Transforming ivory towers to eco-versities
BY JEFF KOSEFF AND BUZZ THOMPSON
Buzz Thompson and Jeff Koseff
What a difference a decade can make. In 1997, only 27 percent of Americans surveyed said that global warming was important personally to them. Ten years later, that number has nearly doubled to 52 percent, according to an April 2007 poll commissioned by the Woods Institute for the Environment, ABC News and the Washington Post.
A March 2006 Woods Institute/ABC News/Time magazine poll revealed even more surprises. Eighty-six percent of those surveyed said they want President Bush, Congress, American businesses and/or the American public to do "a great deal" or "a lot" to improve the health of the environment during the next year.
As Stanford professors with a more than passing interest in climate change policy and other critical environmental issues, it's gratifying to discover that the public is finally tuning in to what many of us have been saying for years: that the environmental challenges facing our planet—such as global warming, inadequate food supplies and the depletion of our oceans—are real and must be addressed immediately.
Solving these challenges will require new ways of thinking and a radical change in the way we do business. We're pleased to say that higher education is leading the way, as professors and students at campuses across the country push to transform traditionally insular institutions into active agents of social change. A good example is Stanford, where university leaders have made saving the planet a top academic mission.
Stanford President John Hennessy outlined the university's new direction in 2005: "I believe that Stanford, as one of the great research institutions, has a responsibility to make a positive contribution to addressing the challenges the world faces—from advancing the state of human healthcare to sustaining our environment for future generations to preserving peace and improving the human condition around the world."
Hennessy has transformed his vision into reality by launching The Stanford Challenge, a five-year fundraising effort designed to support interdisciplinary research that leads to real-life solutions to the big crises facing humanity. A major component of the Challenge is the Initiative on the Environment and Sustainability, which brings together students and faculty from a wide range of disciplines around a common goal—finding innovative ways to protect the environment while meeting the worldwide demand for food, water and other resources.
To help develop new solutions and then turn those ideas into action, the university has established the Woods Institute to serve as a campus-wide hub for interdisciplinary environmental research and education.
The goal of the institute's work is to give scientists, policy-makers and business leaders new tools to make decisions that truly matter. In the past year alone, Woods has sponsored a series of "uncommon dialogues" with business leaders, government officials and environmental groups that have generated new insights on a host of complex issues, such as the role of agricultural sustainability in the 2007 U.S. Farm Bill and the potential costs of switching the U.S. vehicle fleet from gasoline to biofuels. Through its Environmental Venture Projects, the institute also has provided millions of dollars to help jump-start novel collaborations, such as the Natural Capital Project.
A research institution such as Stanford, with its incredible array of talent and expertise, is in a unique position to anticipate what the most important environmental challenges will be and to help frame solutions to those challenges. Casting off the traditional ivory tower mindset will unleash the creativity of our faculty and lead to practical results that are truly transformative.
"This is an enormous undertaking," Hennessy observed. "But if we are to learn how to live on this planet in an environmentally sustainable way, if we are to leave something to be proud of for our children's children's children, we must begin."
Jeffrey Koseff, the William Alden Campbell and Martha Campbell Professor in the School of Engineering, and Barton "Buzz" Thompson, the Robert E. Paradise Professor of Natural Resources Law, are directors of the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford.
All of the polls cited were designed by Jon Krosnick, the Frederic O. Glover Professor in Humanities and Social Sciences at Stanford.
