Stepping Up: What Does It Look Like for Higher Education to Get Serious About the Climate Crisis? with Alex Barron ’00, Smith College.
Tuesday, October 21 – 7:00 PM in Olin 141
The ongoing dismantling of U.S. Federal climate policy makes action by every other institution even more important. How can colleges and universities rise to this moment? One primary framework for climate action in academia – carbon neutrality – grew out of corporate climate action in the late 1990s. Is carbon neutrality still the right framework 25 years later? What does it mean to take a systems and public policy lens to rethink climate action? We’ll discuss my lab’s research into climate action in academia, how Carleton’s efforts fit in this landscape, and how to drive larger systems change for climate justice.
ALSO: Students are invited to lunch with Alex to talk in person. See the flyer below to sign up for lunch with him!
Alex graduated from Carleton in 2000 with a BA in chemistry and earned his PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology from Princeton University. His graduate research examined interactions between plants, soils and the atmosphere.
Alex applied his training as a scientist to policy design–in Congress, at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and in the White House. In Congress, he worked in both the Senate and House of Representatives to design comprehensive climate legislation (including the American Clean Energy and Security Act) and covered international climate negotiations.
Alex’s current research focuses on the design for climate policies to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and avoid catastrophic climate change. This includes evaluating how policies have worked in the past, designing specific policy incentives to reduce emissions, and work to improve the tools that policy makers use when designing those policies.
