News + Media

Cassie Martin | Oceans at MIT 

Navigating the current U.S. political climate can be tricky business, especially when it comes to science policy. With Congress divided more than ever on numerous important issues, including climate change, it’s important for legislators to have access to experts and the best available scientific research. Earlier this year, graduate students and faculty from the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences’ Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate traveled to our nation’s capital on a mission to bring them the latest atmospheric and geoscience research — and build relationships with policymakers on both sides of the aisle.

Dan Cziczo, an associate professor of atmospheric chemistry, met with senators from Massachusetts and Maryland during Weather Day on the Hill hosted by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). “It was fun and a great learning experience for me,” he said. “We were there to make people aware of what we're doing with the funding we receive and how it’s not just abstract science but impacts everyday life.”

Cziczo not only cleared up common misconceptions such as where weather information comes from, he also discussed the science behind increases in temperature and severe storms. But it’s not enough to just give legislators a quick primer on the latest science. Researchers also have to make it relatable. For Cziczo, that meant tying the changes in temperature and storms to agriculture. “Policymakers put a great emphasis on their particular constituents and their state’s economic growth. Bringing [the science] back to a global picture is I think really helpful,” he said.

It’s not just faculty that are offering their scientific services, MIT students are also getting in on the action through various organizations, including the American Meteorological Society (AMS). “Working with students is great,” said Ya’el Seid-Green, an AMS policy program associate. “We think one of the best things we can be doing is getting to people early in their career and helping them think about how their work fits into society and fits into policymaking.”

Much like Cziczo, MIT graduate students Daniel Gilford and Dan Rothenberg met with various congressional aides through AMS earlier this year during Weather, Water, and Climate Day to offer themselves as a resource. “As scientists, it's tempting to sit at our desks all day and do research and never get out and talk with people face to face about what we're doing, what we think is important, and how what we're doing relates to other people,” said Gilford, who is also a student coordinator for MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. “We’re used to writing scientific papers, but it's more challenging to communicate science well to people who don't have a strong background in science or your specific research area.”

Another item on their agenda was to emphasize the importance of funding geoscience research — an all-encompassing term that refers to the scientific fields dealing with planet Earth. Sequestration of the federal budget in 2013 tightened the belt around scientific funding sources across all fields, and researchers are still feeling the effects. Now it’s more important than ever for policymakers to know where the money they allocate for scientific research goes and how that research benefits their constituents. For Gilford and Rothenberg, meeting with congressional aides was an opportunity to put faces on the dollar signs without advocating for specific legislation or federal agencies — an AMS policy.

“When you pour money into geosciences to support students like myself, we can go on to do a lot of different research that's important for stakeholders and improves the research community,” Gilford said. When he isn’t building relationships with congressional offices, Gilford studies the impact of atmospheric radiation on hurricanes. His research, which has important implications for people living along the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico, opened up some great conversations about climate and extreme weather. “I was pleasantly surprised and impressed at the level of engagement. I didn’t get the feeling we were unwanted at any point. Everybody understood we were there to help, we weren’t there as some sort of lobbying team.”

Fostering conversations of climate change, a politically fraught subject on Capitol Hill, requires a delicate touch. Some policymakers are more open to discussions than others, and in some instances even uttering the phrase can shut down dialogues. Through his work with AMS and the MIT Science Policy Initiative, Rothenberg has developed indirect approaches to opening up the climate change conversation, such as using buzzwords and reframing his research. “I can spin it a lot of ways, like how air pollution affects clouds, or building models of clouds to predict thunderstorms,” said Rothenberg, a physicist who studies clouds in the context of climate. “Any time you can link it back to economics and public safety, you can usually hook in and get a good conversation going.”

Rothenberg currently resides in Massachusetts, but he originally hails from Kentucky and has developed a good relationship with Republican Senator Mitch McConnell’s office over the years. Although currently embattled with the Obama Administration over the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan, McConnell still focuses on science and environmental issues at home in Kentucky. In the past, he has helped sponsor bipartisan legislation to boost federal science funding such as the original America COMPETES act, which aims to improve the competitiveness of the United States through investing in innovative science, technology, and education.

But legislators need access to sound science to affect sound science policy like the COMPETES act — something that isn’t always available. Throughout the years, Rothenberg has happily answered questions from McConnell’s office, but not all of them are related to atmospheric science. The problem, Rothenberg says, is the lack of scientists willing to meet with policymakers. “The biggest barrier [to building science policy relationships] is the mismatch of interests,” he said.

Scientists’ reluctance to build relationships with politicians stems from a fear of harming their reputation for being objective and unbiased. Although that is a legitimate concern, there are ways to make connections and maintain moral and scientific integrity. “If your goal is to develop a relationship with offices as a person they can come to for the scientifically validated information they need — if you’re just willing to do that, it’s not murky politically,” said Rothenberg. “I’ve never met an office that didn’t love science. It’s very bipartisan. In terms of wanting the facts so they can do the best job they can, no politician is going to turn down scientists.”

Congressional visit days through AMS and the MIT Science Policy Initiative are an invaluable scientific resource for policymakers. But they also provide researchers with new perspectives on the inner workings of the policy process. “It's really easy to get cynical about science and politics, but if you go up there and meet the people who work on the hill, you'll learn they are incredibly smart, dedicated, and hardworking,” said Ya’el Seid-Green. “It gives you a better appreciation for the hard work that goes into making policy. It breeds mutual respect between the science and policy communities.”

Photo: MIT atmospheric chemist Dan Cziczo meets with Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) during a Congressional Visit Day (Courtesy of Dan Cziczo)

Kelsey Damrad | Civil and Environmental Engineering

Amid a changing climate, population growth, rapid development, and pervasive urbanization, an unprecedented threat to the world’s food and water supply is more apparent than ever before. In fact, it is predicted that 70 percent more food will be needed by 2050 and the demand for water will triple.

"To date, we’ve met the food and water challenge to a significant extent through technology, as exemplified in the 'green revolution,' but there are still significant problems to solve. We’re optimistic that MIT will have a major role in meeting the world’s challenges around food and water supply," John Lienhard, director of the Abdul Latif Jameel World Water and Food Security Lab (J-WAFS) at MIT, said in the opening remarks at the third annual MIT Water Summit held Nov. 13-14 on campus.

"Workshops such as this are critical to raise awareness and build momentum towards solving the grand water challenges of our world," said Elfatih Eltahir, associate department head and a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE). "The Water Summit was a wonderful opportunity for open and transparent discussions that helped in reaching better definitions of water problems and paved the way for new and innovative solutions."

An MIT Water Club team — comprised of MIT graduate students Reetik Kumar Sahu, Anjuli Jain Figueroa, Alexis Fischer, Matthew Willner, Brendan Smith, and Isadora Cruxen — organized this year’s Water Summit into three conversation panels: Interpret, Innovate, andImplement. The team brought together more than 200 members of the MIT and non-MIT communities to discuss the role of climate change in global water challenges.

Over the course of two days, several representatives from academia, government, and industry were invited to present.

Adaptation to climate change means embracing uncertainty

"The biggest risk to our water systems is our social norms," Col. John Henderson of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said. "We, as a society, may not be adapting fast enough." Of course, the path leading to full adaptation to climate change is far from clear, he added.

The Interpret panel included Henderson, Camille Touton of the U. S. Department of the Interior, Scott Doney of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI), Manoj Fenelon of the Aspen Institute, and MIT graduate student Jordon Hemingway as moderator.

One major hindrance that Fenelon said prevents climate adaptation is the way the problem is framed. "How do you explain the challenge in a way that causes people to realize it is bigger than their individual interests?" he asked.

To emphasize, Touton said that 50 percent of the world is in severe drought — a negative impact of climate change that many do not directly experience. Using open water data to visualize the impact of drought and climate change on water resources, she said, is one aspect of the problem that her department investigates and reports to the public.

"The world is teeming with answers, but are we asking the right questions?" Fenelon added. Perspectives unrelated to science — such as considering water as a right rather than a luxury — may result in interesting and efficient approaches to the challenge.

Leveraging branding, for instance, was one such approach explored by the panel. "I would be interested to see brands engage in civil work," Fenelon said. "Consumers would be buying not just a brand, but a movement."

In agreement, Doney added it’s not the destination that matters, but rather how quickly society manages to get there. When it comes to climate change and the global water supply, the rate of change heavily impacts the natural ecosystems.

However, the panelists agreed, the key to truly engaging open interest is to pitch the science behind climate change in a way that attracts stakeholders and, more importantly, the general public.

The future is about radical transparency

In their remarks on how technological innovations and research have led to more resilient water systems, the Innovate panelists — Noel Bakhtian, lead strategic coordinator on Energy-Water Nexus activities for the U.S. Department of Energy; Marcus Quigley, founder of OptiRTC; Anarug Bajpayee, co-founder and CEO of Gradiant Corporation; Mark Ellison, U.S. affiliate of IDE Technologies; and MIT graduate student and panel moderator Divya Panchanathan — offered a hopeful, yet guarded, perspective.

For Quigley, the world needs a future of “radical transparency” of data. With an open explanation of the reality of water, he postulated that this approach will transform the manner in which we act and develop regulations around water management.

"We need to be creative with data science and make water information more meaningful for the public to digest," he said.

Noting society’s hesitancy to trust new innovations in the water sector, Bajpayee suggested some of the challenge may also lie with people’s misconception of the value of water.

"People think water is free when it’s not," he said. "Something is paying for it. Explaining this openly and clearly may help people appreciate how important it is to conserve energy and water."

When it comes down to it, Quigley continued, our perception on what we think the world should look like is irrelevant. The gateway to water management is about delivering the outcomes people expect, and furthermore educating them on why they should expect those outcomes from a political perspective.

The panelists contended that the world would benefit from focusing more on a transparent understanding of the projected outcome and less on what society portrays as an ideal world.

One way to achieve this may be for water businesses to expand their reach beyond one idea and emphasize an entire market or specialized sector.

"The most successful companies are those who have evolved along the way," Bajpayee said. "Water entrepreneurs should build businesses around an entire platform, not just one innovation."

Climate change is no longer about belief, but fact

To close the Water Summit on the second day, keynote speaker Curt Spalding of the U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA) for New England introduced the Implement panel with a discussion on the hard evidence and implications of climate change.

Spalding said 70 percent of the population accepts that climate change is happening, and, because of this, progression is being made to both mitigate and adapt to the reality. "Adaptation is a priority and is integrated into every decision made by the EPA," he said. However, it’s not always as high a priority as it should be for others, he added.

Spalding emphasized the need to communicate complex data to the implementers for real movement to be made in the fight against climate change. This notion was further explored in the panel, moderated by MIT graduate student Alice Alpert, and comprised of Edgar Westerhof of ARCADIS U.S. Inc., Stephen Estes-Smargiassi of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, Dennis Carlberg of Boston University, and Larry Susskind, the Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning at MIT.

According to Susskind, the hindrance to true innovation in policy implementation is mainly the lack of collaboration between leaders and the public. "No decision is ever going to be completely correct, so we will have to collaboratively adapt as things evolve," he said.

Estes-Smargiassi agreed, and added that it is equally important to embrace any potential opportunity to build resiliency — even if the timing or innovation is not perfect.

"Each opportunity that we fail to grasp, puts us further behind," he said. "Let’s figure out which steps we should take now to continue to move ahead later." Particularly, participatory planning is a crucial part of resiliency planning; otherwise, he explained, there may not be buy-in.

Corporation mitigation efforts and sponsoring of events, such as the international Sustainable Innovation Forum 2015 in Paris, has a powerful effect in changing the public image of what’s being done today. While concrete conclusions may not necessarily be drawn from efforts such as these, confidence is built for the long-term. And this, the panelists agreed, is effective in the process of managing water in a time of a changing climate.

"The MIT community is deeply motivated to contribute," Lienhard said. "Our students and faculty are bringing their insight, innovation, and technical excellence to bear on the challenge of water management."

Sponsors for this year's Water Summit included Arcadis, Association of Student Activities, MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning, CEE, the Coop at MIT, Desalitech, Environmental Policy and Planning Group, Gradiant Corporation, J-WAFS, MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives, MIT Brazil, the WHOI, Pepsico, and WRI Brazil.u

Photo: The 2015 MIT Water Summit team organizers (Courtesy of MIT Water Club)

Includes commentary by John Reilly and climate change calculator based on methodology co-developed by Adam Schlosser

David L. Chandler | MIT News Office

Melanie Kenderdine, as the first executive director of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), helped to launch an international program to increase women’s participation and leadership in the energy field called Clean Energy Education and Empowerment, or C3E, in 2012.

Last Thursday, Kenderdine, now the director of the Office of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis at the U.S. Department of Energy, returned to MIT to give the keynote address at the fourth annual U.S. C3E Women in Clean Energy symposium and awards program. Creating this event to recognize women in a variety of energy disciplines at all stages of their careers, she said, “was one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve ever had.”

In her talk at the two-day MITEI event, Kenderdine focused on the DOE’s recently released Quadrennial Energy Review, a project initiated by Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, MITEI’s former director, to outline priorities for the nation’s energy research and policies over the coming years. The report, she said, gives a sense of the “key drivers and challenges” in the field of energy.

Kenderdine began by recapping the scientific understanding of the threat of climate change, using a depiction of the probabilities of various outcomes developed by Ronald Prinn, co-director of MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.

Prinn used a pair of roulette wheels to starkly communicate the dangers of inaction: The wheel reflecting the probabilities under a “business as usual” scenario shows a significant probability of an average temperature increase of 7 degrees Celsius by the century’s end — an outcome that Kenderdine deadpanned would be “shall we say, transformational for the planet.” (Most scientists agree that any increase of more than 2 C could produce catastrophic results.)

But that outcome is far from predetermined, she emphasized. In the corresponding roulette wheel, assuming that the world’s nations agree to substantial curbs in greenhouse gas emissions, the probability of exceeding that limit drops substantially. And there are indeed many options available to make such reductions practical, Kenderdine said.

Showing a chart of the sources and uses of the world’s various kinds of energy, Kenderdine pointed out that almost half of the world’s energy is wasted. Curbing even a fraction of that waste could make substantial dents in emissions.

That’s only one piece of the puzzle, since with growing population and rising standards of living, the world will consume a projected four times as much energy by 2100 as is used today, Kenderdine said. But there are some encouraging signs already.

Greenhouse gas emissions have actually been declining slightly, for example, even as world GDP has increased — providing a stark refutation of claims that the two measures change in lockstep. This is partly due to a dramatic shift from coal to natural gas, she said — a change largely enabled by DOE-funded innovations: “The DOE invested heavily in shale gas technology,” Kenderdine said.

But because energy industries are capital-intensive, with expensive plants built to operate for many decades, it is essential to have clear priorities for future development, so as to avoid huge investments in plants whose energy may grow incompatible with future economic and regulatory conditions.

One key need, Kenderdine said, to enable the new energy developments that are most needed, is a drastic modernization of the electric grid, which has grown up piecemeal over the last century. Another priority is to enhance the resiliency and reliability of the nation’s existing energy systems, she said.

For example, Kenderdine pointed out, 10 percent of the nation’s oil supply — the Strategic Petroleum Reserve — is held in tanks at a single location in Cushing, Oklahoma — right in the middle of “Tornado Alley.” And over 50 percent of the nation’s refining capacity is along the Gulf Coast, an area susceptible to intense hurricanes.

Some needed changes are in the regulatory domain, Kenderdine said. For example, current federal laws on replacing energy infrastructure after a natural disaster require replacing a facility as it was before the disaster, rather than allowing for modernization or improvement.

Another area where modernization is desperately needed, she said, is in natural gas delivery: Many gas lines in cities are decades old. Recent explosions in major cities have shown the dangers of leaking gas pipes, and the need for replacing those old pipes: An explosion that leveled an apartment complex in New York last year, for example, involved a pipe system that was 104 years old. Boston, Kenderdine pointed out, has had thousands of gas leaks reported in the last few years, compared with just a handful in similarly sized Indianapolis, which modernized its pipes a few years ago.

The DOE’s Quadrennial Energy Review, Kenderdine said, includes 63 specific recommendations, which would likely have a total cost of $10 billion to $12 billion over the next decade. But there are great opportunities for improvements, particularly in the developing world, she said, where in many cases it may be possible to move directly into more efficient, modern generating and distribution systems.

Such developments, Kenderdine said, can “make a huge difference in people’s lives.”

The C3E symposium and awards program is a partnership of DOE and MITEI, under the auspices of the multi-governmental Clean Energy Ministerial.

Photo: Melanie Kenderdine (Photo by Justin Knight)

Peter Dizikes | MIT News Office 

Perhaps you have heard the adage “think globally, act locally.” An MIT-led project taking that idea to heart has demonstrated a new method for getting local citizens and leaders to agree on the best ways of managing the immediate and long-term effects of climate change.  

The New England Climate Adaptation Project (NECAP) got local citizens and officials in four coastal towns to engage in role-playing games about climate change tailored to their communities, while conducting local polling about attitudes and knowledge about climate risks. In so doing, the project helped the towns reach new conclusions about local initiatives to address the threats posed by climate change— which in coastal communities may include rising sea levels and increased storm surges that can lead to flooding.

“One hour of conversation can completely alter people’s sense [and show] that this is a problem they can work on locally,” says Lawrence Susskind, the Ford Professor in Urban Studies in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP), who led the project and has now co-authored a new book detailing its results. “There are a bunch of things local governments can do, and people can do for themselves — that communities can do.”

The findings stem from years of research and organizing in four places: Wells, Maine; Dover, New Hampshire; Barnstable, Massachusetts; and Cranston, Rhode Island. The new book on the effort, “Managing Climate Risks in Coastal Communities,” has just been released by the academic publisher Anthem Press.

Among the many findings of the project is that residents of these coastal communities were typically far more concerned about the consequences of climate change than local politicians realized.

“People in official positions really underestimated the extent to which [citizens] were worried about what climate change might mean to the town, what their vulnerabilities were,” Susskind explains. “If you asked, ‘What percentage of people do you think believe climate change is a problem right now?’ most officials would have said less than 10 percent. Our polling results were about 60 percent.”

The scenarios that the MIT-led team presented to people in each place involved ranges of probability regarding potential events. And yet, Susskind emphasizes, certain types of climate responses, like building better storm drains, may be necessary in almost any scenario.

“Lots of uncertainty doesn’t mean you can’t decide or know what to do,” Susskind says. “There are no-regrets actions you can take, where you won’t regret spending the money, time, or effort later.”

Four towns, many issues

The scholars chose the four towns because each hosts a center for the National Estuarine Research Reserve System, a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That made it simpler for the project leaders to make connections with local political leaders and convince them to participate in the climate adaptation project.  

The book is co-authored by four project leaders, including Susskind, who heads the Environmental Policy and Planning Group at DUSP as well as the mediation group he founded, the Consensus Building Institute (CBI); Danya Rumore, visiting assistant professor at the University of Utah; Carrie Hulet, a senior associate at the CBI; and Patrick Field, co-managing director of the CBI and an associate director of the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program.

After developing climate-change scenarios for each town and conducting research on local political priorities and infrastructure, starting in 2012, the MIT group developed a role-playing game tailored to each town, and conducted debriefings on the issues as well. Citizens who participate study the local climate scenarios and potential responses, and try to reach consensus on plans of action. An investment of a few hours can suddenly make hundreds of community members more informed and willing to consider the need for climate response.

“The science doesn’t dictate things, but it informs things, and it leads to interesting conversations about what the policy for their own community should be,” Susskind says.

In Dover, for instance, the effort helped clarify the need to act on local concerns about flooding from the town’s river, and about the capabilities of the town’s storm drains; dredging the river and updating the drains are now higher priorities, along with having more generators on hand for emergency response activities. In Barnstable, where sea level rise, flooding, drought, and storm damage are all problematic issues, the project clarified the need to add water supplies and make the electrical grid more sustainable.

In Wells, where sea levels are projected to rise by 2 to 5 feet by 2099, the project highlighted the need for seawalls and a buyback program for privately owned coastal land that could absorb flooding. In Cranston, flooding is a major issue — following floods the town experienced in 2010 — and the project revealed that 86 percent of residents are concerned about climate change. Possible measures include engineered barriers and expanded wetlands, but the project also reveals a need for continued public education programs about the affordability of possible responses.

Still, acting sooner rather than later, Susskind suggests, will usually turn out to be a wise investment.

“Don’t be convinced that was a one-time flood,” he says. “It’s going to happen sooner and more often than you think, and the cost could be enormous without some effort to manage risks. And maybe as a community you say, ‘Bad things are going to happen unless we find some way to reduce our vulnerabilities.’”

Adaptation, as well as mitigation

The MIT-led project dealt with climate adaptation, the response to climate change risks. As Susskind acknowledges, that is only one part of the climate-action picture; the issue of climate mitigation — that is, preventing climate change from happening to the fullest extent possible — is also vital.

And while the role-playing games were limited to smaller communities, Susskind acknowledges, he thinks this approach can work in much larger municipalities as well, based on similar work he has done in Maryland and other places.

“I don’t think there are any problems of scaling up,” he says.

Other scholars have found the project and its results to be valuable. Judith Innes, a professor emerita of city and regional planning at the University of California at Berkeley, calls it an “eye-opening book” that offers “hope and guidance to policy makers and citizens who want to act before it is too late.”

The researchers have put many materials online, available for public study. However, Susskind says, there is no substitute for participating in the project’s games in person, to work through issues of evaluating a town’s needs and negotiating over them.

“The whole point politically is to organize a constituency for change in each locality, and that requires face-to-face interaction,” Susskind says. “There’s no substitute. I design different games for different places. You have to tailor it so that people get a sense they’re learning something about the place where they are. It’s about empowering a community to feel we can and should be working to anticipate and manage climate risks.”

Photo: Wells, Maine