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Socially Speaking, the State of the Planet
If you wanted to get a sense of the State of the Planet, you didn’t need to be at the Columbia University conference on Oct. 11. You just needed to follow #SOP2012. Six hundred people gathered at the...
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‘This is a wake-up call – don’t hit the snooze button’
For years before Hurricane Sandy charged ashore on Monday, researchers from the Earth Institute knew what was coming. As the region struggles to recover from this “superstorm,” we asked some of them to...
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Putting the Focus on ‘A Thirsty World’
The water documentary “A Thirsty World” combines French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s aerial photography with down-to-earth messages, a mélange that calls attention to problems of water security...
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What Hurricane Sandy Was Not
“It is often said that generals always prepare to fight the last war. We need to be sure that we do not just prepare for the last disaster, and put all of our limited resources in guarding against that...
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Glenn Denning’s Road to Bali, and the Earth Institute
Glenn Denning grew up in Brisbane, Australia, loved the outdoors and hated the idea of working in an office. And, he really didn’t have any urge to go to other countries. Then he happened to overhear a...
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Aquanauts Take on New York Water Issues
Working with engineering PhD candidate Rob Elliott, we imagined a green roof and blue roof system that would serve as a space for environmental education and student wellness, the culmination of a...
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Rosario’s Farm: Rising Tides, Shrimp from the Forest
Rosario Costa-Cabral and her brothers harvest hundreds of fruits, oils and wood products from the stream-laced forest of the Amazon River delta. But the climate here is changing: Tides rise higher, and...
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Making Sense of Climate’s Impact on Food Security
From warmer temperatures to natural disasters such as flooding and drought, changing patterns of climate are having billion-dollar impacts on our food-growing systems. But scientists are struggling to...
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Keeping Track: the State of the Planet
Watch highlights of last October's "State of the Planet" summit, which brought experts together to discuss the challenges of sustainable development, climate change and the environment, as well as some...
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Water Security: Finding Solutions for a World at Risk
“This is a mess, and it is a mess that we have not attended to yet,” Earth Institute Director Jeffrey Sachs said at a conference on water security held today at Columbia University. “Humanity is the...
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With 1,000 Days Left to Reach MDGs, a Look Back and Forward
The 1,000-day milestone to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) gathered professors Jeffrey Sachs, Prabhjot Singh, and Vijay Modi on April 4 for the Sustainable Development Seminar Series to...
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Human Geography, Volcanoes, Microgrids and More…
Interested in Human geography, undersea volcanoes, microgrids, climate change and melting ice sheets, technology and sustainability? The coming week's lineup of Earth Institute events has you covered.
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Trouble in America’s Water Paradise
America’s strong water infrastructure has been key to its success as a nation. The country’s ability to control water flow and to purify and manage its water, in agriculture and in industry, has made...
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‘Chasing Ice’: Watching History Unfold, and Disappear
Near the end of “Chasing Ice,” a hunk of glacier the size of lower Manhattan explodes, rolls and crashes into the sea. If that sounds like a spoiler, well, go see the movie and you’ll know you would...
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Of Cow Dung, Cook Stoves and Sustainability in Practice
When the Environmental Defense Fund asked me to measure how biogas cook stoves were changing the lives of farmers in rural India, there wasn’t a word in that question with which I was comfortable....
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The Microgrid Solution
Last October, Superstorm Sandy provoked widespread frustration and fear after it left more than 7.5 million people in the New York Metro area without power. In the hardest hit areas, outages lasted two...
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Water Risk in Unexpected Places
A new report by the Columbia Water Center, produced with Veolia Water and Growing Blue, could help expose the real nature of water risk--even in places that most people think of as having plenty of water.
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The Boom of Hydraulic Fracturing
Experts discuss the rise and boom of unconventional hydrocarbon extraction in the final Sustainable Development Seminar Series of the 2012-2013 academic year.
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Students Travel to Jordan and Israel to Learn About Environmental Issues
Nine Columbia students traveled to the Middle East last weekend to learn about how two countries in the region, Jordan and Israel, are cooperating on environmental issues and managing shared natural...
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Unpacking Preconceptions
After a late arrival in Amman, Jordan on Sunday night, students in the Regional Environmental Sustainability in the Middle East program hit the ground running on Monday morning. An orientation at the...
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