A Harvard Dean’s Assault on Faculty Speech

Laurence D. Bobo’s proposal would turn academic freedom upside down.

It is not surprising for a boss to think that employees should avoid saying things in public that might damage the organization for which they both work. It is not even surprising for the boss to understand “damage” to include making the boss’s own life more difficult. But college faculty members have fought very hard, for a very long time, to be protected from such attitudes.

‘Unprecedented Steps’: Board Pulls Plug on Columbia Law Review Website

After student editors published a submitted article Monday accusing Israel of genocide, the journal’s Board of Directors took the whole site down. One editor describes how it happened.

On Monday morning, the student-edited Columbia Law Review published its latest issue online. Hours later, the website became a blank white space with a one-line note saying, “Website is under maintenance.”

A Climate of Fear Comes for Scholarship

Last week, the Columbia Law Review’s board of directors shut down its website briefly because of concerns about the process by which it had published an article critical of Israel. The decision quickly called forth charges of censorship. Then the board reactivated the website, leading to allegations that it had “buckled.”

Both the editors and the board pushed against the boundaries of normal procedure. But we should focus on the broader context that shaped everyone’s behavior.

Colleges in Republicans’ Crosshairs Enroll Only a Sliver of U.S. College Students

Only about one percent of U.S. undergraduates attend the 12 mostly elite, mostly private institutions under Congressional scrutiny. But conservatives are casting them as emblematic of higher education writ large.

Following an explosive hearing in December about campus antisemitism, House Republicans have been ramping up their investigations of America’s colleges and universities.

The Hidden Language of Ocean Coral

For Logan Brenner, an adjunct associate research scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, joining the International Ocean Drilling Project’s (IODP) Expedition 389: Hawaiian Drowned Reefs was a dream opportunity. The project offered Brenner a chance to work among a group of scientists spanning nations, including Austria, China, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, and the U.K., and disciplines—physicists, geochemists, sedimentologists, paleomagnetists—and to further her own research into the planet’s past.

The Emerging Field of Sustainable Agriculture

I grew up in Brooklyn and have spent most of my life living in Morningside Heights in Manhattan; my only exposure to farming life was during the last of my five years living in Franklin, Indiana, when I delivered the Daily Journal Newspaper to farmers in rural Johnson and Brown counties. Occasionally, when the farmers were a little short of cash, they paid for their newspapers with produce. I know very little about farming, except that farmers seem to be the hardest-working people I’ve ever known.

Powering the Future: Watson College Researchers Develop Clean-energy Technology

The college hopes to hire eight new faculty members specializing in energy research for 2024–25.

As climate change increasingly threatens humanity — with 2023 as the hottest year on record worldwide — many scientists and engineers are seeking better ways to power our high-tech lifestyle without dangerous levels of carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere.

App State Faculty Awarded $531,902 National Science Foundation Grant to Study Aerosols’ Effects on the Climate

This fall, the National Science Foundation has awarded three faculty at Appalachian State University a three-year, $531,902 grant to support aerosol research at App State’s Appalachian Atmospheric Interdisciplinary Research (AppalAIR) facility and Applied Fluids Laboratory.

The interdisciplinary project — which began in September and will continue through August 2026 — is funded by NSF’s Major Research Instrumentation Program.

Humans Are the Elephant in the Room Where Conservation is Debated

Humans are outsized actors in the world’s wild places where there are struggles to preserve and protect vital natural resources and animals, birds and plants. Yet people and their plus-sized footprint are rarely discussed in models seeking to predict and plan for trajectories of endangered species.

Sustainability scholars at Michigan State University reveal the decades-long gaps in research and propose a new way of creating accurate visions for endangered species.

The Impossible College Presidency

Leaders face unreasonable demands and intolerable critics.

I suspect that I am not the only former college president who has experienced a mild bout of PTSD during the past several months, as the frequency, intensity, and visibility of attacks on presidents have increased to a level that would have been difficult to imagine even on my worst days. During my 17-year run as a president, I experienced many moments of joy and satisfaction.

Harvard Science and Engineering Complex (SEC)

Home to the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), the 544,000-sf building designed by Behnisch Architekten is a living laboratory for interdisciplinary research, learning, and innovation.

The Science and Engineering Complex is big, but it was expressly designed to foster a sense of community—one that feels fluid, open, and accessible.

Circular Construction

A multinational team is upcycling old concrete and brick for new buildings in the Czech Republic. Abutting the Vltava River’s muddy bank on the outskirts of Prague, three new apartment buildings contain a potential breakthrough in sustainable architecture.

With help from the European Union and other partners, the multinational construction and development company Skanska has developed an industrial-quality, hybrid concrete by upcycling concrete and masonry rubble.

The University of Chicago’s New Climate Initiative

Brave research program or potentially dangerous foray into solar geoengineering?

In 2006, a group of preeminent scientists met for a two-day conference at the NASA Ames Research Center in California to discuss cooling the Earth by injecting particles into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight into space.

At some point, one of the conference rooms became overheated.

Catawba College Awarded Tree Campus Higher Education

Catawba College, a member of the Rachel Carson Council campus network, has been honored with a 2023 Tree Campus Higher Education recognition by the Arbor Day Foundation, reaffirming its commitment to creating a healthy environment on campus, according to the NC Forest Service.

“We are excited to obtain the Tree Campus Higher Education designation for 2023,” said Jeff Hartley, Catawba’s Landscape Account Manager.

The Ocean Comes to the Capitol

Every June, just before beach season, advocates for protection of the ocean and marine life flood the nation’s capital and wash across Capitol Hill hoping to get the public and policy makers to realize that the nearly three-quarters of our planet that shimmers in blue from those classic space photos is what life on Earth depends upon. Capitol Hill Ocean Week, or CHOW, is both an extended conference and advocacy days hosted by the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation during Ocean Month.

Climate Change-induced Coastal Erosion Causes NC Houses to Collapse, Poses Additional Threats

A waterfront house in Rodanthe, N.C. — a coastal town located on Hatteras Island in the Outer Banks — collapsed into the Atlantic Ocean the morning of May 28. The five-bedroom house built in 1970 was unoccupied at the time, and local officials closed a one-mile stretch of beach around the property for two days to remove debris. This isn’t the first time this has happened. According to the National Park Service, last month’s collapse is the sixth such event on the barrier island in the past four years

The Offshore Technology Conference: A Platform for Greenwashing?

The Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) held annually in Houston, Texas is one of the biggest energy events in the state. The conference is a hub for energy professionals to meet and exchange ideas to advance scientific and technical knowledge on offshore resources and environmental issues. With over 30,000 attendants last year, this annual event has the potential to produce remarkable offshore innovations. While the OTC claims to advance environmental matters, their efforts suggest otherwise.

From Pavement to Parks: Designing Cities for People and the Planet

When I imagine a carbon-neutral, sustainable, zero-waste future, I picture our cities with sprawling green spaces integrated into the architecture. There, I see some moss planted on the side of a brick building to help filter and cool the air. Anywhere there isn’t a building or a walkway, I see several trees rooted or some native wildflowers blooming. I don’t see any major roads, especially not downtown, which is pedestrian-only. Instead, there’s a high-speed, solar-powered metro that runs throughout the city.

The Sweetness of Honeybees

Growing up, every fall my family and I went to the North Carolina State Fair. Even though rides and tons of food were an exciting part of the experience, I always made sure I went to the agricultural building — a large metal box the size of my elementary school.

Inside, there are cows that you can milk, a pig family, a few horses, gigantic pumpkins, bushels of corn, painted peppers, and honeybees.

Corporate Climate Emissions: Out of Sight, Out of Mind

I first heard the term “climate outsourcing” when I was writing a research paper back in high school. While researching global warming and its impact on international relations, I discovered that developed countries, including the United States and Japan, have outsourced more than half of their greenhouse gas emissions to the developing world. Stunned by this fact, I read more reports and found out that major corporations in the U.S. like Microsoft and Walmart have been cheating on their climate commitments by transferring their supply chains overseas.

Oil or Caribou? Alaskan Tribes Struggle Over Development

There is a long-standing struggle in Alaska. To protect lands from oil and gas development, or not? Many environmentalists and perhaps many other folks would consider this an easy answer: the US should phase out of oil completely, and protecting land with a wealth of biodiversity is an “obvious” yes. Yet not everyone sees protecting the Alaskan environment as an easy decision, especially in light of environmental justice.

Attacked By PFAS?

I was eleven years old when I played with my best friend Camille at her house completely unaware of the contamination in the area. I remember splashing in the small creek at the park, making brownies in her kitchen, and playing soccer on the sports field. She lived 15 minutes from my house, on Seymour Johnson Air Force Base (AFB) in Goldsboro, North Carolina (NC). Maybe at age eleven I didn’t need to know, but I think it is a testimony to how environmental issues garner little attention.

Wardrobe Wasteland: Plastics in Your Clothing

The apparel (fashion) industry, particularly fast fashion, is infamously one of the largest producers of greenhouse gas emissions. But this is just one aspect of its environmental impact. A recent study revealed that plastic pollution is also pervasive throughout the apparel industry – and the statistics are shocking. It’s estimated that in 2019, the apparel industry generated an average of 8.3 million tons (Mt) of plastic pollution, which would be about 14% of all 60 Mt of industrial plastic pollution.

Why Are Drax and Wood Pellet Production in Small-town Mississippi?

Gloster, Mississippi, a small town nestled in the southern part of the state, has become the epicenter of a growing environmental and public health crisis. The culprit? A wood pellet plant that had earned a well-deserved reputation for being a “bad neighbor.” Owned and operated by Drax, a U.K.-based energy corporation, the Gloster facility produces wood pellets that are shipped overseas to energy markets in Europe that are able to falsely claim them as a clean, renewable source.

Pesticides in the Water?

After the Second World War to meet the growing food demands of an increasing population, farmers had to cultivate increasingly high-yield crops. To protect these crops from pests and prevent losses, the use of synthetic pesticides, including herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides was introduced.

Global pesticide production reached significant levels as worldwide pesticide production increased at a rate of about 11% per year.

Environmental Justice and Energy in North Carolina

In my first semester at Duke, I worked on a pro-bono consulting project at the Duke Energy and Climate Club. Our team helped Bex Power, a building decarbonization start-up in the Research Triangle, to research funding opportunities and conduct customer outreach. One of our most important finds was an insufficiently known, but extremely helpful, federal program for them called The North Carolina Energy Burden and Emissions Reduction Program (EBERP).

Fireflies: Can We Save Them?

Growing up, whenever we visited family on the East Coast, it was a guarantee that we would be greeted by fireflies (lightning bugs) at dusk. As the bright afternoon transitioned to a moodier and sometimes rainy evening with the constant din of cicadas and crickets, fields and parks would become a twinkling patchwork. the fireflies, blinking in their own Morse code, were trying to find a mate. As a kid, they were truly a magical sight, a marvel of nature. What better reason to go for night hikes and explore the beauty of nearby parks in the evening than an insect whose glowing mating ritual attracts the awe-filled attention of the human species as well as potential mates.

Can Environmental Justice Exist in Puerto Rico Without Autonomy?

I still remember my family’s first drive across Puerto Rico- a contradiction of sights. On one side, you had the other-worldly landscapes of green pastures, rich-green mountains, and the seaside view of palm trees and dazzling water against blazing heat. Across the island, past the tourist façade of San Juan, I saw another Puerto Rico: a land that has long been reeling from the effects of climate change in the aftermath of the infamous Hurricane Maria.