Poverty / Development26
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Education for Sustainable Citizenship
UNESCO Director General Irena Bokova said sustainable development cannot be achieved by political agreements, financial incentives or technological solutions alone. There must be a fundamental change in the ways individuals think and act.
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A Faustian Choice: Population and Environment
Population growth is a key contributor to the pressures pushing at our planetary boundaries. In Rio+20 discussions, implications of population growth have become shrouded in platitudes. It is important that discussions on planetary limits clearly lay out possible strategies that can alleviate these pressures.
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Bringing Access to Safe Water in Ceará, Brazil: PepsiCo Foundation and the Columbia Water Center to Participate in Rio+20
The work of the PepsiCo Foundation and the Columbia Water Center in Ceara, Brazil, provides a case study in the role public-private partnerships in the sustainable management of water sources.
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Linking Environmental Governance and Peacebuilding at Rio
As world leaders gather next week for Rio+20, they would do well to bear in mind the core importance of governance of natural resources in the route to peace and stability.
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Goals for Rio: A Path to Sustainability
In an article published in The Lancet, Earth Institute Director Jeffrey Sachs outlines his own ideas for sustainable development goals, and how how these goals can build on the Millennium Development Goals, the UN’s set of targets that aim to reduce extreme poverty and boost social well-being in many other ways by 2015.
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High-Value Resources: The Other Side of the Coin
High-value resources such as diamonds have been linked to civil conflict. But they can also contribute to promoting development in post-conflict countries. This possibility was explored during an all-day conference, “Identifying Lessons for Natural Resource Management in Post-Conflict Peace-building,” held at Columbia University on April 25.
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Photo Essay: In the Heart of Dryness
Explore the country of Niger in this visual essay while learning about the importance of seasonal forecasting to the Sahel, one of the poorest and most climate-vulnerable regions in the world.
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Brownfields: Untold Stories, Unrealized Value
Across the country, in distressed urban centers, hundreds of thousands of industrial sites have been left lying fallow. These properties, known as brownfields, embody the story of America’s twentieth-century industrial might and bear the mark of that period’s unenlightened practices. Their closing and subsequent abandonment culminated in the loss of well-paying manufacturing jobs, the creation…
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Renewed Effort Underway to Better Understand Challenges to Peacebuilding
Lessons learned regarding the management of natural resources in peacebuilding efforts were the focus of several activities recently, including a book launch of the first in a six-volume series, a conference, and curriculum-building workshop.
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“
