Rare earth metals play an important role in our envisaged carbon-free future, but their availability in the future is under question for different political and availability issues, which is worrying for planned reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille met with students and scientists of the Earth Institute to explore core issues of Haiti’s growth and development.
The Environmental and Sustainable Development Programs Open House is a wonderful opportunity for you to find out more about Columbia’s cutting-edge graduate degrees in sustainable development and environmental studies. We invite you to come explore our diverse offering of programs, have your application questions answered, and meet with current Columbia students and faculty. Attend the Environmental and Sustainable Development Programs Open House on Monday, Oct. 24, Low Memorial Library, Columbia University (116th & Broadway) to learn more about our innovative graduate programs.
As Japan’s nuclear meltdown catastrophe continues in the wake of the March 11 magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami, Japanese power company executives and officials face an increasingly challenging situation. Tuesday morning, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) — the company operating the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant — dumped more than 11,000 gallons of radioactive seawater into [...]
A recent Valentine’s Day-inspired article in the Grist pointed out that oysters are the only delicacy that enhances The Mood and water quality. Don’t get too excited, though: a new study published this week in BioScience revealed that oysters are “functionally extinct” in many parts of the world where they were once abundant, and nothing [...]
Notably absent from this week’s program is any planned dialogue regarding energy demand and water supply, two issues whose inverse trajectories are threatening the environmental and economic futures of both nations.
One of the greatest challenges to sustaining 1.8 million people in an extremely arid locale is water, which in the coastal city of Dubai is abundant but not potable.
Water quantity and quality have generally been considered as separate problems and have usually been treated as such in policy-making and environmental restoration efforts. Increasingly, however, research and experience is beginning to show a strong link between water quantity and quality.
Last week Newsweek Magazine took up the water issue – a sure sign that awareness of the global water crisis is growing.
Russell Sticklor with the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program in Washington, DC. recently contacted me requesting my thoughts on a number of issues for an article he is writing on global population growth and water scarcity for the magazine, Outdoor America. I thought some of the comments might be interesting to our blog readers.
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.
