State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

Tag: Technology13

  • Laptops and MTV in Rural Kenyan School

    Flashback for a second. Though it may seem like long time ago, it’s been a mere 2 months since Obama took the oath. A lot has changed since. On the evening of January 20, the President and the First Lady whirled through his new backyard stopping off at several different parties, one of which was…

  • Free water saving kits from NYC DEP

    If you go to the New York City Department of Environmental Protection website, you’ll see that nearly half the items on the homepage are about water. There’s the large scale, like protecting and maintaining the sewer systems and watersheds, and also the smaller scale, such as their rain barrel and residential water conservation programs. As…

  • Sand Filtration

    Via ScienceDaily, Dr. James Amburgey, from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, has developed an inexpensive and low-tech way to treat water using sand.  According to Dr. Amburgey, all that is needed to create safe drinking water is PVC pipe, sand and inexpensive treatment chemicals. Previous technologies have used sand filtration, however, this current…

  • Aquaduct Bicycle

    Note: The following image links to a promotional video from Aquaduct In the most recent Innovate or Die contest sponsored by Google and Specialized, the grand prize winner was the Aquaduct, a pedal-powered concept vehicle that transports, filters, and stores water for the developing world. According to the website, As the rider pedals, a pump…

  • LifeStraw®

    According to the World Health Organization, 3.575 million people die each year from water-related disease, and 84% of water-related deaths are in children ages 0 – 14. Access to safe and clean water is an option many people in developing countries don’t have. I think the picture above says all that is needed about the LifeStraw®,…

  • Water Pyramid

    A Dutch company has created the Water Pyramid to help create safe, clean drinking water in tropical and developing countries. While traditional reverse osmosis systems are expensive to build and use a considerable amount of energy, the Water Pyramid uses the sun as its primary energy source and has low operational and maintenance costs. The…

  • Engineered Osmosis

    Researchers at Yale have developed a water purification system that uses one-tenth the electric energy of conventional desalination systems.

  • As Economy Falters, Everglades May Lose Out

    In the past months, the headlines have been dominated by news of yet another bad day for the stock market. But, there is another casualty of the recession that probably isn’t getting as much press. While stocks continue to plummet, the Everglades of South Florida may also be falling on hard times as a result…

  • Water, Water everywhere, nor any drop for China?

    Last summer I found myself writing a Water Center Report on China’s massive South-to-North Water transfer project in lieu of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.  While the world had its eyes fixed on the struggle between freedom-seeking Tibetans and the Chinese authority, the rumbling of a mammoth water crisis was underway.  The Northern provinces (where Beijing…

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  • Laptops and MTV in Rural Kenyan School

    Flashback for a second. Though it may seem like long time ago, it’s been a mere 2 months since Obama took the oath. A lot has changed since. On the evening of January 20, the President and the First Lady whirled through his new backyard stopping off at several different parties, one of which was…

  • Free water saving kits from NYC DEP

    If you go to the New York City Department of Environmental Protection website, you’ll see that nearly half the items on the homepage are about water. There’s the large scale, like protecting and maintaining the sewer systems and watersheds, and also the smaller scale, such as their rain barrel and residential water conservation programs. As…

  • Sand Filtration

    Via ScienceDaily, Dr. James Amburgey, from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, has developed an inexpensive and low-tech way to treat water using sand.  According to Dr. Amburgey, all that is needed to create safe drinking water is PVC pipe, sand and inexpensive treatment chemicals. Previous technologies have used sand filtration, however, this current…

  • Aquaduct Bicycle

    Note: The following image links to a promotional video from Aquaduct In the most recent Innovate or Die contest sponsored by Google and Specialized, the grand prize winner was the Aquaduct, a pedal-powered concept vehicle that transports, filters, and stores water for the developing world. According to the website, As the rider pedals, a pump…

  • LifeStraw®

    According to the World Health Organization, 3.575 million people die each year from water-related disease, and 84% of water-related deaths are in children ages 0 – 14. Access to safe and clean water is an option many people in developing countries don’t have. I think the picture above says all that is needed about the LifeStraw®,…

  • Water Pyramid

    A Dutch company has created the Water Pyramid to help create safe, clean drinking water in tropical and developing countries. While traditional reverse osmosis systems are expensive to build and use a considerable amount of energy, the Water Pyramid uses the sun as its primary energy source and has low operational and maintenance costs. The…

  • Engineered Osmosis

    Researchers at Yale have developed a water purification system that uses one-tenth the electric energy of conventional desalination systems.

  • As Economy Falters, Everglades May Lose Out

    In the past months, the headlines have been dominated by news of yet another bad day for the stock market. But, there is another casualty of the recession that probably isn’t getting as much press. While stocks continue to plummet, the Everglades of South Florida may also be falling on hard times as a result…

  • Water, Water everywhere, nor any drop for China?

    Last summer I found myself writing a Water Center Report on China’s massive South-to-North Water transfer project in lieu of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.  While the world had its eyes fixed on the struggle between freedom-seeking Tibetans and the Chinese authority, the rumbling of a mammoth water crisis was underway.  The Northern provinces (where Beijing…