sustainable development20
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A Sustainable Lifestyle and the Changing Nature of Work
In the process of changing the economic role of the city, we need to pay more attention to the impact of our production and consumption on the environment and on all elements of the supply chain that bring goods and services to us. Building systems that reduce environmental impacts is more important than individual consumption…
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Six Tough Questions About Climate Change
People often ask certain tough questions about climate change— about the costs of cutting carbon emissions, the feasibility of transitioning to renewable energy, and whether it’s already too late to do anything about climate change. Laura Segafredo, manager of the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project, answers these questions.
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From Copenhagen to Paris: Getting Beyond Talk
The climate issue seems to generate a high level of ideologically based politics, emotional rhetoric and political symbolism. It is time to move past symbols to pragmatism and political reality.
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Getting Sustainability on the Agenda of Our Dysfunctional Federal Government
What is needed politically and in reality is a positive vision of a sustainable society. In the case of this country it will need to be built on the traditional values that have always attracted people to America: freedom, rewarding individual achievement, a love of the new and novel, innovation, and acceptance (even if reluctantly)…
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Last Sample and Home
We finished our work at the river transect. Now we had one more sample to collect. Alamgir had arranged for drillers at this new site, but they were delayed because of a knife fight between two villages over some property.
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OSL Samples at Last
The success of the tube wells for drilling and obtaining samples was a great boon to our field program. We drilled three additional tube wells to complete a five-well transect across the abandoned river valley. When we date the samples, we will find out if the river switched position suddenly, possibly from an earthquake.
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Sustainability Requires Technology, Ethics and Political Will
What we are missing here in the United States is the environmental leadership that we had during the 1970s and 1980s when we showed the world how to grow an economy while building our knowledge of ecosystems and reducing the degree of damage we were inflicting on the natural world. Since 1990, technology has advanced…
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Your Choices Matter
The Earth Institute and Emerald Brand recently co-hosted “Your Choices Matter,” a sustainability awareness event at Columbia University’s Alfred Lerner Hall.
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Tubewells to the Rescue
The resistivity testing was hampered by bad roads and flooded fields. The augering was proving similarly difficult in the thick muds of the abandoned channel. It was time to change to our alternative plan: drilling with tube wells. That worked better and we had turned a corner.
COP31, the 2026 United Nations Climate Change Conference, aims to advance dialogue, strengthen consensus, and accelerate climate action on a global scale. From November 9–20, 2026 in Antalya, Türkiye, heads of state, ministers, scientists, business leaders, and civil society will gather to advance efforts in emission targets, climate finance, and adaptation and resilience. Once again, our experts, students, and global thought leaders from Columbia Climate School and across Columbia University are contributing to key events, sharing insights, and helping shape the dialogue toward ambitious, science-based solutions. Learn More