Environment and Natural Resources

The Arctic Initiative will host a seminar with Joel Clement, former Director of the U.S. Department of the Interior's Policy Office, discussing risk and resilience of Arctic communities in the face of climate change.

Lunch will be provided.

Speaker: Reid Pauly, Research Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom

Is there a normative prohibition on the use of nuclear weapons? Recent scholarship has cast doubt on the existence of a norm of nuclear non-use among the American people. But the public does not make decisions about using nuclear weapons. In this presentation, Pauly investigates the willingness of American policymakers to use nuclear weapons through the history of political-military wargaming. He tests competing theories about the use and non-use of nuclear weapons by examining both whether strategic elites were willing to use nuclear weapons in different scenarios and how they explained those decisions.

Through science, cartoons, and satire, the award-winning climate scientist Michael E. Mann and Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist Tom Toles will take a provocative look at the impact of polarizing climate wars in the Trump era and years past. Their novel collaborative book, "The Madhouse Effect,” provides a powerful counterpunch to climate change denialism in the face of overwhelming scientific consensus.

Speaker: Frank O'Donnell, Stanton Nuclear Security Junior Faculty Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom

A public address by His Excellency Guðni Thorlacius Jóhannesson, President of Iceland. Moderated by John Holdren, President Obama's Science Advisor and Director of the White Office of Science and Technology Policy (January 2009 – January 2017); Co-Director, Belfer Center's Science, Technology and Public Policy Program.

Speaker: Robert Swartz, National Nuclear Security Administration

This talk will be a discussion of the S. Asia facing engagement programs sponsored by NNSA with the goal of building nuclear stability and reducing the nuclear danger in South Asia.

Speaker: Ambassador Linton Brooks

Russian violation of the INF Treaty means that it will be politically impossible to replace New START when it expires and even an extension may be difficult.  As a result, by 2026 at the latest and perhaps as soon as 2021, there will be—for the first time in half a century—no formal agreement regulating nuclear relations between Russia and the United States.  This presentation will discuss the resulting consequences for strategic stability and how they might be mitigated.  It will conclude that serious examination, both internally and bilaterally, should begin soon.  

NSC Sr. Director Andrea Hall will discuss current trends and challenges across the WMD community and their ability to impact our national security policy.  She will also highlight what the new Administration is doing to combat these issues and how others from academia and NGOs can help these efforts. 

Speaker: Matt Buehler, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Middle East Initiative

Speaker: Chris Lawrence, Visiting Research Fellow with the Program on Science, Technology and Society, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government