Collaborative for the Earth Marks Another Year of Fostering Environmental Conversation

In just the past year, the Stony Brook Collaborative for the Earthhas hosted events, conversations, field trips, film screenings, and even a national radio special about nuclear power, as well as sharing information about events happening elsewhere on campus.

"The Collaborative for the Earth was established three years ago to work as a hub for the Stony Brook community interested in energy and the environment to come together for thought-provoking discussions and shared experiences," said Carl W. Lejuez, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. "The entire idea behind C4E is to foster connection and bring people with different areas of expertise together around a common interest. I'm so pleased to say that three years later, C4E is building a dynamic community."

The year will culminate with the Collaborative's annual forum, focused this time on managed retreat or coastal defense. As sea levels rise, these conversations are increasingly important for New York City's coastline and seaside towns on Long Island and elsewhere

The forum will be held Friday, April 3, beginning at 2 pm in the Wang Center Theatre. The event is free but registration is recommended.

Over the course of the three-hour event, the New York University debate team and a panel of experts will present perspectives and research on the future of New York City's expansive shoreline communities facing sea level rise. Particularly, they will discuss the potential to engineer solutions to protect these communities or if it is time to retreat from the shoreline. The conversation will continue in a live question and answer session.

The forum is C4E's signature event. It aligns with the Collaborative's longstanding efforts to navigate the nuances of environmental change, climate resilience, and sustainability efforts, and, at the same time, balance growing global energy demands.

"The Collaborative for the Earth has been a critical venue for kick-starting conversations across disciplines and building relationships among scholars who might otherwise not interact very much," said Heather Lynch, Institute for Advanced Computational Statistics endowed professor of ecology and evolution and former C4E director. "Despite different vocabularies and ways of thinking, the major problems facing humanity are not chemistry problems or political science problems or ecology problems - they're much larger and more complex than that. To make headway on these topics as a nation-leading university, we need to invest in relationships and a sense of shared mission. In just its first three years, I think C4E has been instrumental in exactly that."

In three years, C4E has empowered deep conversations among the Stony Brook community about nuclear and wind energy, the climate impacts of AI, emerging environmental contaminants, and the social impacts of climate change on vulnerable populations.

"I continue to be inspired by the passion and commitment of the entire Stony Brook community to engage in deep, meaningful discussions around climate, the environment, and energy," said Kevin Reed, associate provost for climate and sustainability programming and professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. "It's not always easy to break out of disciplinary siloes, and yet our students, faculty, and staff for years have demonstrated that they are ready and eager to put in the work. These are the kinds of initiatives and gatherings that will help Stony Brook achieve its goals as a climate leader, and will help our society ask and answer the very real, complicated questions we must address to respond to our changing reality."

Sign up for the C4E newsletterto keep up with announcements and upcoming events.