Articles by Geoff Dabelko
Geoff Dabelko is director of the Environmental Change and Security Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. He blogs here and at New Security Beat on environment, population, and security issues.
All Articles
-
Right before my very eyes: Ethiopia
The vista of Ethiopia's ancient Rift Valley, speckled with shimmering lakes, stretches before me as our motorized caravan heads south from Lake Langano, part of a study tour on population-health-environment issues organized by the Packard Foundation. Sadly, the country's unrelenting poverty and insecurity are as breathtaking as the view -- Ethiopia currently ranks 170 out of 177 countries on the UN Development Programme's Human Development Index.
-
New business and climate change video
Sea Studios Foundation has a new 12 minute video entitled Ahead of the Curve: Business Responds to Climate Change. It features some of the biggies (DuPont, Wal-Mart, PG&E) and the hot green business broker, Bill Reilly, who facilitated the TXU energy deal. It also has John Holdren, the Harvard climate change prof who is pushing AAAS in more aggressive directions on climate as board chair. It is a format that works well done by real professionals (Sea Studios does Strange Days on Planet Earth, the excellent series narrated by actor Ed Norton).
-
A new list will tell you
Mine are only fair -- Duke got a B and Maryland a C. The Rockefeller-funded Sustainable Endowments Institute just released its College Sustainability Report Card 2007 (PDF).
They rate the schools in the categories of administration, food & recycling, green building, climate change & energy, shareholder engagement, investment priorities, and endowment transparency.
-
They’re crumbling
What a pleasant surprise to see Jacques Leslie, a journalist and real expert on dams, with a long op-ed on the hallowed pages of the New York Times. Leslie, author of Deep Water: The Epic Struggle Over Dams, Displaced People and the Environment, highlights the threat posed by poorly maintained and increasingly failing dams around the country:
Unlike, say, waterways and sanitation plants, a majority of dams -- 56 percent of those inventoried -- are privately owned, which is one reason dams are among the country's most dangerous structures. Many private owners can't afford to repair aging dams; some owners go so far as to resist paying by tying up official repair demands in court or campaigning to weaken state dam safety laws.
Kinda makes you want to find out what is upstream.
