- About the Lecture
-
About the Lecture
This panel offers some evidence that sustained alliances between academia and other organizations may help us more effectively address climate change issues.
In Sweden, Lennart Billfalk says, universities have historically cooperated with industry. In the 1980s, when interest in electrical engineering was waning, Billfalk’s Vattenfall power company financed new labs and committed to extra teaching resources, spawning a whole new generation of electrical engineers attuned to key energy issues. In the 90s, the government and industry financed joint research centers, which are helping Sweden fulfill its commitment to reduce CO2 emissions 50% by 2030, and 80% by 2050. R&D from these collaborations has led to carbon capture and storage projects, and several CO2 free pilot power plants in Europe.
Ernest Moniz pegs several factors integral to the success of academic-industrial collaborations, including a long-term commitment from both sides --“think about programs, not projects”; the alignment of these programs with the corporation’s strategic plan; and a joint steering mechanism. MIT tries to apply these principles to its Energy Initiative, bringing multidisciplinary teams from across campus to focus on research, education, campus energy management and public outreach (as an “honest broker” on climate change and energy issues). Moniz describes some flagship programs around coal conversion and carbon capture with MIT’s key industry research partners, as well as a seed grant program funding bold ideas from across the campus; and fellowships encouraging students to direct their talent toward the energy innovation field.
The world’s best endowed foundations are “missing from important fields” such as physics and the biosciences, and few have turned their attention to climate change, says
Theodore Smith. And while academia has focused on the science and technology of climate change, it has not cultivated “a civic voice” to speak on these issues in the broader public discourse. Smith regrets this neglect, because there’s a “yearning from those of us outside the academy to hear voices speaking in clear English.” Smith’s Henry Kendall Foundation seeks to promote greater communication between academia and the world at large. It also hopes to spark transformative change in Cambridge, by supporting a massive reduction in energy consumption that requires Harvard and MIT to play central roles.
Elizabeth Kolbert acknowledges “the pretty colossal failure over the last decade of communication on the issues of climate change and sustainability,” and says there’s plenty of blame to go around. Journalists hate complicated issues, and sustained the climate change “debate” long after it ceased to be a scientific argument. Scientists generated long, technical reports while maintaining neutrality and avoiding a policy agenda. The level of ignorance in Washington is staggering, says Kolbert, and the public simply tunes out when the story is climate change. Kolbert insists “we must challenge ourselves” as academicians and journalists. She suggests that MIT put a lot of effort into making its own campus a model for sustainability, a “bold step” that might garner public interest.Related Videos
-
Forging a Clean Energy Future
Jeff Bingaman
April 25, 2008
-
How Would Climate Change Influence Society in the 21st Century?
Rajendra Pachauri
January 29, 2008
-
Growing Pains - Transitioning to a Sustainable Energy Economy
John Heywood and Stephen Ansolabehere
November 1, 2006
-
- About the Speakers
-
About the Speakers
Moderator: Joanne Kauffman PhD '97
Advisor and former Executive Director, Alliance for Global Sustainability
Joanne Kauffman is an advisor to the Alliance for Global Sustainability and to other academic initiatives that support scientific research on sustainability, including the IR3S Program of the University of Tokyo and ETHSustainability at ETH-Zurich, Switzerland. A political scientist, Kauffman has taught international environmental politics and policy at MIT and lectured widely in North America, Europe and Asia on issues in sustainability. She has written many articles and papers on policies to promote sustainable development and is the author of two related books: Managing Chemicals in the Environment (Paris: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 1984) and (with Hideo Yoshikawa) Science Has No National Borders,, a study of the reconstruction of science in post-WWII Japan (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994).
She serves on the Board of Directors of The Energy Research Institute-North America (TERI-NA) and is the series editor for the Springer Publications series, Science and Technology: Tools for Sustainable Development. Kauffman is currently working with Boston-based artist and photographer Julie Graham on a visual and analytical examination of the linkages between landscape, memory, and culture. She lives in a small rural village in southern FranceLennart Billfalk
Senior Advisor, and Executive Vice President, Vattenfall AB
Ernest J. Moniz
Director, MIT Energy Initiative
Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems
Co-director of the Laboratory for Energy and the EnvironmentErnest J. Moniz has served on the MIT faculty since 1973. He was Under Secretary of the Department of Energy from October 1997 until January 2001. He also served from 1995 to 1997 as Associate Director for Science in the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President.
At MIT, Moniz was Head of the Department of Physics and Director of the Bates Linear Accelerator Center. His principal research contributions have been in theoretical nuclear physics, particularly in advancing nuclear reaction theory at high energy.
Moniz received a B.S. degree in physics from Boston College, a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Stanford University, and honorary doctorates from the University of Athens and the University of Erlangen-Nurenburg. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Humboldt Foundation, and the American Physical Society and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Moniz received the 1998 Seymour Cray HPCC Industry Recognition Award for vision and leadership in advancing scientific simulation.Theodore Smith
Executive Director, Henry P. Kendall Foundation
Elizabeth Kolbert
Staff Writer, The New Yorker
- About the Host
-
About the Host
MIT Energy Initiative
Video Player
Agents of Change: Model Partnerships with Academia
- Moderator: Joanne Kauffman PhD '97
- Lennart Billfalk
Ernest J. Moniz
Theodore Smith
Elizabeth Kolbert - January 30, 2008
- Running Time: 1:19:07
