FSE director Roz Naylor will give the opening plenary lecture at the 2nd International Conference on Global Food Security on October 12, 2015 at Cornell University. Naylor is William Wrigley Professor in Earth System Science, and senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford. 

In addition to Naylor's lecture on "Food security in a commodity-driven world," several FSE researchers will give talks and poster sessions during the five-day conference, including professors Marshall Burke and Eric Lambin, visiting scholar Jennifer Burney, postdoctoral scholar Meha Jain, and doctoral candidate Elsa Ordway.

Speaking at the Stanford Center at Peking University (SCPKU) on September 22, Condoleezza Rice, the Denning Professor in Global Business and the Economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business; the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution; and a professor of Political Science at Stanford University, said that technology and education are key drivers in achieving sustainable urban development and cited opportunities for China and other developing countries to harness this innovation and mobilize human potential.

Rice’s remarks were part of her keynote address during SCPKU’s inaugural Lee Shau Kee World Leaders Forum.  Welcome remarks were given by Jean C. Oi, the Lee Shau Kee Director of SCPKU and Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and Peking University (PKU) Prof. Min Weifang and former PKU Chairman.  Michael McFaul, Director and FSI Senior Fellow and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, introduced Rice who highlighted the opportunities of technology and innovation as well as the governance challenges they can bring.

“If we remember technology is the application of knowledge to a problem, we can begin to address some of the problems of governing with the application of technology.” Rice said. “It is really a question of whether we can marry human potential and technological possibilities to solve our problems. Human potential is key to innovation, and in that regard, the most urgent tasks are around education.”

Rice spoke before an audience of 150 government and academic leaders, scholars, and students at SCPKU.  Following her keynote address, she participated in a roundtable discussion with policy and thought leaders. The discussion was chaired by Karl Eikenberry, Director of the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative at Stanford’s Asia-Pacific Research Center and former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan.  Panelists also included Dr. Wang Yiming, Deputy Director General and Senior Research Fellow at China’s State Council Development and Research Center, and Prof. Tong Zhu, Dean of the College of Environmental Science and Engineering at PKU.

“This was a unique opportunity to convene thought leaders on a topic of significant importance to China and the world,” said  Prof. Oi.  “China’s urbanization has been one of the most rapid in history. Technology innovation can help address the challenges of urban governance where people’s lives have changed in one generation.”

Four FSE affiliates are among the recipients of new Environmental Venture Projects (EVP) research grants from the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. The Stanford Woods Institute's EVP seed grant program has spurred cross-disciplinary faculty collaborations that have addressed global environmental and sustainability challenges since 2004. 

FSE director Roz Naylor, deputy director David Lobell, and faculty affiliates Marshall Burke and Eran Bendavid will work on several projects over the next two years aimed at finding solutions to these problems.

Naylor will lead a team in modeling the environmental effects of ocean aquaculture on coastal fisheries in China. Naylor is also part of a team that won a grant to study the benefits of marine protected areas in the Adriatic Sea. A team led by Marshall Burke, and including FSE deputy director David Lobell and faculty affiliate Eran Bendavid, will investigate the links between climate change, nutrition and global health. 

Read more about the 2015 EVP recipients.

A research team led by FSE director Rosamond Naylor has won a $400,000 multi-year grant to study how to create sustainable palm oil supply chains that promote economic growth and environmental sustainability in Indonesia and West Africa. 

Palm oil has become one of the world’s fastest growing and most valuable agricultural commodities. Global production of palm oil doubled in both volume and area each decade between 1970 and 2010, and is expected to double again by 2025. The windfall profits from this rapid expansion have come at a cost of tropical deforestation, biodiversity loss and rising greenhouse gas emissions, and in many cases the economic benefits have bypassed local smallholder farmers. 

Naylor and her team of Stanford faculty, scholars and students will undertake the three-year project with funding from the Stanford Global Development and Poverty Initiative (GDP), launched in Spring 2014. GDP aims to transform Stanford’s capacity to speak to the challenges of poverty and development. This year, GDP awarded more than $2 million to 13 faculty research teams from across the university. 

The new project marks the first venture that connects Stanford’s expertise in sustainability with the Graduate School of Business’ experience in value chain innovations. The team will conduct an evaluation of value chain opportunities for sustainable palm oil production, build corporate partnerships to improve smallholder incomes, and engage in policy advising. 

GDP is a joint initiative of the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies (SEED) and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). SEED is housed within the Stanford Graduate School of Business. 

Rosamond Naylor is William Wrigley Professor of Earth System Science and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and at FSI.

The Stanford Center for Sustainable Development and Global Competitiveness (CSDGC) held its 2015 Annual Partner Meeting on May 16 at SCPKU.  The meeting included a discussion on innovation-driven sustainable industrial development and upgrades with a focus on smart learning, the application of green technology in building a smarter society, and smart manufacturing and operation in the industrial transformation.  Participants also exchanged ideas about CSDGC's future development in China.  Attendees included CSDGC Affiliate companies, representatives from collaborating universities, and visiting scholars.

A sustainable future is within reach, but it won’t prevent the world from experiencing the potentially catastrophic environmental and political consequences of climate change and environmental degradation, former Secretary of Energy Steven Chu told a Stanford audience.

Chu, who shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics and served as the energy secretary under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, held a seminar at CISAC on Tuesday on climate change, sustainability and security.

The consequences of the damage wrought by unsustainable resource depletion and air pollution will manifest in a hotter, more dangerous world, said the Stanford physics professor.

Average global temperatures have skyrocketed past normal levels since the Industrial Revolution and have plateaued in the last few months at the highest points in history. Chu said the plateau is likely due to it taking a long time for the lower depths of the oceans to warm up.

“There is a built-in time delay between committing damage, which we’ve already done, and feeling the true consequences. All we can say is that temperatures are likely to climb again, we just don’t know when – could be 50 to 100 years – and by how much,” said Chu.

Even if the world were to stop using coal, oil, and natural gas today, he said, it would not stop the oncoming consequences. “It’s like a long-time chain-smoker who stops smoking. Stopping does not necessarily prevent the occurrence of lung cancer.”

Chu said the battle between scientists and the tobacco industry in the 20th century is analogous to today’s conflict between scientists and the energy industries.

“A lot of what you hear from the incumbent energy industries and their representatives are the same kinds of arguments that the tobacco industry made when the science showing the harm cigarettes caused came out,” said Chu.

Ironically, the same science showing the damage cigarettes cause to health can be used to demonstrate the hazards of air pollution today.

Chu noted that a recent study found that for every 10 micrograms of pollution per cubic meter, the chances of contracting lung cancer increases 36 percent. This lends alarming perspective to pollution in places such as China and India.

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The U.S. Embassy in Beijing tracks air pollution levels daily.

“The average level of air pollution was 194 micrograms per cubic meter. So it’s possible that breathing the average air in Beijing is equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day,” he said. “Even if it’s a third of that, it’s still really bad. But again, there is going to be a lag time between now and a possible rash of deaths by lung cancer.

In addition to causing large-scale health crises, global warming and environmental degradation may exacerbate, or even cause, potential conflicts between countries.

“I think water insecurity concerns me more than even rising sea levels,” said Chu, noting that today’s conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa are exacerbated by water insecurity.

“India is already nervous that China will direct water runoff from the Himalayas to water-starved Northern China and away from India or Bangladesh, which are also water-starved,” he said. “India is also concerned that millions of Bangladeshis could become environmental refugees and start streaming into India.”

Chu recalled that when he was energy secretary, one of his biggest climate-change allies was the Department of Defense

“They will be the ones called on to help with those stresses and they see serious geopolitical risks due to climate change,” he said.

Despite the dangers ahead, Chu is optimistic about great strides in sustainable technology.

Chu and some of his colleagues studied a phenomenon that may bode well for creating a more environmentally friendly economy: putting efficiency standards on electronic appliances, which eventually could lead to a decline in the cost of appliances.

In addition to economical energy standards, new and cheaper green energy technology is within sight. Chu is working with Stanford Professor Yi Cui on creating a lithium-sulfur battery that may be significantly lighter than the current electric batteries used by cars such as Tesla and charge 200 miles in 10 minutes.

Additionally, wind energy is set to become cheaper than natural gas. Chu said that in the Midwest, where the wind is best and cheapest, contracts are selling anywhere between 2.5 and 3 cents per kilowatt-hour. If you build a new natural gas plant, it would be about 5 cents per kilowatt-hour.

“To be fair, wind does have the benefit of a production tax credit and if you take that away, wind would be somewhere around 5.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. But I think within the next dozen years wind will, on its own, be cheaper than natural gas,” he said.

Solar is even more surprising, said Chu. In July 2008, contracts were going for 18 to 20 cents per kilowatt-hour. In Texas in 2014, two contracts were signed one for 5 cents and the other for 4.8 cents per kilowatt-hour. Solar has the advantage of being scalable and the amount of solar resources available around the world is substantial.

“There’s plenty of solar energy available to power the entire world several times over,” he said.

Nonetheless, public policy nudges are still needed.

“There is still no serious discussion in the U.S. about creating a national grid with long distance transmission lines, which will be necessary for a sustainable future. But before that can happen, the campaign by incumbent industries to discredit and doubt climate science has to be defeated.”

FSE director Roz Naylor has been selected to deliver the 6th annual Ned Ames Honorary Lecture at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, NY on Friday, April 24. Her lecture on "Feeding the World in the 21st Century," is free and open to the public, and a video recording of the event will be available on the Cary Institute's website shortly after the talk.