Bringing Community Voices Into Renewable Energy Planning

Decarbonizing the United States’ energy supplies to meet climate targets will require a rapid transition to renewable energy. Some estimates suggest that renewable energy capacity must expand by 38-67 GW per year by 2030, largely through utility-scale wind and solar deployment. Despite significant financial injections from landmark legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, roadblocks remain. Chief among these is the growing wave of local...

The Public Interest Technologist is an online publication aimed at helping the MIT community think together about the social responsibilities of students, administration, faculty, staff and alumni who design and implement technologies of various kinds. Public Interest Technology (PIT) is a multidisciplinary field that emphasizes the lived benefits (and costs) that flow from both old and new technologies, and the way they are used. In our view, to be a public interest technologist requires taking...

Negotiation in the cyber realm presents a significantly different dynamic from person-to-person negotiations typical of the boardroom, since there is no chance to read the face of the other side. As a target of a cyber attack, you may have limited opportunity to negotiate in real time, and you probably will have no ability to ascertain the culture or values of the hacker. With critical infrastructure being under constant attack by hackers – both state-sponsored and hobbyists- operators, public...

The Indigenous Community Planning project in DUSP is a multi-disciplinary research and teaching effort that seeks to center Indigeneity within the field of urban planning. Students and faculty within the department engage with Indigenous communities, scholars, leaders, and activists to explore together how to address questions of sovereignty, identity, land-use planning, climate adaptation, natural resource development, and historical land-taking. The research, curriculum development, and...

In September of 2014 the Science Impact Collaborative and the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School hosted a devising seminar on the long-term management of Arctic fisheries. The session brought together senior diplomats, government agency staff, environmental activists, representatives of First Peoples, industry leaders, scientists, and legal/human rights experts. During the seminar these participants brainstormed possible new regimes to ensure sustainable management adapted to the...

Joint MIT-Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) five year effort to help sustainability practitioners from many countries in the Global South document and analyze efforts in Malaysia to implement sustainable development efforts. Involved IAP Practicum that brought 15 DUSP graduate students to Malaysia and matched them up with UTM graduate students to assist the international practitioners. Focus on Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, Johor Bahru, George Town, and Kuching.

The Sacred Lands Project (SLP) of the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program explores the idea of sacred lands disputes as a subset of public conflicts. We expect that mediators need an understanding of and sensitivity for the concept of sacred lands and the symbols that attach to them. Our hope is to develop a set of teachable practices for mediators working in the context of sacred land conflicts specifically, as well as when sacred land disputes are embedded in larger conflicts. SLP will explore...

The Flint water crisis has radically questioned the current status of drinking water safety in the United States. Besides exposing instances of environmental injustice, the crisis has unveiled the massive infrastructure challenges that the country must address in the near future. According to EPA estimates, fixing America’s outdated water and wastewater infrastructure will require close to one trillion dollars over the next 20 to 25 years. Faced with these projections, urban water utilities...