Otis Redding sang “you don’t miss your water ’til your well runs dry” in 1965 about pining for a lost love. Last week, Climate and Society founder and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory scientist Mark Cane reprised it with a much different, more literal focus: water scarcity in the 21st century.
The fourth seminar in the Earth Institute’s Sustainable Development Seminar Series, “Ch Ch Ch Changes – recent trends in temperature extremes and hydroclimate,” brought together experts in the fields of climate change and hydrology to discuss emerging trends in global weather events.
Tornadoes, derechos and other violent storms can kill hundreds each year and cause billions in damages. How well can we predict them? How will climate change influence their occurrence? Experts from around the country discussed these issues at a recent workshop.
“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 driver, but we don’t have our hands on the steering wheel very much.”
Earth Institute partner PepsiCo has achieved its stated goal of partnering with organizations, including the Columbia Water Center, to provide access to safe water to three million people in developing countries by the end of 2015.
A new two-year climate change initiative, led by the International Research Institute for Climate and Society aims to help farmers in Indonesia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Bangladesh reduce their vulnerability to climate risks.
Haresh Bhojwani will coordinate IRI’s connections with development and humanitarian organizations so that its research can target the needs of those vulnerable to climate impacts, especially through the institution’s international collaborations.
On March 27 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, PositiveFeedback and the Met will host The Art and Science Dating Game: How Artists and Scientists Find Each Other…And What Happens Next? This event will feature a dialogue between three pairs of collaborators—scientists and artists focused on climate change—and is meant to inspire and motivate individuals from both communities, and even simply those who are curious about climate change and the intersection of the two fields.
Cynthia Rosenzweig of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies talks about the work of the New York State Ready Commission, set up after Hurricane Sandy to study how the state can better prepare for natural disasters.
Student Scott Miller, who raised $3,000 for the Earth Institute last year on a 300-mile bike ride from New York to Washington, plans to do it again, and he’s inviting you to join him.
State of the Planet is a forum for discussion on varying viewpoints. The opinions expressed by the authors and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Earth Institute or Columbia University.
