing a marketplace. Energy executives who testified later in the day echoed that argument, saying federal rules would create stability and expectations that businesses could bank on.

That doesn’t mean that that the RES has to be uniform nationwide, though. A few committee members questioned whether Congress could instead require each state to set a minimum standard, which could then be met in ways tailored to that state’s own resource mix. Twenty-eight states already have renewable energy standards.