From the Director: Director Steven Cohen's most recent State of the Planet blog articles on sustainability & politics
Program News:
School lunches are about to be carried in a brand new way. According to a recent article in The New York Times, six major urban public schools systems in New York, Orlando, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami and Dallas (collectively known as The Urban School Food Alliance) aim to make school lunches more sustainable. The goal of the Urban School Food Alliance is to persuade suppliers to create and sell healthier, cheaper, and more environmentally friendly products by combining the purchasing power of major school systems nationwide.
Despite having been regarded as a series of “externalities” by conventional systems of economic thinking, our natural environment is not merely a backdrop to human activities, but is the very base upon which all human systems are built. This reality is certainly not new to sustainability science, but it is easy to lose sight of our close dependence on natural ecosystems when it comes to living in urban environments. Amidst the concrete, buildings, and tightly managed green spaces, it can be hard to see the natural environment — the nature – that exists in cities when we’re so used to…
Today’s increasing emphasis on metrics in sustainability policy and management presents an interesting challenge for ethics. When ethics are discussed, probably one of the last things to come to mind is measuring them, particularly in numeric terms.
To combat urban air pollution and traffic problems, some propose congestion pricing as a cost-effective policy to reduce pollution and improve productivity through improved travel speeds. Cities in China could implement this policy and ameliorate some of the negative effects of congestion-caused pollution. So why is congestion pricing dead on arrival in China?
With the end of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s tenure drawing near, many are speculating which of his policies will survive the next administration. New York City’s comprehensive environmental plan, PlaNYC 2030: A Greener, Greater New York, has been championed politically by Bloomberg, but is grounded in science and data, and performance management. It has demonstrated progress, achieving multiple goals for the city, making it appealing to any administration. On Oct. 22, we hosted an event where we posed the question “Is Sustainability Sustainable?” to our guest experts, Rit Aggarwala and Sergej…
To combat urban air pollution and traffic problems, some propose congestion pricing as a cost-effective policy to reduce pollution and improve productivity through improved travel speeds. Cities in China could implement this policy and ameliorate some of the negative effects of congestion-caused pollution. So why is congestion pricing dead on arrival in China?
With the end of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s tenure drawing near, many are speculating which of his policies will survive the next administration. New York City’s comprehensive environmental plan, PlaNYC 2030: A Greener, Greater New York, has been championed politically by Bloomberg, but is grounded in science and data, and performance management. It has demonstrated progress, achieving multiple goals for the city, making it appealing to any administration. On Oct. 22, we hosted an event where we posed the question “Is Sustainability Sustainable?” to our guest experts, Rit Aggarwala and Sergej…
Last weekend, Earth Institute executive director Steven Cohen and post-doctoral research scholar Dong Guo participated in the Fourth Global Think Tank Summit in Beijing, hosted by the China Center for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE). CCIEE, the preeminent think tank in China headed by the former vice premier, hosted hundreds of politicians, scholars, business leaders, and experts from nearly 30 countries at the summit.
In fall 2014, Columbia University, through the School of International and Public Affairs, the School of Continuing Education and the Earth Institute, offered a never-before-taught class on “The Origins of Environmental Law.” While many courses teach the fundamentals of environmental law, this course spoke to the people and politics behind the creation of the legislation. The Earth Institute is excited to present a short film providing a glimpse into the importance of this course.