Posted by Betsy Ness-Edelstein | May 26, 2009 | 4 Comments
If you’re anything like me, the effects of climate change and environmental degradation can often seem overwhelming. We can try to reduce our own carbon emissions through actions like taking public transportation and using less electricity, but it’s hard to see the impacts of those actions. What, I sometimes wonder, can I do to help [...]
Posted by Betsy Ness-Edelstein | May 18, 2009 | 3 Comments
Since the first cases of swine flu, or H1N1, were reported in April, public health organizations, governments, media and the general public have spent much time and energy trying to understand and contain the virus. Responses have ranged from the serious (like the WHO’s declaration of a phase 5 pandemic alert) to the ridiculous (like [...]
Posted by Lareef Zubair | Mar 31, 2009 | 0 Comments
The Coconut Research Institute of Sri Lanka (CRI) has sustained an improved prediction scheme for national coconut production for the last four years. Coconuts are an important source of food and raw materials and also provide income to millions in the tropics. Coconuts are the most important food crop after rice in Sri Lanka and [...]
Posted by Paul Block | Feb 2, 2009 | 1 Comments
Water capture and storage for irrigation has been an ongoing theme of research in Columbia’s earth and environmental engineering department, but Professor Upmanu Lall has recently taken things a step further. With funding from the Pulitzer family, Lall challenged a group of students in his senior engineering course to design a low-cost system of water [...]
Posted by Cathy Vaughan | Jan 21, 2009 | 2 Comments
I’ve been meaning to blog about Lonnie Thompson’s visit to Lamont last week; I suppose it’s the frigid temperatures here in New York that have kept melting tropical glaciers on my own back burner.
For those who don’t know, Lonnie Thompson runs the Ice Core Paleoclimatology Research Group at the Ohio State’s Byrd Polar Research Center. [...]
Posted by Mary-Elena Carr | Dec 15, 2008 | 3 Comments
Biofuel use is one of the strategies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that has already been incorporated into policy and regulatory frameworks. However, it has become increasingly evident that biofuel production has unintended consequences that extend beyond national boundaries and beyond the energy sector.
Chief among these are concerns for food security. The food crisis [...]
