UMass Boston Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco’s March article in Research Magazine is a call for new ways of navigating the climate crisis and protecting people and ecosystems. His is an urgent call for MAST—Mitigation, Adaptation, and Social Transformation.
“We need to complement mitigation with adaptation to cope with the additional heating of the planet in the coming decades. And we need to complement mitigation and adaptation with societal transformation to survive, thrive, and evolve into a sustainable way of living. An evolution to a sustainable way of living is essential to build and protect a habitable planet for our progenies and future generations.”
How is UMass making strategic impact under Dr. Suárez-Orozco’s leadership? Here is an excerpt from his report:
“Our strategic plan, For the Times, sets out four Grand Scholarly Challenges – issues of great consequence and relevance to individuals, families, and communities – that embody the values that underpin UMass Boston’s scholarly excellence. One of them is Climate Equity and Urban Coastal Areas.
A theme that drives our climate research is cultivating an ethic of environmental care: research that examines what it means for people and communities to experience the impacts of extreme climate fluctuations and informs real-time solutions that are both nature-based and technology-smart to bolster resilience.
UMass Boston has emerged as a key partner in city and statewide efforts focused on climate resilience planning. Our collaboration with Climate Ready Boston – and now, Boston’s Office of Climate Resilience – has helped produce one of the nation’s most robust city-led climate programs in our country.
At a seminar on warming oceans last spring, UMass Boston faculty researchers explained the university’s keen interest in contributing research and best practices to the development of resilience strategies for Boston and the Commonwealth – integrating climate adaptation into municipal planning and helping shape “resilience marketplaces” of innovative businesses, products, and services.
For example, faculty research at our School for the Environment has generated tools and insights that advance carbon cycling in coastal wetlands, renewable energy technologies, remote sensing of climate impacts on ocean ecosystems, and other climate adaptation and mitigation areas.”
Read the full article.
The City of Boston recognized Chancellor Suárez-Orozco contribution to Climate Leadership with its inaugural Resilient Climate Leadership Award in April.
