Imagine if each of the 4.3 million daily commuters on the New York City subway took an international flight. Now think of each of those people on flights spewing jet fuel emissions, guzzling canned soda from plastic airline cups and water from plastic bottles, tossing hotel toiletries into non-recycling bins, blasting hotel air conditioners, and so forth. Despite this apparent mess, is responsible travel possible?
“But we unfortunately are in one of the areas in which climate prediction is very difficult because we’re in the middle of two big oceans, and on the fringe between the interaction of Northern Hemisphere systems and Southern Hemisphere systems.” — Costa Rica’s Patricia Ramirez on the value of shared climate services across Central America for risk assessments in agriculture, health and other sectors.
Assessing biodiversity on coffee farms in Costa Rica is a difficult task when unyielding torrential downpours strike.
S. Amanda Caudill is currently evaluating mammal biodiversity in coffee dominated regions in Turrialba, Costa Rica. Her findings will help determine which habitat parameters are important to the mammals and shape suggestions on how to enhance the habitat.
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.
