Posts
-
Research Assistant Openings for Grad Students
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.
-
Hillary Clinton Is Right on Climate Change and the New York Times Is Wrong
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.
-
The Growing Groundwater Crisis
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?
-
Educated Girls Uncover Unmet Design Needs
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.
-
Post-Sandy Rebuilding for Resiliency: Lessons From Long Beach, NY
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.
-
What the World Thinks of Climate Change
We all know that climate change can generate great debate in the United States. But what about the rest of the world?
-
Undergraduates Will Develop Green Geodatabase for University
An undergraduate course in the Sustainable Development Program recently received a Course Support grant from the Earth Institute to conduct a special fieldwork project to develop the Columbia University Green Geodatabase.
-
A Dire Warning on Rapid Climate Change
Sea level rise from melting ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland threatens catastrophe for coastal cities within decades unless strong measures are taken to reduce CO2 emissions from the use of fossil fuels, argues climate scientist James Hansen.
-
Spontaneous Clumping of Tropical Clouds
If you take a look at nearly any satellite image of clouds in the tropics, you’ll notice that the clouds tend to be organized into clusters. One specific type of cloud organization called “self-aggregation.” Self-aggregation is the tendency of tropical clouds to spontaneously clump together, solely due to interactions between the clouds and the surrounding…
