Emergency planning
Six of Harvard’s deepest thinkers on the environment warned about a worsening climate crisis, even as they shared promising new technology, new ideas about city design, and examples of how markets can be used to meet the challenges of sustainability. The faculty members spoke Tuesday at Sanders Theatre as part of Harvard Thinks Green 2, a sustainability-focused event that gave each presenter 10 minutes to talk about their ideas on the environment. The presentations of Harvard geologist Daniel Schrag and atmospheric chemist James Anderson framed the problem for the audience, offering the dramatic example of Arctic sea ice melt that this summer surpassed even 2007’s record melt, when the Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific was ice-free for the first time since recordkeeping began. “We are beginning to see signs of what I would term a planetary emergency,” Schrag said. Harvard’s biggest impact on the problem may not come from a specific invention...