Tag: ” Global warming

  • Nation & World

    10 ways to help

    1. Drive less: Walk, bike, and take public transportation instead. Check out the Harvard Commuter Choice Program for information on ridesharing, discounts for MBTA passes, and more.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Green politics at IOP

    An environmental call to action issued by Harvard President Drew Faust accelerated this year, with a pledge to reduce campus-wide greenhouse gas emissions and with an October celebration of sustainability efforts.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Gore: Universities have important role in sustainability

    Former vice president Al Gore ’69 addressed a crowd of 15,000 in chilly, leaf-strewn Tercentenary Theatre Oct. 22, 2008, delivering the keynote address in a multi-day celebration of the University’s commitment to sustainability.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Ban calls for international efforts

    United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the United States to combat the “imminent threat” of climate change, both by reducing its own greenhouse gas emissions and by leading the effort to craft a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Students watch ‘An Inconvenient Truth’

    It’s “an inconvenient truth,” but only about 25 people showed up for a Harvard screening Sunday (Oct. 19) of a film by the same name, which earned former Vice President Al Gore ’69 both an Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Controlling greenhouse gases, universities, individuals matter

    From 1850 to 2000, the use of fossil fuels worldwide grew 140-fold, a practice that has gradually filled the Earth’s atmosphere with warming gases.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    ‘Green’ University celebration commences

    If you flew over Harvard University in a small plane, you would see only a few outward and obvious signs of sustainability. You would see a glittering solar array on Shad Hall at Harvard Business School, a landscaped green roof on Gund Hall, home of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, and you would see a…

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Smoking, burning solid fuels in homes in China projected to cause millions of deaths

    If current levels of smoking and of burning biomass and coal fuel in homes continues in China, researchers estimate that between 2003 and 2033, 65 million deaths will be attributed to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and 18 million deaths to lung cancer, accounting for 19 percent and 5 percent of all deaths in that…

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Arctic ice is thinning steadily

    There was a polar bear sighting at Harvard last week. At Pforzheimer House on Thursday (Oct. 2), global warming expert James J. McCarthy delivered a crisp summary of how fast ice is melting in the Arctic — and why we should care. The audience of 80 took in his companion slide show, including images of…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Exelon executive offers regulations, incentives to ‘green’ energy supply

    The head of the nation’s largest nuclear power plant owner decried America’s lack of an energy policy Monday night (Oct. 6) and laid out a five-point plan featuring a mix of new regulations and financial incentives for coal, nuclear, and renewable power sources as a way to ‘green’ America’s energy supply.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Al Gore to celebrate sustainability at Harvard

    Former Vice President Al Gore will be coming to campus on Oct. 22 for the first-ever University-wide celebration of sustainability. The event, hosted by President Drew Faust, will mark the official launch of the University’s new greenhouse gas reduction effort and will also celebrate Harvard’s broader environmental initiatives, including the critical role the University plays…

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Environmental report card grades Harvard A-

    Harvard received the highest ranking in a recent “College Sustainability Report Card” that graded the green credentials of 300 colleges and universities. Harvard received high ranks for an array of activities, including recycling, green buildings, energy supply, transportation, and student involvement. Overall, the University was among 15 nationwide that received the top A- grade, earning…

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Global warming threatens his nation’s existence, a president warns

    During a talk at Harvard, the leader of the South Pacific island nation of Kiribati laid out an extraordinary plan that would scatter his people through the nations of the…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Island nation president plans for extinction

    The leader of the South Pacific island nation of Kiribati laid out an extraordinary plan Monday (Sept. 22) that would scatter his people through the nations of the world as rising sea levels submerge the islands they have called home for centuries.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Electric cars, ‘cap and trade,’ and more

    R. James Woolsey Jr., a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, has a favorite personal strategy for ensuring U.S. domestic security: his Toyota Prius hybrid, upgraded with an A123 conversion kit that allows it to run largely on a battery rechargeable by house current.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Praise and preservation

    Harvard University President Drew Faust used the bully pulpit of Appleton Chapel this week (Sept. 16), urging the University’s citizens to act responsibly on environmental matters.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Costa Rican minister outlines plan to achieve carbon neutrality through reforms

    Costa Rica’s environment minister outlined the Central American nation’s plans to become carbon neutral by 2021 through green reforms in energy, transportation, government, and private industry sectors.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Markey addresses ‘Future of Energy’

    The chair of the U.S. House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming struck an optimistic tone about the planet’s climate crisis Monday (April 21), saying that an energy revolution is in the offing if government can just get the policy right.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Policy can empower technological climate change solution

    The chair of the U.S. House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming struck an optimistic tone about the planet’s climate crisis last night, saying that an energy revolution…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    An ocean of bad tidings

    Jeremy B.C. Jackson earned his first chops as a scholar by studying the ecological impacts of an event that unfolded over the last 15 million years: the formation of the Isthmus of Panama, dividing the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and setting off profound evolutionary oceanic and terrestrial changes.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Cities can help turn the world green

    Can green cities save a blue planet? That question was posed last week by Harvard climatologist Daniel Schrag, director of Harvard’s Center for the Environment. The professor of Earth and planetary sciences and professor of environmental science and engineering was one of three technical experts who spoke at a conference March 5 — co-sponsored by…

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    President Faust appoints task force on Harvard greenhouse gas emissions

    Harvard University President Drew Faust today (Feb. 27) announced the formation of a task force comprised of faculty, students, and administrators charged with examining Harvard’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and recommending a University-wide greenhouse gas reduction goal.

    11 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Impact of global warming on health debated

    Disagreement over the public health impact of global warming emerged in a symposium Monday morning (Feb. 18) at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The colloquium, titled “Sustaining Human Health in a Changing Global Environment,” addressed what hazards can be expected as a result of rapid and continuing climate…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Environmental work honored by HMS

    The Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School (HMS) has named Kofi Annan and Alice Waters as its 2008 Global Environmental Citizen Award recipients.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Fellow’s focus is foggy, froggy forest

    In the dark of the Sri Lankan cloud forest, the researchers’ only guide was the headlamps they used to light up the night, illuminating the cold, gray mist that drifted through the trees.

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Holdren talks back to skeptics of global warming

    “Global warming is a misnomer,” said John P. Holdren, speaking Tuesday night (Nov. 6) at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at the Kennedy School. “It implies something gradual, uniform, and benign. What we’re experiencing is none of these.”

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Engineered weathering process could mitigate global warming

    Researchers at Harvard University and Pennsylvania State University have invented a technology, inspired by nature, to reduce the accumulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) caused by human emissions.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Engineered weathering process might mitigate climate change

    Researchers at Harvard University and Penn State University have invented a technology, inspired by nature, to reduce the accumulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) caused by human emissions. By electrochemically…

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Statistics captures unpredictability of real world

    Harvard’s small but active statistics department celebrated its 50th anniversary last week. There were two days of lectures and panels Oct. 26-27 at the Gutman Conference Center, and a noisy, social, and musical banquet at the Harvard Club of Boston.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    If not in atmosphere, where does carbon go?

    A prominent atmospheric scientist Monday (Oct. 29) called for more research into natural carbon “sinks,” which today absorb almost half of man-made carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere and which will play a large role in determining the extent of future global warming.

    3 minutes