Faculty join group to research and fight climate change

James Clarke, CE, and Douglas Fisher, EECS, are members of a diverse group of experts at Vanderbilt University who have created the Climate Change Research Network.

The network combines researchers from areas of earth and environmental sciences, political science, law, engineering, business, management, economics and nursing to investigate one of the most important and most widely overlooked sources of greenhouse gases: individual behavior.

“The Climate Change Research Network is an interdisciplinary team conducting research to understand the magnitude of the contribution from individuals and households,” said Vanderbilt professor of environmental law Michael Vandenbergh. “Our goal is to identify the legal, economic and social responses that can generate effective, low-cost emissions reductions by those individuals and their families in their everyday lives.”

Vandenbergh said the Climate Change Research network is also in the early stages of establishing a national and international network of researchers to help answer the kinds of questions policymakers have, as well as the questions people have, about what they can do in their normal, day-to-day lives to shrink their carbon footprint.

For more information on the Network, a list of Vanderbilt faculty involved, and their research click on http://law.vanderbilt.edu/academics/academic-programs/environmental-law/climate-change-network/index.aspx.