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All Lectures Free and Open to the Public
Thursday, September 17th
Campus Center, Room 163C, 3:30 P.M
Christopher Jarrett
Professor and Director, School of Architecture
College of Arts and Architecture
University of North Carolina @ Charlotte
PowerHouse
The Solar Decathlon is an international competition funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. Their call and challenge is to have interdisciplinary teams of students and faculty compete in designing, building, and operating highly-efficient, solar powered houses assimilating architecture and engineering. Every house must generate enough energy from the sun to operate a normal family household, a home-based business, and related transportation. Georgia Tech's Solar Decathlon House aims to harness and celebrate the sun's power. As in the Greek tale of the architect Daedalus and his son Icarus who embarked on a flight to the sun, so too the modern fascination with building "lighter" and more "transparent" buildings is presumed to be at odds with “energy conservation.” And yet, at no other time in the history of construction have advances in materials technology and energy systems design rendered Icarus' vision more realizable. Exploring the paradox of “lightness” and “energy conservation” is the inspiration that guides the design and construction of Georgia Tech's 2007 Solar Decathlon House.
Chris Jarrett teaches architectural design studios, seminars and workshops traversing a range of environmental theory, design and science topics. Jarrett was principle investigator for Georgia Tech's entry in the 2007 Solar Decathlon, leading a 100-person interdisciplinary student and faculty team from the Colleges of Architecture, Engineering, Management, and Sciences. Jarrett received his Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Oregon and his Master of Science in Architecture from Columbia University. He was recently appointed Director of the School of Architecture at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.
Faculty Host:
Associate Professor, Architecture Committee Chair
Department of Art & Art History
Wednesday, September 23rd
Student Union, Cape Cod Lounge, 3:30 P.M
Eric Strauss
Director, Boston College Environmental Studies Program
Science Advisor, Urban Ecology Institute Research
Associate Professor, Biology Department
Editor in Chief, Cities and the Environment Journal
Urban Ecology: The Challenge of Rejuvenating America's Cities
The study of urban ecology provides rich opportunities to investigate the role of humans as ecosystem engineers and to contribute basic science scholarship to policies of sustainable city management. In his public lecture, Dr. Strauss will discuss the transdisciplinary science of urban ecology as a tool for understanding the complexity of human-dominated landscapes and for developing applications to promote human sustainability. Drawing from his roles as Founding Director of the Boston College Environmental Studies Program and Co-Founder of the Urban Ecology Institute, Strauss explores how research in animal ecology, urban forest dynamics and science education can be used as a platform for developing collaborations to build strong networks for research and action. With foci on behavioral and community ecology, his research focuses on behavioral ecology of species in urbanizing environments and science education. He conducts his research in two primary locations - the Boston Metropolitan Area and the Sandy Neck Barrier Beach Complex on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Utilizing methods that include mark-recapture studies, direct observation, radio-telemetry and bioacoustics, he is interested in elucidating the factors that influence the reproductive success and life history patterns of coyotes, diamondback terrapins and other social vertebrates. Collaborating partners include the Urban Ecology Institute, the Urban Sciences Research and Learning Group and the Urban Ecology Collaborative and each of these partners work to promote the stewardship of healthy urban ecosystems by improving our knowledge of urban ecological function, and by engaging communities in the process of urban restoration and transformation. He and his partners are committed to creating authentic connections between the scholarship of original research and the teaching of high school and college science. Studies serve as curricula for courses taught at Boston College, partner universities and collaborating high schools. As such, the methodologies are designed to incorporate student scientists of all ages into as many phases of the work as possible.
Bio
The study of urban ecology provides rich opportunities to investigate the role of humans as ecosystem engineers and to contribute basic science scholarship to policies of sustainable city management. With a focus on behavioral ecology and science education, Dr. Strauss conducts his research in two primary locations - the Boston Metropolitan Area and the Sandy Neck Barrier Beach Complex on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Utilizing methods that include mark-recapture studies, direct observation, radio-telemetry and bioacoustics, he is interested in elucidating the factors that influence the reproductive success and life history patterns of coyotes, diamondback terrapins and other social vertebrates. The long-term research and education efforts are strengthened by collaborations with the Urban Ecology Institute, faculty and students at UMass and the Urban Ecology Collaborative. Recently, this team was awarded an NSF Urban Long Term Research Areas Exploratory Grant (ULTRA-X), which is headed by Dr. Paige Warren of UMass. The research studies serve as curricula for courses taught at Boston College, the partner universities and collaborating high schools. As such, the methodologies are designed to incorporate student scientists of all ages into as many phases of the work as possible. This effort has nourished additional work by Dr. Strauss in science education as senior author of a nationally distributed science textbook (Biology the Web of Life) and an upcoming textbook in urban ecology. In addition, he is the Senior Editor of the USDAFS funded Cities and the Environment Journal and was the founding Science Director and now Science Advisor for the Urban Ecology Institute. The research projects are supported in part by the National Science Foundation, The Henry David Thoreau Foundation, The USDA Forest Service, The Boston College Intersections Program and other funding agencies.
Strauss Powerpoint Presentation
Faculty Hosts:
Assistant Professor
Department of Natural Resource Conservation
Associate Professor
Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning
Tuesday, October 27th
Student Union, Cape Cod Lounge, 3:30 PM
David Foster
Harvard Forest and Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
Harvard University
Reading and Conserving New England. Insights from History and Ecology
This talk is based on David's long-standing conviction that every landscape and region has a history that strongly conditions its current condition and its future dynamics. In this talk he will provide an overview of the ecological insights that emerge from a consideration of the natural and cultural history of New England and then illustrate how this can be applied both to anticipating future conditions and to conservation management, including discussion of the Wildlands and Woodlands vision being developed by scientists associated with the Harvard Forest.
Bio
David Foster is an ecologist and author of Thoreau’s Country – Journey through a Transformed Landscape (1999), New England Forests Through Time (2000; both Harvard University Press), Forests in Time – The Environmental Consequences of 1000 years of Change in New England (2004; Yale University Press) and Wildland and Woodlands: A Vision for the Forests of Massachusetts (Harvard University). He has been a faculty member in Biology since 1983 and is Director of the Harvard Forest, Harvard University’s 3500-acre ecological laboratory and classroom in central Massachusetts. David is the Principal Investigator for the Harvard Forest Long Term Ecological Research program, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and involving more than 100 scientists and students investigating the dynamics of New England landscape as a consequence of climate change, human activity, and natural disturbance.
David has a Ph.D. in ecology from the University of Minnesota and has conducted studies in the boreal forests of Labrador, Sweden and Norway and the forests of Puerto Rico, the Yucatan, and Patagonia in addition to his primary research on landscape dynamics in New England. His interests focus on understanding the historical changes in forest ecosystems that result from human and natural disturbance and applying these results to the conservation and management of natural and cultural landscapes. He currently serves on the boards of The Nature Conservancy -Massachusetts, Trustees of Reservations, Conservation Research Foundation and Highstead Foundation. As part of his larger conservation work David and a group of Harvard Forest researchers developed Wildlands and Woodlands – A Vision for the Forests of Massachusetts, which lays out an ambitious plan for the protection and conservation of half of the land in the state.
At Harvard University David teaches courses on forest ecology and environmental change and directs the graduate program in forest biology. He lives in Shutesbury, Massachusetts with his wife Marianne Jorgensen and their children Christian and Ava.
David Foster's Presentation (PDF)
Faculty Host:
Associate Professor and Department Chair
Anthropology
Monday, November 16th
Student Union, Cape Cod Lounge, 3:30 PM
Riley Dunlap
Regents Professor of Sociology
Oklahoma State University
Climate-Change Denial and Conservatism: Exploring the Connections
Historically conservatives have been less supportive than liberals of environmental protection, both among political elites such as members of Congress and the general public. However, by the early 1990s, following the downfall of the Soviet Union and the emergence of global environmentalism as exemplified by the 1992 “Earth Summit” in Rio, the American Conservative Movement mobilized overtly against environmentalism and environmental policy-making—substituting a “Green Scare” for the vanishing “Red Scare.”
Fearing the growth of national and especially international environmental regulatory policies, the movement mounted a concerted campaign against environmentalists, environmental scientists, environmental policy-makers and environmental regulations. Rather than attacking environmental protection efforts head-on, a strategy that produced a pro-environmental backlash in the Reagan years, conservatives attacked environmental science in order to undermine the evidence used by those pushing for new and stronger regulations. Conservatives applied the term “junk science,” for example, to discredit scientific evidence documenting problematic environmental conditions.
The conservative assault on mainstream science and scientists has reached new heights with anthropogenic climate change (ACC). Conservative think tanks (with support from the fossil fuels industry and conservative philanthropists) have spear-headed efforts to deny the reality and significance of ACC. Their activities range from supporting most of the small number of “contrarian” climate scientists to disseminating a vast range of material attacking the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), climate scientists and those who support efforts to reduce carbon emissions. The dissemination employs various fora (e.g., policy briefings for politicians and anti-IPCC conferences) and all forms of media from websites to videos to newspapers to television.
This presentation will locate the current situation in historical context, and then focus on the link between conservative think tanks and the rapidly growing number of books espousing climate-change denialism (including those authored by contrarian scientists). It will also examine the degree to which these efforts have contributed to growing partisan and ideological polarization among the general public. National survey data will be used to demonstrate that over the past decade self-identified Republicans and conservatives have become less likely to view ACC as real and problematic, even as the scientific evidence for ACC has become stronger.
Bio
Riley E. Dunlap is Regents Professor of Sociology at Oklahoma State University, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has served as President of the International Sociological Association’s Research Committee on Environment and Society and as Chair of the American Sociological Association’s Section on Environmental Sociology. His current research focuses on cross-national comparisons of public concern for the environment, public perceptions of climate change, and the nature and sources of climate-change denial. He is senior editor of American Environmentalism (1992), Public Reactions to Nuclear Waste (1993), Sociological Theory and the Environment (2002) and the Handbook of Environmental Sociology (2002).
Research Interests
Professor Dunlap's empirical research has three major foci: (1) Environmental concern, including trends in public opinion on environmental issues; cross-national comparisons of citizen concern for the environment; and the nature and sources of environmental attitudes, beliefs and worldviews; (2) The environmental movement, including the evolution and current status of American environmentalism, public support for the environmental movement, and the development of international environmentalism; (3) Anti-environmentalism, particularly anti-environmentalists' sources of support, ideology and tactics. In addition to his empirical work, Dr. Dunlap regularly writes assessments of theoretical developments in the field of environmental sociology.
Faculty Hosts:
Associate Professor and Graduate Program Chair
Department of Sociology
Director CPPA and Professor of Economics
PDF Files of Lecture Posters: 8.5"x11" or 11"x17"