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Alison Badgett named director of the Priscilla King Gray Public Service Center

News Feed
Tuesday, April 30, 2024

Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate and Graduate Education Ian A. Waitz announced recently that Alison Badgett has been appointed the new associate dean and director of the Priscilla King Gray (PKG) Public Service Center. She succeeds Jill Bassett, who left that role to become chief of staff to Chancellor Melissa Nobles. “Alison is a thought leader on how to integrate community-engaged learning with systematic change, making her ideally suited to actualize MIT’s mission of educating transformative leaders,” Waitz says. “I have no doubt she will make the PKG Center a model for all of higher ed, given her wealth of experience, finely honed skills, and commitment to social change.” “I’m excited to help the PKG Center, and broader MIT community, develop a collective vision for public service education that builds on the PKG Center’s strength in social innovation programming, and leverages the Institute’s unique culture of innovation,” Badgett says. “MIT’s institutional commitment to tackling complex societal and environmental challenges, taking responsibility for outcomes and not just inputs, is exceedingly rare. I’m also especially excited to engage STEM majors, who may be less likely to enter the nonprofit or public sector, but who can have a tremendous impact on social and environmental outcomes within the systems they work.” Badgett has over 20 years of experience leading public policy and nonprofit organizations, particularly those addressing challenging issues like affordable housing and homelessness, criminal justice, and public education. She is the founding principal of a consulting firm, From Charity to Change, which works with nonprofit leaders, educators, and philanthropists to apply systems-change strategies that target the root causes of complex social problems. Prior to her consulting role, Badgett was executive director of the Petey Greene Program, which recruits and trains 1,000 volunteers annually from 30 universities to tutor justice-impacted students in 50 prisons and reentry programs. In addition, the program educates volunteers on the injustice of our prison system and encourages both volunteers and students to advocate for reforms. She also served as executive director of Raise Your Hand Texas, an organization that aims to improve education by piloting innovative learning practices. During her tenure, the organization launched a five-year, $10 million initiative to showcase and scale blended learning, and a 10-year, $50 million initiative to improve teacher preparation and the status of teaching. Before leading Raise Your Hand Texas, Badgett was executive director of several organizations related to housing and homelessness in New York and New Jersey. During that time, she developed a $3.6 million demonstration program to permanently house the chronically homeless, which served as a model for state and national replication. She also served as senior policy advisor to the governor of New Jersey, providing counsel on land use, redevelopment, and housing.  Badgett holds a global executive EdD from the University of Southern California, an MA from Columbia University Teachers College in philosophy and education, and an BA in politics from Princeton University.  Her appointment at the PKG Center is especially timely. Student demand for social impact experiential learning opportunities has increased significantly at MIT in recent years, and the center is expected to play a sizable role in increasing student engagement in social impact work and in helping to integrate social innovation into teaching and research. At the same time, the Institute has made a commitment to help address complex issues with global impacts, such as climate change, economic inequality, and artificial intelligence. As part of that effort, the Office of Experiential Learning launched the Social Impact Experiential Learning Opportunity initiative last year, which has awarded nearly $1 million to fund hundreds of student opportunities. Projects cater to a broad range of interests and take place around the world — from using new computational methods to understand the role of special-interest-group funding in U.S. public policy to designing and testing a solar-powered, water-vapor condensing chamber in Madagascar. Badgett, who is currently writing a book on re-imagining civic education at elite private schools, will begin her new role at the PKG Center in July. In the meantime, she is looking forward to bringing her experience to bear at MIT. “While leading public interest organizations was highly rewarding, I recognized that I could have a far greater impact educating future public interest leaders, and that higher education was the place to do it,” she says.

With decades of experience in the nonprofit sector, she will lead the center as MIT boosts social impact experiential learning opportunities.

Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate and Graduate Education Ian A. Waitz announced recently that Alison Badgett has been appointed the new associate dean and director of the Priscilla King Gray (PKG) Public Service Center. She succeeds Jill Bassett, who left that role to become chief of staff to Chancellor Melissa Nobles.

“Alison is a thought leader on how to integrate community-engaged learning with systematic change, making her ideally suited to actualize MIT’s mission of educating transformative leaders,” Waitz says. “I have no doubt she will make the PKG Center a model for all of higher ed, given her wealth of experience, finely honed skills, and commitment to social change.”

“I’m excited to help the PKG Center, and broader MIT community, develop a collective vision for public service education that builds on the PKG Center’s strength in social innovation programming, and leverages the Institute’s unique culture of innovation,” Badgett says. “MIT’s institutional commitment to tackling complex societal and environmental challenges, taking responsibility for outcomes and not just inputs, is exceedingly rare. I’m also especially excited to engage STEM majors, who may be less likely to enter the nonprofit or public sector, but who can have a tremendous impact on social and environmental outcomes within the systems they work.”

Badgett has over 20 years of experience leading public policy and nonprofit organizations, particularly those addressing challenging issues like affordable housing and homelessness, criminal justice, and public education. She is the founding principal of a consulting firm, From Charity to Change, which works with nonprofit leaders, educators, and philanthropists to apply systems-change strategies that target the root causes of complex social problems.

Prior to her consulting role, Badgett was executive director of the Petey Greene Program, which recruits and trains 1,000 volunteers annually from 30 universities to tutor justice-impacted students in 50 prisons and reentry programs. In addition, the program educates volunteers on the injustice of our prison system and encourages both volunteers and students to advocate for reforms.

She also served as executive director of Raise Your Hand Texas, an organization that aims to improve education by piloting innovative learning practices. During her tenure, the organization launched a five-year, $10 million initiative to showcase and scale blended learning, and a 10-year, $50 million initiative to improve teacher preparation and the status of teaching.

Before leading Raise Your Hand Texas, Badgett was executive director of several organizations related to housing and homelessness in New York and New Jersey. During that time, she developed a $3.6 million demonstration program to permanently house the chronically homeless, which served as a model for state and national replication. She also served as senior policy advisor to the governor of New Jersey, providing counsel on land use, redevelopment, and housing. 

Badgett holds a global executive EdD from the University of Southern California, an MA from Columbia University Teachers College in philosophy and education, and an BA in politics from Princeton University. 

Her appointment at the PKG Center is especially timely. Student demand for social impact experiential learning opportunities has increased significantly at MIT in recent years, and the center is expected to play a sizable role in increasing student engagement in social impact work and in helping to integrate social innovation into teaching and research.

At the same time, the Institute has made a commitment to help address complex issues with global impacts, such as climate change, economic inequality, and artificial intelligence. As part of that effort, the Office of Experiential Learning launched the Social Impact Experiential Learning Opportunity initiative last year, which has awarded nearly $1 million to fund hundreds of student opportunities. Projects cater to a broad range of interests and take place around the world — from using new computational methods to understand the role of special-interest-group funding in U.S. public policy to designing and testing a solar-powered, water-vapor condensing chamber in Madagascar.

Badgett, who is currently writing a book on re-imagining civic education at elite private schools, will begin her new role at the PKG Center in July. In the meantime, she is looking forward to bringing her experience to bear at MIT. “While leading public interest organizations was highly rewarding, I recognized that I could have a far greater impact educating future public interest leaders, and that higher education was the place to do it,” she says.

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Fire Disrupts UN Climate Talks Just as Negotiators Reach Critical Final Days

Fire has disrupted United Nations climate talks, forcing evacuations of several buildings with just two scheduled days left and negotiators yet to announce any major agreements

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — Fire disrupted United Nations climate talks in Brazil on Thursday, forcing evacuations of several buildings with just two scheduled days left and negotiators yet to announce any major agreements. Officials said no one was hurt.The fire was reported in an area of pavilions where sideline events are held during the annual talks, known this year as COP30. Organizers soon announced that the fire was under control, but fire officials ordered the entire site evacuated for safety checks and it wasn't clear when conference business would resume.Viliami Vainga Tone, with the Tonga delegation, had just come out of a high-level ministerial meeting when dozens of people came thundering past him shouting about the fire. He was among people pushed out of the venue by Brazilian and United Nations security forces.Tone called time the most precious resource at COP and said he was disappointed it's even shorter due to the fire.“We have to keep up our optimism. There is always tomorrow, if not the remainder of today. But at least we have a full day tomorrow,” Tone told The Associated Press.A few hours before the fire, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres urged countries to compromise and “show willingness and flexibility to deliver results,” even if they fall short of the strongest measures some nations want.“We are down to the wire and the world is watching Belem,” Guterres said, asking negotiators to engage in good faith in the last two scheduled days of talks, which already missed a self-imposed deadline Wednesday for progress on a few key issues. The conference, with this year's edition known as COP30, frequently runs longer than its scheduled two weeks.“Communities on the front lines are watching, too — counting flooded homes, failed harvests, lost livelihoods — and asking, ‘how much more must we suffer?’” Guterres said. "They’ve heard enough excuses and demand results.” On contentious issues involving more detailed plans to phase out fossil fuels and financial aid to poorer countries, Guterres said he was “perfectly convinced” that compromise was possible and dismissed the idea that not adopting the strongest measures would be a failure.Guterres was more forceful in what he wanted rich countries to do for poor countries, especially those in need of tens of billions of dollars to adapt to the floods, droughts, storms and heat waves triggered by worsening climate change. He continued calls to triple adaptation finance from $40 billion a year to $120 billion a year.“No delegation will leave Belem with everything it wants, but every delegation has a duty to reach a balanced deal,” Guterres said.“Every country, especially the big emitters, must do more,” Guterres said.Delivering overall financial aid — with an agreed goal of $300 billion a year — is one of four interconnected issues that were initially excluded from the official agenda. The other three are: whether countries should be told to toughen their new climate plans; dealing with trade barriers over climate and improving reporting on transparency and climate progress.More than 80 countries have pushed for a detailed “road map” on how to transition away from fossil fuels, like coal, oil and natural gas, which are the chief cause of warming. That was a general but vague agreement two years ago at the COP in Dubai. Guterres kept referring to it as already being agreed to in Dubai, but did not commit to a detailed plan, which Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva pushed for earlier in a speech.The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.This story was produced as part of the 2025 Climate Change Media Partnership, a journalism fellowship organized by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Nov. 2025

Climate
Business

Engineered microbes could tackle climate change – if we ensure it’s done safely

Engineering microbes to soak up more carbon, boost crop yields and restore former farmland is appealing. But synthetic biology fixes must be done thoughtfully

Yuji Sakai/GettyAs the climate crisis accelerates, there’s a desperate need to rapidly reduce carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, both by slashing emissions and by pulling carbon out of the air. Synthetic biology has emerged as a particularly promising approach. Despite the name, synthetic biology isn’t about creating new life from scratch. Rather, it uses engineering principles to build new biological components for existing microorganisms such as bacteria, microbes and fungi to make them better at specific tasks. By one recent estimate, synthetic biology could cut more carbon than emitted by all passenger cars ever made – up to 30 billion tonnes – through methods such as boosting crop yields, restoring agricultural land, cutting livestock methane emissions, reducing the need for fertiliser, producing biofuels and engineering microbes to store more carbon. According to some synthetic biologists, this could be a game-changer. But will it prove to be? Technological efforts to “solve” the climate problem often verge on the improbably utopian. There’s a risk in seeing synthetic biology as a silver bullet for environmental problems. A more realistic approach suggests synthetic biology isn’t a magic fix, but does have real potential worth exploring further. Engineering microorganisms is a controversial practice. To make the most of these technologies, researchers will have to ensure it’s done safely and ethically, as my research points out. What potential does synthetic biology have? Earth’s oceans, forests, soils and other natural processes soak up over half of all carbon emitted by burning fossil fuels. Synthetic biology could make these natural sinks even more effective. Some researchers are exploring ways to modify natural enzymes to rapidly convert carbon dioxide gas into carbon in rocks. Perhaps the best known example is the use of precision fermentation to cut methane emissions from livestock. Because methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, these emissions account for roughly 12% of total warming potential from greenhouse emissions. Bioengineered yeasts could absorb up to 98% of these emissions. After being eaten by cattle or other ruminants these yeasts block production of methane before it can be belched out. Synthetic biology could even drastically reduce how much farmland the world needs by producing food more efficiently. Engineered soil microbes can boost crop yields at least by 10–20%, meaning more food from less land. Precision fermentation can be used to produce clean meat and clean milk with much lower emissions than traditional farming. Engineered microbes have the potential to boost crop yields considerably. Collab Media/Unsplash, CC BY-NC-ND If farms produce more on less land, excess farmland can be returned to nature. Wetlands, forests and native grasslands can store much more carbon than farmland, helping tackle climate change. Synthetic biology can be used to modify microbe and algae species to increase their natural ability to store carbon in wetlands and oceans. This approach is known as natural geoengineering. Engineered crops and soil microbes can also lock away much more carbon in the roots of crops or by increasing soil storage capacity. They can also reduce methane emissions from organic matter and tackle pollutants such as fertiliser runoff and heavy metals. Sounds great – what’s the problem? As researchers have pointed out, using this approach will require a rollout at massive scale. At present, much work has been done at smaller scale. These engineered organisms need to be able to go from Petri dishes to industrial bioreactors and then safely into the environment. To scale, these approaches have to be economically viable, well regulated and socially acceptable. That’s easier said than done. First, engineering organisms comes with the serious risk of unintended consequences. If these customised microbes release their stored carbon all at once during a drought or bushfire, it could worsen climate change. It would be very difficult to control these organisms if a problem emerges after their release, such as if an engineered microbe began outcompeting its rivals or if synthetic genes spread beyond the target species and do unintended damage to other species and ecosystems. It will be essential to tackle these issues head on with robust risk management and forward planning. Second, synthetic biology approaches will likely become products. To make these organisms cheaply and gain market share, biotech companies will have an incentive to focus on immediate profits. This could lead companies to downplay actual risks to protect their profit margins. Regulation will be essential here. Third, some worthwhile approaches may not appeal to companies seeking a return on investment. 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Synthetic biology won’t be the silver bullet many imagine it to be, and it’s unlikely it will be the gold mine many hope for. But the technology has undeniable promise. Used thoughtfully and ethically, it could help us make a healthier planet for all living species. Daniele Fulvi receives funding from the ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology, and his current project investigates the ethical dimensions of synthetic biology for climate mitigation. He also received a small grant from the Advanced Engineering Biology Future Science Platform at CSIRO. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and are not necessarily those of the Australian Government or the Australian Research Council.

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Exclusive-Europe Plans Service to Gauge Climate Change Role in Extreme Weather

By Alison Withers and Kate AbnettCOPENHAGEN (Reuters) -The EU is launching a service to measure the role climate change is playing in extreme...

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Billionaire hedge fund founder Tom Steyer is running for governor

Billionaire hedge fund founder, climate change warrior and major Democratic donor Tom Steyer is running for governor. Fossil fuel and migrant detention facility investments will likely draw attacks from his fellow Democrats.

Billionaire hedge fund founder Tom Steyer announced Wednesday that he is running for governor of California, arguing that he is not beholden to special interests and can take on corporations that are making life unaffordable in the state.“The richest people in America think that they earned everything themselves. Bulls—, man. That’s so ridiculous,” Steyer said in an online video announcing his campaign. “We have a broken government. It’s been bought by corporations and my question is: Who do you think is going to change that? Sacramento politicians are afraid to change up this system. I’m not. They’re going to hate this. Bring it on.” Protesters hold placards and banners during a rally against Whitehaven Coal in Sydney in 2014. Dozens of protesters and activists gathered downtown to protest against the controversial massive Maules Creek coal mine project in northern New South Wales. (Saeed Khan / AFP/Getty Images) Steyer, 68, founded Farallon Capital Management, one of the nation’s largest hedge funds, and left it in 2012 after 26 years. Since his departure, he has become a global environmental activist and a major donor to Democratic candidates and causes. But the hedge firm’s investments — notably a giant coal mine in Australia that cleared 3,700 acres of koala habitat and a company that runs migrant detention centers on the U.S.-Mexico border for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — will make him susceptible to political attack by his gubernatorial rivals. Steyer has expressed regret for his involvement in such projects, saying it was why he left Farallon and started focusing his energy on fighting climate change. Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer addresses a crowd during a presidential primary election-night party in Columbia, S.C. (Sean Rayford / Getty Images) Steyer previously flirted with running for governor and the U.S. Senate but decided against it, instead opting to run for president in 2020. He dropped out after spending nearly $342 million on his campaign, which gained little traction before he ended his run after the South Carolina primary.Next year’s gubernatorial race is in flux, after former Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Alex Padilla decided not to run and Proposition 50, the successful Democratic effort to redraw congressional districts, consumed all of the political oxygen during an off-year election.Most voters are undecided about who they would like to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, who cannot run for reelection because of term limits, according to a poll released this month by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times. Steyer had the support of 1% of voters in the survey. In recent years, Steyer has been a longtime benefactor of progressive causes, most recently spending $12 million to support the redistricting ballot measure. But when he was the focus of one of the ads, rumors spiraled that he was considering a run for governor.In prior California ballot initiatives, Steyer successfully supported efforts to close a corporate tax loophole and to raise tobacco taxes, and fought oil-industry-backed efforts to roll back environmental law.His campaign platform is to build 1 million homes in four years, lower energy costs by ending monopolies, make preschool and community college free and ban corporate contributions to political action committees in California elections.Steyer’s brother Jim, the leader of Common Sense Media, and former Biden administration U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy are aiming to put an initiative on next year’s ballot to protect children from social media, specifically the chatbots that have been accused of prompting young people to kill themselves. Newsom recently vetoed a bill aimed at addressing this artificial intelligence issue.

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Activism
Government

This Ohio County Banned Commercial Wind and Solar. Not So Fast, Residents Said.

This story was originally published by Canary Media and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Restrictions on solar and wind farms are proliferating around the country, with scores of local governments going as far as to forbid large-scale clean-energy developments. Now, residents of an Ohio county are pushing back on one such ban on renewables—a move that […]

This story was originally published by Canary Media and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Restrictions on solar and wind farms are proliferating around the country, with scores of local governments going as far as to forbid large-scale clean-energy developments. Now, residents of an Ohio county are pushing back on one such ban on renewables—a move that could be a model for other places where clean energy faces severe restrictions. Ohio has become a hotspot for anti-clean-energy rules. As of this fall, more than three dozen counties in the state have outlawed utility-scale solar in at least one of their townships. In Richland County, the ban came this summer, when county commissioners voted to bar economically significant solar and wind projects in 11 of the county’s 18 townships. Almost immediately, residents formed a group called the Richland County Citizens for Property Rights and Job Development to try and reverse the stricture.  ​“To me, it just is bad for the county — the whole county, not just one or two townships.” By September, they’d notched a crucial first victory, collecting enough signatures to put the issue on the ballot. Next May, when Ohioans head to the polls to vote in primary races, residents of Richland County will weigh in on a referendum that could ultimately reverse the ban. It’s the first time a county’s renewable-energy ban will be on the ballot in Ohio. From the very beginning, ​“it was just a whirlwind,” said Christina O’Millian, a leader of the Richland County group. Like most others, she didn’t know a ban was under consideration until shortly before July 17, when the commission voted on it. “We felt as constituents that we just hadn’t been heard,” O’Millian said. She views renewable energy as a way to attract more economic development to the county while reining in planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. Brian McPeek, another of the group’s leaders and a manager for the local chapter of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, sees solar projects as huge job opportunities for the union’s members. ​“They provide a ton of work, a ton of man-hours.” Many petition signers ​“didn’t want the commissioners to make that decision for them,” said Morgan Carroll, a county resident who helped gather signatures. ​“And there was a lot of respect for farmers having their own property rights” to decide whether to lease their land. While the Ohio Power Siting Board retains general authority over where electricity generation is built, a 2021 state law known as Senate Bill 52 lets counties ban solar and wind farms in all or part of their territories. Meanwhile, Ohio law prevents local governments from blocking fossil-fuel or nuclear projects. The Richland County community group is using a process under SB 52 to challenge the renewable-energy ban via referendum. Under that law, the organization had just 30 days from the commissioners’ vote to collect signatures in support of the ballot measure. All told, more than 4,300 people signed the petition, though after the county Board of Elections rejected hundreds of signatures as invalid, the final count ended up at 3,380—just 60 more than the required threshold of 8 percent of the number of votes in the last governor’s election. Although the Richland County ban came as a surprise to many, it was months in the making. In late January, Sharon Township’s zoning committee asked the county to forbid large wind and solar projects there. After discussion at their February 6 meeting, the county commissioners wrote to all 18 townships in Richland to see if their trustees also wanted a ban. A draft fill-in-the-blanks resolution accompanied the letter. Signed resolutions came back from 11 townships. The commissioners then took up the issue again on July 17. Roughly two dozen residents came to the meeting, and a majority of those who spoke on the proposal were against it. Commissioners deferred to the township trustees. “The township trustees who were in favor of the prohibition strongly believe that they were representing the wishes of their residents, who are farming communities, who are not fans of seeing potential farmland being taken up for large wind and solar,” Commissioner Tony Vero told Canary Media. He pointed out that the ban doesn’t cover the seven remaining townships and all municipal areas. ​“I just thought it was a pretty good compromise,” he said. The concerns over putting solar panels or wind turbines on potential farmland echo land-use arguments that have long dogged rural clean-energy developments—and which have been elevated into federal policy by the Trump administration this year. Groups linked to the fossil-fuel industry have pushed these arguments in Ohio and beyond. “It’s a false narrative that they care about prime farmland,” said Bella Bogin, director of programs for Ohio Citizen Action, which helped the Richland County group collect signatures to petition for the referendum. Income from leasing some land for renewable energy can help farmers keep property in their families, and plenty of acreage currently goes to growing crops for fuel—not food. ​“We can’t eat ethanol corn,” she added. Under Ohio’s SB 52, counties—not townships—have the authority to issue blanket prohibitions over large solar and wind farms, with limited exceptions for projects already in the grid manager’s queue. In Richland County’s case, the commissioners decided to defer to townships even though they didn’t have to. The choice shows how SB 52 has led to ​“an inconsistently applied, informal framework that has created confusion about the roles of counties, townships, and the Ohio Power Siting Board,” said Chris Tavenor, general counsel for the Ohio Environmental Council. Under the law, ​“county commissioners should be carefully considering all the factors at play,” rather than deferring to townships. “I think it’s important for my children to have…the opportunities that go along with having wind and solar.” Even without a restriction in place, SB 52 lets counties nix new solar or wind farms on a case-by-case basis before they’re considered by the Ohio Power Siting Board. And when projects do go to the state regulator, counties and townships appoint two ad hoc decision-makers who vote on cases with the rest of the board. As electricity prices continue to rise across Ohio, Tavenor hopes the state’s General Assembly will reconsider SB 52, which he and other advocates say is unfairly restrictive toward solar and wind—two of the cheapest and quickest energy sources to deploy. “Lawmakers should be looking to repeal it and make a system that actually responds to the problems facing our electric grid right now,” he said. Commissioner Vero, for his part, said he has mixed feelings about the referendum. “It’s America, and if there’s enough signatures to get on the ballot, more power to people,” he said. However, he objects to the fact that SB 52 allows voters countywide to sign the petition, even if they don’t live in one of the townships with a ban, and said he hopes the legislature will amend the law to prevent that from happening elsewhere. Yet referendum supporters say the ban matters for the entire county. “It affects everybody, whether you live in a city, a township, or a village,” McPeek said. As he sees it, restrictions will deter investment from not only companies that build wind and solar but also those that want to be able to access renewable energy. ​“To me, it just is bad for the county—the whole county, not just one or two townships.” Renewable-energy projects also provide substantial amounts of tax revenue or similar PILOT payments for counties, helping fund schools and other local needs. ​“I think it’s important for my children to have more clean electric [energy] and all the opportunities that go along with having wind and solar,” Carroll said. Now that the referendum is on the ballot, the Richland County group will work to build more support and get out the vote next spring. ​“Education and outreach in the community is basically what we’re going to focus on for the campaign coming up in the next few months,” O’Millian said. “So now it goes to a countywide vote, and the population of the county gets to make that decision, instead of three guys,” McPeek said.

Climate
Energy
Government

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Student

Carbon Men Salvation: The Senator's Dilemma

Climate change is heating up the world at an accelerating rate, but Congress is frozen to action. Humanity is heading towards devastation; there is only one chance to change the future by traveling into the past. Brilliant climatologist student Anna Jones is researching a massive glacier in Antarctica that is on the verge of collapse. This disaster will drown coastal cities, trigger unprecedented climate refugee numbers and loss of life, while inciting wars. Anna’s father, Dan Jones, the newly elected Senator from New Jersey, is pivotal to the success or failure of a key climate bill. The vote is imminent. Powerful climate denier factions work against the necessary climate actions, even as the planet teeters on the prime tipping point where human behavior, science and legislation collide. Only Noah Poem, a time traveling scientist from the future, can help Anna Jones convince her climate doubting father to do the right thing. But time is running out as science fiction meets science fact. The fate of the human race hangs in the balance. One vote could save humanity.

Government
Climate
Activism

Rise and Fall

A film to provide an awareness of climate change and the individual measures we can take to combat it. The production process of Rise and Fall began as your stereotypical documentary meant to showcase various aspects of the Earth and Ocean Sciences Department at UNCW. Still, as the interview process was underway, it was quickly decided to move in another direction. It is an essay film about the science of climate change, what we can do in our day-to-day lives to combat it, and its impacts. Without using talking heads, the images of the natural world provide a sensual look at what will be affected by climate change.

Climate
Nature
Documentary

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