Articles

Project Plastic is the brainchild of two Princeton Architecture students, Nathaniel Banks and Yidian Liu, who sought an innovative solution to the problem of aquatic plastic pollution. Since their launch in 2021, they have accumulated various awards and commendations such as: People’s Choice Award at the Princeton Entrepreneurs’ Network Startup Pitch Competition, 1st place at…

Written by Abigale Wyatt The science of climate change is clear, so shouldn’t passing new climate policy be simple? The folks at Climate Interactive have a way for you to decide for yourself: the En-ROADS (Energy Rapid Overview and Decision-Support) climate solutions simulator. According to their website, En-ROADS is a “global climate simulator that allows…

Written by Shashank Anand, Hezekiah Grayer II, Anna Jacobson, and Harrison Watson Sustainability is the notion that we should consume with caution, as the Earth is a delicately balanced ecosystem with limited natural resources. Social justice generally aims to eliminate disparities and inequities between discrete demographics. These include inequalities between persons of different socioeconomic status,…

When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers started building coastal flood protection over 60 years ago, they weren’t thinking about climate change, but a PhD student at Princeton University shows that old Army Corps projects may hold valuable insights for future climate adaptation efforts. By D.J. Rasmussen (STEP PhD student) Grandpa’s flooded garage On the…

By Tim Treuer This Giving Tuesday, I decided to offset my 2020 carbon footprint. And help protect endangered biodiversity. And help eliminate poverty. And improve air, water, and soil quality. And support gender equality. And empower historically marginalized communities. And maybe even decrease the risk of killer diseases like COVID-19 and malaria. But I only…

Written by Ashford King In the US, the fight against climate change often looks more like a fight to achieve the public recognition that climate change is real. Flat out denial of science by the dominant strain of conservative politics and the reticence to take bold action on the part of moderates, combined with the…

Written by Ryan Warsing of Divest Princeton If you’re reading this, you probably don’t need to be persuaded that the planet is on fire, and we need to do something to put it out fast.  We see evidence all around us:  California is again in the throes of a record wildfire season, glaciers the size of Manhattan are sliding into…

Written by Molly Chaney Finding an internship as a Ph.D. student is hard. Finding one at a company you have legitimate interest in is even harder. In search of a more refined answer to the dreaded question, “so what do you want to do after you get your Ph.D.?” I started looking for opportunities in…

Written by James Kiawoin and Sakari Ishetiar In 2013, a Liberian government official was recorded colluding with another high-ranking government official to embezzle public resources. On the tape, he was caught saying “you eat, I eat,” which signified an acceptance that the two would engage in personal enrichment at the public’s cost, without fear of…

Written by Kasparas Spokas The rising popularity and falling capital costs of renewable energy make its integration into the electricity system appear inevitable. However, major challenges remain. In part one of our ‘integrating renewable energy’ series, we introduced key concepts of the physical electricity system and some of the physical challenges of integrating variable renewable…

Written by Kasparas Spokas Meeting climate change mitigation targets will require rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation, which is responsible for a quarter of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. The prospect of electrifying other sectors, such as transportation, further underscores the necessity to reduce electricity emissions to meet climate goals. To address this,…

Written by Laurel Mei-Singh Magnificent, a hairdresser who lives and works in downtown Trenton, New Jersey, is one of ten adults gathered together in a community space. Meanwhile, an equal number of children paint pots outside, fill them with soil, and plant seeds to grow. On the topic of the lead-contaminated water flowing from the…

Written by Xin Rong Chua Might there be a remedy for the worldwide temperature and rainfall changes caused by humanity’s emissions? If so, what would the cure cost? We watch as Mr. Human grapples with these questions with the help of Dr. Planet. Dr. Planet was about to put an end to a long, hard…

Written by Timothy Treuer A story (but careful, there’s a twist): In 1998, the Costa Rican Sala Cuarta (their highest judicial body) issued a ruling against a company that had dumped 12,000 tonnes of waste orange peels in one of the country’s flagship protected areas, Área de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG). The ruling came at the…

Written by Kasparas Spokas and Ryan Edwards The world faces an urgent need to drastically reduce climate-warming CO2 emissions. At the same time, however, reliance on the fossil fuels that produce CO2 emissions appears inevitable for the foreseeable future. One existing technology enables fossil fuel use without emissions: Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS). Instead of allowing…

Written by Isabel Morris We need quality buildings to safely house our schools, hospitals, offices, and our homes. We also live in a world with limited resources for constructing and operating new buildings, which means we need buildings that are sustainable and resilient in addition to being safe and functional. Most cities facing this challenge…

Written By Arvind Ravikumar The third Sustainable Development Goal (SDG3), as adopted in the 2015 UN General Assembly meeting, strives to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages” by 2030. There are nine targets specified under this goal that can be broadly classified into four categories: (1) decreasing maternal and child…

Written by Julio Herrera Estrada “Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to unite in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope where once there was only despair. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down racial…

Written by Matt Grobis Safe, nutritious, and sufficient food, all year, for all people: the United Nation’s second Sustainable Development Goal aims to transform the world’s agriculture and distribution of food by 2030. With 800 million people suffering from hunger – more than 10% of the world’s population – food and agriculture are key to…

Written by Julio Herrera Estrada The beginning of 2016 marked the start of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that were agreed upon by the United Nations last September. These 17 goals, broken into 169 specific targets, are set to last through 2030 and address a wide range of interrelated issues such as poverty alleviation, improved…

Written by Levi Golston On the subject of climate change, one of the most widely cited numbers is that humans have increased the net radiation balance of the Earth’s lower atmosphere by approximately 2.3 W m-2 (Watts per square meter) since pre-industrial times, as determined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in their…

Written by Justine Atkins On an early morning boat, mist still rises off the water and the Amazonian air is thick with the characteristic dampness of tropical rainforests. We’re heading out in search of a nearby clay-lick where many parrot species congregate. In the partial slumber of any graduate student awake before 6 am, we…

Written by Dr. Arvind Ravikumar There is much to cheer about the recent climate agreement signed last December at the 21st Conference of Parties (COP 21) in Paris, France to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit global temperature rise to below 2° C. Whether countries will implement effective policies to achieve this agreement is a…

Written by Dr. Niko Wanders We often hear about droughts around the world including those recently in the U.S. and Brazil, which has threatened the water safety for this year’s Olympic Games. Despite their natural occurrence, there is still a lot that we do not understand fully about the processes that cause them and about how they impact our society…

Written by Kaia Tombak Some names in this blog post have been changed to protect the privacy of those mentioned. Jack greeted me cheerfully as he strolled into class, asking me how things are going. “I’m fine, thanks,” I replied. “How are you?” “Oh, I’m good,” he chuckled. “You know, given the circumstances!” We were…

Written by Justine Atkins Over the last fifty years, there has been progressively more widespread recognition that species’ biodiversity is rapidly declining. This is a huge problem, and not only ethically: biodiversity also has crucial economic returns such as ecotourism and promoting ecosystem resilience to climate change and invasive species. It is now well-established that…

Written by Victor Charpentier The world’s population will increasingly become urbanized. In the 2014 revision of the World Urbanization Prospects, the United Nations (UN) estimate that the urban population will rise from 54% today to 66% of the global population by 2050. Therefore it is no surprise that cities and buildings are at the heart…

Written by Jane Baldwin Inner Mongolia (Nei MengGu in Mandarin Chinese) lies right at the border of the nation of Mongolia within mainland China (see Figure 1). Pictures of yurts, traditional pony races, Mongolian wrestlers, and most of all rolling grasslands attract many Chinese tourists to this region each year (see Figure 2). In summer…

Written by the Editorial Board How can we achieve a minimum standard of living for the world’s growing population, while reducing our carbon emissions to curb climate change and limiting our impact on the planet’s ecosystems to stop the current mass extinction? How can we protect and manage our natural resources such that people across nations…