Our collective responsibility: A student’s take on Stanford’s new School for Climate and Sustainability

By Kim Tran

On May 21, 2020, the president of Stanford University, Marc Tessier-Lavigne,  announced that Stanford will be organizing and establishing a new School for Climate and Sustainability.  This new school will be oriented to cross-disciplinary research, education, and social impact.  As co-chairs, Kathryn Moler (Stanford’s Vice Provost and Dean of Research) and Stephan Graham (dean of the School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences) are coordinating the multi-year process of structuring the school.  According to Graham, the mission of the school is to “[understand] environmental change…and [translate] that knowledge into action toward our goal of a sustainable, healthy planet and healthy people.”  The rationale for this endeavor is the need to optimize Stanford's "collective potential” to address the urgent and deeply complex problems of global warming and environmental degradation.  The new school will provide opportunities for collaboration with the university’s existing seven specialized schools, which includes the School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences. 

What’s particularly impressive about this announcement is how the entire university is dedicating significant resources towards planning and designing the school, although the ideas will not come to fruition for a few years.  President Tessier-Lavigne and faculty have organized a Long-Range Vision design team and committee task force, both comprised of faculty across all of Stanford’s schools, policy institutes, and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Professor Lynn Hildemann of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Professor Scott Fendorf of Earth System Science are leading the Long-Range Vision design team, which works to identify the university’s priorities and steps for how to achieve those priorities over the next decade.  Leading the committee task force are professors Arum Majumdar of Mechanical Engineering and Noah Diffenbaugh of Earth System Science, who will both focus on structuring the new School of Climate and Sustainability’s educational and research opportunities.  

In the research sphere, Stanford is emphasizing both interdisciplinary inquiry and action. This new school will encompass not just familiar subject areas such as “energy” and “climate science,” but will also focus on other academic areas such as: global health, human behavior, and environmental law. 

This approach affirms that global warming and climatic change are not just “science” problems. Global health and our climate intersect because fossil fuel emissions and co-pollutants are already posing health risks to hundreds of thousands of citizens.  Here in New Jersey, for example, the Covanta Incinerator in Newark “combusts 2,800 tons…of municipal garbage” from Essex County per day, releasing fumes and particulate matter into the air. These dangerous toxins in the air are breathed by children and residents in nearby neighborhoods, such as the Ironbound neighborhood.  As my fellow teammates and peers from New Jersey Student Climate Advocates and the Princeton University Student Climate Initiative have been learning over the past year, many persons of color--living in lower-income EJ (environmental justice) neighborhoods--are suffering disproportionately as a result.  

Human behavior affects natural ecosystems in complex ways.  When our decisions--however unintentional--lead to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, trapped heat from the sun causes atmospheric temperatures to rise.  When  pollutants and fumes are created from improper or excess waste disposal, humans harm their neighbors. Environmental law also plays a major role in sustainability;  enforcing ordinances and regulations through climate action plans and legislation can increase accountability for states and communities and avoid releasing toxins into our living environments. 

In the education sphere, Stanford’s long-range plans integrate sustainability thinking and sensibility into day-to-day living.  The new school at Stanford will enable students to observe how elements of sustainable development can be infused into all aspects of learning.  For instance, a “sustainability neighborhood” will be created.  The choice to call this active learning space a “neighborhood” indicates that the university sees it as a place for students to live, interact, and share with others.  From my perspective, “neighborhood” also carries positive connotations of “home,” reminding us that we all share a responsibility to be stewards of our natural environment and the earth, our "common home.”  

And, much like any lively neighborhood, the people living in it are likely to be diverse in skills, talents, and interests.  Stanford’s sustainability neighborhood could bring together future engineers, scientists, and builders working in "living labs" with future government and nonprofit leaders on accelerator projects that test and "scale" new ideas.  By the time they graduate, Stanford’s students will have participated in a range of opportunities to collaborate on solutions for sustainability, thus addressing what President Tessier-Lavigne and faculty describe as the “defining problems of our era.”   

This type of interconnectedness--supported by the university as a whole and fostering a place where students can congregate and share ideas for a common purpose--is what I find most inspirational about Stanford’s new school.  As students, throughout many different experiences, we are taught how to work in teams, how to give back to our community, and how to care for others.  Now, undergraduates and postgraduates at Stanford will be challenged to put these life skills and competencies to the test, as they cross disciplines and apply their minds and strengths to ensuring the health of future generations.  

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Follow news updates from President Tessier-Lavigne and university faculty regarding Stanford’s progress on their new school for climate and sustainability, as well as other “Long-Range Vision” initiatives, here.  

Visit the Sustainable Stanford website here and learn how Stanford treats its campus as a “living lab.”

Read Princeton University Office of Sustainability's 2019 Sustainability Action Plan here. 

Explore the Princeton Environmental Institute, where students I know are completing remote research internships with faculty on food and sustainability, climate change and infectious disease, and many other research areas.

 Explore the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, focused on researching and developing renewable energy and other technologies. 

Kim Tran is a rising sophomore at Princeton University (Class of '23), originally from St. Louis, MO. Kim plans to major in Molecular Biology and is also passionate about environmental justice and fostering energy efficiency in all types of communities. Kim is a team leader for New Jersey Student Climate Advocates and Princeton Student Climate Initiative.