Top environmental minds meet at Clark University
Photos by Tammy Woodard M.A. '98
School of Geography gathers leading scientists to tackle global sustainability challenges
The Clark University Graduate School of Geography and the office of President John Bassett presented a public lecture and academic symposia featuring some of the world 's foremost researchers and agenda-setters on the environment, climate change, energy resources and technology.
The events highlighted the Graduate School of Geography's roles in global scholarship in sustainability, as well as its role in translating geographical and geographically related concepts to the National Academy of Science (NAS) and other research agenda-setting entities. Four former and present Clark faculty members —Robert Kates, Roger Kasperson, Susan Hanson and B.L. Turner—are NAS members involved with NAS sustainability initiatives. Another, J. Ron Eastman, is the founder of IDRISI, the leading raster-based geographic information system used worldwide for sustainability and related research.
John Holdren delivered a Clark University President's Lecture on "Science, Technology, and the Sustainability Challenge" on Sept. 10 to a standing-room only crowd in Razzo Hall of Clark's Traina Center for the Arts. His talk explored three "particularly demanding facets of the relation of science and technology to sustainability, namely: meeting the basic needs of the poor; managing the intensifying competition for the land, water, and net primary productivity of terrestrial ecosystems; and mastering the energy-economy-environment dilemma."
Holdren is Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy and director of the Program on Science, Technology and Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, as well as president and director of the Woods Hole Research Center. He is also professor of environmental science and policy in Harvard 's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and the immediate past president and current chair of the Board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (the largest general science society in the world). His work has focused on causes and consequences of global environmental change, sustainable development, energy technology and policy, nuclear arms control and nonproliferation, and science and technology policy.
Holdren is a member of the NAS, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. From 1993 through 2004 he served as chair of the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences, and from 1994 to 2001 he was a member of President Clinton's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology. (In the latter capacity, he led five major studies for the White House on U.S. energy research and development strategy, nuclear nonproliferation, and international cooperation on energy.) Since 2002 he has been co-chair of the independent, bipartisan National Commission on Energy Policy, and from 2004 to the present he has served as a coordinating lead author of the Scientific Expert Group on Climate Change and Sustainable Development, reporting to the Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the Commission on Sustainable Development of the United Nations.
On Sept. 11, Clark scientists and distinguished guests participated in symposia on "Geographical Concepts in the Academy: Sustainability, GIS, and the World," which included panel discussions about "Sustainability Science" and "Geographic Information Science for Sustainability." The Grace Conference Room in Clark's Higgins University Center overflowed with faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and guests eager to hear the internationally known leaders in these fields.
The Clark University scientists and distinguished guests who participated in the symposia included: Ralph Cicerone (NAS), president of the National Academy of Sciences and former chancellor of the University of California, Irvine; Jack Dangermond, co-founder and president of ESRI (Environmental Systems Research Institute), the company that produces ArcInfo, the dominant GIS software globally with more than 1 million users; Robert W. Kates (NAS), a geographer, long-time member of Clark's School of Geography and independent scholar who has been instrumental in the development of sustainability science in the United States and abroad; Roger E. Kasperson (NAS), research professor in Clark's School of Geography and Distinguished Scientist in the George Perkins Marsh Institute, and former director of the Stockholm Environment Institute; B. L. Turner II (NAS), the Milton P. and Alice C. Higgins Professor of Environment and Society and director of Clark 's School of Geography; J. Ronald Eastman, Jan and Larry Landry University Professor, professor of geography at Clark 's School of Geography, and director of Clark Labs for Cartographic Technology and Geographic Analysis; Susan E. Hanson (NAS), research professor at Clark's School of Geography; and R. Gil Pontius, professor at Clark's School of Geography and International Development, Community and Environment Department.
Visit www.clarku.edu/departments/geography to learn more about Clark's Graduate School of Geography—the oldest sustained program of geography with more Ph.D.s awarded than any other geography program in the United States. For more on Clark Labs and GIS, visit www.clarklabs.org.
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Clarknews Winter 2008 |
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John Holdren delivers President's Lecture at Clark.
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