Category: <span>CEP Students</span>

Green Festivals Inspiring Green Cities

As the impacts of climate change become more of a reality, many cities are developing sustainability plans to guide them towards a greener future. While setting the goals within these plans can be challenging, it is an even greater challenge to achieve them. Many of these plans focus on specific …

Offshore Wind: What Lies Beneath?

With an increasing demand for alternative energy production, offshore wind has become a hot topic of discussion. For the last twenty years Germany, United Kingdom, and many other European countries have been leading the way for offshore wind production to meet energy demands. Quite recently, the United States constructed its …

We’re gonna need a smaller boat: Re-imagining residential water systems

In the US, we use more than double the amount of water per person than any other country in the world. An estimated 57% of our public water supply is used for residential use. The most recent 2010 USGS report estimates per capita US residential water use to be 88 gallons per day (gpd), which translates …

Changing Climates, Changing Palates: The Impact of Climate Change on Global Wine Production

Winos, take notice! For many of us, it can be difficult to discern how climate change will tangibly impact everyday life. If you are an everyday wine drinker (like myself), you might be surprised (and disappointed) to learn that your happy hour beverage of choice is strongly linked to a changing …

A Not So Shrimpy Environmental Issue: Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Aquaculture Production in Mangroves

Mangroves are arguably the coolest ecosystem on the planet, in addition to being one of the most biologically productive. Mangroves are trees with above-ground root systems that are partially submerged in water. They are located predominantly in tropical and subtropical coastal regions where freshwater meets the sea. These ecological powerhouses …

Poison Waters: Toxic Algae in the Wallkill River

  The Wallkill River begins in northern New Jersey, at Lake Mohawk.  Flowing north ninety miles, it joins the Hudson River at Kingston. The Wallkill flows through abandoned mines, a national wildlife refuge, and some of the richest farmland in the country.  It still has dams strung like beads along …

Land Legacies Part II – Spanning Boundaries

Continued from Part I – New England Forests   “A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” —Lao Tzu   Highstead New England’s grassroots conservation organizations continue to innovate around individual challenges. Those …

Land Legacies Part I – New England Forests

  On a crisp fall day some several years ago, I left my house in rural Connecticut for a contemplative walk in the woods. My restless teenage legs were matched by my curiosity about the world around me. Down a wooded path with no houses in sight, I stopped to rest along …

Home is where the toxic contamination is

  My family moved to Waycross, Ga when I was 6 years old. Waycross, Ware County is in the southeastern tip of Georgia, about an hour away from Florida. Not long after my mom began teaching in the Ware County school system, she started hearing stories of young children and …

A Vision and Strategy for Sustainability

It feels like a challenging time to be working on environmental issues here in the United States as a wave of populism and climate change denial seems to be sweeping the country. To gain some perspective on working toward sustainability goals, I spoke with Professor Sue Hartley. Professor Hartley is the Director of …