2009 Events
Senator Robert Casey Address at Carnegie Mellon
Friday, November 13, 2009
10:00am – Room 4401, Rashid Auditorium, Hillman Center
The Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research is pleased to announce that it will host Pennsylvania Senator Robert Casey at 10 a.m., Friday, Nov. 13 for a major address on climate change and innovation in the Rashid Auditorium of the Hillman Center. With important climate and energy legislation pending before Congress, the Senator will outline his views on Pittsburgh's role as the United States responds to the challenges of climate change and seeks to achieve its goal of a clean energy economy.
The campus community is welcome to attend, but limited seating is available.
Please RSVP to Victoria Poprocky at poprocky@andrew.cmu.edu.
Senator Casey's talk is sponsored by the Steinbrenner Institute for
Environmental Education and Research.
Is Water ‘The New Oil’?: The New Water Monopolies and the World’s Poor
Karen Piper
University of Missouri-Columbia
Monday, November 9, 2009
4:30pm – Porter 100, Gregg Hall
The world's water supplies are gradually being bought up by a handful of multinational companies, including Suez, Vivendi, and Bechtel. These companies, in turn, are supported by World Bank policies that force poorer countries to privatize their water supplies. Piper will look at the consequences of water privatization today, sharing her research in India and South Africa and exploring the stark disparity between World Bank rhetoricand conditions on the ground, or what cartographers call "ground truth."Facing either water cut-offs or being flooded out, local people have taken drastic measures to gain access to the media or to simply continue their water supply and survive, including attempted mass drowning, extended fasts, monkey-wrenching, and riots. Piper will look at the way in which these forms of resistance are changing the shape of development discourse today and shedding light on the gap between "development" and "disaster."
"Why People Don't Want to Share Rides and What We Might Do To Change
That"
Jim Morris - Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley
Lorrie Cranor - Institute for Software Research & Dept. of Engineering & Public Policy
Kursat Ozenc - School of Design
Friday, November 6, 2009
3:00pm – Rashid Auditorium, Gates & Hillman 4401
On average, it takes people 30-40 minutes each way to travel to work in the US, and the vast majority of them travel in a single-occupant car. The goal of this project is to understand both the positive and negative aspects of commuting, and to design a ridesharing service concept that will leverage technology to overcome obstacles that such services have traditionally encountered. We conducted semi-structured interviews with thirty commuters in the Carnegie Mellon University community, including solo drivers, carpoolers and bus riders. We observed that convenience, cost, commute time, and personal preferences motivate commuting choices. Once commuters establish a routine, they tend to continue commuting using their chosen method. We followed up with an online survey on commuting choice and collected responses from 240 participants. We found our previously observed motivations remained significant in the larger population. However, we observed that people who most valued convenience and flexibility tended to be least motivated by cost. We did not find a significant correlation between commuting preference and standard personality types. People characterize their best commute times when they are experiencing "me-time," "traffic-free time," or "routine and ritual time." Based on our interview and survey results and literature review, we developed 13 ride sharing service concepts and tested them in a series of focus groups. We refined the most popular concepts and developed a paper prototype that we are currently testing in a laboratory study. In this presentation we will discuss the motivation for this project and detail our findings to date.
Great Decisions webcast: Global Food
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
6:00-8:00pm, Giant Eagle Auditorium (BHA51)
As food supplies drop and prices rise how will the world react?
Global prices for food staples have risen dramatically, resulting in a number of serious protests and unrest around the world. What factors are driving prices up, and can they be tamed? What will the political fallout be for governments that fail to act, and what role can global institutions play?
Great Decisions, part of the Passport to Global Awareness course, is webcast by the World Affairs Council. For more information on Great Decisions 2009 - Discussion Groups, please visit the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh website.
The Vertical Farm: Agriculture for the 21st Century and Beyond
Dickson Despommier
Columbia University
Thursday, October 22, 2009
4:30pm – Porter 100, Gregg Hall
Customizing Commute Ecology: a community-empowered road for electric vehicles
Illah Nourbakhsh
Carnegie Mellon University
Friday, October 9, 2009
1:30 PM - 2:30 PM, Rashid Auditorium, 4401 Gates Hillman Complex
While the auto industry continues to make incremental progress toward competitive electric vehicles, we pose a strategic question: can we effect disruptive change in the economics of electric vehicles by improving the systems-level interaction of a vehicle with each unique commuter? This talk will motivate and describe ChargeCar, a new CREATE Lab project that combines direct community engagement with a hybrid supercapacitor-battery energy management system to increase EV efficiency while decreasing battery duty. We will describe a prototype hybrid system, a national urban commute warehousing program, a local economic development strategy, and early analytical results based on energy models and actual commute data. Following the talk and discussion we will offer rides in an electric car at the Gates Highbay!
"The Global Environmental Impact of the United States in Peace and War"
Prof. Richard Tucker, University of Michigan
http://www.cmu.edu/uls/october/tucker.html
Thursday, October 8, 2009
4:30pm, Porter Hall 100, Gregg Auditorium
In the twentieth century a major driving force for global environmental deterioration was the vast reach of the American economy, in its worldwide search for natural resources. Throughout history empires (whether political/military or economic) have captured distant natural resources, domesticating distant ecosystems.The American empire has been no exception, but it has been the most momentous of them all (though China's new global surge may soon surpass it). In the peacetime economy, American investors and their local collaborators have transformed ecosystems throughout Latin America and across the Pacific into Southeast Asia, to produce agricultural crops, timber products and minerals for export. American consumers have provided the largest market for these products. We are only beginning to recognize the global ecological consequences of corporate enterprise and consumer culture. We have paid even less attention to the international impact of the United States military's demands for resources (timber, minerals, and petroleum) for use in wartime and for maintaining the world's most far-flung military establishment in peacetime, especially during the Cold War.
Richard Tucker is Adjunct Professor of Environmental History in the School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan.
Overview of Wind Energy Technology and Future Challenges
Joint Seminar - Department of Mechanical Engineering, Steinbrenner Institute, Robotics Institute
Dr. Patrick Moriarty
National Wind Technology Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Friday, October 2, 2009
10:00 am - 10:30 am Refreshments in Scaife Lobby
10:30 am - 11:30 am Seminar in Wean Hall 7500
Global Warming: Doing What the Planet Needs
in Washington, Copenhagen, Pittsburgh and Tropical Forests
Douglas Boucher, Union of Concerned Scientists
Thursday, September 10, 2009
4:30pm, Porter 100, Gregg Hall
Eco-Fabulous Open House & BBQ
Friday, August 21, 2009
4:00pm-6:00 pm
Carnegie Mellon University, Solar Decathlon House located in the Donner Dell
Join an eclectic array of campus community members, academic and student organizations as we welcome new graduate and undergraduate students to Carnegie Mellon's Eco-Fabulous community. At this "informal cook-out" you will learn more about environmental leadership opportunities, upcoming events, and share ideas about how we can make Carnegie Mellon an even more sustainable university.
We encourage all faculty and staff members, their families and members of the Pittsburgh environmental community to attend. RSVP is not required, but we would love to know if you are able to come to our event. Please contact Daisy Wang (President of Sustainable Earth) at daisyw@andrew.cmu.edu or M. Shernell Smith (Student Affairs) at mssmith@andrew.cmu.edu or call 412.268.2075 for more information.