Eric Nyquist
No one who is following the progress of humanity’s efforts to mitigate climate change has a lot of reason for optimism right now. After decades of warnings, we are still producing more carbon emissions than ever, and efforts to reduce those emissions are coming too slowly to avoid the rate of temperature rise that scientists warn us could have grave consequences for human life.
Still, people all over the world are working to find solutions and reduce the damage. In this issue, we want to highlight some of those people and the work they’re doing: at Yale, in New Haven, and beyond.
The academic center of Yale’s work in protecting the planet, of course, is the School of the Environment, which this year celebrates the 125th anniversary of its founding as the Yale Forest School. A pioneering educational venture in the conservation movement back in 1900, today the school teaches environmental scientists and policy makers, conducts cutting-edge research, and educates the public. One of the programs we are featuring in this issue, the Urban Resources Initiative, is a program of the environment school.
But environmental issues are big enough to occupy more of the university. On the administrative side, Yale has an office devoted to sustainability, a plan to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2035 (and zero actual emissions by 2050), and an innovative plan that charges the university’s schools and administrative units for the carbon emissions they produce.
The university highlighted its efforts last year at the Yale @ Climate Week NYC summit. Presented to coincide with the annual Climate Week series of events in the city, the summit was convened by Yale Planetary Solutions (YPS), an interdisciplinary effort to face environmental challenges. One of YPS’s most visible programs provides seed grants for research and other initiatives; we highlight ten of them in this article.
Reducing carbon emissions is only one part of the answer to climate change; another part is the effort to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Yale researchers are working on that, too, most notably at the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture, established in 2021 with a $100 million gift from FedEx. We feature in this issue a story about another carbon-capture venture: a New Haven nonprofit founded by Dean Takahashi ’80, ’83MPPM, who left his work as senior director of the Yale Investments Office to support the most promising ideas for carbon sequestration.
Sometimes a problem seems so insurmountable that all we can do is take it on a piece at a time. The works described in this issue are heartening examples.—The Editors
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