Come hear world-renowned experts on different aspects of climate change
This series, sponsored by the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, is intended for those at MSU and in the external community who are working on climate change.
Each talk will be followed by a networking reception. The next is:
Dr. Howard Frumkin, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Human health and climate change
Thursday, January 14th, 2010
Talk: 1 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. | Reception: 2:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Michigan State University Union, at Grand River and Abbott roads
Parking Map [254 KB, PDF]
Howard Frumkin, MD, DrPH is Director of the National Center for Environmental Health/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (NCEH/ATSDR) at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is an internist, environmental and occupational medicine specialist, and epidemiologist. Dr. Frumkin's interests include: building healthy communities, the health consequences of global climate change, and the mitigation of health disparities.
Please register for this talk, so that we can size the reception and make nametags, at http://www.espp.msu.edu/reg/speakers.php or e-mail RSVPESPP@msu.edu
Send us a note to be notified about upcoming speakers; information will also be posted here.
Upcoming speakers:
Spring 2010
Dr. Terry Root, Stanford University
Michigan ecosystems and climate change
Dr. Terry Root is Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. Her work focuses on large-scale ecological questions investigating factors - such as climate change -- shaping the ranges and abundances of animals, primarily birds. Dr. Root has taught courses in conservation biology, wildlife biology, ecology and ornithology. Additionally, Dr. Root has investigated gender-based differences in scientific communities by quantifying the opportunities and obstacles women and men face in science.Dr. Richard Schmalensee, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Climate change economics and policy
Richard Schmalensee is the Howard W. Johnson Professor of Economics and Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Director of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research. He served as the John C Head III Dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management from 1998 through 2007. He was as a Member of the President's Council of Economic Advisers from 1989 through 1991. His research has centered on industrial organization economics and its application to managerial and public policy issues, with particular emphasis on antitrust, regulatory, and environmental policies.Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig, NASA
Urban adaptation to climate
Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig is a research scientist at the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Institute for Space Studies, where she is the leader of the Climate Impacts Group. The mission of the group is to investigate the interactions of climate with systems and sectors important to ecological and human well-being. Dr. Rosenzweig is currently leading the Metropolitan East Coast Region for the U.S. National Assessment of Climate Variability and Change. Her research focuses on the impacts of environmental change, including increasing carbon dioxide, global warming, and El Niño, on regional, national, and global scales.Dr. Bjorn Stigson, World Business Council for Sustainable Development
Business and climate change
March 22, 2010
Bjorn Stigson is President of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. He serves on the boards of or on committees advising the Chinese government, the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes, the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, the Clinton Global Initiative and the Global Reporting Initiative. He is a graduate of the Gothenburg School of Business Administration, the Swedish Management Institute and Harvard Business School.
Past speakers:
Edward Parson, University of Michigan
Climate change policies and technological innovation
Thursday, November 12th
Ted Parson is Joseph L. Sax Collegiate Professor of Law and Professor of Natural Resources & Environment at the University of Michigan. His interests include environmental policy, particularly its international dimensions; the political economy of regulation; the role of science and technology in public issues; and the analysis of negotiations, collective decisions, and conflicts. His recent research has included projects on scientific and technical assessment in international policy-making; the policy implications of carbon-cycle management; the design of international market-based policy instruments; and development of policy exercises, simulation-gaming, and related novel methods for assessment and policy analysis.
Abstract relevant to talk
Technological innovation is the biggest factor determining how easy it will be to achieve steep reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions. Analyses suggest that the total cost of limiting climate change would be only 1-2 % reduction in future GDP. But are these assumptions correct? How do we tell? And, what must be done to make such innovation actually happen?
Based on current analyses and the lessons learned from past policies related to technological innovation, we can be cautiously optimistic regarding the likelihood of cutting emissions. We can also identify what types of policies are likely to be effective, and cost-effective, in motivating technological innovations. However, uncertainty about rates of innovation (and the viability of specific technologies) means that policy makers should focus on relatively short-term policies, plus processes and institutions to adapt these over time in view of new knowledge and capabilities. Steering such an adaptive process over the multi-decade transition needed to achieve climate stabilization poses demanding and novel legal, political, and institutional challenges.
David Zilberman, University of California, Berkeley
Can we fill the car and feed the stomach without destroying the environment?
Thursday, October 15th
David Zilberman has been a professor in the Agricultural and Resource Economics Department since 1979. He is a fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association and the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. His research interests are in agricultural and nutritional policy, economics of technological change, economics of natural resources and micro-economic theory. He received his B.A. in Economics and Statistics from Tel Aviv University in Israel and his PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from U.C. Berkeley.
Abstract relevant to talk
Biofuels have become a leading alternative to fossil fuel because they can be produced domestically by many countries, require only minimal changes to retail distribution and end-use technologies, are a partial response to global climate change, and because they have the potential to spur rural development. Production of biofuel has increased most rapidly for corn ethanol, in part because of government subsidies; yet, corn ethanol offers at most a modest contribution to society's climate change goals and only a marginally positive net energy balance. Current biofuels pose long-run consequences for the provision of food and environmental amenities. In the short run, however, when gasoline supply and demand are inelastic, they serve as a buffer supply of energy, helping to reduce prices. Employing a conceptual model and with back-of-the-envelope estimates of wealth transfers resulting from biofuel production, we find that ethanol subsidies pay for themselves. Adoption of second-generation technologies may make biofuels more beneficial to society. The large-scale production of new types of crops dedicated to energy is likely to induce structural change in agriculture and change the sources, levels, and variability of farm incomes. The socio-economic impact of biofuel production will largely depend on how well the process of technology adoption by farmers and processors is understood and managed. The confluence of agricultural policy with environmental and energy policies is expected.
Full paper: "Challenge of biofuel: Filling the tank without emptying the stomach?" [348KB, PDF]
