Research by Bard Professor Gidon Eshel Featured in the New York Times
The article explored whether grass-fed beef was better for climate than grain-fed.
Research by Bard Professor Gidon Eshel Featured in the New York Times
Gidon Eshel, research professor of environmental and urban studies at Bard.
A study led by Gidon Eshel, research professor of environmental and urban studies at Bard College, was featured in the New York Times in an article exploring whether grass-fed beef was better for climate. The study, published last March in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that grass-fed beef did not hold a carbon emissions benefit compared to grain-fed beef. While grazing can store carbon in the soil, the study showed that this did not outweigh the methane that cows produce. “We wanted to see exactly how the numbers add up,” Eshel told the Times. “The bottom line answer is that they mostly don’t.”
Students in all divisions of Bard College can concentrate in Environmental Studies. The program is based on the conviction that our planet’s most urgent problems—including climate change, biodiversity loss, and the inequities of our built environments—call for holistic knowledge of both human and natural systems. The curriculum offers a grounding in core topics in environmental studies alongside cross-listed courses on topics from nature writing to urban geography, from food systems to contemporary Indigenous art, and from planetary thinking to local community engagement.
The College earned a STARS Gold rating and the MBA in sustainability was ranked the best green MBA by the Princeton Review.
Bard Earns Two Awards in Sustainability
Bard College has recently been recognized for its commitment to sustainability by two organizations. This July, the College earned a Gold rating from the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS). This nationwide group ranks colleges based on all aspects of sustainability on their campuses, from academic buildings to dining and events planning. Bard’s report included its participation in the Race 2 Zero Waste food scrap conservation program, where it placed first in the food organics Small College category.
Bard’s MBA in sustainability was also ranked the best green MBA by the Princeton Review for the fifth year in a row. The list is based on student ratings of how well their MBA “prepares them to address environmental, sustainability, and responsibility issues in their careers.” Bard’s MBA is based in New York City and utilizes a hybrid curriculum to prepare students for critical social and environmental challenges. “At a time when clean energy and climate change action, organizational justice, reducing plastics and toxic pollution, and enhancing the planet’s biodiversity are all under political attack, Bard remains the leading MBA focused on embedding sustainability as simply good business,” said MBA Director Dr. Eban Goodstein.
Burpee Trial Garden Project at Montgomery Place Featured in the Daily Catch
The summer garden students will continue their work through August tending the plots, recording observations on iPads, and sharing their findings in real time with Burpee’s plant breeders.
Burpee Trial Garden Project at Montgomery Place Featured in the Daily Catch
Bard student Violet DiBiasio ’27. Photo by Emily Sachar, Courtesy of the Daily Catch
The Burpee Trial Garden, a seed test garden and horticultural research site at Bard’s Montgomery Place campus, has been featured in the Daily Catch. The garden, in its first season, is currently being tended to by three Bard students, Violet DiBiasio ’27, Max Frackman ’27, and Mikhal Terentiev ’26, who are undertaking horticultural research and hands-on scientific investigations with real-world applications in the Hudson Valley and beyond. “This project is helping Bard restore and revive the historic formal gardens at Montgomery Place, and help gardeners in the process,” Amy Parrella, Bard Arboretum director, told the Daily Catch. “Gardening has been proven to alleviate stress and have therapeutic and healing results. And this opportunity will help students to cultivate their passion for plants and inspire their commitment to nurture their environment.” Trial gardens measure how well a specific cultivar or variety will perform in a specific area or growing condition, and the garden at Bard is supported by a $1 million grant that is being paid over four years from the Burpee Foundation. The summer garden students will continue their work through August tending the plots, recording observations on iPads, and sharing their findings in real time with Burpee’s plant breeders.
On June 28, members of the Open Society University Network’s Solve Climate by 2030 initiative will participate in an international panel during the opening plenary of the Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences (AESS) 2021 virtual conference on “Community, Commitment, Collaboration: Moving Toward a Just Future.” Led by Eban Goodstein, director of the Bard College Center for Environmental Policy, Solve Climate by 2030 is focused on globally coordinated climate education. The project creates and promotes templates for educational initiatives, highlighting local and regional climate solutions, and ways in which students and other citizens can engage with communities to support these solutions.
“You’ve got an industry that is, in a sense, managing its decline. It’s going to be ugly,” Hipple tells the New York Times. “When profits are getting squeezed, cash flows are getting squeezed . . . the safety protocols, the pollution, don’t get attended to the way they should.”