In his new book, Rivers of Power, geographer Laurence C. Smith explores a sweeping natural history of the world's rivers and their ancient, complex relationship with human civilization.

Join us for a virtual book launch of Rivers of Power, to take place on YouTube on April 21, 2020 at 12:00pm (EDT).

Assistant Provost for Sustainability, and Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology & Environment and Society Stephen Porder has been named Fulbright-Tocqueville Distinguished Chair for the Fall 2020 semester.

Meredith K. Hastings, Associate Professor of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences & Environment and Society, has agreed to serve as deputy director of IBES, effective July 1, 2020.

Dov F. Sax, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology & Environment and Society, has agreed to serve as interim director of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society (IBES), effective July 1, 2020.

Curt Spalding, the former EPA regional director who’s now at Brown, researches how communities can respond to climate change.

IBES Director Amanda Lynch has always wanted to take students to the Arctic. And last month, she finally got the opportunity.

For nearly 30 years, America’s four biggest rail companies—which move the majority of the country’s coal—have spent millions to deny climate science and block climate policy.

The Institute at Brown for Environment and Society is pleased to announce the release of its latest edition of Earth Matters.

Senior IBES concentrator Mara Dolan has authored a piece about the intersection of feminism and climate justice in this month's Teen Vogue.

Attorney Kate Adams '86 has an impressive resume. Among other roles, she has been law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, trial attorney for the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, partner at Sidley Austin LLP in New York, and senior vice president and general counsel of Honeywell, Inc.

The study shows that emissions can feasibly be reduced by as much as 80% over the next one to two decades.

Associate Professor of Epidemiology Gregory Wellenius has been appointed a core fellow at the Institute.

Populations and their surrounding environments are often inextricably intertwined. But what happens under colonial rule, when powerful empires try to override this complex relationship?

In the United States, waterfront locales have long been seen as desirable places to live. And, thanks to years of investments in adaptation to coastal storms, they have remained relatively safe as well.

Climate scientist and geochemist Daniel Enrique Ibarra knows just how vital water is to both natural and social ecosystems.

Five thousand years ago, China was a very different place: a landscape of forests, grasslands and wetlands that were home to a diverse body of wildlife. It is now home to so many people that it is difficult to imagine the rhinos, elephants, and alligators that once lived there.

Climate change is widely considered one of the most alarming and urgent concerns of our time, but the United States has been slow to take meaningful action to address it.

Thanks to its outsized effect on high latitudes, climate change is already causing substantial alterations in the Arctic physical environment.

IBES graduate affiliate Ethan Kyzivat has been awarded a Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) fellowship for his work mapping small bodies of water and investigating their impact on methane emissions.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Environment and Society Samiah Moustafa has been recognized this week as a 2019 Fellow of TRELIS, a professional development arm of the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science.

Myles Lennon, a former Brown undergraduate, returns to campus this fall—this time, as an IBES fellow and Dean's Assistant Professor of Environment and Society and Anthropology.

On the wall above Tyler Kartzinel's desk hangs a picture of a giraffe, hand-drawn for him in black and white by former undergraduate mentee Julianna Hsing, now a graduate student at Stanford University. But there is more to the illustration than meets the eye.

Five thousand miles northwest of College Hill, a series of Alaskan lakes have attracted the attention of expert geochemist Yongsong Huang. The sediments found deep in these waters are the oldest in the region, and may contain clues to the planet's—and humanity's—past and future.

Ever wonder how the everyday decisions you make impact the planet, and what your best options are for sustainable living?

Scientists know that sea ice in the Arctic Ocean has been shrinking dramatically over the past few decades; but the behavior of shorefast ice, the ice that forms within Arctic fjords, has been less well-understood.

Effective immediately, IBES Director Amanda Lynch has been appointed to the Scientific Advisory Panel, the peak advising body of the World Meteorological Organization.

Water and life from snow: A trillion dollar science question, a paper published in Water Resources Research by Visiting Scholar in Environment and Society Michael Goldstein, has been recognized as one of the journal's top downloaded papers.

Two IBES-affiliated seniors and one recent alumna have been awarded Fulbright Scholarships for the upcoming year, embodying Brown's tradition of being the top Fulbright-producing university in the country.

Michael Goldstein, Donald P. Babson Professor of Applied Investments at Babson College, is joining IBES as a Visiting Scholar in Environment and Society.

Rising: Dispatches From the New American Shore, by IBES affiliate fellow Elizabeth Rush, is a Pulitzer Prize finalist in General Nonfiction this year.

Last month, a group of 75 business and civic leaders met at Brown University to hear from local scholars about the climate crises facing the city of Providence in the coming years.

IBES Director Amanda Lynch and former visiting fellow Siri Veland discuss their new book Urgency in the Anthropocene on Rice University's podcast, Cultures of Energy.