Posted by Betsy Ness-Edelstein | Nov 18, 2009 |
The Columbia Climate Center, in collaboration with the Columbia Water Center and the Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy, invites you to attend “The National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges: An Overview and Focus on Water,” on Tuesday, November 24 at 3 pm. The event will feature Charles Vest, President, National Academy of Engineering and President [...]
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Posted by Tristan Jones | Oct 21, 2009 |
On October 1, I attended a symposium entitled “Going Beyond Rhetoric: Metrics for Assessing Global Agriculture,” hosted by the Earth Institute and convened at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. Fifteen stories in the air, we were surrounded by miles of urban landscape — Queens to the east, Manhattan to the west, and no [...]
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Posted by Francesco Fiondella | Aug 7, 2009 |
Forecasts by the International Research Institute for Climate and Society and other institutions show that a weak El Niño has developed in the equatorial Pacific, and is likely to continue evolving with warmer-than-normal conditions persisting there until early 2010. What exactly is this important climate phenomenon and why should society care about it? Who will [...]
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Posted by Adrian Soghoian | Jul 8, 2009 |
Waste not, Want not?
The source of this proverb is unknown, but I’m going to hazard a guess and say it wasn’t your average (modern) American. I say this because your average American runs through 56 tons of trash a year - including 500 plastic cups and 650 pounds of paper. If we [...]
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Posted by Adrian Soghoian | Jun 26, 2009 |
“I know that vibration wasn’t normal”
Jack Lemmon famously uttered these words in the 70s blockbuster The China Syndrome in reference to unusual activity taking place at his nuclear reactor. Lemmon, a shift supervisor at the plant, uncovers alarming evidence that the plant is fundamentally unsound and demands that it be shut down. His concerns are [...]
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Posted by Sarah Brennan | Apr 14, 2009 |
Okay, so you agree that CCS is part of a balanced climate stabilization portfolio. (Right? If not, sorry – I’ve been meaning to write that post for awhile.) Now what? How do we possibly store all of that gas safely, permanently, and legally? On April 21, the Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy is co-sponsoring, with the NY Department of Environmental Conservation and NYSERDA, a one-day forum to discuss the policy implications of CCS.
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Posted by Lareef Zubair | Mar 31, 2009 |
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 [...]
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Posted by Mary-Elena Carr | Mar 8, 2009 |
The sixth meeting of the Global Roundtable on Climate Change (GROCC) took place on February 26 and 27. Around 150 corporations, non-governmental organizations, and government groups have been meeting since 2005 to discuss the science, technology, and economic considerations required for sound public policies on climate change.
Some commenters to our posting to announce the meeting wondered how [...]
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Posted by Michael Barnett | Jan 25, 2009 |
I couldn’t have been happier when, back in October, my local electricity company offered me the chance to switch to alternative energy. The colorful advertisement from Consolidated Edison was festooned with windmills and said the switch would lead to only a 10 percent increase in the average family’s electricity bill. Here was a chance to [...]
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Posted by Sarah Brennan | Jan 22, 2009 |
There’s an article in today’s New York Times about PepsiCo’s effort to calculate the carbon footprint of its products, starting with Tropicana orange juice. A half-gallon of Tropicana represents the equivalent of 3.75 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions. This is roughly the same amount of carbon dioxide emitted by a 5-mile drive to the grocery [...]
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