What should we do about climate change?

Instead of waiting for policy makers to act, you can help figure out the answer at the Climate CoLab; previously discussed in Opening the [Copenhagen] talks. Working alone—or in teams of people from all over the world—you can create proposals for what to do about climate change. The winning proposals will be presented to key policy makers, including officials at the UN and the US Congress. And if your proposal is one of the top two, you’ll receive travel funding for a representative of your team to attend one of these briefings.

We especially encourage entries from teams of undergraduate and graduate students with an interest in climate and sustainability issues. As usual rules and restrictions apply.

The deadline for the contest… [view entry]

Just announced this morning:

In an effort to dramatically cut energy use at one of the country’s premier academic and research institutions, NSTAR and MIT are teaming up to launch the single most aggressive efficiency project in NSTAR history. Dubbed “MIT Efficiency Forward,” the program has a goal of cutting electricity use by 15 percent over three years through innovative programs, substantial student, faculty, and staff engagement, and the piloting of new technologies and approaches at MIT.

Read the rest of the press release.

Last month the EPA awarded funds to MIT, Harvard and UMass Amherst among others to study the consequences of climate change. Harvard will be working with UMass Amherst to study allergies and asthma. Separately it will be researching the health impacts of pollution from forest fires. MIT will be modeling transit policy’s effects on air pollution and the resulting impacts on human health. Full news release

You might be familiar with cool roofs, the idea of using a bright-colored or reflective roofing material to reduce heat absorption. This has the dual effects of both cutting down on the urban heat-island effect as well as reducing a building’s solar gain and the attendant cooling load. Alas, a disadvantage of such a roof (especially in northern climes) is the loss of an extra boost from a warm dark roof in the winter. Therefore researchers have been working on a means of eating ones cake and having it too.

Last fall an MIT startup announced that they had developed a color-changing tile dubbed Thermeleon. More recently, a New York firm announced a different, simpler material that could compete with your neighbor’s biodiesel-fueled car for used fry oil.

A quick synopsis of recent/upcoming environmental events at local universities.

MIT’s energy conference begins tomorrow, featuring a free Energy Showcase from 5–8 PM:

President Obama will be speaking in Cambridge at MIT in Kresge Auditorium this Friday.  While attendance is by invitation only, MIT will have a live webcast available to the public.  The president will deliver the address in Kresge Auditorium on clean energy and will be joined by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick.

President Barak Obama has been an advocate of clean energy solutions to the climate change challenge, calling for the US to, “make the investments that would allow us to become the world’s leading exporter of renewable energy”.  The White House website has an Energy & Environment page dedicated to the accomplishments they have achieved up to date including efficiency investments in the American Recovery and Investment Act and increasing fuel efficiency standards.    These have been great steps… [view entry]

If you’ve got time and bandwidth to kill, you might want to check out TechTV. In the spirit of OpenCourseWare, MIT hosts videos of various guest lectures and conferences. For instance, Energy forecast for the rest of the century. Although I don’t personally agree with all of the professor’s interpretations—many conflict with the more pragmatic views portrayed in “Sustainable Energy,” which is incidentally available via OCW—it was an interesting presentation, and could probably serve as a good introduction for the uninitiated nevertheless. I also appreciated his putting the scope of human influence in perspective by comparing it with natural flows. It reminded me of prolific environmental author Vaclav Smil’s excellent Cycles of Life : Civilization and the Biosphere.

Our friendly neighborhood researchers at MIT’s Joint program on the Science and Policy of “Global Change“—tomatah, tomahto—released updated predictions from their global warming climate model yesterday, and as the images below show, the results are a mixed bag. Although it seems we are now destined to experience one more degree Celsius of warming, whichever path we choose, the range and likelihood of greater increases in average global temperature are much higher if we continue with the status quo. On the other hand, if we adopt serious policies to shift toward efficiency and renewable resources, we may experience less warming than previously predicted; allowing for one degree of increase due to years of inaction.

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MIT has just announced it is working with a substance called graphene to find new information technology and energy related applications.

For those of you without a post-grad science degree, graphene is a sheet of carbon atoms formed into perfect hexagonal patterns. Graphene has several other properties that identify it as a material with extraordinary potential. For instance, it was found to have a breaking strength 200 times that of steel.

It is also one of the most expensive materials ever produced. A ’sheet’ of  graphene the width of a human hair current costs almost $1000 to produce. This is the part of the story that got Energy 2.0’s attention, however:

“Unique electrical characteristics could make graphene the successor to silicon in a whole new generation of microchips,… [view entry]

Cambridge, MA-Friday, April 24: Over 300 people, including your faithful Energy 2.0 correspondent, assembled in Walker Memorial Hall at MIT to hear from some of the major players and most provocative thinkers in the field of sustainability. Unlike the content you’ll find here, which stretches all the way from global energy policy to insulating your water pipes, the Sustainability @ MIT conference was exclusively focused on the big picture.