Field Notes

- - Dec 17, 2019 Global Study Series, Part 3: The Old System Must Die! (Or Not): Drawing on the Past to Ensure a Future
    The idea that a new political philosophy, a new governing regime, or even just a new leader need undermine and delegitimize its predecessor is not a particularly new one. Walking through ancient Egyptian ruins, we can witness everywhere vandalism from thousands of years ago intended to erase the past.
- - Dec 10, 2019 Global Study Series, Part 2: Climate Makes and Breaks Civilizations: Lessons Learned on the Nile
    XMNR faculty Dr. Bruce Hull reflects on the civilization-defining impacts of climate change, as he travels through Egypt on a Global Study trip with a group of Virginia Tech’s graduate students.
- - Dec 10, 2019 Global Study Series, Part 1: Egyptian Environmental Security: Old Wine in a New Bottle
    CLiGS faculty Bruce Hull and Michael Mortimer have recently spent three weeks in Egypt exploring Cairo and traveling upstream along the Nile River to the Aswan High Dam. Sharing experiences and reflections on the past and future of a country astride some of the most pressing environmental challenges of the 21st Century. This series of posts distills some of their thoughts on those challenges.
- - Nov 11, 2019 Sustainable Cities Series, Omaha, Nebraska, Part 2: Climate Change
    Cities take up less than three percent of land surface, but they are responsible for producing between sixty to eighty percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Online MNR student Ned Bagniewski examines the effects of climate change on the city of Omaha, Nebraska.
- - Nov 04, 2019 Sustainable Cities Series, Omaha, Nebraska, Part 1: Urban Sprawl and Social Mobility
    Online MNR student Ned Bagniewski explores how urban sprawl and mobility affect quality of life for city residents in Omaha, Nebraska.
- - Sep 25, 2019 XMNR Alumni Connect at the National Geographic Society
    Two Virginia Tech Executive Master of Natural Resources (XMNR) alumni, Arslan Ahmad and Mike Beckner, met for the first time in the elevator of their shared workplace, the National Geographic Society (NGS). Both men were wearing jackets with the Center for Leadership in Global Sustainability (CLiGS) logo, which was enough to spark a conversation. “We talked about the program,” Mike recalls, “and I remember thinking it was nice to see someone else from my area of study at Virginia Tech.”
- - Sep 19, 2019 Environmental Security is a Matter of Equity
    South African director Neill Blomkamp’s science fiction social commentary film Elysium sees wealthy elites in the near future removing themselves from planetary resource scarcity... literally. By abandoning a wrecked Earth for a utopian existence in an orbital space habitat, these elites effectively shield themselves from the shortages of water, energy, healthcare, housing, and other human necessities on the Earth below.
- - Sep 11, 2019 Global Study Series, India, Part 2: Sustaining, developing, or just surviving?
    During my final semester in Virginia Tech’s Online MNR program, I joined a group of students and faculty from the Center for Leadership in Global Sustainability on the Spring 2019 Global Study. Our transformative, eye-opening journey to the eastern Indian state of West Bengal began in Kolkata.The effects of planetary environmental crises are already being felt in India. Heat waves, such as the one currently impacting India, have only been increasing in frequency and intensity, leading to summer high temperatures that are growing unbearable.
- - Aug 13, 2019 Global Study Series, India, Part 1: Preserving East Kolkata Wetlands
    As a student in the Online Master of Natural Resources program at the Virginia Tech Center for Leadership in Global Sustainability, Kasey Fioramonti has had a chance to witness the enormous environmental challenges affecting one of the most populous countries in the world—India. Kasey’s International Field Experience (IFE) to India in February 2019 offered her a rare opportunity to see how to recognize a community’s sustainability issues early on and address them at the grassroots level; how individuals and families are affected by pollution; and how difficult combating these issues through policy can be.
- - Aug 12, 2019 Sustainability Professionals and the World Around Them
    In 2014, through its core course Global Issues in Environmental Sustainability, CLiGS began providing international experiences for all of its students. Starting with its first program in China, CLiGS now offers study opportunities in China, Morocco, India, South Africa, Croatia, and Cuba. In 2020, Argentina, Iceland, and Spain will be joining the roster. Because CLiGS’s students are so often working professionals, our study experiences are designed to accommodate their schedules—they run from 10 to 12 days, and tie directly to the semester-long course content.

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