
This past spring, two outstanding students, Noeleen Advani and Alyssa Menz, were selected for departmental honors in the Undergraduate Program in Sustainable Development.

As part of their Urban Ecology course, students in the MPA-ESP program take part in a series of field trips, applying classroom learning to real-world issues. From hiking to the top of a landfill reclamation site, to paddling the murky waters of the Bronx River, students were immersed in the challenges and complexities associated with…

Corals are already facing a host of stressors—from pollution and overfishing to tourism and coastal development—but climate change puts corals at risk from rising temperatures and ocean acidification. The decline of coral reefs will have devastating consequences for the ocean, and for us.

The Research Program on Sustainability Policy and Management at the Earth Institute is seeking several graduate-level research assistants for fall 2015, to assist with the program’s various research projects. Read more about the various openings for research in sustainability metrics, sustainable finance, sustainable tourism, and ecosystem services. Applications due August 14, 2015.
I would argue that given human behavior and organizational inertia it is better to subsidize something new than tax something old. A subsidy, like a sale, sometimes stimulates changed behavior. But a tax may or may not influence behavior.

Groundwater is being depleted at alarming rates, not only in drought-stricken California, but around the world. When groundwater is depleted, it can take tens to hundreds of years to for it to reestablish its sustainable level, if at all. What can be done to avert a water crisis?

Flip through any fashionable design annual, and you’ll read of something called “Human Centered Design.” The practice of HCD places emphasis on user testing, interviews, field research and high-touch iterations to solve problems. As contemporary design, and especially sustainable design, increasingly comes to rely on HCD-inspired techniques, greater attention is being paid to social features.
It is not that people have gotten amnesia and don’t remember the damage of Hurricane Sandy. Some homes are still being rebuilt and some people are still displaced. Moreover, the people who lead the shore towns in Long Island and New Jersey are speaking the language of climate resiliency.

We all know that climate change can generate great debate in the United States. But what about the rest of the world?