Analyses of today’s U.S. educational system are everywhere–from media articles and opinion pieces to academic research projects. In recent years, our country’s prescription for poor academic performance has focused on standardized tests and common curricula, coupled with a strict regimen of science- and tech-career preparation. Despite its best intentions, the …
For the past several decades the US has pursued policies that promote energy independence and both energy and national security. As part of this pursuit, high volume hydraulic fracturing (fracking) technologies were first developed in the late 1940s by Halliburton, and its technological advances after the 1970s have rapidly increased oil …
Imagine the protein content in foods you eat every day decreasing. Foods that are staples around the world–wheat, corn, rice–all lower in protein and higher in carbohydrates. Science has already shown that global crop yields will decrease in coming years because they won’t be able to take the heat. But a …
For about a decade, stories have been trickling down to the lower latitudes of indigenous Arctic peoples being forced to abandon whole villages because the sea rising up and washing them away. Stories of Inuit hunters falling through the thinning ice. Stories of once vital herds of caribou, a staple for …
Have you recently invested in energy-efficient technology? Do you believe that you’re consuming less energy and lowering your carbon footprint? (You can calculate your personal carbon footprint here). If you answered yes to both of these questions, you probably haven’t heard of the rebound effect in energy efficiency. The rebound effect …
As I’ve mentioned in my previous blogs about working for NYSERDA, New York City is going through a major energy transition. The State and City governments are both looking at ways to drastically change the energy landscape to include more distributed renewable sources of generation and to reduce energy usage, …
For the last nine months, four students at Bard College in New York’s Hudson Valley have been meeting in a basement office on campus. Their mission: to catalyze a nationwide conversation about state-level action on climate change. Undergraduates Xaver Kandler and Maggie Berke, and environmental policy graduate students Meredith Lavalley and …
What does leadership in energy efficiency policy look like? www.genesys-project.eu Energy efficiency is an enormous field with numerous different stakeholders, such as utility companies, non-governmental organizations, and the general public. Although each group can vary in its goals and methods of affecting change in the energy efficiency arena, they all …
By Eban Goodstein Becca Krasky is a first year student at Macalester College in Minnesota. If someday she has kids, they will be college-age around the year 2045. She will be in her late 40’s. And by that year, we will know the future of the earth. We will know …
Big Sky Country. What runs through your mind when you read those three words? A never-ending canopy of blue skies, perhaps? The wide open spaces of ranch land, home to cowboys and cattle? Or crystal-clear rivers teeming with trout, meandering through green meadows bordered by snow-capped peaks? For me, and …
