Throughout my academic career, professors have pointed the proverbial finger at my fellow classmates and me saying, “it’s up to you to fix this mess.” We are the bright young minds of tomorrow who will create solar panels half the size with three times the efficiency, harness the power of the waves, find better ways to manage our trash and waste, change the conversation on climate change and, ultimately, save the planet.
Florida is the top state in U.S. most at-risk of flooding due to both climatic and geographic reasons. Florida suffers from both river and coastal floods. And being located in the subtropics makes Florida vulnerable to tropical and subtropical cyclones, also known as hurricanes. From 2000 to 2013, 63 hurricanes or tropical storms have struck Florida and caused over $64 billion in damage collectively. Florida’s terrain is also relatively flat so it’s harder for water to drain.
Imagine a drought year for a small farmer. Crops, the money he invested and his yearly source of income is lost. How can he be helped? Maybe he could ask his family or neighbors, but what if his community depends on agriculture and has the same problem. Is there a way to help from space? It might sound weird, but yes.
A solar tax credit is expected to expire late next year. Will it spell the end of the solar industry?
When I started my work at IRI, I had no idea what ENACTS was, how it was related to Ethiopia or how climate was related to health. That was in December 2014. But I quickly learned about it and by July 2015, I found myself riddled with vaccines and leading meetings in Ethiopia on how ENACTS and climate services could aid in decision-making and strategies for malaria elimination.
As a part of my internship, I went on a field trip to the Staten Island Transfer Station (SITS), one of the most notorious landfills in the country. As soon as we entered the area, I thought I would be hit by a wall of overwhelming garbage smell, but much to my surprise, it smelled like grass and flowers except for when we entered the building where the garbage is dropped off.
Learning about what makes it so that a flash flood of equal magnitude in Brooklyn only inconvenienced some people, and yet similar floods in Nairobi, Kenya last month led to property damage and loss of life is vital to understanding what coping mechanisms are effective.
When we think of a natural ecosystem, our minds immediately wander to tall prospering trees, clean flowing water and the plentiful flora and fauna that makes each of these ecosystems unique. But that’s not all there is to it.
Death by cyanobacteria-made microtoxins is not pleasant. The toxins could damage the nervous system, especially anatoxin-a, also known as a Very Fast Death Factor. As the global temperature increases, concerns about the range of these toxins are growing.
What can you see from space? Ed Lu, the science officer from Expedition Seven aboard the International Space Station, states that people can see an awful lot from space: ocean, desert, forest, glaciers, ; even things as small as a road, harbor and ships. And with rapid development of better sensors and remote sensing techniques, people have access to ever more information through the remote sensing images including monitoring forests. Today, scientists are developing an index to assess the healthiness, density and size of forests in Indonesia.