Mitigation and Adaptation Research Institute VCC

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Our modern civilization has created a triple challenge that is threatening the future of humanity and the health of the Earth's life-support system, on which the welfare of all human and non-human life depends. Here at MARI, we aim to provide transformational education with the goal to foster holistic systems thinking, literacy in information, risk, and sustainability as well as carry out research related to the triple challenge. We want to bring into the public discussion use-ready knowledge on adaptation to modern global change to the public.

We welcome new members who want to collaborate with us on education, research and outreach.

MARI VCC Billboard

[Nov 04, 2025] AI Perception Survey: A short survey on perceptions of Artificial Intelligence is open for students and faculty. Go to the Survey or use the QR code to take the survey. Results will be published in a Story here in the AI VCC.

[Aug 24, 2025] National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR): The National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) will be held in Richmond April 13-15, 2026. If you are an undergraduate students conducting research, then you might consider presenting your work at the NCUR. Abstracts open Sep. 9 to Dec. 5, 2025. See https://ncur.secure-platform.com/2026/ for more details.

[Apr 19, 2025] A Call to Action for Humanity: The new book by Rutger Bregman is a “Call to Action for Humanity” (Trevor Noah). Read the extract in the Guardian.

[Mar 21, 2025] Impact Learning Community in Sustainability Leadership in Fall 2025:

News

MARI VCC News

[Apr 04, 2026] Open Letter about “Generative AI”: A few days ago, Emily Tucker, Executive Director of the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law published an open letter on Medium titled “An Open Letter to Georgetown Students, In Response to Recent Announcements by the University about "Generative AI".” In this open letter she makes strong points against a broad accepting of generative AI in education. Her reasoning is very relevant and all students, not just the ones at Georgetown should carefully consider this open letter.

Platform News

[Aug 11, 2026] CitizenForum VCC opened: The "Citizen Forum Norfolk and World VCC" has been initialized and is open now.

[Aug 03, 2026] Alliance of World Scientists Declares Planetary Emergency: In the paper “ World scientists’ warning to humanity: a third notice” the Alliance of World Scientists includes the “Declaration of a planetary emergency.” The declaration states: “We, the undersigned, recognize that Earth is now in a state of planetary emergency. Climate change, biodiversity loss, land and freshwater degradation, pollution, and unsustainable production and consumption are destabilizing the Earth system that supports all life.
You can sign the declaration here ...

[Aug 03, 2026] Hothouse Earth: arriving sooner than you think…: Julian Cribb writes in his latest blog: “Latest measurements, carefully analysed to exclude anomalies such as El Nino, reveal a planet cooking up at a steady 0.48 degrees per decade since 2015, in what is thought to be the most rapid heating event in all its geological history.” We are experiencing the most rapid heating event in Earth's billions of years long history! We have caused this event with a few hundred years of sole focus on unlimited growth using all the ancient solar energy accumulated by Earth's biosphere over more than 250 million years - just because we could! That is something to reflect on!

[Jun 04, 2026] ‘An equal and habitable world is possible’: This is what the Global Justice Report published today makes very clear. Read the article by Jonathan Watts in the Guardian as an introduction. While this equal and habitable world is still possible, it is very unlikely that we will transition to this world as long as greedy and unethical billionaires supported by governments they own compete to be the first trillionaire. The report underlines that the fight for an equal and habitable world has to be a fight against a system that rewards extraction and depletion of all resources and requires infinitely growing consumption devouring the Earth's life-support system; a system designed to increase inequality and sustain the exploitation of almost all to serve the greed of a few!