And we’re back with session II: Poverty – How Do We Achieve the Millennium Development Goals? Update | 11:15 a.m. The conversation begins with a short, but complex question: How are we doing with the MDGs? A panel of experts including HRH Princess Maxima of the Netherlands, Glenn Denning, Professor of Processional Practice, Columbia University, Upmanu [...]
We were thrilled to welcome Bill Gates recently to the Earth Institute for a wide-ranging informational meeting led by director Jeff Sachs. The half-day visit was a lively, frank and open exchange of ideas between Mr. Gates and Earth Institute faculty members debating the challenges and immense opportunities for human development in the areas of [...]
The Earth Institute received a surprise gift of $2.1 million from Sue and Bill Gross to benefit the crucial work of the Millennium Villages project. The gift is the third from financier Gross and his wife Sue, who have given more than $5 million in unrestricted support of the Millennium Villages project, a community-led, holistic [...]
In my previous blogs, I have been discussing different ways in which the human right to clean water is violated. I have already discussed how economic scarcity occurs, and this week I will be discussing pollution of water. Pollution issues are largely leading to contamination of the water supplies around the world. There are countless [...]
In my earlier blog, I began arguing that water is a human right, and that the extreme lack of potable water is a significant human rights violation. The scale of the human rights violation of the right to drinking water is on an extremely large scale. The largest occurrence of this right being violated is [...]
In the world, over one billion people live without access to clean water resources. These people have extremely large death rates to completely preventable, waterborne illnesses. It is estimated that over two million people die every year from preventable waterborne diseases, and a large percentage of those people are children under the age of five. [...]
When gender is mentioned in the context of climate change, it’s generally to point out women’s greater vulnerability to climate change’s impacts. Indeed, women do tend to be more vulnerable than men, especially in less-developed countries, and they have different capacities to cope. The reasons for the gender differences include rights to home and land [...]
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.
