CLIMATE.EDU Dr. Richard Sebastian

For the average person, the complexity of climate change and lack of clarity on impactful solutions can be paralyzing. For government leaders and decision-makers, it can help drive misguided investment in pie-in-the sky solutions that avoid more impactful policy decisions. En-Roads, a free, easy-to-use online dashboard and modeling tool co-developed by today’s guest, Andrew Jones, Executive Director of Climate Interactive, and a team at MIT’s Sloan Sustainability Initiative, allows anyone, fr...

The nature of the climate crisis, and the unprecedented speed with which the world needs to address it, requires global, national, and local actions that are informed by the latest research from multiple disciplines. However, like a lot of academic research, the majority of climate change research is locked behind the paywall of one a handful of big academic publishers, often limiting how it can be applied to the wicked problem of climate change. My guest today is working to chang...

The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education has been helping higher education institutions not only think about climate change and sustainability in regard to their own campuses but also connecting and coordinating these individual campus efforts across its global member network of 900 colleges and universities. Established in 2005, AASHE’s goal is to “inspire and catalyze higher education to lead the global sustainability transformation.” It does this by o...

We can’t meet our climate goals without building, as fast as we can, a robust, diverse pipeline of well-trained workers. Unfortunately, here in the US, there is no real workforce education and training SYSTEM, per se. Short-term programs, apprenticeships, and non-credit credentials are delivered by a patchwork of community-based organizations, for-profit training providers, industry associations, unions, and community and technical colleges, And the models and funding streams differ region to...

Today's guest on Climate.edu is Dr Bryan Alexander, author of the book Universities on Fire: Higher Education in the Climate Crisis. Universities on Fire is one of the first books that I've seen focused on how climate change is impacting higher education.The futures he describes for higher ed, even the best scenarios, are unsettling, and he makes clear that across the globe, but most notably in the US, our educational leaders and institutions aren’t doing enough. But his book also docum...