40 Pleasant Street, New Haven
CT 06511-3827, USA
203-376-2840；(86)13601646338 yajie.song@aya.yale.edu www.giesd.org
President Office
Yale University
New Haven. CT 06510
March 28, 2015
Dear President Peter Salovey:
I am pleased to introduce a NGO on environment for sustainability, which is right here at our Yale-New Haven community since August 21，2003 – the Global Institute on Environment for Sustainable Development (GIESD or 全球环境-积世德). GIESD was founded at Tsinghua-Beijing in 2002 while growing at Yale-New Haven over a decade as none-profitably established research niche combining researchers and students from Tsinghua and Yale. Few have ever learned and paid attention to it but we do know three GIESD’s co-founders (www.giesd.org), Madame Qian Yi and Mr. Jining Chen whom you met at Tsinghua on Oct 27, 2014. I am the third co-founders then also acted as Adjunct Senior Research Scholar (2002-2012) at Tsinghua while I was a Research Scholar at Yale then. The GIESD’s brief name in Chinese is (积世德), or it could be interpreted at Yale as Enabling Lux Et Veritas (of, by and for Superior Morality) Globally for Sustainability.
Early last November when the GIESD’s co-founders and friends met in Beijing right after you returned from your successful October trip to China, we intuitively found there would be Twins by Chinese name between GIESD and yours. Your Chinese name (苏必德) is well known in China. Your name’s meaning in Chinese could be, if we may work on according to its denotation, interpreted at Yale as: Salovey Dedicating to Lux Et Veritas (of, by and for Superior Morality). We do see the linkage of the name Twins in Chinese with our good wishes for Yale-Tsinghua and further Yale-China friendship and collaboration. Two Presidents of Yale and at Tsinghua then coincidently looked into Lux Et Veritas into their names in Chinese of high standard morality – Lux ET Veritas - and now Mr. Jining Chen moves forward sustainably last month as the newly designated Minister of Environment Protection of China.
Global Institute on Environment for Sustainable Development (GIESD, 全球环境-积世德 as its Chinese Name in Brief), Inc., a US 501 (c) (3) NGO research institute at Yale-New Haven and brainstormed at Tsinghua, was founded in August 2003 by Madame Qian Yi, Professor Jining Chen of Tsinghua University, and myself from Yale. The earliest partnership was an initiative by individual faculty and later with institution advancement as an independent US NGO. Its early innovation of Yale-Tsinghua Environment & Sustainable Leadership Program （ESDLP）and its proposed Joint Environment Education Program (JEEP 2003- ) and Yale-Tsinghua Center (YTC, 2004-) all be achieved as what we have now as the reality between Yale and China.
Currently, GIESD globally focuses on environment for regional and locally sustainable development, collaborating with Yale, other US and Chinese universities at New Haven, in the County and also in China. We have been paying attention to the theories and practices of the Urban Environmental Crisis Management (UECM) research in Shenzhen, the Interdisciplinary Urban Ecosystem Innovation (IUEI) research in Qinzhou along the Northern South China Sea. Our attention is also given to the innovation, adaptation and renovation of the theories and practices of Urban Ecosystem Ecology (UEE) the Development Ecosystem Ecology (DEE) and especially the Education Ecosystem Ecology (EEE) in several leading cities in China such as Shenyang, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Wuxi and Qinzhou. Our research became leading applied ecosystem studies on environmental for sustainability especially in urban China.
Faculty, students, staff and alumni and alumnae at Yale and from Tsinghua have contributed to GIESD’s successes including GIESD founding directors President Jining Chen and Professor Qian Yi of Tsinghua and our longtime friends and colleagues at Yale such as Professor Bill Burch, Graeme Berlyn, Gordon Geballe, Chad Oliver, Marian Chertow and other faculty and students. Together we are moving forward, along with the Great Yale-New Haven Family, towards the greater successes for sustainable development at Yale-New Haven, in US, in China and beyond.
GIESD does collaborate with Yale, Tsinghua and other US and Chinese universities and urban governments and institutions as well as communities and the Public, institutionally and also individually, on environment for sustainable development. Once again, please accept the warm congratulations to the advancement of Yale-China especially Yale-Tsinghua friendship and partnership from GIESD (全球环境-积世德), especially from myself.
Respectfully yours,
Dr. Yajie Song
MA’87, MEM’89, MF’91, PhD’95, Research Scholar (1995-2012) & Retired Research Faculty, Yale &
Co-founder, Senior Research Scholar and Executive Director, GIESD (2002 - )
    
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