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PRESENTER: Thank you, everyone,
for coming back after the coffee

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break.

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Our next session, our moderator
is Curt Newton stepping in.

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The previous moderator
is OK, but she won't

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be available for this session.

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And with that, I'll
pass it on to Kurt.

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CURT NEWTON: All right.

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Coming out of our
first session, we now--

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I think it was teed up
really interesting way

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with the final
discussion, what's

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going on with the human side
of this, the social decision

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making, the
motivations and such.

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We get into the human
landscape for these networks.

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And we have, again, a wonderful
series of three speakers,

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starting with Nathan Phillips.

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And then we'll hear from Chris
Rabe, and last, Kelsey Wirth.

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And then, as we did with
the previous session, then

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we'll go from the presentations
into a Q&A session.

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So over to you, Nathan.

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NATHAN PHILLIPS: All right.

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Thank you, Curt.

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And let's see.

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Is this the slide
advancer thingy?

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OK.

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Great.

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All right.

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Well, I'm here to share with
you how a mild-mannered forest

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ecologist ended up in a
room with engineers and law

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experts and policy
people and activists

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to work on the
energy transition.

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So I'm going to give you
that ecological viewpoint

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of this energy transition.

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And it started for me as
this mild-mannered ecologist,

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who learned--

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stumbled out of my
lane and learned

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that gas leaks damaged trees.

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So I study the
plumbing of trees.

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And I wanted to know why.

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What's going on?

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This is in Newton, about three
blocks away from where I live.

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And seeing the loss
of the tree canopy

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was really heartbreaking
as a person,

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but also as a scientist,
what is going on?

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And from that moment,
things started moving.

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I had an accidental
toolkit for understanding

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the problem of methane
leaks because I

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was looking at how greenhouse
gases are exchanged from soils

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and leaves.

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And the same kind
of equipment could

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be used to document where this
greenhouse gas was leaking

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from the streets and sidewalks.

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So we got funded to do a
research study in the city

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of Boston, where we documented
3,356 gas leaks across the city.

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That was in 2012.

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And this is where,
as an ecologist,

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I started thinking
about biomimicry

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and thinking about the
city as an ecosystem.

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We had a grant called Urban
Metabolism at the time

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from the National
Science Foundation.

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And it was the lens of
using living things to think

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about how cities function.

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And as a tree physiologist,
it became clear,

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this gas network,
this thing that's

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having this metabolic
problem is like a tree.

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It's got trunks, and it's
got branches and twigs.

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And we need to fix this problem.

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And that's where the idea of the
transition started to come in.

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Can we prune the tree?

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Can the tree retract and a
new system grow from there?

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Now, things were happening
at the same time,

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like the collapse of the
gas system in the Merrimack

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Valley, where system-level
failures were happening.

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And we realized in talking with
folks like Zeyneb and Audrey

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and HEET, that to solve
problems like that,

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we need to think bigger.

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We need to make
the problem bigger.

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And coming back to
the gas leaks problems

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on the streets and sidewalks of
Boston and the greater Boston

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area, it became apparent to me
that I needed to think bigger

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as an ecologist.

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And when I started to see
things like new trees--

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this is in Roslindale--
being planted into active gas

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leaks and the money
that was being spent

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and the labor and
energy that was

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being spent to plant urban
street trees in a place

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where we knew they
were going to die.

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So the gas in the soil
here is at about--

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you can't see it, but
it's like 15% in the soil.

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That tree was not going to live.

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To see things like, OK.

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The fix is made after the
problem has wreaked havoc

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on the tree.

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So there's the empty
tree pit, and there's

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the patch that fixed the
gas leak after the fact.

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So it became apparent to me
that what we call infrastructure

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ecology is about the wires
and the pipes and the streets

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and all of those things.

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But it's also about
the knowledge networks

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and the systems and
the institutions that

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need to communicate to
actually get the problem

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fixed, the coordination.

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Just here's another
example in what we call

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the circle of death
in Newton, which

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is right over the
Mass Pike, where you

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can see the new pavement here.

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You can see the line where
the lighter gray shade becomes

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darker and the new pavement
being cut up like two weeks

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after it was put down
to address a gas leak.

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That's a 10-inch cast
iron gas main there.

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And so this problem, really, I
couldn't avoid as an ecologist

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to think about how we need to
bring all of the stakeholders.

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And we need to think about the
co-located and interdependent

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critical infrastructure,
including

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the trees and everything
else, as an ecosystem.

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That's the only way we're
going to solve this problem.

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And so that's what
inspired me so

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much about being here and
connecting with groups

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like Mothers Out
Front and HEET, where

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I was no longer being restricted
to my discipline of forest

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ecology.

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I was connecting with
people who were thinking

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in a much more inclusive and
holistic manner about all

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of the actors and entities
that need to come together.

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So I feel like a more
holistic ecologist.

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This exemplifies
to me the way we

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need to see beyond the surface
and make the connections that

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are there under the streets
and with other stakeholders.

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And so what continues
this work, for me,

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is being involved in the project
in Framingham that is happening.

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And to come back
to my profession

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as a tree physiologist
and an ecophysiologist

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is really fulfilling because
it's like a circle has come back

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around where we are now as part
of this big project with so

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many different academic
researchers and others.

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My part of this is to come
back to look at tree health.

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So do these thermal
networks have

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any effect on the tree canopy?

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Sometimes in
science, a nonresult

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is actually a really
great thing to have.

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And after our research in two
years of looking at the tree

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canopy where this
infrastructure has gone in,

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we don't see any negative
impact on the trees.

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We're going to
continue to monitor

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the urban canopy in
this area because there

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may be some subtle changes.

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If you change the thermal
environment in the soil,

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there may be a change in
when the leaves come out

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or when the leaves drop.

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And it may be species-dependent.

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So lots of
interesting questions,

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but really gratifying
to know that we're not

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seeing any negative impact
on the actual ecosystem.

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And just that there was a term
that a famous thinker and writer

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and philosopher came up with,
who was not an ecologist,

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but came up with a very
important ecological term

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called succession.

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That was Henry David Thoreau in
Concord, succession, the change

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in ecosystems over time.

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And so it's really
gratifying to be

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part of a project
which is looking

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at that transition from our
fossil fuel infrastructure

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into this new infrastructure,
where we're not

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seeing negative impacts
on the trees here.

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And we're likely to see a
healthier tree canopy in places

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like the place where I
saw the tree being damaged

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in my own city of Newton.

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So thank you, and
I'll leave it at that.

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There's my friend Bob
Ackley, colleague,

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and Margaret Hendrick.

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Yeah.

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[APPLAUSE]

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