Month: January 2010
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Making a Difference in Africa
The Earth Institute received a surprise gift of $2.1 million from Sue and Bill Gross to benefit the crucial work of the Millennium Villages project. The gift is the third from financier Gross and his wife Sue, who have given more than $5 million in unrestricted support of the Millennium Villages project, a community-led, holistic…
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Food Miles, Fair Miles
It’s not often that when we purchase food from a bodega or grocery store that we consider where it came from. Is my apple from New York, Washington, or China? Were my tomatoes grown in Florida, California, or Mexico? Whose hands planted and picked them? Why did this planter choose this variety? Wherever our food…
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Is there hope from Copenhagen?
Can we find positives from the United Nations Summit on climate change? Even President Obama admits that disappointment is justified, although the Commander in Chief claims a non-binding accord was better than a complete collapse of the negotiations. Jeffrey Sachs, fearless leader of the Earth Institute, adamantly opposed such victory proclamation from the President, for…
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Gifts Support Gender Equality and the Millennium Cities Initiative
Two new $50,000 gifts are supporting the Earth Institute’s crucial work in mid-sized cities in sub-Saharan Africa through the Millennium Cities Initiative, promoting research on gender issues through our center in West Africa dedicated to achieving the Millennium Development Goals, and providing unrestricted support for the Earth Institute’s most pressing needs. Both gifts are allowing…
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Anonymous Gift Supports Earth Institute Priorities
The Earth Institute has been awarded an unrestricted $500,000 gift over 3 years from an anonymous donor. This is one of the largest unrestricted gifts received to date for the Columbia Campaign for the Earth Institute. Unrestricted gifts allow the Earth Institute to address the most critical needs in several areas of research, education, and…
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Kumasi’s New Neonatal Clinics On Track to Reduce Maternal and Infant Mortality, Despite Lingering Challenges
I recently had the opportunity to visit the two new neonatal clinics in Kumasi, Ghana, built as part of the Millennium Cities Initiative’s efforts to create models capable of reducing maternal and infant mortality in the Millennium Cities. MCI partnered with Israeli neonatologists from Ben Gurion University who, with support from Israel’s Ministry of Foreign…
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Tundra, Microbes and World Climate
O. Roger Anderson is a microbiologist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who studies bacteria, amoebas, fungi and other microorganisms. Lately he has been thinking about how tiny organisms that inhabit the vast northern tundra regions could contribute to changing climate, since, like humans, they breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. Recently, Anderson found a…
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Rebuilding Haiti: The 10-Year Plan
The horrors of Haiti’s earthquake continue to unfold. The quake itself killed perhaps 100,000 people. The inability to organize rapid relief is killing tens of thousands more. More than 1 million people are exposed to hunger and disease and, with the rain and hurricane seasons approaching, are vulnerable to further hazards. Even an economy as…
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Haiti: Physics of Quakes Past, and Future
The earthquake that struck Haiti took place along what is called a strike-slip fault—a place where tectonic plates on each side of a fault line are moving horizontally in opposite directions, like hands rubbing together. When these plates lock together, stress builds; eventually they slip; and this produces shaking. This quake was fairly shallow; it…
