FSI scholars approach their research on the environment from regulatory, economic and societal angles. The Center on Food Security and the Environment weighs the connection between climate change and agriculture; the impact of biofuel expansion on land and food supply; how to increase crop yields without expanding agricultural lands; and the trends in aquaculture. FSE’s research spans the globe – from the potential of smallholder irrigation to reduce hunger and improve development in sub-Saharan Africa to the devastation of drought on Iowa farms. David Lobell, a senior fellow at FSI and a recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant, has looked at the impacts of increasing wheat and corn crops in Africa, South Asia, Mexico and the United States; and has studied the effects of extreme heat on the world’s staple crops.
Biomass energy sources are among the most promising, most hyped, and most heavily subsidized future energy sources. They have real potential to heighten energy security in regions without abundant fossil fuel reserves, increase supplies of the liquid transportation fuels, and decrease net emissions of carbon to the atmosphere, per unit of energy delivered.
School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning
Arizona State University
Matei "Matt" Georgescu is a Post-doctoral Scholar in the Center on Food Security and the Environment. His general research focuses on the use of mesoscale numerical modeling to study the interaction(s) between the land and overlying atmosphere. Human alteration of the earth's surface has changed (and continues to change) the manner in which solar radiation is absorbed by the surface and in turn modifies the fluxes of energy and water back into the atmosphere, with significant implications for weather and climate.
Specifically, he is interested in the regional climatic impact of changing landscapes, due to, for example, altered agricultural practices or urbanization. At Stanford, his main goal will be to quantify how local and regional climate responds to landscape change resulting from increased biofuel production.
Dr. Georgescu completed his Ph.D. at Rutgers University in May, 2008. His current work at Stanford is a direct extension of his work at Rutgers, where he investigated, using a numerical modeling approach, the climatic effect of one of the most rapidly urbanizing areas in the United States - the Greater Phoenix region. A recipient of a NASA Earth System Science Fellowship, his work showed the significant impact of anthropogenic landscape modification, in a semi-arid region, on regional climate.
» Annual Meeting 2008 Materials (password protected)
PESD's 2008 Annual Review Meeting, Reconciling Coal and Energy Security, will be held October 29-30, 2008 at Stanford University. The meeting is PESD's annual forum in which to create a wide-ranging conversation around our research and obtain feedback to shape our research agenda going forward.
PESD is a growing international research program that works on the political economy of energy. We study the political, legal, and institutional factors that affect outcomes in global energy markets. Much of our research has been based on field studies in developing countries including China, India, Brazil, South Africa, and Mexico.
At present, PESD is active in four major areas: climate change policy, energy and development, the global coal market, and the role of national oil companies.
The workshop will begin on Wednesday, October 29 at 8:30 am with registration and breakfast followed by a welcome and an overview of PESD's research activities. This year's Annual Meeting will have a concerted focus on carbon markets, regulation, and carbon capture and storage models. There will be a session in the morning that will discuss and explore ways to engage developing countries on climate change. New to this year's meeting will be a reception and poster session at the conclusion of the first day. We also anticipate discussion of areas where PESD can better collaborate with other institutions. The meeting ends at 1pm on Thursday, October 30.
Annual Meeting invitees can access the complete agenda and subsequent presentation files by logging on with your password.
Bechtel Conference Center
Last May's passage of the 2008 Farm Bill raises the stakes for biofuel sustainability:
A substantial subsidy for the production of cellulosic ethanol starts the United States again down a path with uncertain environmental consequences. This time, however, the subsidy is for both the refiners ($1.01 per gallon) and the growers ($45 per ton of biomass), which will rapidly accelerate adoption and place hard-to-manage pressures on efforts to design and implement sustainable production practices-as will a 2007 legislative mandate for 16 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol per year by 2022. Similar directives elsewhere, e.g., the European.
Union's mandate that 10% of all transport fuel in Europe be from renewable sources by
2020, make this a global issue. The European Union's current reconsideration of this target
places even more emphasis on cellulosic feedstocks. The need for knowledge- and science-based policy is urgent.
Tom is Co-Principal Investigator for the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) Developing Spent Fuel Strategies (DSFS) project coordinating international cooperation on issues at the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle with emphasis on spent fuel management and disposal in Pacific Rim countries. Participants include senior nuclear officials from Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Canada, and the United States.
Tom advises national nuclear waste programs on facility siting, communications, stakeholder engagement, and public trust and confidence. He has worked with the Canadian Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) for 15 years.
Tom was recently named as the Chair of the recently formed Experts Team to support Southern California Edison at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.
Previously Tom was a Consulting Professor at CISAC, lead advisor to the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, Member of the National Academy of Sciences Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board, Director of Planning at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and long time senior executive at the Department of Energy where he led the siting of Yucca Mountain as the nation’s candidate site for a geologic repository.
He has degrees in Engineering, Applied Physics, and Chemical Engineering from Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania.
Philip Taubman is affiliated with the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Before joining CISAC in 2008, Mr. Taubman worked at the New York Times as a reporter and editor for nearly 30 years, specializing in national security issues, including United States diplomacy, and intelligence and defense policy and operations. He served as Moscow bureau chief and Washington bureau chief, among other posts. He is author of Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage (2003), The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the Bomb (2012), In the Nation's Service: The Life and Times of George P. Shultz (2023), as well as co-author (with his brother, William Taubman) of McNamara at War: A New History (2025).
616 Serra St.
E420 Encina Hall
Stanford, CA 94305
Gang He's work focuses on China's energy and climate change policy, carbon capture and sequestration, domestic coal and power sectors and their key role in both the global coal market and in international climate policy framework. He also studies other issues related to energy economics and modeling, global climate change and the development of lower-carbon energy sources.
Prior to joining PESD, he was with the World Resources Institute as a Cynthia Helms Fellow. He has also worked for the Global Roundtable on Climate Change of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. With his experiences both in US and China, he has been actively involved in the US-China collaboration on energy and climate change.
Mr. He received an M.A. from Columbia University on Climate and Society, B.S. from Peking University on Geography, and he is currently doing a PhD in the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley.
Encina Hall E418
Stanford, CA 94305
Paasha Mahdavi is a second-year M.A. candidate in Stanford's Ford Dorsey School for International Policy Studies. His work is focused on the study of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and the comparison of revenue streams across national oil companies. His research interests include the development of natural gas markets in Central Asia and Iran, the Iranian oil industry, and the Middle Eastern and North African oil and gas market. He is also interested in the comparative politics of the broader Muslim world and the study of climate change in the Middle East. After completion of his M.A., Paasha plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Political Science.
Michael Watts, PhD, is a Professor of Geography at the University of California at Berkeley. His interests include the political economy and ecology in Africa and South Asia, US agriculture, and Islamic social movements. Less specifically, Watts is also interested in development, peasant societies, and social and cultural theory.
His recent publications include Afflicted Powers, 2005 and Liberation Ecologies: Environment, Development, Social Movements, 2004, as well as many journal articles and invited papers.
Ed Kashi, is a photojournalist, filmmaker and educator dedicated to documenting the social and political issues that define our times. A sensitive eye and an intimate relationship to his subjects are the signatures of his work.
Kashi’s images have been published and exhibited worldwide. His innovative approach to photography and filmmaking produced the Iraqi Kurdistan Flipbook. Using stills in a moving image format, this creative and thoughtprovoking form of visual storytelling has been shown in many film festivals and as part of a series of exhibitions on the Iraq War at The George Eastman House. Also, an eight-year personal project completed in 2003, Aging in America: The Years Ahead, created a traveling exhibition, an award-winning documentary film, a website and a book which was named one of the best photo books of 2003 by American Photo. Along with numerous awards, including honors from Pictures of the Year International, World Press Foundation, Communication Arts and American Photography, Kashi’s editorial assignments and personal projects have generated four books. In 2008, his latest books will be published; Curse of the Black Gold: 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta and Three.
CO-SPONSORED BY CENTER FOR AFRICAN STUDIES
» http://www.powerhousebooks.com/blackgold.pdf
» http://www.curseoftheblackgoldbook.com/
» http://curseoftheblackgold.blogspot.com/
Oksenberg Conference Room
Kim Cranston is C.E.O. and Chair of the Board of TransparentDemocracy, Chair of the Board of the Global Security Institute, a member of the Board of the Los Altos Community Foundation, and a member of the Human Rights Watch California Committee North. Born in San Francisco, Kim graduated from U.C. Santa Cruz with a B.A. in Environmental Studies and from Hastings College of the Law. Kim has worked previously as director of Corporate Social Responsibility and the Transparent Commerce Initiative for One Cosmos Network, a new media company; as President of the Social Venture Network, a network of socially conscious business and social entrepreneurs and investors; as a consultant to the State of the World Forum; as Chief of Staff to California Lieutenant Governor Leo T. McCarthy; as Vice President of Business Affairs for Platypus Productions, Inc., a cable television production company; as a lawyer with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher; as a law clerk to Federal District Court Judge Terry J. Hatter; and in several political campaigns, including as Chair, Cranston for Senate, 1986. Kim has served as a board member and volunteer to organizations addressing issues affecting the environment, civic participation, and the nonprofit sector.
CISAC Conference Room