What academic light can two Boston College professors shed on the nation’s largest environmental disaster?
What lessons for oil extraction, transport, crisis prevention, and response can be drawn from this present calamity?
Meanwhile, can a 2010 TED Fellow on the frontline in the Gulf contribute to the design of autonomous robots that collect oil?
Join Boston College Professors Noah Snyder of the Geology and Geophysics department and Zygmunt Plater of the Law School for an interactive briefing on the situation in the Gulf. Professor Snyder is the director of BC’s interdisciplinary Environmental Studies program. Professor Plater served on the State of Alaska Oil Spill Commission during the Exxon Valdez crisis; he has been involved with Alaskan efforts to assist Gulf communities in the aftermath of the BP Gulf blowout and attempts to draw systemic lessons for the future from the Exxon Valdez and the BP blowout. We also will be joined via Skype by Cesar Harada, a former MIT researcher in New Orleans. Ask critical questions about environmental science and law, as well as some of Harada’s other ambitions, from creating the International Ocean Station as an open-source architecture project to crowdsourcing environmental data on the web.
Report
We kicked off the TEDx experience with a fascinating discussion on the BP Crisis. Participants found the adventure “extremely influential and compelling . . . [we] left the briefing feeling more informed and educated on the oil spill then ever before” and reported being inspired by the “excellent, thought-provoking discussion.”