State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

Poverty / Development34

  • The Flow of Change: Piped Water Arrives in Ruhiira, Uganda

    The Flow of Change: Piped Water Arrives in Ruhiira, Uganda

    By Molly Powers When the Millennium Villages Project (MVP) was first launched in Ruhiira, Uganda, in 2006, community members identified their most pressing problem as lack of access to water. Nearly all 6,500 residents of the mountainous parish of Ruhiira live on hilltops, and most water sources

  • Community Health Workers: Spokes of Change

    Community Health Workers: Spokes of Change

    Three years ago, Irene Gaundi was living with her parents in the Millennium Village of Bonsaaso, in Ghana.  She had completed her last year of secondary school, moved home, and was helping her mother sell second hand clothes. Each day, Irene and her mother walked along the rust-colored roads, beneath the hot sun, balancing clothes…

  • Mountaintop Removal: Laying Waste to Streams and Forests

    Mountaintop Removal: Laying Waste to Streams and Forests

    Mountaintop removal mining, an environmentally devastating form of coal mining that involves blowing off the tops of mountains, has already leveled over 500 mountains and buried 1,200 miles of streams in the Appalachians.

  • Ultrasound Trainings Improve Maternal and Newborn Care at Kumasi Hospitals

    Ultrasound Trainings Improve Maternal and Newborn Care at Kumasi Hospitals

    Maternal and neonatal mortality rates remain high across the Millennium Cities and throughout much of the developing world. All the more reason why we’re excited about the second in a series of ultrasound trainings and screenings in Kumasi, Ghana, led by the London-based International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology (ISUOG), MCI’s partner, which…

  • A Human Right to Water – Can it Make a Difference?

    A Human Right to Water – Can it Make a Difference?

    Despite the UN’s 2010 resolution on the human right to water, debate continues over how useful a rights approach really is. Even if we identify water as a human right, where the state is the principal duty-bearer, will it improve access to water for communities in need?

  • Where Poverty is Extreme, but Where Girls’ Clubs Have Taught Participants the World Has Possibility

    Where Poverty is Extreme, but Where Girls’ Clubs Have Taught Participants the World Has Possibility

    The following is a guest blog, authored by Pam Allyn, Executive Director and Founder of LitWorld, a global organization advocating for children’s rights as readers, writers and learners, and an MCI partner. This account is based on Pam’s travels to the Millennium City of Kisumu, Kenya, to spend time with four Girls’ Clubs, which foster…

  • Somali Drought; Harbinger of Hard Times

    Somali Drought; Harbinger of Hard Times

    For all its problems, Southern California has been a wonderful home for a lot of people over the past 100 or so years. It has nice beaches, good roads, plenty of places to eat, and, for now, a reliable supply of drinking water. Now imagine the L.A. riots had spread across the entire region, plunging…

  • Lurking Under Bangladesh: The Next Great Earthquake?

    Lurking Under Bangladesh: The Next Great Earthquake?

    Beneath Bangladesh: The Next Great Earthquake? from Earth Institute on Vimeo. After the recent great quakes that have swept away entire coastlines and cities in Japan, Haiti and Sumatra, scientists are now looking hard at the nation that may suffer the gravest threat of all: Bangladesh. A new documentary from the Earth Institute follows seismologists as they trace signs of…

  • Clean Water for Fiji

    Clean Water for Fiji

    Corporate giant Fiji Water makes millions of dollars every year selling bottled water, but only 47 percent of Fiji Islanders have access to clean drinking water. That may change.

Banner with images representing environmental issues and text "You Asked: Our Scientists and Experts Answer Your Burning Questions."

You Asked invites you to share your most pressing questions about climate, science, and sustainability. Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Columbia Climate School experts will respond with clear, evidence-based answers. Pose your questions and story ideas!

  • The Flow of Change: Piped Water Arrives in Ruhiira, Uganda

    The Flow of Change: Piped Water Arrives in Ruhiira, Uganda

    By Molly Powers When the Millennium Villages Project (MVP) was first launched in Ruhiira, Uganda, in 2006, community members identified their most pressing problem as lack of access to water. Nearly all 6,500 residents of the mountainous parish of Ruhiira live on hilltops, and most water sources

  • Community Health Workers: Spokes of Change

    Community Health Workers: Spokes of Change

    Three years ago, Irene Gaundi was living with her parents in the Millennium Village of Bonsaaso, in Ghana.  She had completed her last year of secondary school, moved home, and was helping her mother sell second hand clothes. Each day, Irene and her mother walked along the rust-colored roads, beneath the hot sun, balancing clothes…

  • Mountaintop Removal: Laying Waste to Streams and Forests

    Mountaintop Removal: Laying Waste to Streams and Forests

    Mountaintop removal mining, an environmentally devastating form of coal mining that involves blowing off the tops of mountains, has already leveled over 500 mountains and buried 1,200 miles of streams in the Appalachians.

  • Ultrasound Trainings Improve Maternal and Newborn Care at Kumasi Hospitals

    Ultrasound Trainings Improve Maternal and Newborn Care at Kumasi Hospitals

    Maternal and neonatal mortality rates remain high across the Millennium Cities and throughout much of the developing world. All the more reason why we’re excited about the second in a series of ultrasound trainings and screenings in Kumasi, Ghana, led by the London-based International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology (ISUOG), MCI’s partner, which…

  • A Human Right to Water – Can it Make a Difference?

    A Human Right to Water – Can it Make a Difference?

    Despite the UN’s 2010 resolution on the human right to water, debate continues over how useful a rights approach really is. Even if we identify water as a human right, where the state is the principal duty-bearer, will it improve access to water for communities in need?

  • Where Poverty is Extreme, but Where Girls’ Clubs Have Taught Participants the World Has Possibility

    Where Poverty is Extreme, but Where Girls’ Clubs Have Taught Participants the World Has Possibility

    The following is a guest blog, authored by Pam Allyn, Executive Director and Founder of LitWorld, a global organization advocating for children’s rights as readers, writers and learners, and an MCI partner. This account is based on Pam’s travels to the Millennium City of Kisumu, Kenya, to spend time with four Girls’ Clubs, which foster…

  • Somali Drought; Harbinger of Hard Times

    Somali Drought; Harbinger of Hard Times

    For all its problems, Southern California has been a wonderful home for a lot of people over the past 100 or so years. It has nice beaches, good roads, plenty of places to eat, and, for now, a reliable supply of drinking water. Now imagine the L.A. riots had spread across the entire region, plunging…

  • Lurking Under Bangladesh: The Next Great Earthquake?

    Lurking Under Bangladesh: The Next Great Earthquake?

    Beneath Bangladesh: The Next Great Earthquake? from Earth Institute on Vimeo. After the recent great quakes that have swept away entire coastlines and cities in Japan, Haiti and Sumatra, scientists are now looking hard at the nation that may suffer the gravest threat of all: Bangladesh. A new documentary from the Earth Institute follows seismologists as they trace signs of…

  • Clean Water for Fiji

    Clean Water for Fiji

    Corporate giant Fiji Water makes millions of dollars every year selling bottled water, but only 47 percent of Fiji Islanders have access to clean drinking water. That may change.