Blog Post
I am most pleased to welcome new members of the BCSIA community: an outstanding group of pre- and post-doctoral fellows, Professor Sheila Jasanoff, and Executive Director John Reppert. What follows are a few highlights from our year so far.
It is particularly fortuitous that General Reppert joined us this Fall, as we have wrestled with the question: "Whither Russia?" Despite the current crisis, no nation on the globe (other than the U.S.) will matter more to the lives and liberties of Americans in the decade ahead. From efforts to contain loose nukes, to assessments of risks and opportunities for foreign investors, or help in laying the foundation for middle-class mortgages in Moscow, members of the Center are actively engaged.
Researchers in the Environment and Natural Resources Program are approaching the climate change challenge from many directions. Most recently, Ted Parson made headlines with his article co-authored with David Keith, "Fossil Fuels without CO2 Emissions," in the journal Science in which he explored the policy implications of managing some carbon dioxide output by pumping it into the ocean or underground. A novel approach, but one that may be an important piece in an all-azimuth attack on global warming.
In this edition of the newsletter you''ll also get a taste of our exciting new Human Rights Initiative (HRI). Under the direction of Samantha Power - who covered the wars in the former Yugoslavia as a reporter for the US News and World Report and the Economist from 1993-1996 and was a political analyst for the International Crisis Group - the Initiative has gotten off to a great start. In addition to a major event celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights (p. 10), HRI has sponsored a forum event on Rwanda and a film series designed to bring together the larger Harvard human rights community.
We look forward with great expectations to the next few months: as a cluster of new studies on mega-terrorism help clarify this emerging threat, as the climate change debate continues after the Buenos Aires talks, as our new group of fellows make progress in their research, and as the Russian rollercoaster rushes ahead.
-Graham Allison