Research and News

“We try to explain the environmental, economic and social benefits as well as possible unintended consequences and risks of the net-zero transition to decision makers,” says Jay Golden, founder and director of the lab and the Pontarelli Professor of Environmental Sustainability and Finance in the Maxwell School.

The student-driven award acknowledges faculty who have had a significant impact and positive influence on graduate education because of their superior graduate-level teaching, dedication to departmental and community presence and excellence in research and creative activities. 

The report, based on 2021 data, showed that the biobased products industry continued to grow, even during the economic setbacks of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The Next Wave of Energy Innovation: Which Technologies? Which Skills?," co-authored by David Popp, professor of public administration and international affairs, was published in Review of Environmental Economics and Policy.

"We need to be intentional in forging new pathways by which BIPOC students can find physical geography and achieve their desired level of education, because regardless of career end points, diversification depends on drawing in more students from marginalized groups," writes Professor Emeritus of Geography and the Environment Jacob Bendix and his co-authors.

Jay S. Golden, Pontarelli Professor of Environmental Sustainability and Finance at the Maxwell School, has written “Dynamic Sustainability: Implications for Policy, Markets and National Security” (Cambridge University Press, 2023). 

“What is the path to market for these technologies?” asks David Popp, professor of public administration and international affairs. He attributes the collapse of startups in cleantech 1.0 largely to the lack of demand for green products in highly competitive commodity markets.

"President Biden promised a 'whole of government' approach to the climate crisis after taking office. But his absence at the COP28 meeting signals a lack of interest in the dangers of the ongoing climate crisis. Given that the United States is the world's largest emitter, this should be an international scandal," says Matthew Huber, professor of geography and the environment.

David Popp, professor of public administration and international affairs, notes that while new factories will be needed to build electric vehicle batteries, the vehicles will require fewer suppliers producing parts. Many assembly workers will also need to be retrained. “We may also need fewer workers,” Popp says. But, he says, “there doesn’t seem to be a consensus yet on whether that is the case.”

In his two-part essay on the Build Public Renewables Act (BPRA), Professor of Geography and the Environment Matthew Huber examines the labor question and assesses dubious campaign claims that BPRA is a climate victory.

Matthew Huber, professor of geography and the environment, calls the outcome of the strike a huge victory for the United Auto Workers and its workers. “It shows that when workers harness their collective power through strikes, they can force employers to give in to workers’ ambitious demands,” he says.

“Unlike people, climate change doesn’t take a holiday,” says Robert Wilson, associate professor of geography and the environment. “In coming years, tourists will need to prepare to evacuate from vacation spots, often with little notice.” 

"We're getting lots of intense rain in short periods of time. And that just means that a lot of the drainage systems in cities, especially with old sort of infrastructure, can't handle that amount of runoff in that quick of a time," says Sarah Pralle, associate professor of political science.

"Rather than tackling the problem of who owns and controls fossil-fuel based production (a relative minority of society), carbon behaviouralism aims its sights on the “irresponsible” choices of millions of consumers of all classes," writes Matt Huber, professor of geography and the environment.

“The UAW…strike action is ultimately trying to realize one of the Biden Administration’s core policy goals and political selling points: you can have good, family-sustaining union jobs alongside climate action. The problem is the automakers see EV production as a way to trim labor costs and shift production to non-union plants,” says Matt Huber, professor of geography and the environment.

Jacob Bendix, professor emeritus of geography and the environment, says the grasses provided “fine fuels that ignite easily” due to their high surface area-to-volume ratio, dense growth patterns and height.

"Does Community-Based Adaptation Enhance Social Capital? Evidence from Senegal and Mali," co-authored by Hannah Patnaik, managing director of the Maxwell X Lab, and John McPeak, professor of public administration and international affairs, was published in the Journal of Development Studies.

“This is a perfect sweet spot for a public power entity to take on some of that risk, to try to really get a technology that we need off the ground,” Matt Huber, professor of geography and the environment, says of TVA’s small modular reactor program. ​“They have the resources and the social mission to do that, where private capital wouldn’t.”

"Research in a Closed Political Context, COVID, and Across Languages: Methodological Lessons, Messages, and Ideas," co-authored by Darzhan Kazbekova, graduate research associate in the Center for Policy Design and Governance, and Rebecca Schewe, associate professor of sociology, was published in the International Journal of Qualitative Methods.

What is clear is that the Canadian wildfires are a product of man-produced climate change and climate disasters are going to become more commonplace, says Jacob Bendix, professor emeritus of geography and the environment.