The Citadel is welcoming a new research center to campus centered around climate change. The Lt. Col James B. Near Jr. Center for Climate Studies will focus solely on climate change research, with a substantial focus on the impact of climate change on the city of Charleston.
Lt. Col James B. Near Jr. donated $2 million for the center to be enacted. Near was a 1977 Citadel graduate and former meteorologist.
Citadel’s new research center will be headed by Scott Curtis from East Carolina University, who has previously worked at the NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center and has extensively studied the El Niño climate pattern. Curtis is committed to learning and better understanding the research efforts already occurring in the Lowcountry.
“The center’s already trying to get itself ingrained in what’s happening here as much as possible,” Curtis explained. “We don’t want to reinvent the wheel. We don’t want to duplicate efforts.”
This news comes in the wake of a new lawsuit out of Charleston county, targeting fossil fuel companies for their role in climate change.
