The 2018 University Science Strategy Committee report recommended environmental and evolutionary science and climate engineering as ideas for priority investment, highlighting the unprecedented challenge of human-accelerated changes to the environment. Building from this recommendation, Yale’s Planetary Solutions work has steadily endeavored to highlight, promote, and accelerate scholarship and research in support of this focal area from across the University. Since that time, we have established the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture and the Yale Center for Geospatial Solutions; we have provided nearly $3M of Planetary Solutions grants to over 70 faculty across 7 schools; and we have progressed towards our net zero campus carbon goals.
As this Planetary Solutions work has proceeded, the urgency of the environmental crises facing humanity has continued to intensify, and the need for Yale to serve as a model and a source of knowledge has only grown and become more complex. This reality has provoked the university to consider how Planetary Solutions can build on our science priorities, and function as a hub for scholarship, research, and action towards positive impact. We can accelerate action and advance solutions to the greatest challenges of our time when we utilize the university’s capabilities, and its capacity to mobilize and focus our collective resources synergistically. The breadth of Yale’s endeavors provides tremendous potential to capture and convert into action a fantastic array of ideas and solutions, building on decades of effort and investment. However, without intentional and meaningful collaboration across these efforts, we will fail to meet our greatest potential.
We now ask for your service and leadership as a member of a new Planetary Solutions Steering Committee to help set the goals and ambitions for this next critical part of the University’s work that seeks to integrate our research agenda, academic priorities, and commitments to sustainability. This new committee will be co-chaired by Julie Zimmerman, Vice Provost for Planetary Solutions, and J. Mike Bellamy, Vice President for Facilities, Campus Development, and Sustainability. The committee will be tasked with:
- considering how the broad University Science Strategy Committee (USSC) strategic planning framing and Yale’s existing sustainability plans intersect with the multifaceted reality of today’s planetary challenge needs, and Yale’s commitment to developing and implementing integrative solutions to planetary threats we face;
- formulating a vision for the Planetary Solutions work that integrates academics and operations, as well as a series of three to four key overarching themes to guide the next phase of bringing all Yale has to bear on the profound environmental issues of our time; and
- setting priorities for a series of working groups to develop strategic plans for each of the established goals .
