ENVS assistant professor, Matthew Burgess, and ENVS alum Renae Marshall (current PhD student at the Bren School at UCSB) recently released an op-ed on bipartisan climate progress that discusses an "emerging bipartisan climate playbook wherein both parties tame their political vices."

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CIRES is hosting the Bipartisan Climate Solutions panel, moderated by Professor Matt Burgess and ENVS alum Renae Marshall. The panel will feature Rep. Joe Neguse and Rep. John Curtis. The panel will discuss where consensus lies on climate change policy. 

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“Migwetch,” the Potawatomi word for thank you, was uttered confidently and humbly by as he closed the inaugural Patricia Sheffels Visiting Scholar Keynote Speaker talk ‘Against Crisis Science: Research Futures for Climate and Energy Justice.’  This word not only queued the crowd of over 100 people to applaud, but is a distillation of the insightful themes considered. Professor Whyte, an enrolled member of the and Professor at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability, discussed the crisis of climate change from his perspective as an indigenous person, “for me, the climate change crisis is better understood as a kinship crisis.” Professor Whyte reframed the climate crisis as a crisis of relationships, urging the audience to reconsider the roots of climate change.

A new addition to the Department of Environmental Studies (ENVS), the Patricia Sheffels Visiting Scholar Keynote Speaker series was made possible through the generosity of Patricia Sheffels and her family. A graduate of the Geography Department at University of Colorado Boulder (class of ’58), Patricia started the speaker series motivated by love of her family and the environment. The Patricia Sheffels Speaker series will bring top interdisciplinary environmental scholars to ENVS to discuss the world’s most pressing environmental challenges and how we may solve them. Professor Whyte’s expertise and personal perspective made him the perfect scholar to give the inaugural speech.

Mrs. Sheffels, who attended the lecture with her family, explained, “We all know that there is not one answer to solving climate change. I hoped for a visiting scholar who would not only show us some of the problems and solutions, but also to inspire the CU community to search for the answers. Kyle Whyte was available to students, the lecture attendees, and the community and he did an admirable job.  I couldn’t have been more pleased with the inaugural event and the speaker.”

The daughter of a former dean in the California university system, who became a teacher as her first career, Pat has a lifelong relationship with education. Her love of the environment also started at a young age, hiking and skiing as much as possible throughout her time at CU Boulder. After graduating from CU, Pat moved to Montana with her husband where they ranched and raised a family.

Pat moved to Seattle once her children were grown and put her CU Geography degree to work as a Bellevue City Planner. Now retired, she has made donating her time, expertise, and resources an integral part of her life, working with many organizations and causes near to her heart, including the working with the hearing impaired, her church and helping disadvantaged people in developing countries. The Department of Environmental Studies is grateful for her support, and is excited for the next Visiting Scholar Keynote in 2023!

If you want to learn more about how you can support students and programs in ENVS now and in the future, contact the Department of Environmental Studies Chair, Max Boykoff, or donate now.

(Pictured from left to right: Professor Kyle Powys Whyte, Patricia Sheffels, and Chair Max Boykoff)

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Dane Dostert (ENVS 08) Now the sustainability coordinator and head bartender for Maui Tropical Plantation, a unique business that is a mélange of restaurant and bar, coffee roaster, retail and sustainable agriculture on the western lobe of one of Hawaii’s most beloved islands. He created the plantation’s craft-cocktail program and still works two nights a week behind the bar. The rest of the time, he’s building sustainability programs and working in the field.

“I’m really thankful to CU, which game me this sort of cross-pollination and promotion of interdisciplinary skills,” he says. “I’m able to engage in these seemingly disconnected pursuits in one place. That’s kind of cool.”

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Meteorologist Joel Gratz takes weather prediction off the beaten path. Gratz, founder of the skier-beloved forecast company and alumnus of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research (CSTPR) at the University of Colorado Boulder, recently created a new app for iPhones that provides forecasts for hikers of Colorado’s highest peaks. Gratz graduated from CU Boulder in three years with both an M.S. in Environmental Studies and an MBA. His new app, , delivers hourly temperature, wind, precipitation and lightning forecasts for every mountain in Colorado over 14,000 feet. The app is also synced with Instagram, so users can see for themselves the recent conditions at each summit. OpenSummit launched in September 2016, so summer 2017 will be its first ever 14er season.

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