water matters29
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Denmark’s New Mark: Fossil-free by 2050
Last Monday, October 11th, Columbia University’s Earth Institute and the Consulate General of Denmark co-hosted “The Climate Challenge: Revitalizing the Debate”. The daylong symposium included three panel sessions, in which experts from academia, the private sector, government and non-governmental organizations discussed the effects and implications of global climate change as well as steps –both taken…
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In New York City, 2010 is All About the Water
Has New York City hit a critical mass that will make it truly a green city? I’m beginning to suspect so, at least in terms of water issues. There have been an increasing number of initiatives both to remediate past damage and to prevent future water quality problems, that are worth looking at together.
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Understanding the Crucial Connection Between Water and Energy
While awareness of the water-energy nexus is growing, in many parts of the world policy affecting both energy and water remains shortsighted at best and dangerously counterproductive at worst.
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DIY Superfund Cleanup? Jerko the Water Vacuum Goes to Gowanus
Last Saturday, October 2nd saw the maiden voyage of “Jerko, the Gowanus Water Vacuum” in a classic expression of the burgeoning, grandly ambitious Do-it-Yourself environmental cleanup movement. Jerko is intended to move up and down the canal, cleaning water through biological filtration and reminding us of what have done to the earth—and what, in theory,…
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Understanding the ‘Rain’ in Rainforest
There is increasing evidence that forests – and subsequently, deforestation – may have impacts on global water cycles.
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Peruvians Fight for Their Right to Water
On September 17, one man was killed and 18 others injured when police attempted to break up demonstrators protesting an irrigation project recently approved by the Peruvian government.
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Another Superfund Site in New York City: Newtown Creek to Get a Makeover
The March designation of the Gowanus Canal in New York City as a SuperFund clean up site was an important step forward, and is now being followed by another leap: on Monday Newtown Creek, which runs between Queens and Brooklyn received the same designation.
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Fear and Thirst in Las Vegas (and Phoenix, and Los Angeles . . .)
Unless the 11-year drought that has parched the southwestern United States suddenly ends, emergency water provisions may have to be put in place to reduce water deliveries to Nevada and Arizona.
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Cyprus: A Case Study in Water Challenges
One tends to think of islands as wet places (surrounded as they are by water) but the island of Cyprus in the Eastern Mediterranean sea belies that characterization. Among many childhood memories I have of that place, some of the most vivid are of the wide-open, piercing blue of cloudless skies and the sun-scorched, dusty…
