Welcome

The Center for Environmental Studies at Rice is a place where humanists, artists, architects and social scientists come together to conduct research and teaching about the most pressing questions of an era lived in the shadow of massive climate instability and environmental turmoil. We do so in conversation with our colleagues in the natural sciences and engineering but with approaches that consider the profoundly social and cultural nature of our embeddedness in the Earth’s many and complex living systems.

We understand the critical role that representation plays in how we think and feel about our rapidly changing planet, which is why the creative arts and media hold an important place in our work. We study to understand but also to create, converse and harness the powers of the imagination to live differently than we do now and help envision and create viable futures.