Posts
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Kumasi’s New Neonatal Clinics On Track to Reduce Maternal and Infant Mortality, Despite Lingering Challenges
I recently had the opportunity to visit the two new neonatal clinics in Kumasi, Ghana, built as part of the Millennium Cities Initiative’s efforts to create models capable of reducing maternal and infant mortality in the Millennium Cities. MCI partnered with Israeli neonatologists from Ben Gurion University who, with support from Israel’s Ministry of Foreign…
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Tundra, Microbes and World Climate
O. Roger Anderson is a microbiologist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who studies bacteria, amoebas, fungi and other microorganisms. Lately he has been thinking about how tiny organisms that inhabit the vast northern tundra regions could contribute to changing climate, since, like humans, they breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. Recently, Anderson found a…
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Rebuilding Haiti: The 10-Year Plan
The horrors of Haiti’s earthquake continue to unfold. The quake itself killed perhaps 100,000 people. The inability to organize rapid relief is killing tens of thousands more. More than 1 million people are exposed to hunger and disease and, with the rain and hurricane seasons approaching, are vulnerable to further hazards. Even an economy as…
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Haiti: Physics of Quakes Past, and Future
The earthquake that struck Haiti took place along what is called a strike-slip fault—a place where tectonic plates on each side of a fault line are moving horizontally in opposite directions, like hands rubbing together. When these plates lock together, stress builds; eventually they slip; and this produces shaking. This quake was fairly shallow; it…
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Witnessing the Desperation of the Poor
At the moment the Haiti earthquake struck, two Earth Institute staffers were in Port-au-Prince assessing how to make the country less poor, and less vulnerable to natural disasters. Marc Levy and Alexander Fischer of the Center for International Earth Science Information Network were working with the Haiti Regeneration Initiative, a nascent program to repair Haiti’s…
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The State of the Arctic
Where climate change is concerned, the Arctic region acts as a harbinger: the extremely sensitive Arctic system reacts earlier and more profoundly to anthropogenic climate change than many other regions. And as climate change progresses, it is also projected to experience greater environmental changes than other places on earth. As such, it has become an…
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2000-2009: The Warmest Decade
Long-Term Rise in Global Temperature Unabated
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Needed in Haiti: Reinforced Buildings—and Economy
The Jan. 12 Port-au-Prince earthquake is almost unique in modern history. It is about the worst natural extreme to affect some of the worst-off people on earth. What does disaster recovery mean when this happens? Poor countries suffer more from natural extremes like hurricanes, droughts and floods than do rich countries. Everything about richer countries…
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Haiti: America’s ‘Teachable Moment’
President Obama is providing the leadership we need and hoped for in the face of the horror of the Haitian earthquake. The clearest evidence of American unity behind the effort to respond to the tragedy in Haiti took place at the White House on Saturday, Jan. 16, as Obama joined forces with two ex-presidents to…
