Prof. Stuart Madnick speaks with Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray about how the CrowdStrike update caused a global IT outage. Madnick “expects the hits to keep on coming because so many companies depend on certain IT vendors,” writes Bray. “This is happening more and more often, and the consequences are even larger and larger,” cautions Madnick.
A research group led by postdoctoral associate Minde An analyzed China’s greenhouse gas emissions over the past decade, finding a substantial increase thought to be primarily driven by aluminum production, reports Ellen McNally for The Guardian. The researchers, writes McNally, say these levels could be reduced “with technological innovation and incorporation of the aluminum industry into the carbon market, or a national carbon trading scheme allowing emitters to buy or sell emission credits.”
Writing for The Financial Times, Prof. Esther Duflo makes the case that the following the legislative elections in France, politicians must come up with a new vision for the country that “combines production, redistribution and protection of the environment; that promotes respect and dignity of all people; that has the courage to lead the way on the big projects that France, Europe and the world need. Chief among them: fiscal reform, a just green transition, and a way to distribute the gains of growth in a more equitable way to all.”
Writing for the Boston Business Journal, MITEI Director William Green emphasizes that in order to address the climate crisis, "we need to convene universities, industry, and government to address the challenges of every sector including construction, manufacturing, agriculture, and the electric grid." Green notes: "We at MIT are searching for real climate solutions that the public will adopt, and that merit the huge investments necessary for wide deployment. By working collaboratively to solve these complex issues we will successfully address the greatest threat facing humanity today."
Prof. Yasheng Huang joins a Financial Times podcast to speak with James Kynge about how China’s technological advancement and economic growth could be threatened by the country’s increasing authoritarianism. “My own prediction is that if Chinese domestic policy doesn’t change substantially, the pace of technological and scientific progress that we have witnessed during the reform era, that pace is going to slow down,” Huang says.
Writing for The Washington Post, Brian Deese, an MIT innovation fellow, lays out a framework for responding to China’s focus on increasing manufacturing. “The United States should send a clear message that the world will not absorb the costs of these distortionary policies,” Desse writes, “and should work with our allies toward a more durable framework for global growth.”
Researchers at MIT have developed a new measure called “outdoor days,” which describes the number of days per year in which temperatures are comfortable enough for outdoor activities in specific locations around the world, reports Lebawit Lily Girma for Bloomberg News. “Changes in the number of outdoor days will impact directly how people around the world feel climate change,” says Prof. Elfatih Eltahir.
GiveDirectly, a nonprofit co-founded by MIT and Harvard alumni, works with “economists to identify the most efficient ways to reduce poverty,” reports Katharine Houreld for The Washington Post. “Lump sums are the most efficient way to give cash, according to a study of GiveDirectly programs released in December that compared the impact of three methods,” explains Houreld. “Two years in, recipients of the lump sum have spent more money on health care, and more of their children have scored better on school exams, according to the study by MIT economics professor Abhijit Banerjee and others."
Boston Globe reporter Jon Chesto spotlights how MIT President Sally Kornbluth is “determined to harness MIT’s considerable brainpower to tackle” climate change. During a clean-tech entrepreneurship event hosted by the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, Kornbluth highlighted the newly announced Climate Project at MIT, “which commits $75 million and dozens of faculty to solving some of the biggest climate problems.” Kornbluth also noted that MIT’s “culture of entrepreneurship” makes the Institute uniquely positioned to help address the challenges posed by climate change.
MIT researchers have developed a new tool to quantify how climate change will impact the number of “outdoor days” where people can comfortably spend time outside in specific locations around the world, reports Tim DeChant for TechCrunch. “The MIT tool is a relatable application of a field of study known as climate scenario analysis, a branch of strategic planning that seeks to understand how climate change will impact various regions and demographics,” writes De Chant.
Prof. Jon Gruber speaks with GBH hosts Jim Braude and Margery Eagan about the impact of political corruption on economics worldwide. The United States “has an incredibly dedicated, professionalized civil government,” says Gruber. “People go into government and spend much of their careers serving really the public good.”
Writing for Bloomberg, Prof. Carlo Ratti and Arianna Salazar-Miranda SM '16, PhD '23 explore the possibility and potential of developing 15-minute cities in America. “If implemented correctly, the 15-minute city can be an agent of freedom: freedom from traffic jams, freedom to live in a healthy environment and freedom to be outside,” they write. “It is not a one-size-fits-all solution, but our research shows that almost every community in America could benefit from a few more well-placed amenities.”
Michael Mehling, deputy director of the Center for Energy and Environment Policy Research, speaks with E&E News reporter Benjamin Storrow about the impact of global climate deals on climate change. “The history of the Paris Agreement suggests that global climate deals do make a dent in emissions,” Mehling says. “But the impact can be subtle and felt over time.”
Prof. Tavneet Suri speaks with NPR reporter Nurith Aizenman about her ongoing research studying the impact of universal basic income with GiveDirectly, a U.S. charity that provides villagers in Kenya with a universal basic income. Suri says her results thus far, “add to the evidence that many poor people are trapped in poverty by a lack of capital for precisely the kinds of transformative investments they would need to vault them into higher incomes.”