News and Events

×

Walter Russell Mead on the “Biden Doctrine” and U.S. Foreign Policy

“Simply put, the Biden doctrine holds that geopolitical competition must not be allowed to drive world history,” writes Mead, James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and the Humanities at Bard College, in the Wall Street Journal. “Competition with China is real and must be vigorously pursued, but the essential goal of American foreign policy is to construct a values-based world order that can tackle humanity’s common problems in an organized and even collegial way.”

Post Date: 05-04-2021

×

Research by Bard CEP Faculty Robyn Smyth and Monique Segarra and Alum Uroosa Fatima MS ’18 Is Focus of Environmental Development Special Issue

Bard Center for Environmental Policy faculty Dr. Robyn Smyth and Dr. Monique Segarra, along with Bard College alumna Uroosa Fatima MS ’18, are the lead authors of an article published in a special issue of Environmental Development focusing on interdisciplinary research on global change across the Americas, funded by the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research. The article, “Engaging stakeholders across a socio-environmentally diverse network of water research sites in North and South America,” describes the approaches used and challenges faced by research teams aiming to advance integrated and inclusive understanding of climate risks to water resources at a continental scale. 

 This research is part of the Sensing the Americas’ Freshwater Ecosystem Risk (SAFER) project and supported by a supplemental grant awarded by the National Science Foundation’s Science Across Virtual Institutes (SAVI) to Dr. Tom Harmon of the University of California Merced. “It's important to keep changing your perspective on hard, socio-environmental problems,” says Dr. Harmon. “When we started the SAFER project, we placed a lot of emphasis on creating sensing systems to monitor freshwater systems and help understand the risk of losing these ecosystems to pollution. Having good data is important, but equally if not more important is the stakeholders’ perception about the risk and how to manage it.”

Post Date: 04-28-2021

×

OSUN Solve Climate by 2030 Webinars Launch with Over 10,000 Viewers Worldwide

Solve Climate by 2030 is a coordinated climate education initiative across the Open Society University Network and beyond. It organizes educators to dedicate the first Wednesday in April as a day for global, coordinated education on climate solutions, creating and promoting templates for ways in which students and other citizens can engage with communities to support these solutions. The April 6 launch of the initiative’s webinar series drew over 10,000 viewers, who engaged in more than 100 university-hosted global dialogues on the topics of green recovery, alternative policies, and just transitions at the local and regional levels.
 

Post Date: 04-28-2021

×

BardEATS: Working for More Equitable and Sustainable Food Systems on Campus

BardEATS is paving the way for more equitable and sustainable food systems on campus. Leading the program are Bard senior Melina Roise and junior Olivia Tencer, with help from fellow students, management from Bard Dining, and support from Bard faculty and staff. 

BardEATS promotes food security and accessibility on campus, as well as throughout the greater Dutchess County community, with a particular focus on racial equity. The program recently concluded an Earth Week lecture series titled “A Start to Healing through Land, Food, and Seed,” which brought more than 100 members of the greater Bard community together to learn about local initiatives toward food sovereignty.

The program’s commitment to antiracism and food sovereignty centers on supporting farms owned by people of color. BardEATS has partnered  with the Bard Office of Sustainability, Bard TLS, the Center for Civic Engagement, the Red Hook Community Center, and the Kingston Land Trust on a mask fundraiser called “Land In Black Hands.”  This initiative aims to raise $3,000 for farms owned by people of color by selling handmade masks. The masks are sold using a sliding scale system, which allows buyers to purchase masks by paying any amount; with a suggested price of  $10 to $20. Join the fundraiser here.

BardEATS is also forming a campus working group focused on antiracism and food sovereignty with the goal of learning, unlearning, and relearning in order to better serve the campus and community. Each week, the group will learn from the work of experts and engage with reflection questions. Once a month, we will gather to reflect as a group and discuss how to take what we learned into our work on campus. Learn more and sign-up here. Come for one meeting or join for them all! 

Post Date: 04-12-2021

×

Kingston Air Quality Initiative Turns In First-Year Results

A year ago, the City of Kingston and the Center for the Study of Land, Air, and Water at Bard College began monitoring the city’s air quality. The initial findings show that air pollution is relatively low, yet even during 2020, when vehicle emissions were down due to the pandemic, the city still saw the impact of burning fossil fuels.

Post Date: 03-19-2021

×

Professor Walter Russell Mead Argues Climate Activists will Lose Influence over Climate Policy as National and Industrial Interests Assert Themselves in New Era of Climate Diplomacy

“If skeptics underestimate the effect the climate movement will have on the world’s economy, greens are in danger of overestimating how much their efforts will help the polar bears,” writes Mead, James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and the Humanities at Bard College, in the Wall Street Journal. “Paradoxically, as climate change assumes a more prominent place on the international agenda, climate activists will lose influence over climate policy.”

Post Date: 03-02-2021