Natural Disasters42
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Preparing for Disasters, with the Focus on Children
A new initiative directed by the Earth Institute’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia will focus on protecting children from all types of disasters, starting with a pilot program in two communities in New York and Arkansas.
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From the Nile to the Sundarbans: the Undergraduate Capstones
This spring, students in the Undergraduate Program in Sustainable Development presented innovative solutions to sustainability issues as part of their Capstone Workshop. Their clients ranged from the United States Military Academy at West Point to the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.
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Was Hurricane Sandy the 100-Year Event?
Recent research suggests that Sandy may have been much more likely than previously believed.
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Indian Sundarban
We arrived in Kolkata, and filmed by the Hooghly River. While it is no longer the main channel of the Ganges, it is still the Holy Ganges and we saw a funeral procession spreading ashes of a loved one while filming there. Then a 5 hour trip by car, ferry, rickshaw and boat to the…
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Geology and Filming in Mizoram
In the small town of Kolasib, we stayed in Hotel Cloud 9. I had been told since I was a child that I was always off on Cloud 9 and now I was actually here. However, the electricity wasn’t for the first few hours, so showers were cold, but the dinner was hot.
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Tiger Footprints and Dhaka
We finished our time in the Sundarbans with a silent boat ride in a tidal creek. The highlight was sets of fresh tiger footprints. We then had a long sail back to Dhaka with only one stop at a village. We then had a whirlwind tour of Old Dhaka with enough shopping to send the…
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Salt Kilns and Landscape Change in the Sundarbans
Leaving Hiron Point, we headed east through the Sundarbans to Kotka. At Kotka the students had walks through the forest seeing deer, wild boar and monkeys, while a smaller group also sampled near a set of 300 year old salt making kilns for OSL dating. We managed to finish while the tide inundated the site.…
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Polder 32 and Hiron Point
We visited Polder 32, an embanked island in the delta that was flooded for almost two years when the embankment failed in several places during Cyclone Aila. In addition to the problem of increased subsidence due to the embankment, the area struggles for fresh water. Then we sailed to Hiron Point, a forest station in…
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Remote Data Team Helped Put Haiti Back on the Map
Before the Haiti earthquake, few publicly available maps of the country existed. When the earthquake hit in 2010, some of the little data that existed was destroyed. Then a team at Tufts University went into action, and from afar, helped build updated maps of roads and earthquake damage to help humanitarian organizations deal with the…
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“
