Agriculture21
-
In Biblical Land, Searching for Droughts Past and Future
Human-influenced climate warming has already reduced rainfall and increased evaporation in the Mideast, worsening water shortages. Up to now, climate scientists had projected that rainfall could decline another 20 percent by 2100. But the Dead Sea cores suggest that things could become much worse, much faster.
-
Photo Essay: The Dead Sea, Living Waters and Megadrought
Thousands of years before Biblical times, during a period when temperatures were unusually high, the lands around the Dead Sea now occupied by Israel, Jordan and surrounding nations suffered megadroughts far worse than any recorded by humans. Warming climate now threatens to return such conditions to this already hard-pressed region.
-
3 Uses for OpenLandContracts.org
Kaitlin Cordes from the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment shares some of the ways she uses this repository of investor-state contracts.
-
Reflecting on OpenLandContracts.org’s First Two Years
Kaitlin Cordes from the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment looks back at the progress made by the repository of land investment contracts—and looks ahead to the challenges that await.
-
Photo Essay: Climate Change, Sea Level and the Vikings
A thousand years ago, powerful Viking chieftans flourished in Norway’s Lofoten Islands, above the Arctic Circle. In an environment frequently hovering on the edge of survivability, small shifts in climate or sea level could mean life or death. People had to constantly adapt, making their living from the land and the sea as best they…
-
Lorenzo Cotula and Thierry Berger On Transparency around Land Investment Contracts
The Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) spoke with Lorenzo Cotula and Thierry Berger about OpenLandContracts.org, the challenges and opportunities stakeholders face in promoting greater transparency around land investments, and how effective use of disclosed information can be promoted.
-
Not So Sweet: Tanzania Confronts Arbitration over Large-Scale Sugarcane and Ethanol Project
The legal battle underscores the challenges that arise when governments, international investors, and the rights of local communities are at odds.
-
Warming Climate Could Abruptly Increase Rain in Africa’s Sahel
Climate change could turn one of Africa’s driest regions wet, according to a new study. Scientists have found evidence in computer simulations for a possible abrupt change in the Sahel, a region long characterized by aridity and political instability. In the study, just published in the journal Earth System Dynamics, the authors detected a self-amplifying…
-
How Will Climate Change Impact Water Resources?
Richard Seager and Park Williams, climate scientists at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, discuss how water will be affected by warmer temperatures, and how their research increases understanding of these issues.
By studying thousands of buildings and analyzing their electricity use, Columbia Climate School Dean Alexis Abramson has been able to uncover ways to significantly cut energy consumption and emissions. Watch the Video: “Engineering a Cooler Future Through Smarter Buildings“
