Engadget’s Timpthy Seppala reports that MIT researchers have developed a model for estimating gas and electricity for every building in Boston. Seppla explains that, “the idea here is to use the model as a way of making Beantown more energy efficient across the board.”
In an article for BloombergView, Prof. John Deutch writes that industry must invest in the clean energy sector in order to encourage innovation. Deutch and his co-authors write that “there is an imperative for industry to explore the commercialization of new innovative low-carbon technologies.”
BBC’s Colin Barras writes about research from Prof. Paul O’Gorman which finds that extreme snowfalls are an expected consequence of climate change. O’Gorman says “extreme snowfall events respond to climate change quite differently from total seasonal snowfall."
Prof. Paul O’Gorman spoke at Columbia University regarding a study he conducted on how climate change might impact extreme snowfall, reports Andrea Thompson for Scientific American. O'Gorman found that while average annual snow amounts and extreme snowfalls would decline as temperatures rose, “extreme snowfalls would become a bigger proportion of all snow events.”
In an article for The Boston Globe, David Abel writes about MIT’s efforts to combat climate change. Abel notes that, “MIT is embarking on an unprecedented program to accelerate progress on low-carbon energy technologies.”
In an article for The Huffington Post about the Paris climate agreement, senior lecturer Jason Jay argues that the agreement “represents a possibility - that the world can come together and solve one of the most complex problems we face as a civilization.”
Prof. John Sterman writes for The Huffington Post about the Paris climate agreement. Sterman asks “Is the agreement a triumph, as the negotiators and heads of state declare, or another weak pronouncement that will do little to stave off climate catastrophe? The answer is both: The Paris agreement represents real progress. It also falls significantly short.”
A recent analysis by researchers from the MIT Sloan School of Management and Climate Interactive demonstrates how the structure of the Paris climate agreement “could lead to a scenario in which temperatures are held to about 1.8 C,” reports Chris Mooney for The Washington Post.
In a letter to The Boston Globe, a number of MIT faculty members argue that much more is known about climate change than a skeptic admitted in a recent opinion piece for the Globe. The authors write that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change “presents strong evidence that more than half of the climate change seen in recent decades is human-driven.”
Prof. Jessika Trancik writes for The Christian Science Monitor that cutting greenhouse gas emissions can lower the cost of further cuts. Trancik explains that Paris climate talk pledges, “will support the development of cheaper low-carbon technologies, allowing industrialized nations to increase their commitments.”
Los Angeles Times reporter Evan Halper speaks with MIT Corporation member and alumna Leslie Dewan, co-founder of Transatomic Power, about nuclear energy and climate change. “I became a nuclear engineer because I am an environmentalist,” said Dewan. “The world needs a cheap source of carbon-free power.”
In an article for the Financial Times, Martin Sandbu argues that renewable energy should be seen as an opportunity for investment, highlighting an MIT report on renewable energy costs. The report documents the “extraordinary fall in renewable electricity generation costs and the good reason to expect them to continue to fall.”
Washington Post reporter Jim Tankersley writes about a new MIT study that found trade may not help countries cope with climate-induced agricultural problems. The researchers found countries needed the “ability to substitute new crops for the ones that don’t grow as well under climate change.”
Senior lecturer John Reilly writes for CNN about how to effectively combat climate change. “I am confident that sound economic measures—a broad carbon price—will unleash the creativity of people and industry to use existing solutions and invent new ones,” he explains.
Scientific American reporter David Biello writes about the growth of clean energy technologies, highlighting a new MIT report that finds that commitments from the U.S., Europe and China to cut greenhouse gas emissions could drive cost reductions in wine and solar technologies.