Past Events: Penn State Energy and Environment Calendar Archive

Insect Biodiversity Center hosts Drs. Kim Skyrm (MA apiary inspector) & Cristina Botías (EBD-CSIC)

“The Cold of Outer Space as an Energy Resource: Using Light and Heat for Cooling and Electricity” – Part II in the Energy University SeriesLinxiao Zhu | Mechanical Engineering

Penn State’s Center for Security Research and Education and Center for Energy Law and Policy will jointly host a “Solutions for Critical Infrastructure Protection” virtual workshop. The objectives are to identify and facilitate a community of researchers in critical infrastructure, broadly defined, and discuss possibilities for University-wide collaboration toward potential external funding opportunities.

"Global warming, human heat stress, and the prickly politics of combating climate change" presented by James Kasting, Penn State

To date, managing salinity stress in agriculture relies heavily on development of salt tolerant plant varieties, a time-consuming process particularly challenging for many crops. Plant based biostimulants (PB) that enhance plant defenses under stress can potentially address this drawback, as they are not crop specific and are easy to apply in the field. Unfortunately, limited knowledge about their modes of action makes it harder to utilize them on a broader scale.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is underscoring the urgent need to develop effective antiviral agents for SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19. The rapid identification of effective interventions against SARS-CoV-2 has been proven to be a significant challenge. The SARS-CoV-2 proteases Mpro and PLpro that cleave the viral polyproteins are excellent antiviral targets to prevent SARS-CoV-2 replication.

About the talk

William (Bill) Bahnfleth, IEE Affiliate Researcher and Professor of Architectural Engineering; Miriam Freedman, Associate Professor of Chemistry and IEE cofunded faculty member; and Tak-Sing Wong, Wormley Family Early Career Professor and Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and of Biomedical Engineering, Penn State

Energy and Environmental Economics and Policy (EEEP) seminar: The war after the war: Racial violence in the postbellum South Sarah Walker, Senior Lecturer, Assistant Professor, School of Economics, University of New South Wales, Australia

Addressing climate change may be the greatest environmental challenge of the century, affecting everyone in the world, but most of us have only a limited understanding of how our own personal activities translate into energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Part of the challenge is that energy is expressed in so many different units that it is difficult to add them up to determine energy use for our daily lives.

Meteorology and Atmospheric Science Colloquium: The science and purpose the Naval Research Laboratory’s Marine Meteorology Division Jim Hansen, Naval Research Laboratory/Marine Meteorology Division

Power asymmetries that favor buyers over suppliers in garment global supply chains became readily apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic when buyers used force majeure clauses to abruptly cancel billions of dollars in orders without paying, resulting in enormous quantities of unused inventory and food insecurity for millions of garment workers. This presentation will examine these trends and explore ideas for building garment supply chains of the future that address environmental and labor sustainability concerns.

A four-part virtual symposium series to expand networks and inspire creative strategies to promote biodiversity in urban, agricultural and natural areas, to improve human and ecological health and well-being.

Climate change is a global phenomenon but resulting impacts, like flooding, habitat loss, shift in fisheries species, and urban warming are felt at the local level. Many communities wrestle with understanding the range of projected impacts and how to effectively plan for and respond to climate change. The Chesapeake Bay Program is developing resources and delivery mechanisms to assess impacts from changing climate conditions and sea level rise. Two regional experts will open a discussion on how the partnership can best support communities in addressing climate change impacts.

Spring 2021 ESSC Brown Bag Series presents Glaciers and Sea Level in a Warming Climate: EESI Contributions to the Field with Dr. Sridhar Anandakrishnan, Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, Penn State. To maintain social distancing as much as possible during the COVID-19 pandemic, seminars will be conducted via Zoom this semester. 

Geosciences Colloquium Series: Chemistry of Planetary Atmospheres: Perspectives and Prospects Yuk Yung, Professor, Planetary Science, California Institute of Technology

"Overview of global change and policy options" presented by Kerry Emanuel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Energy and Environmental Economics and Policy (EEEP) seminar: Deaths of Despair versus Prevalence of Drugs: Coal Mining and Opioid Overdose in Rural Central Appalachia Zhen Lei, Associate Professor, Energy and Environmental Economics, Penn State

Extreme precipitation is predicted to increase in intensity with global warming, but the rate of increase varies widely across different regions of the world. For example, global climate models predict that extreme precipitation in summer responds only weakly over North America and Europe but strongly over India. In this talk I will first discuss the dynamical factors that contribute to changes in precipitation extremes in the extratropics.

Dr. Jessica Tierney is an Associate Professor at the University of Arizona who studies past climate change (paleoclimatology) to learn about how the Earth system works and what's in store for the future. Her research group focuses on studying past climates over a variety of timescales, using organic geochemical techniques and statistical climate reconstruction.