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Public Programs and Services
Open Forums and Public Programs
As part of its commitment to stimulating widespread public discussion of current environmental issues, the Center inaugurated the Open Forum series in 1999. The forums are dialogues between the public and panels of experts who can convey complex issues understandably to a lay audience, argue competing theories, and engage audience members in debating timely and controversial issues. Previous programs have included "Environment on the World Scale: Why States Do and Don't Comply with Global Environmental Agreements", "Biotechnology: Is It the Wave of the Future?", "Ethics, Justice, Democracy, and the Environment: What Do We Owe Future Generations?", and "Global Environmental Changes and Human Health." A joint program with the Culinary Institute of America focused on global environmental changes and their impact on food sources. Other forums have investigated China's increasing energy consumption and subsequent effect on the environment, the legacy of
Chico Mendes, and the origins of Amnesty International and the evolution of the human rights movement in the United States.
The Center has also cohosted Town Hall Meetings and Activist Training sessions on population and the environment with the National Wildlife Federation and the Izaak Walton League. These meetings examined the impact of population densities on natural resources, and the ways in which local actions can respond to the global objectives set forth in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.
Partnerships and Services
Further efforts to stimulate public awareness of environmental issues led to the Center's partnering with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). BCEP and NYSERDA recently completed a major multiyear grant to provide public outreach and communication services on behalf of the Environmental Monitoring, Evaluation, and Protection (EMEP) program. The thrust of this work led to the development and implementation of strategies that provide policy makers, the public, and the scientific community with scientifically credible and objective information on critical issues relating to pollution from electricity generation. As part of its collaboration with the state agency, the Center planned biennial EMEP conferences on "Linking Science and Policy." The Center also prepared and edited publications explaining results of the latest scientific research as part of EMEP's strategy to further support the goal of science-policy integration.
BCEP faculty and staff were instrumental in creating the EMEP website to ensure that interested parties can easily access findings of the research program.
In 2006, BCEP was awarded a multiyear grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to launch the Learning Across Borders program, an initiative to increase the international exchange of students, faculty, and the best practices in environmental policy education. Faculty collaboration and exchanges will result in a strong model curriculum, evaluated and tested throughout the world as part of the Center's commitment to learning about and sharing the best practices for sustainable development.
The Bard Center for Environmental Policy welcomes such joint ventures with other organizations on programming and meetings in the public interest.
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