Environment22
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Hiron Point in Sundarban
We traveled by boat to the south part of the Sundarbans near the Indian Ocean to install a GPS at Hiron Point, this isolated facility also hosts a tide gauge recording long-term water level changes due to rising sea level and land subsidence. Our GPS will help distinguish how much of each there is in…
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Polder 32
Polder 32 is one of the many inland islands in Bangladesh that was enclosed by an embankment to protect it from flooding. When that embankment failed during Cyclone Aila in 2009, the island was flooded for almost 2 years. Subsidence of the ground inside the embankment with no sedimentation to compensate made it worse. We…
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A Forest Reserve Is Not an Island
Biologist Marina Cords has been studying monkey social behavior in western Kenya’s protected Kakamega Forest since 1979. Her work has led to insights about how primates manage conflicts, mate and carry out other social functions closely related to human behavior.
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New Software Speeds Carbon Footprinting
Taking a big step towards helping companies accurately label the carbon footprint of their products, researchers at the Earth Institute have developed new software that can calculate the carbon footprints of thousands of products simultaneously.
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Nature’s Toxic Crusaders
Can mushrooms help clean up oil spills? Can oysters filter sewage pollution? Industrial waste is being injected into the planet’s soil and water as a result of human activity. Pioneers in the field of conservation and sustainability are employing nature’s own biological task force to help clean up.
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For Tomorrow’s Leaders, a Tool Box for a Complex World
How are the global leaders of tomorrow going to secure renewable sources of energy, solve the problems of water scarcity, and maintain our standard of living – all while improving health, ending poverty, and accommodating a growing population and changing environment? The World Economic Forum, with its commitment to “improving the state of the world,”…
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Investigating the World’s Oceans, Pole to Pole and Deep Below the Bottom
Watch a slide show featuring ongoing research by scientists at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, whose work around the globe is key to understanding past changes in the oceans and what is going on today.
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A Major Legal Victory for Climate Science
Though most attention last week focused on the Supreme Court ruling upholding federal reform of the health-care system, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued the most important judicial decision on climate change in five years. That decision upholds the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate greenhouse gases, and it…
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A Celebration of Sustainability Innovation
The 2012 Equator Prizes were awarded to 25 local initiatives from Bangladesh, Tajikistan, Nicaragua, Swaziland and Brazil and elsewhere, for work by local groups toward the advancement of sustainable development solutions.
