Environment20
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Sustainable Intensification, Jumbo Shrimp, and Peacekeeper Missile: Which of these is an Oxymoron?
Lists are immensely popular these days and there are lists for almost anything. I was curious if there is a list for oxymora, or contradictions in terms, and sure enough there is – oxymoronlist.com. I was prompted on my search because of the recent appearance of the term “sustainable intensification” and I wanted to see…
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Birds, Ballasts, and the Fate of the Biosphere
The Biosphere really needs its own newspaper. Yes, there are lots of newspapers out there, but when it comes to the Biosphere, important stories just don’t get the top billing they deserve. Take discoveries of new species, for example. Just in the last month, a new spoon worm, white toothed shrew, corpse flower, and tailorbird…
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Finding Solutions to Environmental Conflict: Q&A With Josh Fisher
In a rapidly warming world, conflicts inevitably arise between those affected by dwindling resources and changing climate conditions. Josh Fisher’s work centers on trying to avert conflict and provide opportunities for cooperation through understanding the relationships between conflict, environment and development.
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The Boom of Hydraulic Fracturing
Experts discuss the rise and boom of unconventional hydrocarbon extraction in the final Sustainable Development Seminar Series of the 2012-2013 academic year.
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Of Cow Dung, Cook Stoves and Sustainability in Practice
When the Environmental Defense Fund asked me to measure how biogas cook stoves were changing the lives of farmers in rural India, there wasn’t a word in that question with which I was comfortable. Having just graduated from the Undergraduate Program in Sustainable Development, I had never done fieldwork; and the concept of a biogas…
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Jamuna River
The last part of our river work was on the Jamuna River, as the Brahmaputra is called south of where if diverges from its former course. It shifted up to 100 km to this course about 200 years ago. We visited Sirajganj where an embankment protects the city from the migrating river and Aricha near…
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Brahmaputra chars
We traveled to the Brahmaputra River, one of the most active on the planet, to continue our fieldwork. We visited two places while working our way downstream and saw the rapid changes in the river bank and chars (islands). At one ghat (dock) the river had eroded a mile of the coast while in the…
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Keeping Track: the State of the Planet
Watch highlights of last October’s “State of the Planet” summit, which brought experts together to discuss the challenges of sustainable development, climate change and the environment, as well as some of the solutions.
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Unplanned Time in Dhaka
Due to the speed at which the two Scotts were able to repair the compaction meter, I found myself with two extra days in Dhaka. Besides numerous quickly planned meetings, I got to see the celebration of the arrival of Bengali Spring and the growing protest movement against the light sentence for Islamists convicted of…
