Espresso with the Experts

What is the future of climate solutions and how are they legally being shaped, what are the policies passed by Congress in support of curbing climate change and what should we expect to be politically feasible next?  In this episode, we explore the controversial realm of geoengineering, from carbon capture technologies and storage to solar radiation management. Are these cutting-edge innovations our climate's saving grace, or do they pose a risky distraction from green energy? Plus, we unravel the mystery of nations threatened by rising seas. Join us and Professor and lawyer Michael Gerrard for a thought-provoking episode that's not to be missed!

Matthew Connelly, Professor of History and Co-Director of the Institute for Social Science and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP) at Columbia University, just recently published a new book, The Declassification Engine. His work traces the nature of secrecy in the United States, demonstrated by the over-classification of documents. In this first episode of our new podcast series, Espresso with the Experts, Leila and Bea discuss the research which went into his new book, along with his work with the History Lab, a lab at Columbia which uses data science tools, natural language processing, and machine learning tools in order to analyze historical data.

The crisis of party politics is an established fact in today’s democracies. In response to the distrust towards politicians, the use of lotteries to nominate representatives in democratic institutions has been revived. The so-called “lottocrats” claim that these new procedures would improve representativeness and decision making. In this new episode, Nadia Urbinati, Professor of Political Theory and Alessandra Casella, Professor of Economics, discuss when such systems can support, ameliorate or hinder the functioning of our democracies.