Posts
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Microbeads, Marine Debris, Regulation and the Precautionary Principle
It is clear that the hunger for economic growth and wealth pushes business and governments to ignore environmental impacts that are considered an inevitable byproduct of development. But this fails to account for the costs that will inevitably be borne when the damage must be cleaned up.
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A Special Project, and a Chance to Double Your Impact
As 2015 comes to a close, we would like to express our deepest gratitude to the Earth Institute’s many partners, friends and supporters who help make our work possible. In honor of the final year of the Millennium Development Goals and the transition to the Sustainable Development Goals, we would like to highlight one partner…
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Center on Sustainable Investment Accepting Internship Applications
The Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, a joint center of Columbia Law School and the Earth Institute, is accepting applications until Jan. 15, 2016, for internship positions for the spring 2016 semester. Interns are staffed to one or more specific research projects depending on the background and interests of the particular applicant. Unpaid and paid…
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Doing Science When There’s No Science to Be Done
With an abundance of time and a dearth of work, we have begun to devise ways of doing science before we can actually do science at sea. Among other things, we set up an imaging system to take pictures of particle filters we bring back from the deep sea.
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Student Profile: Danny Giddings
After two years of service with the United States Peace Corps, Danny Giddings was eager to expand his knowledge of the various environmental, economic, and social issues involved in agricultural production. For Danny, the MPA ESP program offered the perfect combination of environmental policy with education in hard sciences.
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Electoral Politics and Environmental Sustainability
The political consensus for sustainability that could emerge might be based on increased funding for the science of renewable energy, battery technology, energy efficiency and smart grids. It could also include incentives for private sector investment to commercialize new energy technologies, and tax expenditures that make it easier for consumers to adopt these new technologies.
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Honduran Farmers Help Design Insurance Against Climate Risks
The International Research Institute for Climate and Society and local Honduran partners have been working to identify and implement farmer-driven, development-focused climate risk solutions. Through interactive exercises, grain farmers have worked together with the team of experts since 2014 to design and tailor index insurance in the pilot region of El Paraíso, Honduras. This video…
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Day 2: What Am I Doing Here, Anyway?
The South Pacific Gyre is the most nutrient-poor region in the ocean, and the waters are the clearest in the ocean. The sediments accumulate below the water at rates as low as 0.1 millimeter per thousand years. So, 10 centimeters of seafloor are equivalent to one million years of material deposition in the South Pacific.
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Facing the Challenges for Women in Science
Women scientists in the developing world face particular challenges tied to their societies’ cultures and institutional norms. In this video, five women attending an agricultural science conference last June in Zimbabwe talk about some of these challenges.
