ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY GROUP
Department of Urban Studies and Planning Massachusetts Institute of Technology http://web.mit.edu/dusp/EPG/
Newsletter ACSP Distinguished Educator Award
At the recent conference of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning in Kansas City, Professor Lawrence Susskind, head of EPG, received ACSPʼs coveted Distinguished Educator Award for lifetime contributions to the field. The award is given for teaching excellence, scholarship, more than twenty years of service to APA, AICP and ACSP, and contributions that have “made a significant difference to planning education and practice.” Each year, one senior faculty member in planning is selected to receive this award in response to nominations from across the country. (DUSP is one of only two other departments to have received the award three times. Both Professors Lloyd Rodwin and Lisa Peattie won the award before Professor Susskind.) Department Head Larry Vale, pictured with Professor Susskind, won the Paul Davidoff Award for his book, Reclaiming Public Housing: A Half Centry of Struggle in Three Public Neighborhoods. Several MIT MCP students, including Claudia Canepa and Elsie Achugbue, also won the highly prestigious Donald Schol Award for Excellence in Learning from Practice and the Marsha Ritzdorf Award for superior scholarshhip reflecting concern with making communities better for women, people of color and the disadvantaged. Professor Susskind was invited to give a talk at the awards ceremony that can be found at http://dusp.mit.edu/media/pdf/news/susskind_acsp.pdf. His theme was the need to ensure that junior faculty are encouraged to engage in planning practice as part of their efforts to secure academic promotions and tenure.
Fall 2005 Brownfields Redevelopment Community Consultation EMMAIA GELMAN (HCED)
In September, DUSP students in 11.370 (Brownfields Theory and Practice) took a field trip to the City of Lynn, Massachusetts where they met with City officials and toured numerous brownfield sites. The tour included some success stories, including a former industrial laundry that has been converted to affordable housing, as well as some sites that are awaiting redevelopment. The latter included General Electricʼs abandoned “Factory of the Future” and the Lynn waterfront, once home to a National Grid power plant and now the site of a former municipal landfill. Most of Lynnʼs brownfields are locked into a destructive nondevelopment cycle by the fears of current and former owners, funders, service-providers and city agencies about incurring liability for past or future environmental harm. However, as a means to break this cycle, in November 2005, the Lynn Economic Development and Industrial Corporation (EDIC/ Lynn) issued an RFP for a master plan and community consultation tackling the Lynn waterfront: the largest undeveloped waterfront parcel in greater Boston. MCP1s, fully-loaded with brownfields theory and ready to gather some practical experience, jumped on the opportunity to pitch in. …continued on page 2
Inside News and Views.............................................2 EPG Fall Outing ...........................................3 11.601 Redesigned ........................................3 MUSIC Update .............................................4 Land Use Planning in the Doldrums ..............5 Jim Hamilton @MIT .....................................5 EPG Updates ..................................................6 International Environmental Negotiation ......7 EPG Fall Luncheons ......................................7 In Celebration of Larry Susskind ...................8 IAP Offerings .................................................8
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Brownfields... CONTINUED FROM PAGE
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In total, the designated Waterfront Planning Area contains approximately 200 acres, almost a quarter of which is vacant, undeveloped, or largely contains parking lots. The parcel also faces the high-end residences of Nahant Island rising up a hillside across the water in what seems like an entirely different world. In fact, the City of Lynn is a different world from Nahant and other more prosperous suburbs nearby, as Lynn has struggled with underdevelopment and deindustrialization since the 1950s.
The waterfront strip is harshly separated from the rest of Lynn by a wide swath of highway, and is not part of the regular life of the city. Although Lynn has recently undertaken highly publicized studies of “the Lynnway” and economic development issues, its broader communities have yet to be engaged in thinking about how the waterfront might be used to change the fortunes of the city. MIT students, plugged into the project by Professor Jim Hamiltonʼs network of environmental planning connections, made a proposal of their own to Lynn officials. Although the RFP called for a local charette and pro forma community consultation, brownfields students suspected that community groups in Lynn might have more to say about the long-awaited development, and could provide insight into viable end-uses if polled more intensively. The class offered to identify and survey community interests in Lynn well beyond the short-list included in the RFP. Through these interviews, it was proposed that latent stakeholder ideas could be brought to the fore while also increasing local understanding about ideas and possibilities for the waterfront site. Lynn officials accepted. True to expectations, preliminary interviews have unleashed an outpouring of pent-up ideas, hopes and aspirations to participate in the waterfront development. In the next few weeks we hope to complete the interviews, synthesize and analyze the data and present our findings to City officials as well as the DUSP community. In doing so, we hope to strengthen the planning process and set the stage for a redevelopment effort that benefits from the active participation of a broad constituency. In addition, we plan on using this experience to explore future ways in which DUSP and the City of Lynn can work together on transportation, planning and development issues in support of the Cityʼs next incarnation.
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News and Views
LAWRENCE SUSSKIND
The Environmental Policy Group has devoted substantial time this semester to sounding out student concerns and thinking long-term about the direction our research and teaching might take. Two exciting ideas, at least from my standpoint, emerged from these discussions. The first concerns the possibility of creating an Environmental Planning Certificate, partly as a way of ensuring that students in other areas of specialization in the Department have full access to what we are offering. The second concerns the name (and thus the direction) of the group. I also want to bring everyone up to date on MITʼs Energy Initiative. Urban Design currently offers a certificate program. Students in CDD as well as students in other groups are eligible to enroll. There are course requirements in each of six sub-areas of specialization that students in the certificate program are required to meet. We are appointing a student-faculty committee to formulate something along the same lines in Environmental Planning. While our proposals will ultimately have to go through a school-wide review, we should figure out what we think makes the most sense. From my standpoint, the certificate should begin with 11.601 (Introduction to Environmental Policy and Planning) which was completely revamped this year. It now emphasizes the link between environmental philosophy, especially environmental ethics, and the everyday practice of local-level planning. The list of certificate requirements should end with a practicum or studio – like the Brownfields Practicum or the Rotterdam Practicum – that puts students to work on a problem of concern to a client group in a specific location. The six other subjects (which would make it a two semester set of requirements) should cover GIS/information management, brownfields development, the role of science in environmental decision-making, dispute resolution (and other participation techniques), ecological/landscape analysis and one course on infrastructure planning (i.e. transportation or energy systems). In my view, we could offer this very quickly because we have enough space in all the relevant courses to move ahead without having to hire additional faculty. If you are interested in being a member of the Environmental Planning Certificate Committee, please let me know. The Certificate would be a way for students in any of the other areas in the Department to integrate environmental planning subjects into their two-year MCP program. It would allow students in EPG to have a credential (besides their MCP) that has the word environmental in it. We might even attract architects and TPP students who are interested in planning. EPG students would take most of these subjects anyway, so they would automatically qualify for the certificate as a product of their MCP course requirements. Students in other areas of the Department might be allowed to substitute two or three non-EPG courses in GIS, ecological analysis and infrastructure that are part of their specializations, thereby making it easier to complete both their MCP requirements and the Environmental Planning Certificate in two years. …continued on next page.
A decision to offer such a certificate would go hand-in-hand with the proposed change in the name of the group. Students have suggested Environmental Policy and Planning (EPP) which, interestingly enough, was the original name of the group. As far as I can tell, the EPG faculty are fully supportive. Now that IDRP is intending to change its name to “ID, “ it would be good to have at least one group in the DUSP with the word planning in its name. Keeping policy in our name is important because it indicates an interest in national and international aspects of environmental decision-making. This gives us a way to link to MITʼs Energy Initiative, the Political Science Department, MITʼs Council on the Environment, TPP, and the Center for Global Change Science. At the same time, many of the students in EPG are primarily interested in working on land use issues at the local or regional level. Our concerns about environmental justice and sustainable development tend to play out at the local level. So, there is no real shift in what we do required if we change our name. Upon her arrival at MIT, President Hochfield announced her commitment to have MIT play a leadership role on the issue of energy. She appointed a campus-wide faculty council. They orchestrated small group meetings with any and all faculty members involved in energy-related research. (I attended one of these meetings.) The council sought what they called “white papers” from clusters of faculty interested in proposing research activities that might be funded if MIT is successful in raising funds to support President Hochfieldʼs initiative. You can see the list of white papers at: //web.mit.edu/erc/. Most of the research proposed is an extension of work already going on at MIT, particularly on fossil fuel production. I was disappointed that there are so few groups interested in renewable energy. I tried to organize a group that would focus on the “institutional obstacles to energy technology innovation and diffusion,” thinking that what is needed is a deeper understanding of how to overcome NorthSouth divisions and how to get around the political barriers to solar, wind, biomass, and hydro power. I was unable to generate sufficient interest to pursue this point of view. DUSP can contribute most to whatever work MIT ends up doing on energy by focusing on new strategies for promoting institutional innovation, particularly with regard to international sharing of innovative energy production technologies (focused on renewables). DUSP ought to be the focal point on campus for work on the institutional obstacles to energy technology innovation and ways of getting around them. Iʼm hoping we can add a course with this focus that will attract some of the technologists from other parts of the campus. As is almost always the case (in my 35 years at MIT), the Instituteʼs first response to a problem is to look for an engineering fix. Only after lots of good ideas meet immovable institutional roadblocks is there a recognition that gizmos and gadgets are not going to solve these “wicked” problem. By that time, though, we tend to be on to the next problem.
If you are interested in being a member of the Environmental Planning Certificate Committee, please let Professor Susskind know.
EPG Fall Outing EPG students and faculty had a chance to unwind and compare locally grown apples at the EPG Fall Outing. Larry Susskind and his wife Leslie Tuttle, kindly hosted an afternoon of fun and relaxation in their home in Southborough, MA. Views of the countryside and fall foliage provided just the right atmosphere for telling jokes, sipping on cider and forgetting, at least for the moment, about all the schoolwork to come.
11.601 Redesigned
BOMEE JUNG
This yearʼs incoming masters students were the first to experience the newly redesigned EPG introductory class, 11.601. The class, a requirement for students in EPG, in past years had focused exclusively on the US regulatory environment. This yearʼs class attempts to give a broader context to environmental decision making by incorporating discussions of values and philosophy in addition to surveying the techniques and strategies for environmental management and planning. The format of the new class also encourages students to get to know each other. In addition to discussion-oriented class sessions, the students have participated in negotiation simulations and team presentations, and the feedback has been that the EPG students have formed a more intimate cohort as a result. Additionally, 11.601 is the first class at the Institute to incorporate blogging technology provided by IS&T. In lieu of periodic written assignments, the students in 11.601 maintain a shared class blog in which they continue the thread of discussion started in class. IS&T is planning to expand on the software implementation that was developed to support this aspect of the class, making it available to other classes.
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MUSIC Update
MUSIC welcomed five new interns—Sharlene Leurig, Chris Lyddy, Marina Psaros, Alexis Shulman, and Katherine Wallace— who joined returning interns, Anna Brown, Lindsay Campbell, and Basilia Yao this fall. The U.S. Geological Survey, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Department of the Interior Office of Collaborative Action and Dispute Resolution, and MIT are sponsoring the interns to conduct research on a range of natural resources and ecosystems management and environmental policy issues, which includes water allocation policy in Hawaii, trail and off-road vehicle route designation in national forests and national parks, and design and implementation of collaborative and adaptive management approaches to the National Environmental Policy Act. MUSIC celebrated a milestone last spring with the graduation of Peter Brandenburg—the first intern to complete the MCP. Peterʼs thesis, “Evaluating Next-Generation Environmental Policy Tools: Adaptive Management in the Bureau of Land Management,” has been widely distributed in the Bureau of Land Management, among the multi-agency Adaptive Management Working Group in the Department of the Interior, and the Presidentʼs Council on Environmental Quality. Jennifer Peyser, MUSIC intern coordinator, also graduated last spring completing her thesis entitled, “How Does Participation in the Framing, Review, and Incorporation of Scientific Information Affect Stakeholder Perspectives on Resources Management Decisions?.” Based on their work, both Peter and Jennifer were invited to the White House Conference on Cooperative Conservation. Jennifer couldnʼt attend because she was in the process of moving to her new job with RESOLVE. Peter had the opportunity to talk one-on-one with many high-level government officials including Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton. MUSIC co-director Herman Karl had a busy travel schedule over the summer and early fall presenting seminars and talks on joint fact finding and the MUSIC program at numerous sites around the country including a meeting of the Shoeshole Holistic Resource Management Team in Elko, NV, Colgate University, the Policy Sciences Institute at Yale Law School, the Federal Bar Association, and NASA headquarters. Judy Layzer and Herman convened the Pardee Keynote Symposium, “Science, Politics, and Environmental Policy,” at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Salt Lake City in October. Pardee Symposia are special events of significant interest to the earth science community. They are very competitive with only eight of approximately one hundred-fifty symposia being accepted. About 200 participants attended the four-hour session. In addition to Judy and Herman, Lynn Scarlett (Department of
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HERMAN KARL
the Interior Deputy Secretary designee), David Cash (Director of Air, Energy, and Waste Policy for Massachusetts), Sam Luoma (USGS Senior Research Hydrologist and Lead Scientist for the CALFED Bay-Delta Program), and Peter Adler (President of the Keystone Center) made presentations and participated in a ninety-minute panel discussion with the audience.
Free Special Public Lecture
The Impact of Science on U.S. Climate-Change Policy By Judy Layzer, MIT Political Scientist, and Herman Karl, USGS Earth Scientist
Why have science and scientists had so little impact on U.S. climatechange policy? Hear about the present implications of past societal collapses resulting from climate change Can citizens and scientists work together to find creative and durable solutions to the climatechange crisis? Learn how flood-management projects in the San Francisquito watershed may be affected by climate-change policy How can programs like the MIT-USGS ScienceImpact Collaborative help thaw the deep freeze?
Tuesday, June 14, 2005, 7:00 pm USGS, Conference Room A, Bldg 3, Menlo Park, California For current information about the Public Lecture Series. call (650) 329-5000 or visit our website at http://online.wr.usgs.gov/calendar/ U.S. Department of the Interior • U.S. Geological Survey • Western Region Center Map for lecture site on reverse‹
In June, David Laws, Judy, and Herman traveled to California. Judy and Herman gave two presentations —a technical talk for scientists and a public lecture—entitled “Deep Freeze: The Impact of Science on U.S. Climate Change Policy”— at USGS Western Region Headquarters in Menlo Park (for a video broadcast see mms://video.wr.usgs.gov/science/jun05A.wmv). David organized a workshop on building trust for the local community to help them address contentious issues of development, ecosystem restoration and flood control concerning the San Francisquito Creek, the last remaining riparian creek in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay, and its watershed. From Menlo Park they traveled to Marin County to begin a study of the Tomales Bay Watershed Council as a collaborative group that effectively uses science to help make land use and natural resources management decisions. With Jennifer Peyser and Pat Field (managing director of CBI) Herman taught the USGS course, “Joint Fact Finding: A New Approach to Balancing Science and Politics in Ecosystem and Resource Management Decisions,” at the Denver Federal Center in September. Deputy Secretary designee Lynn Scarlett made a special trip from Washington, DC to make introductory remarks at the course.
Land Use Planning in the Doldrums: Case Studies of Growth Management in the I-495 Region TINA ROSAN AND LAWRENCE SUSSKIND How does growth management in Massachusetts really work? Professor Lawrence Susskind, Tina Rosan (PhD Candidate), and Marina Psaros (MCP2) have been trying to answer this question. Their report, “Land Use Planning in the Doldrums: Case Studies of Growth Management in the I-495 Region,” indicates that land use planning in Massachusetts lags far behind what is happening in other parts of the country. While there is a great deal of public involvement in the Commonwealth in local land use decisionmaking, most of it is focused on ad hoc efforts to stop development (or preserve open space). Indeed, very little local planning seems to be focused on ensuring patterns of development that will meet the full range of community needs. With funding from the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, and in collaboration with the Consensus Building Institute, project team members spent the summer of 2005 conducting interviews with local planning officials and municipal volunteers. This study of eight representative municipalities in the fastgrowing 495 region of Massachusetts provides a snapshot of efforts to manage growth in the Commonwealth. Different towns in the area, even those facing roughly similar development pressures, have taken dissimilar approaches to dealing with the same problems. These differences reflect variations in the views of town officials, community values, and the directions set by annual town meetings. Since professional planners working in these communities are more likely to take their cues from public officials and volunteer boards than they are to follow “best practices” in the planning field, there is less commonality among cities and towns than might otherwise be expected. Localities in this region are struggling to maintain strong tax bases in the face of cuts in state funding, the need to accommodate growing school populations, and escalating demand for higher quality public services. Master planning turns out to be of limited use in these situations. Instead, some of the most effective growth management efforts are linked to the timing and financing of infrastructure investment. State-imposed (40B) requirements mandating that communities meet affordable housing targets have undercut local efforts to plan for growth in some towns while stimulating municipallyled efforts to manage growth in others. Overall, the communities in the 495 region are quite concerned about maintaining their distinctive character. Indeed, ad hoc groups are quick to form in the face of any serious threat to prevailing perceptions of the community. While state-level decisions, particularly those concerning funding, are critical to the success of local planning, few municipalities work together in response to what they all see as regional or state interference with their land use planning
prerogatives. Although, there is some evidence to suggest that local leaders realize that regional solutions to certain service delivery problems might make sense, forums in which these can be worked out are few and far between. On December 19th, the research team has invited a select group of local planners, scholars, and local officials to a working lunch to discuss the teamʼs findings. Comments and recommendations will be incorporated into the final report.
Jim Hamilton@MIT
As I enter into my second relationship with MIT, I have begun to experience a range of emotions that remind me of my earlier days at Technology and Policy Program. I feel pleased to be here, a bit daunted by the responsibility, somewhat overwhelmed by all the possibilities and quietly impressed by the faculty and students. Even though I am now on the other side of the grading sheet, these feelings still hold true. The job at hand, however, is a bit different. In my previous incarnation, the window of opportunity was a little less than two years and, in general, my primary focus of responsibility greeted me in the bathroom mirror every morning. Now, the engagement is a little longer and my obligation is to the education of many. The best part, however, is that working in EPG lets me play both sides of the fence: one theory based and the other grounded in the transactional world of finding clients with real environmental problems who will pay you enough to make a living. Indeed, it is my hope that there can be some long-term cross-fertilization that comes from my work both within EPG and outside the walls of MIT. This theory/practice dynamic is taking place with the 11.370 students in their current work with the City of Lynn. We meet in class, work with City stakeholders, run into problems and try to fix them. It is both frustrating and a bit risky, but on a good day the students are providing a service to the community and learning as they go. It is this sort of theory/practice model that I hope to build and strengthen here at EPG.
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EPG Updates Please join us in welcoming our visiting Post Doctoral Fellows, Artur Demchuk, Shizuka Hashimoto, and Mariannella Sclavi. See below for details on their research interests. JoAnn Carmin received a two year grant
from the National Science Foundation for her research on environmental organizations in Central and Eastern Europe. She also has two forthcoming journal articles. “By the Masses or For the Masses?: The Transformation of Voluntary Action in the Czech Union for Nature Protection” will be published in Voluntas: The International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations and “Assessing Cohesion in Planning Scholarship: Compact, Diffuse, or Would-Be Discipline?” will appear in the Journal of Planning Education and Research.
Artur Demchuk will be joining us this
Spring as a Fullbright Fellow hosted by EPG and DUSP. During the period of his planned stay at MIT he intends to study available informational resources in conflict resolution, negotiations and mediation; analyze institutional framework for environmental conflict resolution in the U.S.; study public participation in the resolution of environmental disputes; get acquainted with practical professional skills training programs; and possibly participate in practical activities with American colleagues.
Shizuka Hashimoto has been invited to
spend two years as a Post Doctoral Fellow by the Japan Society for Promotion of Science with the Department of Urban Studies and Planning. The subject of Dr. Hashimotoʼs research will focus on a study of methodologies of Environmental Disputes Resolution Concerning Public Policy in the US.
Herman Karl is engaged with USGS
scientists and EPG faculty in developing potential MUSIC projects that will test the effectiveness of joint fact-finding and collaborative approaches to ecosystem management. In addition to continuing to develop MUSIC, he has devoted a significant amount of his time helping to design two new courses in the Department of the Interior. One course, “Science in the Service of Stewardship,” builds the capacity of collaborative community groups to apply the principles of joint fact finding to local issues of ecosystem and natural resource management. The other course aims to contribute toward development of a culture within DOI that uses adaptive management to more successfully accomplish its mission.
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In late September, Dong-Young Kim and Larry Susskind attended an international conference on public conflict resolution hosted by the Korea Development Institute (KDI) School of Public Policy and Management. The conference focused on comparative studies of public conflict resolution in many countries including US, Netherlands, France, Japan, Brazil, and Korea. Professor Susskind presented a paper entitled “The Past, Present, and Future of Public Dispute Resolution in the United States.” While the current South Korean government is eager to introduce more participation and collaboration into its public policy making process, the conference could play an important role in determining just how this is done. Experts from each of the countries listed were able to share ideas with their South Korean counterparts. Dong-Young will be joining the faculty of the KDI School of Public Policy next academic year and will teach public dispute resolution among other subjects.
David Laws Fallʼs Workshop on Planning
Practice brings together students from DUSP, the University of Amsterdam, the Technical University of Delft, and Erasmus University to explore the emergence of a new approach to spatial planning. They are examining the largest case in which ʻOntwikkelingsplanol ogieʼ (development. developmental, or adaptive planning) has been employed. The results of the workshop will be shared at a presentation in the Netherlands in December and will be published as a working paper by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, which is co-sponsoring the Workshop with Habiforum, an expertise center on spatial planning in the Netherlands.
In early December 2005, CQ Press will be publishing a revised edition of Judy Layzerʼs book, The Environmental Case: Translating Values Into Policy. This book, which is widely used in both undergraduate and graduate classes, provides a framework for analyzing environmental politics that aims to illuminate both why policy controversies unfold as they do and why they yield particular policies. The book then deploys this framework in 16 cases that cover the spectrum of issues, from local land-use planning to international trade and efforts to address climate change. Among the new cases in this edition are: the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park, international trade and the environment, and growth management in Portland, Oregon.
Marianella Sclavi, Professor of Sociology at Politecnico di
Milano,will be joining us this spring. She is particularly interested in the way people communicate, particularly across cultures. She investigates the modes of communication employed in tense, complex situations, and works to bring together communities with high potential or record of conflict. Sclavi is widely published on these topics.
International Environmental Negotiation In October, the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School published Volume XIV of Papers on International Environmental Negotiation, edited by Professor Lawrence Susskind and Professor William Moomaw (from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy). As was the case with the previous thirteen volumes, this collection includes the best papers from 11.364 International Environmental Negotiation. These papers represent new ways of looking at the multilateral negotiations crucial to ensuring sustainable development and effective management of shared (or what are known as “common pool”) resources. Mr. Rodolfo Lacey, an MS candidate in the joint Program on Environmental Management and Health Policy (for senior professionals from Mexico) sponsored jointly by DUSP and the Harvard School of Public Health, has one of the nine papers in this yearʼs volume. The following introduction and nine chapters of Papers on International Environmental Negotiation, Volume 14 can be downloaded by visiting the website of the Harvard Law School, (http://www.pon.org/catalog/product_info.php?product_ ids=385 ) or by contacting us by email at epgrequest@mit.edu. Introduction by Lawrence E. Susskind and William R. Moomaw “Bringing Multinational Corporations into the Environmental Treaty-Making Process Through the UN Global Compact,” by Shauna J. Sadowski “Capitalizing on the Success of the LRTAP Regime to Address Global Transboundary Air Pollution,” by Megan V. Brachtl “Regional Fisheries Management Organizations: Bringing Order to Disorder,” by Patricia Lee Devaney “Proposal for a Treaty on Rational Use of Methane Hydrate Reserves,” by José Luis Sánchez Piña “The Role of the Press in Creating Effective Environmental Treaty Negotiations,” by Masako Konishi Otsuka “An Ecosystem Program for Biodiversity: Advancing the Convention on Biodiversity,” by Becky Chacko “Setting a Post-Kyoto Target for CO2 Emissions: A Mechanism and Process for International Consensus Building,” by Shotaro Sasaki “A ʻZero Environmental Impactʼ Treaty: a Full Environmental Compensation Mechanism for International Projects,” by Rodolfo Lacy “A Sustainable Agriculture Amendment: Incorporating Sustainable Agriculture into International Environmental Negotiations,” by Hilde Petersen
EPG Fall Luncheons
Christina Zarcoodals speaks with Basilia Yao after her Luncheon talk on environmental literacy entitled, “Floods, Pestilence and Plague: Environmental Literacy in Todayʼs World”. She used recent communication examples from Hurricane Katrina and the Avian Flu to frame our discussion in which we examined the effectiveness of certain communication methods. Bruce Babbitt, former Secretary of the Interior, discusses his new book, Babbitt, in his book “Cities In The Wilderness,” makes the case for a new national land use policy, and illustrates a new way of thinking about open space, which retains local control while acknowledging national interests. Respondents: Judy Layzer, Assistant Professor of Environmental Policy and Eran Ben-Joseph, Assocciate Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning. Lois M. Takahashi , Associate Professor and Vice-Chair, Department of Urban Planning, discusses a reconceptualized social capital approach that prioritizes disruptions, crises, and turbulence as critical to understanding the benefits and problems that arise from resources accessed through social connections by marginalized and impoverished groups. EPGʼs newsest faculty member, Jim Hamilton, gave a talk on the current state of New Englandʼs energy situation and the flury of liquified natural gas (LNG) siting proposals. It is generally accepted that an increase in LNG supply into the region has both environmental and economic benefits. These benefits, however, need to be considered in light of the fact that all siting proposals to date have been met with stiff local opposition.
Join us this spring for our Tuesday Luncheons! Email kumph@mit.edu to join our mailing list. FALL 2005
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In Celebration of Larry Susskind: 35 Years as a Teacher and Mentor On June 27, 2005, 65 of Professor Larry Susskindʼs former and current thesis and dissertation advisees gathered in Gloucester, Massachusetts to honor him and celebrate his 35 years at MIT-- as well as his impact on the dispute resolution field and on their own lives. The event, which came as a complete surprise to Larry, included a traditional lobster dinner and a day of interactive workshops in which participants shared their thoughts on Larryʼs contributions as a teacher, scholar photo credit: Leslie Tuttle and practitioner and discussed future directions for citizen participation, collaborative planning and conflict resolution. The organizing committee, including more than 15 DUSP alumni who graduated in the 1970s, 80ʼs and 90ʼs, put panels together who reviewed all of Larryʼs writing and practice, adding personal notes and stories of their own. With help from Sossi Aroyan, they spent more than a year tracking everyone down around the world. They managed to find current email addresses for more than 100 DUSP alumni for whom Larry has served as mentor and advisor. Participants came from as far away as Hawaii, British Columbia, New Zealand, Israel, Taiwan, and Korea. Larryʼs wife and children participated actively in the toasts and roast that followed the dinner.
IAP Offerings For a ful lisiting of offerings visit, http://web.mit.edu/iap/ Negotiation Workshop Mon, January 30, 10-3pm Tues, January 31, 11-3pm, must attend both sessions. Registration Deadline: December 20 There is a $25 materials fee. Build your negotiation skills! A twoday workshop introducing the mutual gains approach to negotiation taught at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. Multiple opportunities to test your negotiation knowledge and skills in a variety of two party and multiparty negotiation settings. No advanced preparation required. Professor Lawrence Susskind, DUSP Professor, public dispute mediator, and one of the most experienced negotiation instructors in the country.
Visit our website at http://web.mit.edu/dusp/epg 8 ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY GROUP
11.180 IAP Special Studies in Urban Studies and Planning : Energy and Climate in Cambridge JoAnn Carmin, Amanda Graham, Beth Conlin; Lab for Energy and the Environme, John Bolduc, Rosalie Anders; City of Cambridge Mon-Fri, Jan 9-13, 30-3, 01-04:00pm, Pre-register on WebSIS and attend first class. Limited to 15 participants. No listeners. Level: U 6 units Graded P/D/F Seminar immerses students in technical and policy challenges of local energy generation. In the absence of federal action, U.S. cities have implemented climate change response plans. Students will tackle technical or policy projects that will inform energy policy in Cambridge. Possible topics include small-scale wind energy, biodiesel, and solar. Students will work with technical experts and policy makers. Seminar will end with a public presentation to the MIT and Cambridge communities. Contact: Beth Conlin, E40-481, x23199, Email: bconlin@mit.edu
Phone: 617.253.1509 Email: epgrequest@mit.edu
Environmental Careers Panel Marilyn Wilson, Amanda Graham Tue Jan 24, 03:30-05:30pm No enrollment limit, no advance sign up Single session event Environmental careers can be forged from a wide range of interests and experience : science, engineering, journalism, business, policy, technology, architecture, education, law, health, art, to name a few. Some people work in an industry focused specifically on environmental issues while others work on environmental considerations within a broader industry. Panelists with experience in some of these fields will discuss their work and answer questions about how to develop a career in these areas. Come and broaden your knowledge about options available to you. web.mit.edu/career/www/events/ Workshop.html Contact: Marilyn Wilson, 12-170, x34733, mcwilson@mit.edu Sponsor: Careers Office Cosponsor: Laboratory for Energy and the Environment
Designed and assembled by: Xenia Kumph, EPG Administrator