BIE has announced the awarding of four new Faculty Roundtables for the 08-09 academic year. This year's recipients include roundtables on Urban Sustainability, Environmental Services in Rangeland Management Systems, Goverance and the California Delta, and Improved Cookstoves in developing countries.
“The UC Berkeley campus leadership has recognized research in the environment is a high priority,” says Prof. Inez Fung, Co-Director of BIE. “The BIE Roundtables are presented as the seed to make new collaborations happen…to pull people together." Read more.
In China, car-dependent and resource-intensive gated "super blocks” have become the dominant model of urban development. By contrast, Prof. Harrison Fraker of the College of Environmental Design, working with Chinese collaborators and officials, have designed the Qingdao EcoBlock, which uses an integrated whole-systems approach to generate all
its energy from on-site renewables, to recycle all of its water and to recycle over 80% of its waste for onsite
uses. In addition, the EcoBlock is designed to provide convenient pedestrian and bike access to a new
bus rapid transit system located on a major adjoining arterial. The EcoBlock’s whole-systems approach is
flexible and adaptable to multiple local conditions and climates and is widely replicable throughout
China. Read more.
Everyone seems to be concerned about their carbon footprints lately. While UC Berkeley faculty, students, staff and alumni are actively engaged in solving some of the planet's most pressing challenges, much of this work involves traveling around the world, and consequently contributing to climate change. Meanwhile, there are more viable UC Berkeley projects to reduce the campus carbon footprint than there is funding available. The new UC Berkeley Air Travel Carbon Calculator allows individuals to calculate the greenhouse gas emissions from their air travel and donate to the newly established UC Berkeley Climate Action Fund. Proceeds will help UC Berkeley realize its goal to reduce campus-wide GHG emissions to 1990 levels by 2014. Read more.
Looking for researchers, classes, student groups, events, jobs or other campus resources in your area of interst? Do you ever wish the breadth of UC Berkeley environmental information were organized in one place?
BIE, in collaboration with the campus Office of Sustainability and the Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Sustainability, have launched a new campus-wide Environment and Sustainability Portal. The goal of this portal is nothing less than to capture and organize all environmental and sustainabilty information at UC Berkeley in one place. The site is designed to help users quickly find campus-wide resources related to the Environmental and Sustainability and link them to more detailed information on websites across campus. Currently the portal includes over 350 environmental classes, 250 faculty, nearly 100 research centers, and dozens of environmental groups, projecs, job postings, events, news items and other resources. Go to Portal.
Can the humanities transform society to encourage choices that sustain the planet? Six UC faculty panelists will inform the audience of their unique perspective on the role that the arts and the humanities will play in the face of a changing planet. Led by poet Robert Hass, this discussion will challenge the panelists to explore the ways we can become a part of the global environmental solution, both individually and collectively. Read more.
Fossil fuels now meet 85% of global energy and global energy demand is increasing. In this context, carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) will be an important option to limit carbon dioxide emissions; however, challenges facing this technology include developing policy to create incentives for deployment, the creation of a regulatory framework, securing funding for large-scale projects to help refine the technology, and managing the unresolved environmental and public safety risks. Read more.
Projects to encourage bike sharing and energy efficiency in Berkeley are among 50 student proposals receiving a total of $179,000 in the third annual "Bears Breaking Boundaries" competition at the University of California, Berkeley. Among the contests, which were in part sponsored by BIE, were Energy & Environmental Innovation, and Idea Labs.
launch 10 "Idea Labs" - multidisciplinary teams of students with a shared interest in topics such as safe drinking water and sanitation, green-collar jobs and earthquake-resistant construction
partner with the city of Berkeley on an innovative model for financing investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency
develop a "green bike share" program for the campus
