Poverty / Development37
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Widening the World for Students
The following is a guest blog, authored by David Homa, an anthropology and economics teacher at Los Gatos High School in California, one of MCI’s School2School partners. As the world shrinks through the use of technology, it is possible to widen the world to students all over the world. During the past week, I have…
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Floods in Eastern Sri Lanka and North-Eastern Australia: Contrasts in Disaster Risk Management
Due to the ongoing floods in Sri Lanka, more than a million people are affected, 185,000 were displaced and 16 had died by February 5, 2011. The impact has been most severe on Eastern Sri Lanka a “Disaster Hazard and Vulnerability Hotspot”. The purpose of this post is to publicize information resources to help target…
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Despite Grim Water Futures, China and US Discuss Everything but Water
Notably absent from this week’s program is any planned dialogue regarding energy demand and water supply, two issues whose inverse trajectories are threatening the environmental and economic futures of both nations.
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Helping Water Work for Women in Mali
Last month I went to visit our Mali project site with two other Water Center staffers. We visited the village and garden where we worked last year (Koila Markala and Tibibas, respectively) and many other gardens where we hope to work in the future.
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Timor-Leste: Sustainable Development Initiative Launched by the Vale Columbia Center in Partnership with the Revenue Watch Institute and the Open Society Foundations
The Open Society Foundations have awarded $800,000 to the Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment to promote integrated development in Timor-Leste in collaboration with the Revenue Watch Institute (RWI). Though rich in oil and gas, the island nation of Timor-Leste remains one of the least developed countries in the world. To use its revenues…
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E.P.A. Sued for Trying to Protect the Environment
Early last month, Florida sued the US Environmental Protection Agency in an effort to block new clean water regulations that the agency announced last month and which it plans to begin enforcing in 2012.
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Eni Joins the Earth Institute’s Corporate Circle as a Strategic Partner
Eni CEO Paolo Scaroni and Earth Institute Director Jeffrey Sachs announced that the two partners would work together on key projects promoting sustainable development in Africa. The announcement was made at this year’s UN Global Compact Leaders Summit in the presence of Georg Kell, the Global Compact’s executive director. The collaboration is part of the…
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At AGU, Earth Institute’s Columbia Water Center Adds to the Abundance of Scientific Riches
The annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting is an all-you-can-eat buffet of the most current scientific knowledge available on the planet. Name your pleasure: space, climate change, geomagnetism, nonlinear geophysics, volcanology, biogeosciences, etc. You have to be careful to indulge in moderation over the five-day event, or risk unseemly bloating. The Columbia Water Center contributed…
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Charcoal, Construction and Coffins: Tracing Links from Disasters to Deforestation in Haiti
Reliance on fuel wood in the Port-à-Piment watershed area of Haiti—a contributing factor to deforestation there—may be exacerbated by natural disasters.
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“
