After spending two days back in the big city of Fortaleza learning about the finer points of water management in the state of Ceará, I’ve returned to the rural municipality of Milhã, ground zero for the Columbia Water Center’s project to improve water access in Brazil’s semi-arid sertão region. Our group is now just three: [...]
The climate bill has come and gone. Just two months ago, it seemed as though the bill stood a fighting chance, given the buffet of options available to policymakers.
On July 22, just days before the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) declared that the last decade was the warmest on record, the United States Senate abandoned its effort to put a price on carbon. Comprehensive climate and energy legislation was on life-support for weeks until Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) announced that [...]
On Monday, the Masters in Development Practice interns at the Millennium Village Project in Sauri, Kenya were relocated to Nairobi as a precaution for the constitutional referendum taking place August 4th. Although this put a damper on our projects, it did enable Steph, Denise and I to participate in a historical event and join 55+ [...]
You may have heard that on Wednesday, August 4, a historic event will be taking place: a referendum deciding the acceptance or rejection of a new constitution for Kenya. The Green side (aka ‘Yes camp’) is headed by President Mwai Kibaki and supported by Kenya prime minister Raila Odinga and much of the parliament. The [...]
Earlier this year, 14 energy academics, analysts and advocates gathered with hopes of reinventing the way the international community treats climate policy. The result, The Hartwell Paper: A new direction for climate policy after the crash of 2009, aims to examine “all aspects of the crisis which enveloped global climate policy” last December during the [...]
I was eagerly anticipating President Obama’s speech last night and very much hoping it would mark a true turning point in the administration’s handling of the crisis. However, like many others, I was sorely disappointed. While the speech used plenty of combative terms (“battle plan”, “siege”) it was completely absent of specifics, both for responding to the crisis and for how to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
A CWC research team is analyzing a complicated issue in a highly conflicted part of the world, and trying to find a way forward. They are taking an in-depth look at Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan), and the environmental, political and economic crisis building there.
Even today, many Central Asian nations rely on infrastructure that was clumsily implemented by the Soviet Union in the 1970s, and Tajikistan is no exception. In fact, she is the poorest country in Central Asia and has long been quarrelling with Uzbekistan and even Afghanistan over resources and related policies. One such controversial project involves [...]
“The federal government’s existing water policies and programs simply aren’t built for 21st century pressures on water supplies,” Salazar said. “Population growth. Climate change. Rising energy demands. Environmental needs. Aging infrastructure. Risks to drinking water supplies. Those are just some of the challenges.”
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.
