Climate engineering: GRI Associate Director explores the uncertain geopolitical risks and ramifications

Though climate engineering--the concept of human intervention in the earth's weather patterns--may be viewed by some as a way to combat the changing climate, the approach could have many serious ramifications, Global Resilience Institute Associate Director Jennie Stephens points out in a recent interview. “There is a potential for a huge power differential with regard to who’s making decisions for who,” Stephens told News@Northeastern, adding that it's “almost inevitable” that optimizing the climate in one region of the world will have unforeseen consequences in another. She notes, “It’s easy to imagine that the United States might want to seek outcomes that maintain favorable precipitation patterns for Midwest farmers, but in doing so, it might actually exacerbate conditions in the Sahel.”
Boston Skyline

City of Boston holds second annual "Boston Talks About Racism" event

In 2016, the office of Mayor Marty Walsh launched a program called “Boston Talks About Racism," as a dialogue on race between residents, the Mayor, and officials from several city offices. The second annual public meeting was held on Saturday, at the end of a year that has been rife with difficulty. Over the summer multiple instances of racial slurs being used in the stands of Fenway Park were widely publicized. Boston College students staged a walkout in October, after Black Lives Matter posters were found defaced in a dorm. Just last week, the Boston Globe Spotlight team published a seven-part series on being a person of color in Boston – detailing how minority communities are still excluded from many opportunities, with pieces touching on history, healthcare, power, sports, and college campuses.

CDFI fund forges hope for upward mobility in Mississippi Delta

The long-lasting poverty that afflicted the rural South after the Civil War, though alleviated in many areas, still stands in the Mississippi Delta. In 2018, the state reported a whopping 19.8% of the population lives under the poverty line, topping all other U.S. states. Despite this, some counties have experienced a decline in poverty over the last 20 years. Almost half of the Delta’s poorest counties experienced similar reductions. Many believe this is due in part to the 1994 creation of the Community Development Financial Institution Fund, a federal tax incentive in the New Market Tax Credit Program. This aids Community Development Entities (CDEs), which are private financial institutions that deliver affordable lending to low income households. In May 2019, 73 CDEs were awarded CDFI funds, and many hope that these institutions will help Delta communities strengthen their financial resilience.