What proved most surprising to several attendees of the Masters’ Dinner was Schrag’s position on the Keystone XL Pipeline.

“This pipeline has become widely inflated in its political value,” Schrag told those gathered in the room, arguing that environmentalists should focus on more long-term solutions to climate change.

Davida Fernandez-Barkan, a Lowell House tutor and member of the house programming committee who has taken Schrag’s Climate-Energy Challenge course, said she was “really surprised to hear him say that he was in support of the pipeline,” given his previous work. Fernandez-Barkan added, however, that she understood that “he took a much more political view of the situation.”

Some guests were also surprised by Schrag’s analysis of the long timescale involved in addressing climate change. Lowell House tutor and doctoral student in the economics department, Eli B. Schachar, said that while he appreciated Schrag’s engaging discussion, he questioned the possible implications of a long-term view in addressing climate change.

“Is our feeling supposed to be ‘this problem is really hard and going to take a long time’ and feel hopeless, or ‘this problem is really hard and going to take a long time’ and let’s talk about some very concrete short-term goals that can help?,” Schachar asked.

“That’s just to me a more optimistic view of addressing a more complicated issue.”

—Staff writer Kristina D. Lorch can be reached at klorch@college.harvard.edu.