Sustainability Archives - State of the Planet

Two children and an adult playing with recycled musical instruments

We Made Musical Instruments From Trash at Manhattanville Community Day

Inspired by Bash the Trash, kids had a chance to make musical instruments out of reusable materials, then perform in a parade.

by |May 23, 2023

The Impact of the American Consensus Favoring Environmental Protection

The legal structure of American environmental protection persists because environmental protection has been added to the fundamental and irreducible function of government: to protect people from harm.

by |May 22, 2023
Five young professionally dressed people stand smiling in front of trees

A Proposal to Decouple Food Systems From Deforestation in Brazil

Students from the M.P.A. in Environmental Science and Policy program traveled to Brazil to present their policy proposal at the 2023 Global Public Policy Network Conference.

by Deanna Coleman |May 15, 2023
andy revkin speaking along Maine coastline

How to Defeat the Climate Change Complexity Monster

Use key questions to cut amorphous slogans like “climate emergency” into addressable pieces.

by |May 10, 2023
A young woman sits on a bench in her graduation gown in front of a column

Olivia Smith: Changing the Way We Look at Food Systems and the Environment

A soon-to-be graduate of the M.A. in Climate and Society program hopes to influence policy that makes food systems more sustainable and equitable.

by |May 8, 2023
people stand near shredded plastic

A Plastics Treaty Will Be Grand, but this Recycling Innovator in Indonesia Isn’t Waiting

A pop-up Sustain What conversation with a sustainability-focused entrepreneur building a plastic trash-to-resource business across eastern Indonesia.

by |May 4, 2023
steve cohen headshot

Q&A: Environmentally Sustainable Growth

In his new book, Professor Steven Cohen offers a positive vision of an environmentally sustainable future and outlines realistic paths toward a renewable resource-based economy.

by Giulia Campos |May 2, 2023

Generational and Cultural Change is Stimulating Environmental Sustainability

The consequences of climate change are particularly salient for young people, who have only known a world under constant change. They see the crowded and endangered planet they are set to inherit and are motivated to try to protect it.

by |May 1, 2023
person in a hoodie with smoke in front of their face

Tackling E-Cigarettes: One Path Forward in the Fight Against E-Waste Pollution

Vaping is often billed as a healthy alternative to traditional cigarettes, but advocates fail to register e-cigarettes’ contribution to the growing threat of e-waste.

by Ian Galinson |April 28, 2023

Getting Sustainability Done in New York City

Just in time for Earth Day, New York City has issued a new sustainability plan; Mayor Adams deserves enormous credit for empowering his team to develop and issue this plan and for deploying his political capital in support of practical, real-world-oriented sustainability planning, policy, programs, and management.

by |April 24, 2023