Day: September 12, 2012

Sept 18 & 21: Mass. Car-Free Week Kick-Off & Celebration

Tufts Office of Sustainability is celebrating Massachusetts Car-Free Week September 17th-23rd by encouraging students and faculty members to make their commutes car-light!

Endorsing the environmental, financial, community, and health benefits of sustainable travel options, Mass. Car-Free Week promotes public transit, carpooling, bicycling, walking and teleworking as greener modes of transportation.

Track your progress on www.nuride.com, a travel rewards and ride-sharing program sponsored by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. Win daily prizes for commuting car-free by signing into NuRide from September 17th-23rd!

Tufts Office of Sustainability will guide you through Mass. Car-Free Week with Kick-Off and Celebration events:

Kick-Off: Tuesday, September 18th, 11am – 2pm: Tufts Office of Sustainability (OOS) will host a kick-off event on the lower patio of Mayer Campus Center to promote the environmental and economic benefits of car-light commuting for Mass. Car-Free Week. The OOS will be signing up students and staff for Car-Free Week via NuRide. Come join the local biking and alternative transit community to register your bike, pick up bike maps and flyers, purchase bike locks and other transit merchandise, and learn about everything from folding bikes to car-sharing!

Celebration: Friday, September 21st, 11am – 2pm: There is such thing as a free lunch! Tufts Office of Sustainability will offer a free lunch for all registered participants in Mass. Car-Free Week. Enjoy a meal in the Pearson parking lot (across from Dewick dining hall), where Professor Cathy Stanton’s Anthropology 132 “Myth, Ritual, & Symbol” class  will demonstrate alternative uses for an open parking space. Please RSVP to the lunch either by sharing a picture of your car-light ride on our Twitter (@tuftsOOS) or Facebook, or by sending us an email of your NuRide account progress at tuftsoos@gmail.com.

To learn more about Mass. Car-Free Week and other events in the Boston area, visit the MassRIDES website.

Sept 13: Rio+20: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

When: Thursday, September 13, 12pm – 1pm

Where: Lincoln Filene Center, Rabb Room on the Medford Campus (map)

Join us as we start off the fall 2012 semester with a team of Tufts faculty, staff, and students who attended the Rio+20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil this past June 2012. The main purpose of their trip was to host a side event titled “From Burden Bearing to Opportunity Sharing: Reframing Environmental Negotiations,” focusing on how the current negotiations can shift from a pollution prevention framework to opportunities for sustainable development through access to cleaner energy technologies, resilient development, access to fresh water, and improved health. Team members also conducted their own research and analyzed the Rio+20 text that was being negotiated. The panel will discuss some key themes that came out of Rio+20 and some ideas for ways forward.

Panelists include:

Kelly Sims Gallagher is Associate Professor of Energy and Environmental Policy at The Fletcher School at Tufts. She directs the Energy, Climate, and Innovation (ECI) research program in the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy (CIERP). Broadly, she focuses on energy and climate policy in both the United States and China. She is particularly interested in the role of policy in spurring the development and deployment of cleaner and more efficient energy technologies, domestically and internationally.

Mieke van der Wansem is the Associate Director of Center for Environment and Resource Policy at The Fletcher School. Mieke has over fifteen years of experience as organizational and program leader and manager, trainer, facilitator, and researcher on environmental and natural resource policy issues.

Laura Kuhl is a doctoral candidate at Fletcher, focusing on environmental policy and development economics. She is a recipient of a National Science Foundation IGERT Fellowship in Water and Diplomacy. Current research projects include the study of technology transfer for adaptation conducted with the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and a NOAA-funded project on climate change adaptation, sea level rise and environmental justice communities conducted in collaboration with a team from Tufts, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and the University of Maryland.

Rishikesh Bhandary is a doctoral candidate at Fletcher, focusing on international environment and resource policy and negotiations and conflict resolution. He has a keen interest in climate change policy and is looking to explore innovative sources of finance and market based strategies for low carbon development.

Andrew Tirrell is a doctoral candidate at Fletcher, a human rights attorney and sustainable development researcher, focusing on rights-based approaches to natural resource development and climate change adaptation. Much of his past research has been in Latin America and Southeast Asia on issues of development and human rights, but he has just begun a new project examining climate change adaptation in arctic regions.

Sponsored by Tufts Environmental Studies Program, Lunch and Learn Series and The Tufts Institute of the Environment.

Sept 17: CIERP Meet & Greet

When: Monday, September 17, 5:30pm – 7:00pm

Where: Chase Center, Carmichael Hall (map)

Join us for light refreshments while learning about the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy’s ongoing research, upcoming events, internship and job opportunities, as well as other Tufts environmental programs and centers.

Click here for more info.