Environment and Natural Resources

For journalism, the 21st century is an era where public trust drops yearly, and reporters face competition to reach a growing Internet audience. Adding these challenges to a beat as controversial and global as climate and energy policy creates a job that seems near impossible.

The New York Times’ Energy and Environment Correspondent Coral Davenport confronts these challenges head-on by covering environmental policy in a way that goes beyond the conventional boundaries of Washington-based reporting to the larger, all-encompassing impact of climate change issues on a human and dollars-and-sense scale.

CAMBRIDGE, MA – The dramatic surge in U.S. shale oil production could more than triple the current American output of shale oil to five million barrels a day by 2017, which would likely make the United States the No. 1 oil producer in the world, according to a new study by a researcher at Harvard Kennedy School.

Leonardo Maugeri, a former oil industry executive from Italy who is a fellow at the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, studied the performance of 4,000 American shale oil wells and the work of about 100 companies involved in shale oil production.

In a paper titled “The Shale Oil Boom: A U.S. Phenomenon,” Maugeri wrote that the unique characteristics of shale oil production are ideal for the United States -- and unlikely to be mirrored elsewhere in the world. These factors include the availability of drilling rigs, and the entrepreneurial nature of the American exploration and production  industry,  both critical for the thousands of wells required for shale oil exploitation.

Harvard Project on Climate Agreements Director Robert N. Stavins delivered a presentation titled "Climate Change: Efficiency and Equity," at The Graduate Institute in Geneva, Switzerland, on November 29, 2011. The talk was one in the Geneva Environmental Dialogue Series of public keynote lectures that the Institute holds annually on a theme related to the international environment. The theme for the 2011–2012 term is "Justice and the Environment."

This seven-minute video captures the essence of the Acting in Time on Energy Policy conference and highlights recommendations given by participants during each of the six panels.