Climate Action Symposia Series: The Role of Research Universities and MIT’s Climate Initiatives
The Climate Action Symposia series aims to advance our community’s understanding and expand our capacity to generate solutions for the urgent global challenge of climate change. The six symposia examine the current state of climate science and policy, as well as pathways for decarbonization of the global economy. We will also look at how universities can and should contribute solutions, including MIT’s efforts under our Plan for Action on Climate Change.
The fifth of MIT’s six Climate Action Symposia, The Role of Research Universities and MIT’s Climate Initiatives, will be held virtually on Tuesday, October 20, 2020. Topics will include:
- how research universities can help the world deal with the climate crisis;
- initiatives being developed by MIT to reduce carbon emissions;
- how you can get involved.
Chairs: Paula Hammond and Julie Newman, MIT
Schedule
2:30-2:35 pm Welcome
Speaker:
- Richard Lester, Associate Provost, MIT
2:35-2:40 pm Setting the stage
Speakers:
- Paula Hammond, Head, Department of Chemical Engineering, MIT
- Julie Newman, Director of Sustainability and Lecturer, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT
2:40-3:20 pm Panel I: The role of research universities
Moderator:
- Paula Hammond, Head, Department of Chemical Engineering, MIT
Speakers:
- Melissa Nobles, Dean of School of Humanities Arts and Social Science, MIT
- John Deutch, Institute Professor Emeritus Department of Chemistry, MIT
3:20-4:00 pm Panel II: MIT’s low-carbon campus and test bed
Moderator:
- Krystyn Van Vliet, Associate Provost; Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Biological Engineering, MIT
Speakers:
- Joe Higgins, Vice President for Campus Services and Stewardship, MIT
- Julie Newman, Director of Sustainability and Lecturer, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT
4:00-4:30 pm Reflections on Climate Action at MIT
Speaker:
- Maria T. Zuber, E.A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics and Vice President for Research, MIT
Questions? Email climatesymposia@mit.edu.
Speaker bios and more will be available at climatesymposia.mit.edu.
The David H. Koch Integrative Cancer Institute: A Cancer Maker Funds Cancer Science
An exploration of the conflicts raised by building an academic cancer research center with the money and active participation of a petrochemical billionaire.
As caviar-topped sweet potato cubes and gulab jamon skewers circulated, with gold-encrusted living statues posing in the corner, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology community feted last Friday the generous philanthropy of David H. Koch, whose $100 million gift helped build the new cancer research institute that bears his name.
The richest man in New York City stood tall above the crowd, as his wife Julia, brother Charles, and other members of the Koch family shared the glorious moment, captured by fast-snapping photographers. His bodyguards, thick-necked and glowering in ill-fitting suits that bore a small gold Koch Industries pin on the lapel, stood by as cancer researchers, MIT officials, and biotechnology executives enjoyed the open bar and discussed the future of the battle against cancer. The lab technicians who have already been working for weeks in the building were easy to identify by their scruffy haircuts, informal wear, and relative youth, faintly bemused by the mostly middle-aged hobnobbers.
Koch’s name was emblazoned on the nametags worn by the scientists and practically every surface of the new building with a logo that strongly resembles that of his petrochemical conglomerate.
This reception took place in the lobby of the David H. Koch Integrative Cancer Institute after the formal dedication of the building in a party tent wedged in back, where Koch was effusively thanked by politicians and scientists for his generosity and commitment to tackling the disease that kills one in four Americans, about 560,000 a year. Koch Institute scientists described the innovative technologies and research they are bringing to bear to treat cancer, from nanoparticles to deep sequencing. They discussed new breakthroughs in understanding the unique genetic nature of the various diseases that cause cancers to spread in the human body, promising new pathways of treatment for patients.
Strangely, however, during the entire two-hour program, not a single participant mentioned environmental carcinogens or any other external factors in causing cancer. Dr. Alice T. Shaw, a practicing oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, professor at Harvard Medical School, and clinical investigator at the Koch Institute gave an extended discussion of her specialty, lung cancer, about underlying genetic abnormalities, targeted mutations, and smart drugs. Not once did she mention the overwhelming role of cigarette smoking in making the once-rare disease one of the top killers in the world.
Dr. Tyler Jacks, the David H. Koch Professor of Biology and director of the institute, Dr. Jacqueline Lees, the institute’s associate director, and institute professors Dr. Phillip Sharp and Dr. Robert Langer also failed to address environmental causes of cancer during their allotted moments in the program. A lavishly produced video, which tied the launch of the Koch Institute to the celebration of MIT’s sesquicentennial, showed graduate students sitting in a classroom beneath a portrait of David Koch. The film exclusively discussed work to treat cancer, but not the causes.
Why this unusual omission?
Is it because the ways in which industrial chemicals, pollutants, toxins, radiation, infections, and lifestyle trigger carcinoma are no longer interesting scientific problems, not worthy of pursuit by cutting-edge scientists?
Is it the influence of the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries on the field, biasing research toward expensive treatments instead of unprofitable prevention?
Or does it have anything to do with the influence of David H. Koch himself, whose company is one of the largest industrial polluters in the United States, whose fortune is inextricably tied to toxic petrochemicals, and whose libertarian ideology finds public intervention to reduce societal risks anathema?
Certainly, the participants in the celebration — most on a first name basis from years of working on this project with Koch — had no desire to embarrass the septuagenarian billionaire in his moment of philanthropy.
Republican Sen. Scott Brown had difficulty finding the words to express his admiration for the philanthropist. With boyish enthusiasm, Brown described the great honor of getting to have dinner with Koch and his family the night before, of learning of Koch’s long-held scoring record as an MIT basketball player, and of the beautiful building Koch helped build.
(In a conversation before the ceremony, Brown also thanked Koch for the generous contributions the billionaire had made to his campaign to fill Sen. Edward Kennedy’s seat last year.)
Cambridge mayor David P. Maher, a liberal Democrat who helped make the city smoke-free and fought chemical industry pollution, offered perhaps the most effusive praise of the evening. “Your generosity transcends our typical understanding of benevolence,” he said to Koch. “Please accept my gratitude for all that you are doing.”
“We are tremendously proud to be on your team,” MIT president Susan Hockfield told Koch.
“David,” Dr. Sharp effused, “you have made all this possible by your generosity and commitment to cancer.”
“I want to give my voice of deep gratitude to David Koch for his vision, counsel, and guidance,” Dr. Langer said, underscoring that Koch’s role was much more than being a distant money-man. “The means for supporting truly innovative research are becoming more and more scarce.”
When Koch himself came to the stage, he discussed how his concern with cancer is personal — in 1992 he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He has been treated with radiation, surgery, hormones, and experimental drugs, and far outlived expectations. His gift to MIT is part of $215 million in donations to cancer research and treatment centers around the nation. Koch asked those with deep pockets to likewise give generously to the Koch Institute, as federal cancer research budgets are being slashed by Congress.
Koch’s dual role as a cancer philanthropist and petrochemical industrialist has raised questions before. After a 2010 New Yorker profile noted that Koch Industries is fighting against government regulation of formaldehyde, Koch stepped down from the National Cancer Institute’s advisory board, to which he had been appointed by President George W. Bush in 2004.
However, the leadership of the Koch Institute dismissed questions of any conflict of interest in conversations with me at Koch’s party.
When asked, Hockfield brusquely told me that there was no conflict of interest, saying, “David Koch is very generous.” Hockfield said that Koch’s involvement was solely limited to being the funder of the new building. This claim was at odds with the public ceremony, in which Koch was personally thanked not just for his money but for his guidance and leadership.
Without prompting, she recognized that Koch had a “different view on climate science than most people.” In particular, he has spent millions to prevent the regulation of the carbon pollution inherent to his financial success, influencing the Republican Party to adopt wholesale rejection of climate science.
Tyler Jacks was more thoughtful, although he admitted he had not considered the question of Koch’s conflict of interest before. “David and I share a commitment to fighting cancer,” he said. He could not conceive that Koch would try to shut down research that implicated chemicals produced by Koch Industries. There is still valuable research that can be done in the realm of cancer-causing agents, Jacks recognized. Jacks himself has done important work explaining the genetic pathways by which the peanut mold aflotoxin can cause cancer. He had no explanation why carcinogens were not mentioned, nor why they do not appear to be a part of the Koch Institute’s research.
Jacks admitted that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology probably would not have accepted money to support cancer research from the tobacco industry.
Working researchers and lab technicians who were at a remove from the financing of the center were aware of and disappointed by the Kochs’ role in denying climate science, but were, like most in the scientific realm, personally divorced from the policy implications of their work.
David Koch’s personal bodyguards prevented me from approaching David Koch at the reception for any questions, after I had talked to other attendees, including his brother Charles Koch, identifying myself as a reporter for ThinkProgress as well as an MIT alumnus like the Kochs. (I received a M.S. degree in geosciences in 2004; the Kochs earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemical engineering several decades earlier.)
Koch’s ability to influence cancer research does not need to be nearly so crass as direct interference with MIT research — all he has to do is push his finger on the scales, encouraging research into treatment while starving federal funding sources that would support research into carcinogens. And that’s precisely what he’s doing.
As far as I could tell, the top administrators and scientists at the Koch Institute honestly don’t think of him as a petrochemical billionaire working to slash public support for health care, environmental protection, education, and scientific research. To them, he’s a friend, a colleague, a visionary, and a generous benefactor whose name they proudly wear in their research into cancer.
As the evening drew to a close, the Kochs walked out to their waiting limousines, the living statues broke from their poses to go wash off their non-toxic body paint, and the lab technicians grabbed one last glass of wine before the caterers packed up. The gleaming monument to Koch’s largesse shone cold, bright, and empty.
WonkLine: May 11, 2009
From the Wonk Room.
The House Natural Resources Committee is holding a field hearing today “to discuss the responsible expansion of solar energy in California and across the nation” at the University of California, Riverside Palm Desert Graduate Center.
The New York Times discusses the Intervale Green complex, a “new, green, low-income housing development” by the Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation with 128 units, “a large, glass-windowed lobby, two green roofs and a sculpture-filled courtyard.”
Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), Heritage Foundation, Americans for Tax Reform, and local op-eds in North Carolina and Louisiana repeated the “just wrong” lie that an MIT study found cap and trade is a $3100 tax.
Democrats on the Waxman-Markey Fence Worried about RES, Allocations
By SolveClimate’s Stacy Morford.
The usual court jesters shot off verbal fireworks as a week of hearings got underway on the Waxman-Markey climate bill, but the real attention on Capitol Hill was tuned to a few moderate Democrats who have the power to make or break the bill.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman acknowledged their concerns this morning as EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood were being questioned by the committee.
Praising one of those moderates, former committee chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.), Waxman said he had hoped to see his legislation pass with something like the committee’s 42-1 vote that had secured amendments to the Clean Air Act in 1990. But he added,
“I have my suspicions after listening to the opening statements here that we may not be able to succeed in the same way.”
The statements and questions so far from the committee’s moderate Democrats suggest that winning enough votes will likely mean rewriting the bill’s proposed renewable energy standard to account for regional differences. It may also require free emissions permits and other aid for industries – particularly automotive and energy – that will need to evolve to survive in a carbon-constrained world.
The RES currently proposed in the draft legislation would require utilities to derive 25 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2025.
Mike Ross (D-Ark.) and Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) both expressed concerns that that level would penalize states like theirs that lack the wind power of Texas and the sunshine and geothermal reserves of California. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) said his state could probably reach its current target of 15 percent by 2025, and possibly do better if nuclear and biomass could count, but 25 percent was out of the question.
Jim Matheson (D-Utah) asked Chu if he thought Congress would be overprescribing if it required both an emissions cap and a national renewable energy standard.
Chu has been outspoken in his desire to restore the United States’ place as the world’s leader in energy technology. The RES, he said, is a necessary interim driver of innovation and renewable energy use. The cap won’t start until 2012, and industry will need time to adjust. The RES, meanwhile, will drive renewable energy development by guaranteeing a marketplace. Energy executives who testified later in the day echoed that argument, saying federal rules would create stability and expectations that businesses could bank on.
That doesn’t mean that that the RES has to be uniform nationwide, though. A few committee members questioned whether Congress could instead require each state to set a minimum standard, which could then be met in ways tailored to that state’s own resource mix. Twenty-eight states already have renewable energy standards.
Dingell also questioned the “aggressive nature of the renewable electrical standard,” but he and Gene Green (D-Texas) were more focused on aid for industries, particularly the U.S. automakers and refiners.
Green, worried about job losses in the Houston ship channel area that he represents, urged the committee to provide ample free emissions allowances from the trading program for energy-intensive industries, as well as financial support for consumers facing higher electricity prices.
“We must protect our energy–intensive industries, including refineries, so we do not simply export those jobs abroad to nation without carbon controls and lax environmental regulations,” Green told the committee.
Dingell called for doubling the incentives for the Department of Energy’s advanced technology vehicle incentives programs to help the auto industry in his home state. He added:
“Of course, the question of auction versus allocation still lies before us, and that is a very serious question. Some might say ‘deal breaker’ for many members.”
The auction details from the cap-and-trade portion of the bill have yet to hammered out, which has created an easy target for fiscal fear mongering among opponents. Without knowing how the money from cap-and-trade auctions would be distributed, the Congressional Budget Office can’t accurately gauge the bill’s financial impact.
Jackson offered the committee the EPA’s newly released cost assessment: The energy bill for an average family would rise between $98 and $140 per year.
However, the EPA’s analysis looked only at the cap-and-trade portion of the bill, and with so many details yet to be determined by the committee, the EPA had to make assumptions about the price of carbon ($13-17 per ton in 2015) and the percentage of revenue that would be returned to consumers (40 percent).
The 40 percent rebate for consumers, a number recommended by the bill’s authors, did offer more insight into how Waxman and Markey might propose divvying up the revenues, but it was still only an estimate.
The committee’s 23 Republican members asked Waxman in a letter this week for more hearings to flesh out the details before the committee begins marking up the legislation for a vote.
“Your discussion draft lacks any decision on permit allocations versus auctions,” they wrote. “The manner in which you will address this issue is the cornerstone of the legislation; without it the bill is simply not finished and not ripe to be marked up or accurately discussed in the context of a hearing.”
In the absence of stronger data, some opponents have resorted to inventing their own numbers.
Two of the most outspoken opponents of the bill – Reps. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas) – suggested that the lack of details was a conspiracy to prevent the committee from knowing the true cost. They repeated the GOP’s manipulation of a recent MIT study, saying the increase would be $3,100, a number the study’s own author says is 10 times too high.
It was a fellow Republican, LaHood, who spoke up today about the continued abuse of the MIT study.
LaHood held up a letter from the study’s author correcting the GOP’s use of his numbers. But when he asked to enter the letter into the committee record, Shimkus objected. If the MIT letter was submitted, then Shimkus wanted to submit a story written by the Weekly Standard, too. Waxman agreed to both.
Shimkus was clearly playing to the cameras this morning. He vowed that “those of us who want jobs are going to try to defeat this bill” and went on to declare cap-and-trade a greater danger than terrorism:
“I see this as the largest assault on democracy and freedom in this country as I’ve ever experienced. I’ve lived through some tough times in Congress. I’ve seen two wars, terrorist attacks. I fear this more than all of the above.”
Like it or not, economics will be the issue for members of Congress. Their re-election campaigns are built on numbers – how many jobs they created, how much federal bacon they brought home – and their campaigns are always on.