Academia crosses disciplinary lines to address global warming

By Claudia H. Deutsch

It is a basic tenet of university research: Economists do joint studies, chemists join forces in the laboratory, political scientists share ideas about other cultures - but rarely do the researchers cross disciplinary lines.

The political landscape of academia, combined with the fight for grant money, has always fostered competition far more than collaboration. But the push to stop global warming may just change all that. For instance, the Rochester Institute of Technology in September established the Golisano Institute for Sustainability, aimed at getting students and professors from different disciplines to collaborate in studying the environmental ramifications of production and consumption.

"The academic tradition is to let one discipline dominate new programs," said Nabil Nasr, the institute's director. "But the problem of sustainability cuts across economics, social elements, engineering, everything. It simply cannot be solved by one discipline, or even by coupling two disciplines." Neil Hawkins, vice president for sustainability for Dow Jones, sees it that way, too. Dow is giving $10 million, spread over five years, to the University of California, Berkeley, to set up a sustainability center.

"Berkeley has one of the strongest chemical engineering schools in the world, but it will be MBAs who understand areas like microfinance solutions to drinking water problems," Hawkins said. That realization is spreading throughout academia. More universities are setting up stand-alone centers that offer neutral ground on which engineering students can work on alternative fuels while business students calculate the economics of those fuels and political science majors figure how to make the fuels palatable to governments in both developing nations and American states.

"We give professors a chance to step beyond their usual areas of expertise, and we give students exposure to the worlds of science and business," said Daniel Esty, director of the year-old Yale Center for Business and the Environment, a joint effort between the School of Management and the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

Similar setups are getting easier to find. Last year, the University of Tennessee consolidated all of its environmental research programs under a new Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment. Arizona State University did the same in 2004, when it inaugurated its Global Institute of Sustainability. The Arizona institute reports directly to the university president and is run by Jonathan Fink, who is also the university's sustainability officer.

"We want all the departments to contribute without thinking they own the initiative themselves," Fink said. Already, experts in biogeochemistry - the study of the scientific underpinnings of earth's origins and existing biosystems - are working with social scientists to study the impact of rapid urbanization on plants and animals. It is impossible to quantify the growth of stand-alone centers. There is no naming convention - some are sustainability centers, some are environmental institutes and some are global warming initiatives.

And many do not stand alone at all, but are neatly tucked inside an existing school. Nor do the environmentally themed names necessarily convey an envirocentric agenda. Many "sustainability" centers - the Kenan-Flagler Center for Sustainable Enterprise at the University of North Carolina is a good example - address global cultures, business ethics and corporate social responsibility along with environmental issues.

The Aspen Institute's Center for Business Education compiled a list of more than 600 academic centers that, at first blush, sound like they would be stand-alone environmental facilities. Rich Leimsider, its director, figures only a handful really are. "We are seeing more centers framed as sustainability, but they may not be qualitatively different from the ethics, innovation or globalization centers of 15 years ago," he said. "Universities realize that you can discuss sustainability with a CEO and not get laughed out of the room."

But Leimsider said he does see more stand-alone centers that are devoted primarily to analyzing environmental problems, influencing environmental policy and preparing students to think collaboratively when they try to solve those problems outside the academic world.

Many of the centers have one foot set squarely outside the ivory tower. Esty said that the Yale center was developing an "eco-services clinic" that would help companies address various environmental issues. Duke University's Corporate Sustainability Initiative, which is a joint venture of its earth sciences, business and environmental policy schools, is also a founding member of the Chicago Sustainable Business Alliance. Its faculty and students have already developed a small wind turbine for private use, and have helped local businesses reduce their carbon footprints. Nor does the money for the centers necessarily come from university coffers. Often it comes from individuals who are passionate about the environment.

To be continue in other article...

(Jakarta, Kamis 21 February 2008, 07.39 pagi)

Re-publish by Jacob Paradox from link (www.routers.com),(www.iht.com), (www.routers.com), (www.nytimes.com)