Month: April 2011
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What You Can Do to Protect Biodiversity
What can we as individuals do to help slow the loss of biodiversity? Since consumption of resources is a root cause of biodiversity loss, we can consume less and be more mindful about what we consume.
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Climate News Roundup: Week of 4/24
Carbon emissions ‘hidden’ in imported goods revealed, BBC, Apr. 25 Two recent studies present that the amount of carbon dioxide emissions “hidden” in imported goods is increasing. These emissions are not currently included in national estimates. “There is a degree of delusion about emissions cuts in developed nations. They are not really cuts at all…
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British Royals’ Green Wedding
The Royal wedding used up a lot of resources, but Will and Kate did their best to keep it green.
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Switchyard Project: Day 1 – Alert, Alert, Alert
The first day of our operation is usually filled with a lot of work preparing and testing the instruments we brought up here, preparing the airplanes, loading our equipment into the planes, setting up the equipment in the laboratory and preparing the sampling containers. Since our operation requires drilling holes through the sea ice, we…
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Professor Jeffrey Sachs Extends Term as Director of the Earth Institute
The Earth Institute, Columbia University announced that Professor Jeffrey Sachs has agreed to extend his term as its director. Since his tenure began in 2002, Sachs has led the Earth Institute to become a leading scientific authority on sustainable development while simultaneously expanding its reach worldwide. Through his guidance, the Earth Institute and its scientists…
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Keeping America Competitive by Sparking Curiosity in the Classroom
To keep America competitive in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (the STEM disciplines), a report from the National Academy of Sciences calls for strengthening the skills of some 250,000 teachers across the United States through university-run science training programs. The report asserts that when teachers gain laboratory experience and conduct fieldwork alongside active researchers, they…
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‘One Yard Line’ For Cape Wind?
Jim Gordon, the developer of Cape Wind, recently spoke at Columbia University about his experience working to get the first offshore wind farm in the US built.
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Portland Opposes a Federal Rule due to a “Unique Water Source”
In Portland, Oregon Federal Water Treatment Rule LT2 faces opposition due to high water costs and what its City Commissioner describes as its “unique water source”.
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Can Big Earthquakes Disrupt World Weather?
The recent earthquake in Japan shifted the earth’s axis by half a foot. You may be wondering if that’s enough to change earth’s weather. No, not really, says Jerry McManus, a climate scientist at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Earthquakes unleash a tremendous amount of energy, but not enough to upset the energy balance of earth’s…
