Posted by Tristan Jones | Oct 30, 2009 | 2 Comments
Last week the Pew Center released a new poll regarding the “Changing Opinions About Global Warming.” The polls are certainly telling, if not alarming: in April 2008 71% of Americans believed there was solid evidence that the earth was warming. That’s down to 57% this month.
Perhaps more importantly, the percentage of those people who believe [...]
Posted by Tristan Jones | Oct 21, 2009 | 0 Comments
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 [...]
Posted by Tristan Jones | Oct 6, 2009 | 2 Comments
In 2008 the world faced one of its most severe food crises in recent history. Around the world riots broke out in otherwise food-secure nations — places like Egypt, Russia, Mexico, and Brazil. The world’s governments responded — a major U.N. conference was held in Geneva. What they discussed there was the fundamental issue of [...]
Posted by Kate Brash | Sep 25, 2009 | 0 Comments
In “Momentum on Climate Pact Is Elusive” (New York Times, 9/21/09) science reporter Andrew Revkin discusses the relative stability of temperatures over the last decade in the context of the UN climate summit this week. He posits that this short term trend may complicate efforts to achieve an international agreement on climate change this [...]
Posted by Tristan Jones | Sep 22, 2009 | 1 Comments
The U.N. Summit on Climate Change is underway today in NYC with nearly 100 heads of state in attendance to address carbon emissions and climate change. Several leaders – including the president of the Maldives and the prime minister of Japan — offered impassioned pleas to take action and make strong commitments to reducing carbon [...]
Posted by Francesco Fiondella | Aug 7, 2009 | 0 Comments
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 [...]
Posted by Cathy Vaughan | Jun 19, 2009 | 0 Comments
When African finance and environmental ministers met last month to discuss climate-related challenges to the Millennium Development Goals, East African rains were on the agenda. Millions of Kenyans currently face food shortages as a result of successive failed rains, and periodic droughts cost the region 5-8% of GDP. A look at the climatology reveals that [...]
Posted by Cathy Vaughan | May 18, 2009 | 1 Comments
The Keeling Curve, a record of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide since 1958, is one of the most recognizable images in modern science. Despite its ubiquity, this iconic graph tells only half – or, more precisely, 57% – of the story. That’s because the other 43% of cumulative anthropogenic emissions haven’t made it to the atmosphere [...]
Posted by Cathy Vaughan | Apr 6, 2009 | 0 Comments
I’ve been meaning to blog about our visit from Bill Ruddiman, professor emeritus at the University Virginia and former Doherty Senior Research Scientist, who stopped in at his old stomping grounds last month. Ruddiman just wasn’t here to renew old ties, though. Rather, he used his visit as an opportunity to continue a rather heated [...]
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 [...]
