Water Quality2
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Recruiting Tiny Organisms to Detect Water Pollution
Climate change has huge implications for water pollution, so with increasing climate change effects and the concern that many regions on the planet are approaching peak water, timely water pollution detection is critical.
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Solving Urbanization Challenges by Design – The Science of Green Roofs (part 2)
Patricia J. Culligan is a professor of civil engineering and engineering mechanics at Columbia University and the Vice Dean of Academic Affairs for Columbia Engineering. In part two of this interview she talks about the challenge of quantifying the economic benefits of green roofs, the potential for rooftop agriculture, and what it means to “solve…
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Solving Urbanization Challenges by Design – The Science of Green Roofs
Patricia J. Culligan, professor of civil engineering and engineering mechanics, discusses her work with the Columbia University Green Roof Consortium to quantify the benefits of green roofs.
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Fluoridation of Water: Communist Conspiracy, Genuine Threat or Both?
Who can forget the scene from Kubrick’s classic movie Dr. Strangelove of screws-loose General Jack D. Ripper pontificating to straight-laced British group captain Lionel Mandrake about the dangers of fluoride in water…
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In Support of the Neglected Drinking Fountain
The Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association built the first public drinking fountain in London in 1859, as an answer to some of the pressing problems of their times. Drinking fountains are also part of the answer to some of our own problems.
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No More Pavement! The Problem of Impervious Surfaces
Recent research, according to the New York Times, indicates that urban areas are about to get hotter — much hotter. Not exactly what blistering New Yorkers want to hear after one of the more brutal, record-breaking heat waves in memory. Of course climatologists (and most of the rest of us) have known for a long…
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Jamaica Bay, a refuge for wildlife in New York City, gets protection
The good news is that the migratory birds and resident marine life of Jamaica Bay may be getting a reprieve. In February, Mayor Bloomberg, the State Environmental Council and the Natural Resources Defense Council announced an agreement that would improve water quality and preserve the wetlands of Jamaica Bay. The Jamaica Bay Watershed Protection Plan…
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A Visit to Gowanus
I recently took a trip to the Gowanus neighborhood in Brooklyn to visit its infamously polluted (and smelly) canal. After decades of controversy, the Environmental Protection Agency recently named the canal as a Superfund site—one of the few such designations in an inner-urban area. In its report, the EPA found that the Gowanus Canal “has…
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The Importance of Wetlands
As we continue to see ever-more disturbing images on the shores of Louisiana from the gulf oil spill, it’s worth thinking again about the immense ecological importance of wetlands and why they must be protected. Oil from the leak has already filtered up from the beaches into Louisiana’s coastal wetlands, killing wildlife there. Ironically, last…
