Featured series 
Tag: Environments & Sustainability
-
Nation & World
The sky as a ‘sewer’
Former Vice President Al Gore repeated his call for action on climate change Wednesday, saying society is treating the skies as an “open sewer.” He spoke at Harvard’s Memorial Church in a session sponsored by the Harvard School of Public Health’s Center for Health and the Global Environment.
-
Nation & World
Inside India’s pop-up city
Every 12 years, the Kumbh Mela, a centuries-old Hindu pilgrimage, temporarily transforms an empty floodplain in India into one of the biggest cities in the world. This month, an interdisciplinary team of Harvard professors, students, and researchers set out to map the gathering for the first time.
-
Nation & World
An early sign of spring, earlier than ever
Record warmth in 2010 and 2012 resulted in similarly extraordinary spring flowering in the eastern United States — the earliest in the more than 150 years for which data is available— researchers at Harvard University, Boston University, and the University of Wisconsin have found.
-
Nation & World
A military base, reborn
Harvard design students imagine multiple futures for a longtime New England military base.
-
Nation & World
A close eye on population growth
Joel Cohen, head of the Laboratory of Populations at Rockefeller and Columbia universities, looked at the latest projections for world population growth, and factors that could alter them, in a Harvard talk.
-
Nation & World
‘Silent Spring,’ 50 years on
Environmentalists and faculty members gathered at Sanders Theatre to mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” which catalyzed the environmental movement in its impassioned presentation of the impact of chemicals on nature.
-
Nation & World
Emergency planning
Six of Harvard’s deep thinkers on climate change and sustainability took the stage Sept. 18 in the second annual Harvard Thinks Green.
-
Nation & World
Using evolution to understand pollution
A tool rarely used to understand the impact of pollution on the natural world is evolution, an oversight that an environmental toxicologist says is robbing investigators of important information.
-
Nation & World
Market dominance
Free-market thinking now pervades most facets of everyday life. In “What Money Can’t Buy,” rock-star lecturer and philosopher Michael Sandel asks readers to consider what they really value — and whether some things shouldn’t come with a price.
-
Nation & World
Carbon counter
Atmospheric scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and Nanjing University have produced the first “bottom-up” estimates of China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, for 2005 to 2009, and the first statistically rigorous estimates of the uncertainties surrounding China’s CO2 emissions.
-
Nation & World
Pesticide tied to bee colony collapse
The likely culprit in sharp worldwide declines in honeybee colonies since 2006 is imidacloprid, one of the most widely used pesticides, according to a new study from the Harvard School of Public Health.
-
Nation & World
Whirlybirds and maple syrup
Perhaps botany, not boxing, is the real sweet science. Harvard Forest researchers are seeking to illuminate maple tree dynamics, investigating a possible link between autumn “mast seeding” and the sugar content of spring sap.
-
Nation & World
When plants may not help
Large-scale increases in forest cover in North America and Eurasia — proposed by some analysts as a way to cut climate change — could hurt the environment by shifting rainfall patterns across the globe, Harvard study says.
-
Nation & World
Thinking green, and thinking big
At the first Harvard Thinks Green, six Harvard professors gathered at Sanders Theatre to seek big solutions for complex and potentially intractable problems such as climate change.
-
Nation & World
Turn off the Lights
A sustainability music video produced by Harvard University students Akshay Sharma ’14, Maura Church ’14 and Molly O’Laughlin ’11 in anticipation of Earth Day 2011. It was presented at Harvard’s second annual Green Carpet Awards sustainability celebration and recognition event. Miranda J. Morrison ’14 also assisted with writing the lyrics.
-
Nation & World
Harvard deems April Earth Month
April is Earth Month at Harvard, an inaugural initiative featuring campuswide events and activities to celebrate and raise awareness about environmental issues.
-
Nation & World
Taming Australia
The recent floods and drought experienced by Australia are extreme expressions of a naturally fluctuating water cycle that has been moderated with engineering and which the introduction of market reforms recently has made more efficient.
-
Nation & World
You are where you live
A Harvard School of Public Health associate professor examines the link between health and neighborhoods to see whether people’s residential landscapes matter.
-
Nation & World
Building the cheapest car
An executive of the Indian conglomerate Tata described how the company promotes innovation, resulting in the creation of the world’s cheapest car, a $2,500, fuel-efficient four-seater.
-
Nation & World
Spouting off
In their new book, “Running Out of Water: The Looming Crisis and Solutions to Conserve Our Most Precious Resource,” Peter Rogers and Susan Leal outline water’s global predicament as the world’s population soars to 8 billion.
-
Nation & World
Bright ideas
Harvard authorities across many fields offer their ideas on how to get the nation’s lagging economy back on track.
-
Nation & World
Toffel awarded for environmental research
Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Michael W. Toffel has won the Emerging Scholar Award from the Academy of Management’s Organizations and the Natural Environment Division.
-
Nation & World
Center for the Environment welcomes 2010-12 fellows
The Center for the Environment welcomes an incoming group of environmental fellows for the 2010-12 academic years. These four new fellows will join a group of five scholars who will be beginning the second year of their fellowships.
-
Nation & World
The speedup of climate change
Scientist discusses growing effects of global climate change with members of Harvard’s Class of 2014.
-
Nation & World
The march is on
The Earthwatch Institute will bring its scientists to the Allston-Brighton community on Aug. 30 for a discussion titled “Saving the Penguins of Robben Island, South Africa.”
-
Nation & World
Green Team scores
In the three years since its inception, the volunteer Green Team at the Harvard Graduate School of Education — 15 students, faculty, and staff — has made significant strides.
-
Nation & World
Class act
Two floors of classrooms in Larsen Hall at the Harvard Graduate School of Education are the first in the world to win the highest LEED-CI rating.
-
Nation & World
HEEP awards 2009-10 student prizes
The Harvard Environmental Economics Program recently awarded four prizes to Harvard University students for the best research papers addressing a topic in environmental, energy, or resource economics.
-
Nation & World
Two HBS professors win prize for sustainability issues in curricula
HBS professors Forest L. Reinhardt and Michael W. Toffel share the 2009 D. Alfred N. and Lynn Manos Page Prize for sustainability issues in business curricula.