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by Kaitlin Harbeck, on behalf of the ICESat-2 Project & Science Team
The Food-Energy-Water (FEW) Nexus has become a popular framework for analyzing the multi-scalar and sectoral dimensions of environmental change. Yet, to date, natural science and practitioner approaches have dominated the FEW literature. This seminar will develop a political ecology critique of the FEW Nexus to examine how environmental change is altering patterns of resource access, control and environmental governance throughout the world. The specific focus of the seminar will be on the FEW implications of energy transitions, perhaps one of the most transformative drivers of environmental change, and how a political ecology critique of the FEW nexus might lead to more just and equitable energy and environmental futures. The course will be divided into three parts:
Course expectations include intensive reading, in class discussions and the completion of a research paper of individual interest.
The seminar will also include a few joint meetings with Geography 530 Section 2, FEWS Seminar on Integrating Water, Food Systems, Agriculture and Conservation (Zimmerer).
Learning how to deal with the weather is one of oldest challenges facing humanity, and extreme events can impact almost every aspect of human life. Remote sensing and models have changed the game about how we forecast, monitor and respond to weather related disasters. But equally, one must go beyond meteorological knowledge; effectively responding to the weather requires both knowledge of both the meteorological conditions and the context of the communities it affects. Pulling together hazard, vulnerability, risk, impact and action is a challenging, interdisciplinary process.
In this seminar, we will be exploring how Weather/Climate Risk Management is informed by remote sensing, geographical, meteorological and sociological research. Discussions will include topics such as vulnerability assessment; remote sensing techniques; post-event analysis; weather justice; or exploring the research underpinning tools such as Forecast Based Finance. weather insurance, or public health.
The seminar will include a variety of invited conversations with experts across the weather risk management field (including disaster/humanitarian response, global reinsurers, forecasters and researchers). We will then merge these with an assessment of current literature and case studies to tie everything together. The seminar will end with an opportunity to explore an extreme weather event of interest to you.
Milan Liu was selected to represent the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences as the student marshal for Penn State's summer commencement, which will be held virtually at 2 p.m. Aug. 15.
Liu is graduating summa cum laude with a 4.0 grade-point average with a double major in geography and international politics, a minor in Chinese and a certificate in geographic information science. Her faculty marshal is Roger Downs, professor of geography.
A parent in Philadelphia needs information to help her daughter with a class project on wet weather pollution control in the school yard rain garden.
Elsewhere in the U.S., a furloughed government worker seeks professional development during a shutdown. In Brazil, a woman is interested in learning more about the changing climate, and in Zimbabwe, a GIS technician wants a reliable source of professional information.
Marie Louis Ryan, doctoral candidate in Penn State's Department of Geography, received the Graduate Student International Research Award from the Graduate School for her research exploring human and agricultural interactions in Nepal.
Specifically, Ryan examines how the labor force outmigration of working age men in Nepal’s midhills impacts labor, land use, and the agricultural biodiversity of rice and finger millet — two key crops in the region.
Lorraine Dowler, Penn State professor of geography and women's, gender and sexuality studies, is the 2020 recipient of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) Feminist Geographies specialty group’s Jan Monk Service Award.
This award is named in honor of Jan Monk, a past president of AAG, and “recognizes a geographer who has made an outstanding service contribution to women in geography and/or feminist geography."
