environment

By TOMÁS INSUA “I commend His Holiness [Pope Francis] and all faith leaders here, for raising awareness of the urgent need to promote sustainable development and address climate . . . Your influence is enormous. You speak to the heart of humanity’s deepest hopes and needs.” Ban Ki-moon, former UN secretary general, addressing an interfaith […]

BY JEAN-BAPTISTE LE MAROIS Most climate change awareness campaigns feature stranded polar bears on drifting ice sheets, or sea levels creeping over the island of Manhattan. But are these strategies convincing? The “protect the planet” approach has proven to be too weak of a public narrative to mobilize voters. Instead, imagine opening the newspaper to […]

BY DAVID HARARY It has become clear Democrats need a new strategy on passing climate change legislation. The new Administration’s budget proposal for 2018 is certainly not friendly towards climate change research or mitigation. Deep cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Department of Energy are just the beginning […]

BY LIZ HANSON Defining the mission of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) seems like it should be fairly straightforward. It’s right there in the name: an agency to protect the environment. Of course, in a world of complex costs and benefits, and increasingly intense partisan rhetoric, nothing is quite so simple. Yet, I was still […]

BY JENNIFER HELFRICH I am an environmentalist. Friends call me a “tree hugger.” Tree huggers are a rare breed here at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS). My fellow students each have their public policy area of focus—and the environment is not one of them. I understand the dilemma; HKS students tend to exhaust themselves through […]

BY KATIE BURHKART AND NATALIE UNTERSTELL The Amazon rainforest and the Arctic Ocean both conjure images of frontier lands: the Arctic as a cold and desolate region inhabited by reindeer and polar bears, and threatened by a warming climate; the Amazon as a dense, humid forest teeming with wildlife and threatened by deforestation. Both are […]

Dr. Houchang Chehabi, PhD, is a leading expert in Iranian studies at The Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University where he is Professor of International Relations and History. Houchang Chehabi has taught at Harvard and has been a visiting professor at the University of St. Andrews, UCLA, and the Universidad Argentina […]

BY JOELLE THOMAS “I see no objections. The Paris Agreement for the climate is adopted.” A decidedly stoic Laurent Fabius—President of the COP21 talks—brings down his leaf-shaped gavel. The room erupts in cheering, as exhausted and emotional negotiators from 196 countries take to their feet. Al Gore is beaming. The cries echo along Le Bourget’s […]

There is a common saying amongst Israeli Jews in reference to Israel’s historical dependence on foreign fossil fuels: Moses took a wrong turn while traveling to the Holy Land. Yet this aphorism continues to be challenged, much to Israel’s benefit. What started out with the discoveries of natural gas fields equaling 22 trillion cubic feet […]

BY JOELLE THOMAS Before the attacks in Paris last weekend, French President Hollande had been calling the upcoming climate conference the “last chance to save the world” from catastrophic climate change. These words seem to take on a deeper meaning as Paris, shaken yet resilient, is gearing up to welcome 50,000 people, including 90 heads […]

Climate change is transforming the circulation patterns which bring us our weather, but do journalists have enough scientific understanding to tell us what’s going on? BY MEGAN ALBON 2014 was the year a polar vortex came to town, wreaking wintery havoc for months on end. Reporters were quickly on its tail. “Trapped in a ‘polar […]

POLICY AREA: HEALTH CARE BY EMILY HARTMANN It is clear that President Obama wants to move the conversation forward on health care. In the State of the Union address he acknowledged the early struggles launching health care exchanges, but he quickly turned to the successes of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Speaking directly to the […]