ClassACT Symposium: From the Charles River to Half-Earth: 50 Years to 50 Percent

From the Charles River to Half-Earth: 50 Years to 50 Percent

When: Thursday, June 1, 10:30-11:45 am (Science Center)

Convenor: John Kress

Participants: Jesse Ausubel, John Adams, Kimball Chen, Lindsay Clarkson, Robert Dreher, Henrietta Wigglesworth Lodge, Michael Mayer, Anne MacKinnon, Roger Myerson, Sharon Tisher

As undergrads we associated the Charles River and Boston Harbor with tetanus and sewage. Jesse Ausubel will report on surprisingly diverse and abundant aquatic life discovered in a slurp of water with modern genomics near the Boat House and USS Constitution and look back nostalgically on the fear of falling off a shell, raft or dinghy.

John Kress will then lead a conversation among classmates engaged in the ClassACT HR73 Environment AND CLIMATE CHANGE Working group. The late Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson, in his 2016 book Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life, proposed the designation of half of Earth’s surface, both terrestrial and marine, as a natural reserve to safeguard the remaining biodiversity of the planet. With participants’ backgrounds in environment, law, government, medicine, business, and academics, discussion will focus on action that can be taken through ratification of international biodiversity treaties and local to global land trusts as vehicles for species and ecosystem protection.