This commitment is part of a national campaign coordinated by the Real Food Challenge, an organization that works with colleges and universities across the country to shift spending in cafeterias toward more locally produced, sustainably grown, humane, and fair-trade foods. Clark University is the 13th school in the nation to sign this pledge and the first school in Massachusetts.

President Angel signed the pledge on April 19 at the request of Food Truth, the student food-sustainability club.

“I want to thank the students, staff, faculty and our colleagues at Sodexo who have moved the Real Food Challenge forward and enabled Clark to take a leadership role in promoting sustainable food systems,” Angel said.

The Real Food Challenge began as an independent, self-funded program of the Boston-based nonprofit The Food Project, Inc., and is now affiliated with Third Sector New England, an organization that seeks to expand the reach and effectiveness of community organizations. The RFC mission is to harness the power of youth and universities to build a healthy, fair, and green food economy. By 2020, the organization aims to shift $1 billion of annual college food purchases away from industrial agriculture toward local, sustainable, and fair sources by training and supporting students to lead “real food campaigns” on their campuses.

Heather Vaillette, general manager of Clark Dining Services, operated by Sodexo, began working on the RFC commitment in 2011 by engaging Food Truth members in discussions on what “real food” means and filling out the baseline survey. Food Truth students analyzed purchasing data for Fall 2011 and Spring 2012, which helped lead Clark to purchase 12 percent real food in the fall semester, and 9 percent in the spring semester. Purchases are determined through the use of a tool called the Real Food Calculator.

“The students involved in Food Truth have been great to work with,” Vaillette said. “Through positive dialogue we have been able to work through any challenges that have arisen during the discovery process.”

Hannah Silverfine ’16, a member of Food Truth, described the experience of working toward the real-food pledge.

“It has been an incredible journey working on the Real Food Calculator at Clark this semester, looking through invoices and researching the sourcing of our food,” Silverfine said. “With the creation of a food policy council, the tireless work and support of Heather Vaillette and the endorsement of Sodexo, we finally were able to create a comprehensive, attainable plan and receive Clark’s commitment.”

Sodexo has been committed to a sustainable-dining program since it was awarded the contract at Clark in 2007, Vaillette said. But while local purchasing has been a priority, the Real Food Challenge defines “local” slightly differently than Sodexo’s dining program has for the past six years. For example, while Sodexo considers bread baked within 250 miles as local, the Real Food Challenge does not, as 50 percent of the ingredients are not grown locally.

“Through our two mutually committed parties, Sodexo and the Food Truth group have redefined ‘local’ at Clark according to the Real Food Challenge requirements,” Vaillette said. “However, we will continue to purchase locally baked breads as this is a better alternative than mass-produced bread. As a compromise we will create a Sustainable Purchasing list that will account for products that may not count in the Real Food Calculator but are important in Sodexo’s overall sustainability commitment, such as products produced by local and female- or minority-owned businesses.

“The Real Food Challenge commitment aligns perfectly with Clark Dining’s sustainability program. It provides an opportunity to be a leader in making change and creates clear goals in sustainable purchasing.”

  — Savannah Cooley ’16, Media Relations Assistant

Visit Sustainable Clark online to learn more about the University’s strategies to reduce its carbon footprint while strengthening many of its existing sustainability practices, and much more.

“Clark University is proud to again be included in The Princeton Review’s top ‘green’ colleges, as we have been since the first publication of this valuable guide,” said Jenny Isler, Clark’s sustainability coordinator. “Clark students exemplify the Clark motto, ‘Challenge Convention, Change Our World’ as they take on the challenges of a rapidly changing world — beginning right here on campus with action-oriented initiatives such as the Clark Eco Reps, the diverse projects funded by the Student Sustainability Fund, the award-winning Recycling Crew, the Clark Community Thrift Store and so many other dynamic student actions. Clark University continues to innovate ways to reduce our environmental impact and contribute to building a sustainable future at Clark, in our community and in the world.”

Created by Princeton Review in partnership with the U.S. Green Building Council, “The Princeton Review’s Guide to 322 Green Colleges” is the only free, comprehensive guidebook profiling institutions of higher education that demonstrate a notable commitment to sustainability in their academic offerings, campus infrastructure, activities and career preparation. The Princeton Review chose the schools for this guide based on a survey of administrators at hundreds of colleges that the company polled in 2012 about their schools’ sustainability initiatives.

The U.S. Green Building Council, which is best known for developing the LEED standard for green building certification, launched its Center for Green Schools in fall 2010 to increase its efforts to drive change in how campuses and schools are designed, constructed and operated so that all educational facilities can enhance student learning experiences.

The Food Recovery Challenge invites organizations nationwide to save money through reducing, purchasing and lowering disposal fees for unconsumed food; supporting their community by diverting wholesome surplus food to feed people, not landfills or incinerators; and reducing their environmental footprint and greenhouse gas emissions through sustainable food management. This program complements food waste recovery efforts by partnering with New England state environmental agencies.

“Clark Dining Services is extremely proud of the Food Recovery Challenge award, which is a testament to the partnership between the Sodexo Dining Services Team, Clark Physical Plant staff and Clark students, all of whom play an important role in our sustainable journey,” said Heather Vaillette, general manager of Clark Dining Services.

The University’s sustainability coordinator, Jenny Isler, added, “Sustainable Clark is a collaboration of the entire Clark community pulling together to reduce our environmental impact — and the Food Recovery Achievement Award is a perfect example of our collaborative strength. Clark Dining Services deserves the full honor for their remarkable efforts to decrease Clark’s environmental impact by composting more than 200 tons per year and to reduce overall food waste through their innovative management practices.”

After paper, discarded food comprises the greatest volume of waste generated in the United States. In fact, “waste food” is really a misnomer. In many cases, surplus food comes off of shelves while it is still good, nutritious and safe, and is sent to landfills. This food could potentially feed millions of Americans, according to both the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the EPA. In 2010, more than 14 percent of households in the U.S. did not have regular access to enough food for an active, healthy life.

“These New England colleges and universities are setting a great example by preventing more than 2,528 tons of food scraps from disposal by using them for higher and better uses, including food donation and composting,” said Curt Spalding, regional administrator of the EPA’s New England office. “Food Recovery Challenge Achievement Award winners are using food to feed people, not disposal facilities.”

Food and food scraps that are not fit for consumption and donation can be used to feed the soil by composting or added to anaerobic digestion facilities, which produce biogas that can be used for energy. In 2010, 34 million tons of food waste was generated, with only 3 percent being diverted to composting. When excess food, leftover food and food scraps are disposed of in a landfill, they decompose rapidly and become a significant source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. Instead, anaerobic digestion facilities capture the gas and use it for electricity or for combined heat and power.

The Food Recovery Challenge is part of the EPA's Sustainable Materials Management Program, which seeks to reduce the environmental impact of materials throughout its entire lifecycle.

The other schools recognized by the EPA for significantly cutting food waste below previous years’ levels include Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Suffolk University, Middlebury College, Keene State College and the University of New Hampshire, Durham campus.

The awards were presented at both the March 28 “Vermont Organics Recycling Summit” and the April 1 “MassRecycle R3 Conference,” where more than 550 recycling experts, enthusiasts and private/public sector decision makers attended the annual conference and tradeshows, sharing information and learning about recycling, including information focused on Increasing food waste recovery.

Devon Island, Arctic Canada. (Photo/Alex Gardner)

Alex S. Gardner, an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Geography at Clark University, contributed to a recent study reporting that, under a moderate climate-warming scenario, glaciers in the Canada’s Arctic will contribute significantly to sea-level-rise over the next century and beyond.

The study titled, “Irreversible mass loss of Canadian Arctic Archipelago Glaciers” was published on March 7 in Geophysical Research Letters journal.

“Glaciers in the Canadian Arctic are out of equilibrium with present climate and they will continue to waste away in the absence of any additional atmospheric warming. This new study shows that if moderate warming predictions come to fruition, the glacier melt in this region will accelerate and contribute even more runoff to the world’s oceans, raising sea levels by multiple centimeters by the end of the century,” Gardner says.

The study was headed by Jan Lenaerts at the Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht, The Netherlands. Lenaerts used a regional climate model that was specially adapted to simulate the behavior of glaciers in the Canadian Arctic. Gardner contributed to the validation of the model by comparing present-day model simulations to satellite and ground observations.

This research builds on Gardner’s earlier work that found that in recent years the Canadian Arctic glaciers have become the largest glacier contributors to sea level rise outside of Greenland and Antarctica. This earlier work was published in 2011 in the journal Nature.

Clark University Graduate School of Geography Assistant Professor Alex S. Gardner

In his research on the Earth's cryosphere, Gardner integrates remote sensing observations and Earth system modeling to study how glaciers and ice sheets respond to natural and human-induced conditions as well as how changes in the reflectivity of snow and ice modify the Earth's climate. He is now focused on assessing glacier wastage on a global scale and is a contributing author of the upcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fifth Assessment Report.

The Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht has issued a press release and the BBC News has published an article titled “Canadian glaciers face ‘big losses’” that discusses the findings of their study.

Geophysical Research Letters has ranked among the top 10 of the most highly cited research publications on climate change over the past decade.

Founded in 1887 in Worcester, Massachusetts, Clark University is a small, liberal arts-based research university addressing social and human imperatives on a global scale. Nationally renowned as a college that changes lives, Clark is emerging as a transformative force in higher education today. LEEP (Liberal Education and Effective Practice) is Clark’s pioneering model of education that combines a robust liberal arts curriculum with life-changing world and workplace experiences. Clark’s faculty and students work across boundaries to develop solutions to contemporary challenges in the areas of psychology, geography, management, urban education, Holocaust and genocide studies, environmental studies, and international development and social change. The Clark educational experience embodies the University’s motto: Challenge convention. Change our world. www.clarku.edu.

Roger E. Kasperson, research professor and distingushed scientist at Clark University

“The Public Acceptance of New Energy Technologies,” an essay co-authored by Clark University Research Professor and Distinguished Scientist Roger E. Kasperson and Bonnie J. Ram ′75, M.A. ′82, of Ram Power LLC, appears in the Winter 2013 issue of Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In a Jan. 16 news release announcing the latest issue titled “The Alternative Energy Future, vol. 2” the Academy writes: “Limiting the effects of climate change will require a substantial transformation of the energy infrastructure. The Winter 2013 issue of Daedalus … explores an equally important but less appreciated requirement for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions: the societal transition that must accompany these technological changes.”

The Kasperson-Ram essay, which is among 13 contributions to the Daedalus edition, presents issues and recommends solutions surrounding a “public acceptance quandary” related to U.S. energy systems.

In their abstract of “The Public Acceptance of New Energy Technologies,” Kasperson and Ram write: “In the wake of ominous results about the impending path of climate change, and with gasoline prices hovering around four dollars per gallon, the 2012 presidential and congressional campaigns are full of claims and counterclaims about the transformation of the U.S. energy system. Although much discussion has centered on the need for new energy technologies, this debate as yet has been narrow and limited. Meaningful deployment of any technology will raise questions of public acceptance. … Little is known about how diverse publics in the United States will respond to the advent of new energy sources, whether they involve a ‘second renaissance’ for nuclear power, a dash to embrace hydraulic fracking for oil and natural gas, or emerging prospects for renewable energies like wind and solar power. Yet public acceptance will determine the outlook. …”

This latest volume of Daedalus is a companion to the Spring 2012 issue, which examined the nation’s history of underpricing energy relative to its societal costs. The issues are part of the American Academy’s ongoing project on the Alternative Energy Future, which is exploring how the social sciences can help to overcome behavioral and regulatory obstacles to the introduction of clean energy technologies.

Prof. Kasperson, of the George Perkins Marsh Institute at Clark University, has focused his research in recent years on how the vulnerability of people, places and ecosystems can be better understood. He was inducted as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004.

Working with colleagues at Clark University, Harvard University, the Stockholm Environment Institute, and the University of South Carolina, Kasperson is preparing a stronger conceptual base for efforts at analysis and assessment and for management initiatives aimed at more robust approaches to reducing vulnerability and building resilience. A current project, under the coordination of Harvard, involves developing strategies for bridging the gap between the worlds of science and practice. A second project involves the formulation of a conceptual framework for incorporating sustainability into several sectors of European environmental policy. A third National Science Foundation project, begun in 2005, involves the creation of improved methods for analyzing and managing highly uncertain risks. Included in this is a continuing interest in how adaptive management strategies can be used to improve societal anticipation and response to terrorist actions.

Print and Kindle copies of the Winter 2013 issue of Daedalus “On the Alternative Energy Future,” vol. 2 can be ordered at: http://www.amacad.org/publications/daedalus/13_winter_cover.pdf.

Copies of the Spring 2012 issue of Daedalus “On the Alternative Energy Future,” vol. 1 can be ordered at: http://www.amacad.org/publications/daedalus/12_spring_cover.pdf.

Since its founding in 1780, the American Academy has served the nation as a champion of scholarship, civil dialogue, and useful knowledge. As one of the nation’s oldest learned societies and independent policy research centers, the Academy convenes leaders from the academic, business, and government sectors to address critical challenges facing our global society.

Founded in 1887 in Worcester, Massachusetts, Clark University is a small, liberal arts-based research university addressing social and human imperatives on a global scale. Nationally renowned as a college that changes lives, Clark is emerging as a transformative force in higher education today. LEEP (Liberal Education and Effective Practice) is Clark’s pioneering model of education that combines a robust liberal arts curriculum with life-changing world and workplace experiences. Clark’s faculty and students work across boundaries to develop solutions to contemporary challenges in the areas of psychology, geography, management, urban education, Holocaust and genocide studies, environmental studies, and international development and social change. The Clark educational experience embodies the University’s motto: Challenge convention. Change our world. www.clarku.edu

Christopher A. Williams, assistant professor at the Graduate School of Geography at Clark University presented two invited talks and participated in a NASA-sponsored media briefing on “Fire in a Changing Climate and What We Can Do About It,” at the American Geophysical Union’s 45th annual Fall Meeting, Dec. 3-7 in San Francisco.

Williams and other Clark University researchers were among more than 20,000 Earth and space scientists, educators, students, and other leaders gathered to present groundbreaking research and connect with colleagues at the AGU meeting. On Dec. 4, he joined the press briefing and teleconference, then followed with a presentation titled “Fire induced carbon emissions and regrowth uptake in western United States forests: Documenting variation across forest types, fire severity, and climate regions,” his part of a session focused on “Fire as a Biogeochemical Catalyst in the Earth System.”

During the AGU media briefing, Williams and other panelists presented NASA satellite data and climate models that indicate drier conditions likely will cause increased fire activity across the United States in coming decades. Other findings about U.S. wildfires, including their amount of carbon emissions and how the length and strength of fire seasons are expected to change under future climate conditions, As the U.S. land area burned by fire each year has increased significantly in the past 25 years, so too have the emissions. Carbon dioxide emissions from wildfires in the western U.S. have more than doubled since the 1980s, according to Williams.

The satellite-based view allowed Williams and his colleagues to quantify how much carbon has been released from fires in the U.S. West. The team used data on fire extent and severity derived from Landsat satellites to calculate how much biomass is burned and killed, and how quickly the associated carbon was released to the atmosphere. The team found carbon emissions from fires have grown from an average of 8 teragrams (8.8 million tons) per year from 1984 to 1995 to an average of 20 teragrams (22 million tons) per year from 1996 to 2008, increasing 2.4 times in the latter period.

"With the climate change forecast for the region, this trend likely will continue as the western U.S. gets warmer and drier on average," Williams said. "If this comes to pass, we can anticipate increased fire severity and an even greater area burned annually, causing a further rise in the release of carbon dioxide."

On Dec. 5, Williams presented another invited talk titled “Carbon consequences of droughts, fires, bark beetles, and harvests affecting forests of the United States: comparative analysis and synthesis,” part of a session focusing on “Impacts of Extreme Climate Events and Disturbances on Carbon Dynamics” (available as video on demand).

Also at the AGU meeting, Williams co-chaired a session titled “Biosphere-Atmosphere Greenhouse Gas Fluxes in Terrestrial Ecosystems,” the largest session in the area of biogeosciences.

Several Clark University scientists contributed at the AGU meeting on different topics:

• Clark Labs Director J. Ronald Eastman and Qingling Wu (Ph.D. in Geography, expected 2013) presented a paper, "Extended Empirical Orthogonal Teleconnection (EEOT) Analysis."
• Eastman and Neeti Neeti (USRA & Goddard/NASA) presented a paper titled "Novel Approaches in Extended Principal Components Analysis to compare spatio-temporal patterns."
• Assistant professor of geography Alex Gardner hosted a session titled "The Changing Cryosphere" and presented his work titled "Narrowing the gap: A consensus estimate of glacier mass wastage for 2003-09" which looks at global glacier contributions to sea level rise.
• Melanie K. Vanderhoof, geography Ph.D. student and Williams advisee, presented “Surface energy flux consequences of bark beetle outbreaks in the south-central Rockies using MODIS data” in a session on Disturbance Impacts and Responses. It included results from her fieldwork in the Colorado Rockies studying the outbreak of mountain pine beetles and the devastation they are bringing to forests across the region.
• Bardan Ghimire, a recent graduate of the Clark geography Ph.D. program and current postdoctoral researcher in Williams’ lab, presented his work titled “Challenges in model-data fusion: Detecting and quantifying parameter equifinality and uncertainty in a recently clear-cut site in Harvard forest.” It included results from the lab’s research site at Harvard Forest where Williams and his students are studying how vegetation is recovering following a recent clearcut   and how this influences carbon balance and water balance.
• Ph.D. candidate Prajjwal Panday presented “An assessment of the snowmelt runoff model in the Tamor River basin in the eastern Himalaya using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) data assimilation approach,” co-authored by Williams, assistant professor of geography Karen Frey, and NASA research scientist Molly E. Brown. Panday also presented, within the session: “The Third Pole Environment (TPE) Under Global Changes.”

Williams noted that, as expected, Clark alumni were to be found among the scientists in attendance at the AGU meeting, including Claire Griffin (ES ’10) a former undergraduate researcher in Frey’s Polar Science Research Laboratory (and Polaris Project alumna). Griffin is in the Ph.D. program at the Marine Science Institute, University of Texas at Austin, continuing her research in Arctic river biogeochemistry and satellite remote sensing.

Founded in 1887 in Worcester, Massachusetts, Clark University is a small, liberal arts-based research university addressing social and human imperatives on a global scale. Nationally renowned as a college that changes lives, Clark is emerging as a transformative force in higher education today. LEEP (Liberal Education and Effective Practice) is Clark’s pioneering model of education that combines a robust liberal arts curriculum with life-changing world and workplace experiences. Clark’s faculty and students work across boundaries to develop solutions to contemporary challenges in the areas of psychology, geography, management, urban education, Holocaust and genocide studies, environmental studies, and international development and social change. The Clark educational experience embodies the University’s motto: Challenge convention. Change our world. www.clarku.edu.

Members of the Clark University Recycling Crew and Sustainable Clark were in Boston to receive a MassRecylce award for their outstanding efforts. (* Caption details in text, at bottom.)

Clark University’s outstanding achievement in recycling and waste reduction was recognized by MassRecycle, a statewide recycling coalition of individuals, governments, businesses, institutions and non-profits, at an awards ceremony Nov. 13, in Boston.

MassRecycle’s 17^th annual competition is divided into categories; last year Clark Dining Services placed first in the state for eating establishments. This year Clark placed third in the Institutional category, up against other colleges and universities, hospitals, corporations and non-profits.

“Clark University is incredibly proud to place 3^rd among all institutions in the state of Massachusetts for the quality and impact of our campus recycling and diversion programs,” Jenny Isler, Sustainability Coordinator at Clark University, said.  “We are even more proud of the fact that the first and second place winners were Harvard University and Tufts University – institutions that dedicate considerable resources to the same challenges that Clark University solves with pure grit and gumption.”

In 1992, a few students started Clark University’s recycling efforts by collecting office paper in a corner of the Goddard Library. Two decades later, the diversion rate is 46 percent, recycling is up 18 percent in one year, while waste decreased 26 percent in the same period, according to a report by Sustainable Clark. A Recycling Crew of work-study students picks up source-separated recyclables from designated areas in all 56 campus buildings. Every day the crew gathers recyclable material and creates seven categories to then further hand-sort and process the load into revenue streams, donations, reusable supplies and co-mingled recycling.

* Watch a Clark Voices video about Clark Recycling. *

In 2011, an unaffiliated student group, the Recycling Initiative, persuaded the Student Council to invest $15,000 in new recycling bins for underserved areas on campus. Sustainable Clark interns, Clark’s Eco-Representatives, and the Recycling Crew also used the funding for a multi-level awareness campaign: volunteer-staffed waste audit sorted 650 pounds of dorm ‘garbage’ on the main quad and publicized the results, they provided hands-on recycling workshops to 60 Residential Advisors, 50 Peer Advisors, Help Desk students, senior administrative staff and other campus leaders, and 75 custodial and kitchen staff were trained and certified. Clark also re-purposed the old gymnasium bleachers as carpentry shop supplies for the Worcester School District, and reupholstered used furniture for the new Johnson-Sanford residence hall addition. Eco Reps ran a dorm-based compost collection, and collaborated with Dining Services and Sustainable Clark to make several major catered events zero waste. The Recycling crew also taught recycling at a neighborhood school and assisted in the fifth-graders’ Go Green campaign!

The energy and collaboration of all these different student groups to reduce waste demonstrates Clark’s motto “Challenge Convention, Change Our World.”

Already, the international Sustainable Consumption Research and Action Initiative plans their 2013 conference at Clark University, and University President David Angel has directed the Clark University Environmental Task Force to address further institutional waste reduction solutions. Supported by systems in place and a united campus effort, the current trend will prove to make 2012 a ground-breaking year for Clark University’s multi-faceted waste reduction and recycling program.

* Shown in the photo inset are, from left: Edward Hsieh, director of MassRecycle; Mel Valdes, Clark University custodian;  Marla Carrera-Raleigh, Sustainable Clark Recycling Intern; Samantha Sandella, Recycling Crew member; Will Cutshall, Recycling Crew Captain; Stephanie Wong, Crew; Jenny Isler, Sustainability Coordinator at Clark University;  Monika Szamalek, Recycling Crew Captain; Sharon Bort, Sustainable Clark Intern;  Michael Osgood, Crew; Chloe Blaise, Crew; Olivia McGill, Recycling Captain; Lorelei Obermeyer, Crew; and Colin Tan, Eco Rep.

Founded in 1887 in Worcester, Massachusetts, Clark University is a small, liberal arts-based research university addressing social and human imperatives on a global scale. Nationally renowned as a college that changes lives, Clark is emerging as a transformative force in higher education today. LEEP (Liberal Education and Effective Practice) is Clark’s pioneering model of education that combines a robust liberal arts curriculum with life-changing world and workplace experiences. Clark’s faculty and students work across boundaries to develop solutions to contemporary challenges in the areas of psychology, geography, management, urban education, Holocaust and genocide studies, environmental studies, and international development and social change. The Clark educational experience embodies the University’s motto: Challenge convention. Change our world. www.clarku.edu

Graduate School of Geography Associate Professor Colin Polsky

Clark University Graduate School of Geography Associate Professor Colin Polsky has been appointed co-Convening Lead Author for the Land-Use and Land-Cover Change chapter of the National Climate Assessment (NCA). The NCA, commissioned by the Office of Science & Technology Policy in the White House, is the official U.S. statement about impacts and vulnerabilities associated with climate variability and change.

Polsky’s task was to coordinate and synthesize input from a round of national public and scientific commentary on the topic of how land-use and land-cover change affects climate change and associated impacts and adaptation/mitigation options. Dan Brown, Professor in the School of Natural Resources and Environment and Director of the Environmental Spatial Analysis Laboratory at the University of Michigan, was the other co-Convening Lead Author for this chapter.

This effort is designed to produce a book chapter written for a lay audience. The NCA book is expected to be published in the spring/summer 2013.

The NCA is conducted under the auspices of the Global Change Research Act of 1990, which requires a report to the President and the Congress every four years that “integrates, evaluates, and interprets the findings of the U.S. Global Change Research Program; analyzes the effects of global change on the natural environment, agriculture, energy production and use, land and water resources, transportation, human health and welfare, human social systems, and biological diversity; and analyzes current trends in global change, both human-induced and natural, and projects major trends for the subsequent 25 to 100 years.”

National Climate Assessments act as status reports about climate change science, impacts and adaptation/mitigation options. These reports are based in part on observations made across the country and compare these observations to predictions from climate system models. The NCA aims to incorporate advances in the understanding of climate science into larger social, ecological, and policy systems, and with this provide integrated analyses of impacts and vulnerability.

The NCA will help evaluate the need for and effectiveness of our mitigation and adaptation activities, and to identify economic opportunities that arise as the climate changes. It will also serve to integrate information from multiple sources and highlight key findings and significant gaps in scientific knowledge.

The NCA aims to help the federal government prioritize climate science investments, and in doing so will help to provide the science that can be used by communities around the country to plan more sustainably for our future.

Professor Polsky is a geographer specializing in the human dimensions of global environmental change, emphasizing the spatial analysis of vulnerability to climate change in U.S. suburban settings. He is affiliated with Clark University's George Perkins Marsh Institute and served as Director of Clark’s HERO undergraduate research program for eight years.

Brad McNamara in the Freight Farms container by the Clark Recycling Center.

“I’m terrible at growing things,” laughs Brad McNamara, MBA/ES&P ’13, as he holds a tray of basil sprouts.

He’s being modest. The sprigs look healthy enough, and McNamara already has produced a harvest of perfectly edible lettuce.

McNamara is standing inside a shipping container lined with rows of vertical “growing towers” bathed in pink glow, the result of the red and blue LED lights that substitute for the sun’s rays. Nutrient-rich water is piped into each tower, and the temperature inside the room remains at a moderate 65 to 75 degrees. All of it is controlled by computer via wireless connection, and the conditions inside this rig can be adjusted remotely from just about anywhere in the world.

McNamara may question his ability to grow veggies, but he certainly knows how to cultivate a business.

He and partner Jon Friedman have launched Freight Farms, beginning with the prototype parked in the lot behind the Clark University Recycling Center. The men are pioneering this unique growing method that blends the principles of hydroponics, high technology and sustainability to produce a steady harvest of leafy greens and herbs.

And while McNamara is excited that the vegetable output has been robust, he and Friedman have their eyes on another type of green. They’ve been wooing investors, including one from Japan who spent a recent weekend with them, to build Freight Farms into an international company.

The Freight Farms prototype, located in the lot behind the Clark Recycling Center.

“We’re not in business to sell produce,” McNamara says. “We’re selling a farming platform.” A Boston-based food distributor has already purchased a Freight Farm; the platform is trademarked and McNamara and Friedman have provisional patents on the processes.

“Our overarching goal is to allow anyone to grow food anywhere,” McNamara says. “People can run a Freight Farm as a business, and they can become food distributors in their own neighborhoods.” These stackable greenhouses can be situated wherever there’s the space to accommodate the 40’ x 8’ x 8’ trailer and the electricity to make this indoor farm hum.

McNamara is enrolled in Clark's dual degree program, pursuing a Master of Science degree in  Environmental Science & Policy from the International Development, Community and Environment IDCE Department and a Master of Business Administration from the Graduate School of Management (GSOM). He says he and Friedman want to partner with government and non-government groups conducting food programs.

The floor-to-ceiling towers (envision a cross between a vertical blind and a gutter guard) accommodate a staggered growth cycle, so that plants are in various states of maturation. The seeds are first planted in tiny cubes of recycled non-organic matter known as rockwool — when assembled side by side in a tray, the cubes resemble brownie batter. As they bud, the sprigs are then transferred into a strip of rockwool that is inserted into a tower.

From there, the LED lights — combined with nutrient-rich water that is recirculated through an irrigation system — have allowed McNamara and Friedman to grow 3,000 plants simultaneously since the Freight Farm went online Aug. 15. Among the customers for their produce is The Local Root, the food co-op run by Clark University students. The veggies have been popular, and the co-op has put out a call for Swiss chard.

“We’re determining the best mix of plants to grow,” McNamara says.

He notes that each Freight Farm is outfitted with six to eight cameras, and expert growers hired by McNamara and Friedman will be able to monitor progress remotely and do trouble-shooting for every Freight Farm from a central control site. So for instance, if a Freight Farm owner notices a fungus on his plants, a camera can zoom in on the fungus and the expert can make a diagnosis and offer a plan of action to deal with it.

McNamara told the CLARK alumni magazine that his vision to help repair “the broken food system” is “to create sustainable, local food economies around the globe.” The investor from Japan, for instance, is keenly interested in Freight Farms, he says, especially for use in areas that were affected by radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster following the March 11, 2011 tsunami.

McNamara and Friedman held a grand opening ceremony for Freight Farms on Nov. 3, behind the Clark Recycling Center, which was attended by, among others, Congressman James McGovern. The partners, who solicited early investors through a Kickstarter account, are now pitching their business model to venture capitalists.

Jennie Stephens, associate professor of Environmental Science and Policy

Clark University associate professor of Environmental Science and Policy, Jennie Stephens, presented research and organized a research panel on energy system transitions at the annual meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) conference held Oct. 17 to 20 at the Copenhagen Business School in Frederiksberg, Denmark.

At the conference, which was held jointly with the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology, Stephens and her collaborators presented their research on competing visions of “smart grid” and a comparative analysis of the social context of smart grid development in different regions. In addition to presenting results from her research team, Stephens chaired a two-part session of international scholars who presented on various aspects of social, cultural, and political dimensions of changes in energy systems.

Stephens’ research team, which is based at Clark’s George Perkins Marsh Institute, includes three graduate students in the Environmental Science and Policy program in the Department of International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE): Ria Langheim (ES&P graduate student ’13), Xiao Chen (ES&P graduate student ’13), and Ryan Collins (ES&P/MBA graduate student ’15). Two undergraduate research assistants are also on the team: senior Melissa Skubel (Environmental Science major in the Environmental Science & Policy track) and sophomore William Maxwell (Environmental Science and Economics). The students did not travel to the 4S conference in Copenhagen. The research team also includes collaborating faculty and students from the University of Minnesota and Texas A&M.

Most of the student researchers have been focusing on media analysis, Stephens says. They are analyzing different representations of smart grid in the media. One of the students is also organizing and will be carrying out a series of focus groups with energy stakeholders in New England that will help to better understand different perceptions of what smart grid is as well as its potential and challenges.

This smart grid research project is supported by a National Science Foundation award from the Science, Technology and Society program in the Division of Social and Economic sciences.

Stephens’ research team is studying how, over the past decade, the term “smart grid” has been increasingly used to represent a multitude of different social and technological changes with potential to transform electricity systems. Motivations for pursuing and supporting smart grid systems include increasing the efficiency of energy systems, the reliability of electricity supply, and the security and resilience of electricity systems. Smart grid systems also have potential to reduce energy costs, reduce environmental impacts including greenhouse gas emissions, and enable expansion of renewable electricity generation and electric vehicles. Despite tension among the varied understandings of what might constitute a smart grid system, Stephens noted, most interpretations assume smart grid offers substantial potential to improve the way societies produce, transmit, distribute, store, and consume electricity.

For many, Stephens said, “smart grid” means “modernizing” networks that link electricity producers and consumers through advanced information and communication technologies (ICT), but others recognize that the social change associated with smart grid and changing electricity systems is extremely important with great potential in addition to the technological change. Competing visions of what smart grid is or could be reflects a broad range of different conceptions of change in electricity systems.

The city of Worcester has been selected for National Grid’s regional smart grid pilot project, and the state of Massachusetts recently approved the plans for this pilot. Stephens’ research involves assessing the social and political dimensions of this and other smart grid initiatives around the country. Professor Stephens’ research has found that because the notion of a smart grid promises so much, some see the term “smart grid” as an empty signifier, simply becoming whatever an advocate wants it to be at the moment. For others, however, “smart grid” is a powerfully inclusive and expansive way to articulate the vast potential of technical and social change in energy systems.