News + Media
A group of MIT-affiliated cyclists hope to fuel themselves from New York to Washington in a few weeks to raise awareness -- and money -- for climate change initiatives. The nine graduate students, researchers and friends are all planning to take part in the Climate Ride 2008, a five-day, 320-mile ride from the Big Apple to the nation's capital that symbolizes the nation's need to get out of the car.
Richard Schmalensee takes over as Director of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR) as of September 2008. Most recently, Prof. Schmalensee served as the Dean of MIT's Sloan School of Management from 1998 through 2007. He had a previous stint as the Director of CEEPR from 1991 to 1999.
Sloan's Sterman sees flawed reasoning at root of problem.
Why is the general public not more concerned about the potential consequences of climate change? For many risks, such as the risk of a plane crash, the public is far more fearful than the evidence shows, observes John Sterman, the Jay W. Forrester Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. But on the issue of climate, he notes, the situation is just the opposite.
Says policy-making requires ambitious short-term goals.
Long-term climate change policy in the United States and abroad is likely to change very slowly, warns an MIT professor who says the lack of future flexibility argues for stronger short-term goals to reduce carbon emissions.
ESD Assistant Professor Mort David Webster has been named Principal Investigator of a $750,000 grant from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Human and Social Dynamics Program. The grant's other investigators are Henry D. Jacoby, Co-Director of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Climate Change; Karen Fisher-Vanden and Chris Forest of Penn State University; and David Popp of Syracuse University and the National Bureau of Economic Research. Titled "Collaborative Research: An Improved Model of Endogenous Technical Change Considering Uncertain R&D Returns and Uncertain Climate Response," the three-year research project to be undertaken by Professor Webster and his colleagues will counter previous models used in climate change studies that fail to take into account critical uncertainties, particularly in regard to the research and development of improved energy technologies.
Lessons to be learned for U.S., globe.
In a bid to control greenhouse gas emissions linked to climate change, the European Union has been operating the world's first system to limit and to trade carbon dioxide. Despite its hasty adoption and somewhat rocky beginning three years ago, the EU "cap-and-trade" system has operated well and has had little or no negative impact on the overall EU economy, according to an MIT analysis.
Veerabhadran Ramanathan recaps 35 years of key findings, and brings his audience up to date on the latest climate data, models, and observations which together demonstrate how CO2 is but one piece of a complex puzzle.
Entekhabi to lead science team for NASA satellite mission
Professor Dara Entekhabi will lead the science team designing a NASA satellite mission to collect global soil moisture measurements and other data seen as key to improving weather, flood and drought forecasts and predictions of agricultural productivity and climate change.
Provides confirmation that climate change intensifies storms
Hurricanes in some areas, including the North Atlantic, are likely to become more intense as a result of global warming even though the number of such storms worldwide may decline, according to a new study by MIT researchers.
Rajendra K. Pachauri leads fellow members of the Nobel Prize-winning IPCC in a remarkable public session of soul-searching. Now that the IPCC has helped make climate change a signal issue of our times, what next?
A leader in documenting man-made climate change, MIT's Ronald Prinn has also made it his business to inform world leaders--and the public--about the risks of ignoring it.