environmental policy9
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Federal Dysfunction Continues to Underfund Science and Infrastructure
In a time when the global economy places us in constant competition with other nations, our inability to forge effective public-private partnerships may well be the greatest long-term threat to America’s economic and political power.
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Earth Day’s Importance and Evolution Since 1970
The issue for Earth Day, 2015, is how we marshal the forces of technology toward the goal of creating a sustainable, high-throughput economy. Some of these new technologies will damage our environment. Some, like solar power, can help protect the environment.
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An Evening with the Writers of the Clean Air Act: Insight into the ‘Golden Age’ of Environmental Law
At a panel discussion this week, Leon Billings and Thomas Jorling, two senior staff members who helped craft the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and other major environmental legislation in the 1970s, spoke about the bipartisan effort to pass that legislation, and the partisan divide that stymies Congress today.
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How Can Federal and City Governments Cooperate? The Case of Green Infrastructure
With support from the Earth Institute, writers Caswell Holloway, Carter Strickland, Michael Gerrard, and Daniel Firger recently published “Solving the CSO Conundrum: Green Infrastructure and the Unfulfilled Promise of Federal-Municipal Cooperation” in Harvard Environmental Law Review. The authors propose regulatory and policy reform to develop comprehensive, locally led infrastructure and sustainability initiatives that improve public…
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How Much Arsenic is Too Little?
Five hundred utilities in the U.S. provide drinking water with unsafe levels of arsenic, the Environmental Protection Agency says. But how many people are getting too much arsenic in their water is much less clear, according to a study conducted in part by the Columbia Water Center.
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Latest Environmental Performance Index Introduces New Indicators
Innovations in the 2014 EPI include a new wastewater treatment indicator; a new approach to climate change indicators; and two new satellite-derived indicators for air quality and forests.
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Cuts in Non-CO2 Pollutants May Slow Climate Change
Reducing Soot and Methane Would Bring Fast Results, Says Study
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Cities Lead on Climate Problems, and Solutions
New Report Analyzes Urban Areas Across the World
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Gore, Sachs Address Way Forward on Climate Change
On February 20, 2007, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore spoke to a packed house in Columbia’s Low Library Rotunda to address the next steps needed to mitigate the global climate crisis. Gore called upon younger generations to speak up and demand change…