MIT on
Climate Change

In an opinion piece appearing in Wired, Prof. Elfatih Eltahir and postdoctoral researcher Yeon-Woo Choi examine the “ongoing water scarcity crisis” in Tehran. “With dry soils and high evaporation, rivers and wetlands shrank. Falling reservoir levels led to disruptions in hydropower generation, and water shortages prompted strict saving measures across parts of the capital,” they write. “These cascading impacts exposed how vulnerable Tehran’s infrastructure, economy, and communities have become under compounding heat and drought stress.” 

New York Times reporter Annabel Keenan highlights the “Remembering the Future” exhibit at the MIT Museum, a sculptural installation created by Janet Echelman that uses “climate data from the last ice age to the present, as well as projected future environments, to create a geometric design.” Echelman worked with MIT faculty, including Prof. Raffaele Ferrari and Prof. Caitlin Mueller, to bring the project to life. Mueller explains that she developed a “high-fidelity digital twin of the sculpture generated through our computational simulation that you can orbit and pan through to get perspectives that you can’t see physically in the space.” 

Prof. Peter Shor speaks with Katia Moskvitch and her nine-year-old son Kai of The Quantum Kid about how quantum technologies could be applied to developing climate change and sustainability solutions. Shor explains that quantum computers can be used for “simulating quantum mechanics, which would really help immensely in designing new materials, and new materials could be very useful for solving the climate crisis.” 

Writing for the Financial Times, Principal Research Scientist Florian Berg explores “reasons to be hopeful about the resilience of efforts to tackle environmental issues at the corporate level.” Berg explains: “When looking at reporting on carbon emissions, ESG data and money invested in sustainable investment strategies, we can see big increases in recent years.” 

Noman Bashir, a fellow with MIT’s Climate and Sustainability Consortium, speaks with Smithsonian Magazine reporter Amber X. Chen about the impact of AI data centers on the country’s electric grid and infrastructure. Bashir notes “that the industry’s environmental impacts can also be seen farther up the supply chain,” writes Chen. “The GPUs that power A.I. data centers are made with rare earth elements, the extraction of which Bashir notes is resource intensive and can cause environmental degradation.” 

The MIT Museum presents “Remembering the Future,” a new installation by artist Janet Echelman in collaboration with Prof. Caitlin Mueller, reports Kat Barandy for DesignBoom. The installation suspends above the museum’s grand lobby and will be open to the public through fall 2027. “The work transforms climate data into a three-dimensional form that invites visitors to engage both visually and conceptually,” Barandy explains.

Fast Company reporter Elizabeth Segran spotlights “Remembering the Future,” a sculpture on display at the MIT Museum. The piece was created by artist Janet Echelman and “inspired by climate data guided scientists at MIT,” writes Segran. “The sculpture is “made from thousands of feet of plastic twine falls from the ceiling. Each strand of fiber represents the temperature of the planet over a period of time and the color signifies how hot it is, with blue and greens reflecting cooler climates than the reds and oranges. The sculpture goes all the way back to the ice age, but the most thought provoking part is our current moment, represented by a single yellow piece of twine. It then spreads out into a broad web that represents future centuries: Based on how we act right now, the future could look shockingly red or a calmer blue.” 

In an opinion piece for the Financial Times, Prof. Evan Lieberman, director of the MIT Center for International Studies, spotlights how states, cities, corporations, and civil society are working to advance climate action. “Today, over 300 U.S. cities have made climate commitments, action plans, or are participating in co-operative initiatives,” Lieberman writes, “Large cities are connecting with global partners through organizations such as C40 Cities, a group of mayors representing some 700mn people worldwide.”