John E. Andrus Professor of Government Mary Alice Haddad, a Bailey COE faculty member, recently published her latest book: Environmental Politics in East Asia. In it, she focuses her research on environmental politics in East Asia, with comparisons between China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, looking at the importance of prof-business solutions in creating environmental change in these countries and the common factors of success. Haddad also has a deep interest in the power of local governments and their ability to create tangible progress. I was able to sit down with Professor Haddad to talk about her book and her work.
The Bailey College of the Environment was delighted to welcome Brian Lander, assistant professor of history and environment & society, Brown University, for “The Political Ecology of China’s First Empire,” on February 29, 2024. Lander is the author of The King’s Harvest: A Political Ecology of China from the First Farmers to the First Empire. As an environmental historian who studies China, Lander focuses on how human societies came to dominate a number of regions, a process beginning with the domestication of plants and animals and continuing with the growth of states and empires. Lander’s current research follows the ecological history of the Qin Dynasty.
Hi, lovely coexist blog readers! My name is Lia Franklin and I have been an intern for the Bailey COE for the past two years. I have been so lucky to work with the wonderful Laurie Kenney to write some great blog posts, create content, and help with events. I have been so grateful for the opportunity to get to know the Bailey COE community more; from students to professors to outside speakers. So, now it’s time for you all to get to know me a little better!
I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, but have always had a love for the outdoors. This dual love, which many think is somewhat contradictory, has driven my interest in climate change and environmental issues.
Here at Wesleyan, I am a second semester senior and a government and environmental studies major. I am currently writing a thesis about environmental constitutionalism using New York State as a case study. Through this project, I have been able to combine my two passions: political science and climate work. After graduation, I hope to continue pursuing this combination and am interested in one day working in environmental public policy. I’m specifically interested in urban policy and the intersection between environmental justice movements, public policy, and environmental law in urban areas.
On Tuesday, October 10, Professor Patrick Trent Greiner presented a talk about redlining and CO2 emissions in cities in the United States. The talk was cosponsored by the Bailey College of the Environment, Government Department, Allbritton Center, and African American Studies Department. Professor Greiner is an assistant professor of sociology and public policy studies at Vanderbilt University who specializes in the intersection of structural inequality, development processes, and environmental change. His talk, “The Racialization of Space and the Spatial Differentiation of Emissions,” was an incredible opportunity for students and faculty alike to listen and learn together.
Professor Greiner began by explaining that CO2 emissions must be decoupled from growth and human well-being. Since the preindustrial era, more than 2.4 trillion tons of CO2 has been released and this has been done so inequitably. He reported that the effects of CO2 emissions have been felt disproportionately both across and within nations.
Greiner then went on to explain redlining and its lasting effects. In the 1930s the Home Owners Loan Corporation, a government sponsored corporation that was created as part of the New Deal to help citizens become homeowners, created maps of neighborhoods. These maps delineated which neighborhoods were safe investments and would get loans, noted as green areas, versus risky neighborhoods, which were color coded red. These decisions were highly racialized and the majority of minority neighborhoods were largely classified as red and, hence, those who lived in these areas were unable to get home loans. Professor Greiner pointed out that this system had many impacts that can still be seen today.
The main goal in Professor Greiner’s study was to explore the relationship between CO2 emissions in a place and life expectancy. Racial projects, such as the construction of public housing, interstate highways, or redlined neighborhoods, played a major role in this relationship. In fact, using CO2 data from 2010 and 2015, along with redlining maps from the 1930s, Professor Greiner found a clear tie between environmental hazards and racial bias.
In the talk he differentiated between embodied emissions and production emissions. The former refers to emissions created by residents while the latter refers to emissions from companies. He found that there is little correlation between redlined districts and higher embodied emissions but a clear correlation with production emissions. He concluded that redlined areas had lower life expectancies and drew connections between the effects of particulate matter in the air due to emissions and health problems in citizens.
Every year, the Bailey COE awards fellowships to fund summer research opportunities for Wesleyan students across all majors and class years. Most recently, the COE awarded 35 summer fellowships and 1 fall fellowship to Wes students. Olivia Andrews ’24 is an art history major with a minor in film. Olivia’s summer fellowship project mainly centered around her great-grandfather, Tony Andrews, a black farmer who emigrated from Cape Verde by boat in 1926 and founded the family’s farm in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Each year the Bailey College of the Environment provides faculty-student research grants to provide faculty and their students an opportunity to conduct research that would not have been otherwise possible. Research in the O’Neil lab is focused on understanding the structure-function relationship of proteins involved in neurodegenerative diseases, specifically ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; commonly called Lou Gehrig’s disease) and Alzheimer’s Disease. Thanks to a COE faculty-student research grant and a COE summer fellowship, Alison O’Neil, assistant professor of chemistry, Gloster Aaron, professor of biology, and Aaron Berson ‘24, an NS&B (neuroscience and behavior) and IDEAS (Integrated Design, Engineering, Arts & Society) major with a minor in chemistry, were able to collaborate on Professor O’Neil’s investigation of cis-chlordane as an environmental trigger of ALS.
Liana Biasucci ‘21 was an economics and environmental studies double major at Wes whose senior capstone essay was entitled, How to Build Back Better: Greening the Recovery from COVID-19, about using government stimulus packages to advance climate mitigation in the US and combining economic goals with environmental ones (before the Inflation Reduction Act came out). Today, she is a manager at Green Strategies, a sustainability consulting firm.
