I want to discuss my semestre-long graduate seminar project. Several weeks ago our class of nine divided into three groups of three, each assigned to a different project related to the broad theme of carbon neutrality. I was assigned to the Ecological Society of America (ESA) group. Our job is to look at the carbon emissions resulting from the ESA’s yearly operations, find ways to reduce those emissions and then suggest methods of offsetting the rest. We already know that the primary source of carbon emissions is the group’s annual conference, held in early August, to which about 4,000 people fly, drive or take the train.

I wrote this essay for my Sustainable Design in the Built Environment Class. In it, I pretend to be an architect writing a letter to a potential client, explaining to him how green building works and why he or she should choose me, a green architectA letter to John Mench Schnook”Here are my rules: what can be done with one substance must never be done with another. No two materials are alike. No two sites on earth are alike. No two buildings have the same purpose. The purpose, the site, the material determine the shape.

The following is a speech given to the United Nations by Andy Posner, the world-renowned environmental activist, on January 20th, 2035. The IPCC (Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change) has just released its eighth climate assessment report, in which it is stated that, thanks to the re-working of the second-phase of the Kyoto Protocol, signed in 2012, worldwide emissions of greenhouse gases have stabilized at 480 PPM C02e, and have indeed begun to fall.

Last Friday in my graduate seminar class titled “Carbon Neutrality: Fact or Fiction?” the real-world came to our class in the form of a businessman/entrepreneur, and the director of policy and legislative affairs for the mayor of Providence, Rhode Island. They came to discuss the semestre-long project upon which our class will be embarking. The idea is that we will divide up into three teams of three, and each team will be assigned to work for a client, working on the question of whether or not they can become “carbon neutral,” what that would mean, and if they should pursue that course or simply one of “reduced emissions.”

I finally have my schedule of classes set for this semestre. I will be taking Sustainable Design in the Built Environment (ENVS 1400); Carbon Neutrality: Fact or Fiction (ENVS 2010); and Environmental Geochemistry (GEOL 1370) My class schedule will be as follows:
Tuesdays & Thursdays:
9:00 am- 10:20 am Environmental Geochemistry
10:30 am-11:50 am Sustainable Design in the Built Environment
Fridays
1:00 pm-3:50 pm Graduate Seminar (Carbon Neutrality: Fact or Fiction)

During the last two days, Thursday and Friday, August 30th and 31st, I had a general orientation for the entire graduate school at Brown, as well as a specific orientation for the Center for Environmental Studies (CES). Both have gotten me extremely excited about the start of classes on Wednesday, the other students and professors in my program, my own course of study as well as my future after completing the program. At the CES orientation I finally got to meet the other students. In total there are 8 of us, from varied backgrounds, social as well as educational. The most important thing, however, is that in addition to being extremely engaging, smart and passionate, I can already tell that it will be easy to make friends with all of the students. So from that perspective alone I feel happy because I now have eight new friends, colleagues and collaborators.