University of Wisconsin–Madison
This essay, by Lily Smogor, is one of three winners of the 2024 Sustainability Writing Awards hosted by the Office of Sustainability. You can read more about Lily here. The twin mesas rise together at the end of the road. They wear a skirt of juniper and yucca, the pinkish-orange rock peeking through only slightly until the …
Archon Fung began this semester’s final installment of the Weston Roundtable Lecture Series with what he called “a whodunit.” “Who killed the truth?” he asked. Fung is the Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Democracy at the Harvard Kennedy School, which works to “improve public policy and leadership so people can live in societies …
Early in March 2022, at the UN Environment Assembly, diplomats from 175 nations voted unanimously to create a legally binding agreement to end plastic pollution. The Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) called it “the most significant environmental multilateral deal since the Paris accord.” Barbara Hendrie was in the room. She is …
In our In Case You Missed It series (also known as ICYMI), student interns from the Office of Sustainability offer reflective reports on sustainability-related events and lectures at UW–Madison. The following entry is by Natalie Brunner. Former U.S. senator from Wisconsin, Russ Feingold, visited campus last month to highlight a partnership that’s been initiated between …
It has become commonplace to categorize climate change as a “wicked problem”. It is “wicked” because, in addition to its profound complexity as an atmospheric phenomenon, preventing climate change from causing catastrophic damage will require unprecedented global cooperation. Sadly, it is also commonplace to feel doubtful that world governments will succeed in this feat of …