Benjamin Preneta: Putting the human element at the center of the climate crisis
Ben Preneta is passionate about finding connections between fields such as African history, atmospheric dynamics and military service. After graduating with his MA in the Climate and Society program, he hopes to combine his different areas of focus to advance climate solutions.
grew up in Northern California, benjamin transfer Remember to always be near nature and spend lots of time hiking.
“It raised my awareness of the connection between humans and the natural world,” he said.
Preneta originally came to Columbia University as an undergraduate student studying modern African history and sustainable development.After four years as an armored officer in the U.S. Army, he returned to the United States to participate in the Climate and Society Master’s Program exist Columbia Climate School And became the climate school’s first student senator.
Now, Preneta and his classmates are gearing up to school day May 12 and summer internship, then formally complete the program in August.
In the Q&A below, Preneta explains how he brings together so many different academic perspectives, why it’s important to address climate change, and what he’ll be working on this summer.
What motivated you to study an undergraduate degree combining modern African history and sustainable development?
History and sustainable development are different fields and they approach issues differently. The way you see the world is different for everyone, but I really like both of them.
They also complement each other in a very unique way. Sustainability involves the social sciences and some physical sciences, but it is also about history – because one of the criticisms of sustainable development often made by African historians is our lack of awareness of the historical context. We are often concerned with development. This is something that the Climate School and others have begun to do better, but there is still a lot of work to be done across the field.
After earning your bachelor’s degree, you serve four years in the military. How has this affected your academic journey?
Gaining experience and information from places that don’t seem to have any connections is really important to me. Serving as an officer in the military is a very human job – you work with people from all backgrounds, and you solve problems every day. I learned how to be a leader, how to listen, and how to take all these opinions and try to find a solution.
Because of the human aspects of climate change, my military experience has had a very strong impact on my journey in the Climate and Society program. Climate change affects us all, so addressing it will, by its very nature, be everyone’s input to some degree.
What attracted you to the Climate and Society Initiative?
The climate crisis is as much a human problem as it is a scientific one, right? I like the multidisciplinary view of the project, it’s not just about understanding all the climate dynamics and how to run the models. That’s obviously an extremely important aspect and part of the reason I’m here. But it’s also about understanding human factors, such as how we perceive and interact with our environment.
Can you tell us about some new skills you learned from this project?
One of the really great things about the program is being elective, so I was able to take graduate level courses that really enhanced my understanding of climate dynamics and how we model predictability and uncertainty. In terms of technical skills, I took a course in geospatial analysis and wrote some code using R and Python. Having pretty good support on these fronts allows me to be both scientific in my research or analysis and think about how we translate that information into policy makers or people who need it.
One of my favorite courses is Intro to Atmospheric Science at the graduate level. Sometimes I got lost and scrambled to catch up. But in the end, when everything makes sense and the lines of calculus finally add up, you think, ‘Oh my god, I can actually explain a complex physical process numerically. ’ It’s really an “aha” moment that goes with you.
What are your plans for this summer and beyond?
I have two internships this summer. The first is the Office of the Special Adviser on Africa at the United Nations. There, I am writing technical reports for different energy systems and providing information to policy makers on how these technologies are being used in African countries. What are the pros and cons? What political and physical infrastructure needs to be built? I’m just getting started, but it’s really cool to be able to do research that has applicable uses.
On top of that, I have a research fellowship with the Energy Research Group, where I will use geospatial analysis to study potential areas for siting renewable energy in the U.S. This will allow me to hone my modeling and spatial analysis skills , which I will then be able to apply in any environment I get into.
In the long run, I’m still figuring it out, but eventually I’d love to go to a place where I can not only do my analysis and research, but translate it into solving the climate crisis.
African history, sustainable development, atmospheric science, energy systems—these are all very different fields, not always speaking the same language. How do you manage to put it all together so that it makes sense?
It’s true that, by nature, these disparate worlds don’t always communicate with each other. But, without sounding corny, there is a human side to all of this. We are all human and we are all trying to survive and survive on this planet.
In the climate field, there are people who have a strong scientific background and understand models, but may not know how to talk to policymakers about what crops should be planted in the next two or three months. Then you have people who really know the community and understand the problem firsthand, better than any outside researcher can, but probably don’t have the tools to map it or model it. That’s one of the challenges of the field, and I think it’s about finding a common language. There are no quick fixes, but open communication and genuine listening are key, as each side has important things to say and there is a middle ground.
This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.
