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The Fifth Food+ Symposium will take place on May 2nd, 2025 at Harvard, bringing together researchers in the Boston area who work on food-related topics including health, environment, climate, justice and #sustainability . More information and link to submit abstracts (by April 4, 2025) here: https://globalfoodplus.org/ .

Congratulations to Prof. Noelle Selin (@noelleselin) for her election as a AAAS Fellow (https://eaps.mit.edu/news-impact/noelle-selin-elected-to-2024-class-of-aaas-fellows/ ). Together with her leadership of the new MIT Center for #sustainability Science and Strategy (https://cs3.mit.edu/ ), this is great news for efforts to bring science to bear on the challenges of #sustainable development.

CAPACITY BUILDING TO PROMOTE #EQUITY FOR #SUSTAINABILITY

Virtual seminar on 3/26 with Nasif Khan (BRAC - Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee), Sharmila Murthy (formerly Environmental Justice at the White House), Grant Wilson (Earth Law Center), moderated by Alicia Harley (Harvard).

Register here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/events/capacity-promote-equity-both-within-and-among-generations

Balance scale, with a bag of money on one side and an activist throwing a grappling hook to pull down the other side

CAPACITY TO TRANSFORM DEVELOPMENT toward #sustainability

Virtual seminar #SustainabilityTransformation n 3/12 with Steve Nicholls (SAfrica Climate Com), Chuck Rumsey (Ecotrust Canada) & Amanda Woodrum (ReImagine Appalachia), moderated by Alicia Harley (Harvard).

Registration & further info here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/events/capacity-transform-unsustainable-development-pathways-sustainable-ones

CAPACITY TO ADAPT IN SUPPORT OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Virtual seminar on Feb. 26 featuring Carolyn Kousky (EDF), Aditi Mukherji (CGIAR), and Claudia Thyme (IDF). Moderated by Alicia Harley (Harvard).

Registration and additional information available here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/events/capacity-adapt-development-pathways-protect-human-well-being

CAPACITY TO MEASURE PROGRESS TOWARD SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Virtual seminar on Feb 12 featuring Carrie Exton (OECD), Eli Fenichel (Yale University / OSTP), Mary Ruckelshaus (Natural Capital Project) and Alicia Harley (Harvard).
#sustainability #CapacityBuilding

Registration & additional information available here:
https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/mrcbg/programs/sustainability-science-program/c4sd-seminar-series

Capacities necessary for sustainable development as hexagon with all apexes interconnected: capacity to measure; capacity to adapt; capacity to transform; capacity to promote equity; capacity to govern; capacity to link knowledge with action

PostDoc Fellowships in #sustainability science at Univ Minnesota.

Applications due Feb 2 for the IonE Postdoctoral Fellowship Program at University's Inst on the Environment (IonE).

How to Apply: Visit IonE Postdoc Fellowship "Apply Here" page: https://sites.google.com/umn.edu/ione-postdoctoral-fellowship/apply-here

Accepting applications until 11:59 p.m. U.S. Central Time on February 2, 2025.

Please reach out to ione-research@umn.edu with any questions.

New "Synthesis of evidence yields high social cost of carbon due to structural model variation and uncertainties" by Moore et al in @PNASNews combines literature review & expert opinion for insights on #sustainability . Available #OA here: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2410733121 . See other works by coauthors @jrising, @gwagner

#Inequalities strain the efficacy of local #governments & citizen satisfaction with them. Top down interventions don't relieve those strains. Bottom up ones do & thus can foster #sustainability . So conclude Andersson, Cook, Trautmann and Valdivieso in this nice 2025 article published (sadly behind another Elsevier paywall) in World Development, 188, 106855 (doi: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106855).

#‪Food system #metrics are proliferating. This new blog by Fanzo et al reviews current offerings, argues importance of covering full spectrum of consumption-production components in relevant #nature-society-systems & assessing #resilience to shock. Valuable addition to the #CGIAR Foresight Initiative series: What do we know about the future of food systems?

https://www.cgiar.org/news-events/news/what-do-we-know-about-the-future-of-measuring-food-systems/

#sustainability

Concept figure shows 3 components of health (diet, nutrition), natural resources (environment, land), livelihoods (poverty, equity), linked by governance and resilience properties

William C Clark boosted:

Plastic pollution: Why doing nothing will cost us far more than taking action https://theconversation.com/plastic-pollution-why-doing-nothing-will-cost-us-far-more-than-taking-action-244360

image showing a young bird wading through plastic

" #Sustainability of Animal-Sourced #Foods and Plant-Based Alternatives" is a new #PNAS Special Feature edited by Martin Qaim, Rodolphe Barrangou, & Pamela Ronald ( @pcronald )
(https://www.pnas.org/topic/561 ). It explores technical, environmental, nutritional, health, and socioeconomic dimensions of the question.

"Collective #PES Contracts Can Motivate Institutional Creation to Conserve Forests: Experimental Evidence" by Grillos et al. in Conservation Letters, e13066 (2024) shows how "an external #incentive program can stimulate the endogenous creation of informal #institutions ." https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.13066. And #OA !

#Metrics for #sustainabledevelopment
take a major step forward with 2024 publication of "UK #inclusivewealth and income accounts" by their Office for National Statistics. It moves
#humancapital & #naturalcapital
to a center place in accounts of human
#wellbeing. https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/output/articles/ukinclusiveincome/2005to2022

This great paper has implications not only for Florida sea-level rise #SLR , but also for #adaptation studies more generally. It shows ways to better "evaluate how ongoing policy decisions may lead to, open up, or foreclose different possible futures," esp. how policy can affect #fairness in #risk spreading.

Kousky, C., Treuer, G., & Mach, K. J. (2024). Insurance and climate risks: Policy lessons from three bounding scenarios. PNAS, 121(48), e2317875121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2317875121

The role of #migration in the pursuit of #sustainability has been understudied, but this is beginning to change. Here Salerno et al. provide a valuable focus on rural migration as one strategy for #adaptation in response to climate and other environmental stresses and show how ABMs can be harnessed to evaluate such strategies.

More on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/william-clark-13513320_rural-migration-under-climate-and-land-systems-activity-7233215866593574912-pQOo?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-024-01396-6

How might the #water dimensions of the pursuit of #sustainability play out over the next decades of growing demands, changing climate, and geopolitical tensions? In trying to think about future challenges and opportunities, I found particularly helpful this thoughtful article by @petergleick about the last several decades of people and water in the Middle East. (Longer post on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/posts/william-clark-13513320_water-war-peace-in-the-middle-east-30-activity-7232866068728287234-9sRZ?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop)

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00139157.2024.2369013

#Sustainability #Transitions -- long term, fundamental changes in the #consumption-production systems used to advance social #wellbeing -- are the focus of some of the most exciting research on #sustainabledevelopment. In his new book Prof. Frank Geels, one of the seminal thinkers in the field, provides an excellent and accessible overview of some major themes and findings of that research. (Google Books has an inexpensive e-book version). See my longer LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/william-clark-13513320_advanced-introduction-to-sustainability-transitions-activity-7232142260283277312-ufnr?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Combining qualitative descriptions of system components and interactions with network representation for quantitative characterization of system structure can be used to understand the #sustainability of long term interactions between nature and society shown in this study of Indus Basin by Siddiqi, Wescoat & Selin (@noelleselin) here: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2215682121 in a contribution to PNAS Special Feature on "Modeling Dynamic Systems for Sustainable Development" ( https://www.pnas.org/topic/555 )