09 July 2010
City Hopes to Address Urban Deer Attacks
By: Leah Moskovich, DailyCal
Sara Lopus, a UC Berkeley Ph.D. student, always regarded the wild deer in her Thousand Oaks neighborhood of North Berkeley as tranquil, non-aggressive creatures. Naturally, she never expected to be charged by a female doe half a block from her home on Capistrano and Colusa avenues May 6.
A marked rise in the "urban" deer population has led to three separate incidents of wild deer attacks on dogs and humans within the last year, according to city officials, and the city is looking to alleviate the situation.
The Berkeley City Council directed City Manager Phil Kamlarz Tuesday night to meet with representatives from the East Bay Regional Park District and the California Department of Fish and Game to determine how to address the growing wild deer population's impact on residential neighborhoods at Tilden Park's interface.
On a weekly basis, about 30 to 40 deer sightings are reported by residents in the North Berkeley area. A decade ago, that number was reported every six months, according to Jill Martinucci, legislative assistant to Councilmember Laurie Capitelli.
According to Reginald Barrett, a UC Berkeley professor of wildlife biology and management, the deer, which wander as far down from the hills as the North Berkeley BART Station and as far west as Sacramento Street, become aggressive near dogs or when a doe is protecting her fawn.
"Every time we call (the Department of Fish and Game) about these incidents, they say it's normal behavior," Martinucci said.
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Posted by Pinar Aybar at 2:13
19 May 2010
Ecologist urges caution in Gulf Coast oil cleanup
Photo by: www.huffingtonpost.com
Article by: Heather Ishimaru
BERKELEY, CA (KGO) -- Once the Gulf Coast oil spill is contained, the next problem will be how to clean it up.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Ecology Department is led by Terry Hazen, who says after picking up as much oil as possible, "exercise extreme caution about whatever else you do."
Hazen has more than 30 years experience studying the effects of oil spills. He says the oil will be damaging enough; toxic dispersants will just make it worse. He points to the 1978 Amoco Cadiz Spill off the coast of Normandy as an example. He says areas where dispersants were used still have not fully recovered, while areas where there was no human intervention are now fine.
Hazen says oil is a biological, biodegradable product. In the Gulf alone, oil naturally seeps at a rate of twice the Exxon Valdez spill every year, and nature takes care of it.
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Posted by Pinar Aybar at 6:27
15 March 2010
Professor Honored with Sarlo Award for Graduate Student Mentorship
Professor Louise Fortmann of the department of environmental science, policy, and management is among three UC Berkeley recipients of the 2010 Sarlo Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Awards. The award honors professors for outstanding graduate student mentorship.
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Posted by Eva St. Clair at 7:24
12 May 2003
Chemical in Broccoli Blocks Growth of Human Prostate Cancer Cells
by Sarah Yang
Berkeley - Those seeking yet another reason to eat their veggies, take note. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have found that a chemical produced when digesting such greens as broccoli and kale can stifle the growth of human prostate cancer cells.
The findings show that 3,3'-diindolylmethane (DIM), which is obtained by eating cruciferous vegetables in the Brassica genus, acts as a powerful anti-androgen that inhibits the proliferation of human prostate cancer cells in culture tests.
"As far as we know, this is the first plant-derived chemical discovered that acts as an anti-androgen," said Leonard Bjeldanes, professor and chair of nutritional sciences and toxicology at UC Berkeley's College of Natural Resources and principal investigator of the study. "This is of considerable interest in the development of therapeutics and preventive agents for prostate cancer."
Vegetables such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kale and cauliflower are rich sources of indole-3-carbinol (I3C), which the body converts into DIM during digestion. Over the years, Bjeldanes has been researching the anti-cancer properties of dietary indoles with co-author Gary Firestone, UC Berkeley professor of molecular and cell biology.
The new study will be published in the June 6 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, but is now available online.
Androgen is an important hormone for the normal development and function of the prostate, but it also plays a key role in the early stages of prostate cancer, which is typically treated with anti-androgen drugs.
In most cases of prostate cancer, the cancer cells develop resistance to androgen and grow independently of the hormone in later stages of the disease.
In the new study, the researchers conducted a series of tests comparing the effects of DIM on androgen-dependent human prostate cancer cells as well as on their androgen-independent counterparts.
They found that androgen-dependent cancer cells treated with a solution of DIM grew 70 percent less than the same type of cancer cells that had been left untreated. The same solution had no effect on the growth of androgen-independent cells, pointing to androgen inhibition as the key mechanism by which the DIM is acting.
This was confirmed with further tests showing that DIM inhibits the actions of dihydrotestosterone (DHT), the primary androgen involved in prostate cancer. DHT stimulates the expression of prostate specific antigen (PSA), which acts as a growth factor for prostate cancer. When androgen-dependent cells were treated with DIM, the researchers found a drop in the level of PSA.
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Posted by Eva St. Clair at 1:28
03 July 2003
Experts from Around the World Convene to Discuss War, Poverty and the Environment
by Sarah Yang
Berkeley - Kazim Niaz, a Pakistani who has worked with Afghan refugees the past two years, has come to the University of California, Berkeley, this summer to shed light on how war and political turmoil impact the environment.
"An Afghan woman whose husband died during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan told me that when she doesn't have enough kerosene, she's going to burn branches from trees to keep her five children warm," said Niaz, who worked as the deputy field coordinator in Pakistan for the New York-based International Rescue Committee. "It's a natural thing to do, but over the decades, this has contributed to a significant problem of deforestation in Pakistan."
Niaz is one of 40 participants in the Beahrs Environmental Leadership Program, which brings together environmentalists and policy makers from around the world to tackle the problems of natural resource management. He will be sharing his experiences with participants from other regions experiencing such challenges as political instability, land and water degradation, or devastating poverty.
The three-week summer program, which has just begun its third year and will run until July 20, was established at the campus's Center for Sustainable Resource Development with a $1 million gift from UC Berkeley alumni Richard and Carolyn Beahrs. Additional funding has been provided by grants from various foundations and some private donations.
"We're providing a forum where people from disparate regions can learn from each other at the same time they are exposed to top-of-the-line research in natural resources management," said David Zilberman, co-director of the center, which is based at the College of Natural Resources. "The goal of this program is to create a network of global leaders and to foster international collaboration. It is naïve to think that the problems of one country do not relate to or affect other countries."
For instance, figures from a government agency in Pakistan say the Afghan refugees are contributing to the country's deforestation at a rate of 17,000 to 22,000 acres per year. "This is not commercial logging, it's happening tree by tree as refugees use the wood for fuel," said Niaz. "Refugees are more focused on survival. They're not thinking of how their use of natural resources impacts the land in the long-term."
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Posted by Eva St. Clair at 1:24
11 July 2003
Biotechnology is One Key to Feeding the World, says Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug
by Kathryn Stelljes
BERKELEY - Biotechnology, chemical fertilizers, and policy changes will be key to feeding the world's increasing population and protecting the environment, Nobel Laureate Norman E. Borlaug told a full crowd last night at UC Berkeley.
Members of the audience questioned whether expensive technologies developed in industrialized nations are appropriate for developing countries. But Borlaug believes low-income countries can realize significant benefit from such technologies.
Borlaug noted that in the book Silent Spring, Rachel Carson advocated using sprays of the natural bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, instead of synthetic chemicals to control agricultural insect pests. "Now we put the Bt gene directly into corn and cotton. That controls the most important insect pests of cotton in China and Pakistan and can reduce insecticide spray from 12 to 13 (times) annually to two to three."
In African nations, he continued, family farms are limited by weeds, which are usually controlled by the women of the family with machetes and hoes. Herbicide-resistant crops thatallowed for chemical weed control could allow families who only have access to hand tools at present to produce more food and to spend their time in education and other worthwhile activities.
Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his scientific and humanitarian contributions to what is known as the "Green Revolution" in the 1960s. He and other scientists developed high-yield, semi-dwarf, disease-resistant wheat varieties that were well adapted to growing conditions in Mexico and the Indian subcontinent. He and the scores of young scientists that he trained at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico are credited with saving millions from starvation.
Borlaug gave the audience historical insight into agricultural advances of the last 50 years but also offered his opinion on several of today's political and social issues. He criticized the large amount of U.S. spending on the military.
"Today we're worried about terrorism. Is there any better, fertile seedbed for terrorism than hunger and human misery? It's a time bomb to have as many miserable people as we have in the world today," he said.
Borlaug also rallied against the currently popular Precautionary Principle, which suggests that preemptive actions to protect human health and the environment take precedence over use of a beneficial technology if there are potential risks.
"The Precautionary Principle depends on where you are and how long it's been since you've seen hungry people," Borlaug said. "We should use any new crop variety that has an advantage over what is already out there. If you wait for perfection, you'll never produce anything."
He emphasized that the environment also benefits from increasing farmland productivity.
"When I was born in 1914 there were 1.6 billion people in the world. Today we have 6.2 billion, with 80 million more each year. By using improved technology, we have been able to feed the world on 660 million hectares of land. If we used the same methods that were used in the 1950's, we would have had to put an additional 1.1 billion hectares under the plow," Borlaug stated.
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Posted by Eva St. Clair at 1:22
15 December 2003
Christmas Trees May Carry Pitch Canker
by Jeannette Warnert, ANR
University of California scientists recommend the public dispose of their Christmas trees quickly and properly after Christmas to help stem the spread of pitch canker, a disease that is now affecting Monterey pine Christmas tree lots, landscape plantings and native coastal forests in 16 California counties.
"People can buy healthy-looking trees that are infected with pitch canker. If they are left for a long period in the backyard, insects could visit and spread the disease to landscape pines," said Tom Gordon, UC Davis plant pathologist.
Infected Christmas trees have been found in San Mateo, Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties at choose-and-cut tree lots. After the holiday, Gordon suggests all Christmas trees be promptly turned over to community recycling programs, or chipped and spread as a thin mulch or composted.
Scientists' biggest fear is that pitch canker will spread to the Sierra Nevada. In research studies conducted at UC Davis, Gordon found that many trees native to Sierra Nevada forests are susceptible to the disease.
"These are ongoing studies," Gordon said. "Some trees are being tested now, and other trees are growing to a size where they can be tested."
However, his research has already determined that gray pine, coulter pine, Torrey pine, ponderosa pine, shore pine and Douglas-fir are susceptible to pitch canker when they are exposed to the disease in growth chambers.
To help prevent the spread of pitch canker to the Sierra Nevada, scientists recommend that no Monterey pine or other pine firewood, cones, logs and chipped pine material be transported from west of Interstate 5 to east of Interstate 5. The state has also designated a "Zone of Infestation," which counties may use to place restrictions on the movement of potentially infested materials.
Pitch canker, caused by the fungus Fusarium circinatum, was first discovered in the pine plantations of the Southeastern United States 60 years ago. The disease was not known before that anywhere in the world. In the Southeast, pitch canker was not much more than a curiosity until the mid 1970s, when it became a serious problem on slash pine.
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Posted by Eva St. Clair at 1:14
18 March 2004
Environmental Protections Weakened Under Bush Administration
by Kelly Hill
Former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner believes the Bush administration is gutting the agency she led for eight years.
Browner spoke at Boalt Hall on Thursday afternoon. The lecture was sponsored by the College of Natural Resources’ Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management as part of an ongoing colloquium series.
Browner had the longest tenure of any EPA administrator, heading up a $7 billion-dollar-a-year, 18,000-employee agency under former President Bill Clinton. Among other accomplishments, she was responsible for coordinating a $1 billion program to clean up the nation’s Brownfields sites.
Browner said that with the country focused on issues such as the war in Iraq, homeland security and the economy, not much press coverage or public attention is focused on the changes that the Bush administration is making to environmental rules.
“It is not simply a question of benign neglect – rather, it is actual destruction,†Browner told the crowd. “They are systematically dismantling the system that has brought us progress.â€
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Posted by Eva St. Clair at 0:21
05 May 2004
The New Consumers: Future Challenges to Sustainability
by Kelly Hill
The new consumers are coming, and they have a dramatic environmental impact.
Norman Myers, who has been called the Paul Revere of the environmental movement, brought that message to a crowd at the Alumni House as the guest lecturer at Tuesday afternoon’s William Main Distinguished Visitor lecture by the College of Natural Resources’ Center for Forestry. Due to the rapid development of countries such as China, Mexico, South Africa, India and Brazil, the wall-to-wall poverty of decades past is giving rise to a new global middle class.
Myers, who grew up in northern England and earned his undergraduate and masters degrees at Oxford, received his Ph.D. from Berkeley’s College of Natural Resources in 1973. He has worked in countries around the world and received many awards for his work in the environmental arena. He is at Berkeley to receive the Haas International Award, to be presented at the campus Commencement Convocation ceremony on May 13.
While Myers noted that the swift rise from poverty has vastly improved the lives of millions, he also sounded cautionary notes on what could happen if all global consumers follow the same path as wealthy nations such as the U.S.. And, he said, wealthy countries themselves need to take a hard look at their resource consumption.
“We in the rich world can’t start being critical of folks on the horizon unless we are setting a massive, undeniable example ourselves,†Myers said.
Myers said that the long-standing ultra-rich number about 850 million in a world of 6.1 billion. The new consumers could reach 1.1 billion people in 17 developing countries, with 300 million in China alone.
But the environmental impact of providing houses, food and electricity-powered appliances, televisions and computers to those new consumers could, as Myers put it, have the world bumping against the ceiling of its natural resources
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Posted by Eva St. Clair at 9:42
29 October 2004
Farm Fresh Choice honored by Chancellor
Farm Fresh Choice, a unique program that improves access to fresh produce in lower-income areas of Oakland and Berkeley, was recently recognized as an exemplary partnership between the University and local community.
The program was one of six campus/community partnerships honored on Monday, October 25, 2004 by Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and his wife, Mary Catherine, at the fifth annual University and Community Partners Recognition reception.
The annual event celebrates the achievements of individuals and groups from UC Berkeley and the local community, whose joint efforts enhance the quality of life for area residents. Through unique collaborations, university and community members share information, research, and expertise as they address some of the most pressing challenges of the day.
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Posted by Eva St. Clair at 9:01
23 November 2009
Tom Graff: A practical environmental visionary
By Professor David Zilberman, Agricultural and Resource Economics
As the world is preparing for a big environmental summit in Copenhagen, knowing that an agreement is very unlikely, it’s become apparent how difficult it is to reach an environmental agreement that can stick and change the course of history. People that can bring about such agreement are really rare, and last week we lost one of them, Tom Graff.
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Posted by Eva St. Clair at 0:53
01 August 2005
UC gives tips for coping with heat stress
by Pam Kan-Rice
The heat-related death of a man harvesting peppers in Kern County last month is a tragic reminder of the dangers of heat stress.
To help reduce dangers of becoming overheated, a University of California Cooperative Extension specialist has produced a heat-stress information card for farmworkers that explains in English and Spanish how heat-related illnesses develop and how to avoid them.
Download a fold-up heat stress information card in English and Spanish (PDF)
More references about heat stress are available here.
Although the advice is directed at farmworkers, it is useful to anyone who works in the heat.
UC Berkeley-based agricultural personnel management specialist Howard Rosenberg warns that excess heat can impair the body even before a person feels ill. Symptoms of heat stress may include general discomfort, loss of coordination and stamina, weakness, poor concentration, irritability, muscle pain and cramping, fatigue, blurry vision, headache, dizziness, nausea, confusion, and unconsciousness (see "Heat illness symptoms and first aid" sidebar).
Although some of the heat that people have to deal with at work comes from the sun and ambient air, most heat is generated by their own bodies, Rosenberg says. "At rest the body produces little heat, but at work it demands more energy and faster metabolism, which greatly increases internal heat production," he explains.
To cool itself, the body first increases blood flow toward the body surface. This reduces the flow available to carry oxygen and nutrients to the muscles, brain and other internal organs, which in turn impairs strength, diminishes alertness and accelerates fatigue.
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Posted by Eva St. Clair at 0:41
01 November 2009
A New ARE Study Projects Growth Dividend from Comprehensive National Climate Policy
As the U.S. Senate debates clean energy and climate legislation, a new economic analysis finds that strong federal policy could stimulate both employment and income growth across the national economy. The new study was conducted by the University of California in collaboration with University of Illinois and Yale University and provides an in-depth, state-by-state examination of the impacts of three pillars of federal legislation: energy efficiency, renewable energy and limits on carbon pollution.
“This report shows that stronger federal energy and climate policies are compatible with economic growth,†said the report’s lead author David Roland-Holst, Adjunct Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Berkeley. “Those who say we cannot afford to take action now may not understand the opportunity we stand to lose by not acting. By revenue, energy is the world’s largest industry, yet traditional energy use patterns have created unsustainable carbon liabilities that threaten all of us. The next great knowledge-intensive sector will arise in an emerging multi-billion dollar global clean energy market. To participate in this technology breakout, we need policies that price carbon risk responsibly and create appropriate incentives for investors and innovators.â€
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Posted by Eva St. Clair at 2:04
17 September 2005
CNR Celebrates 75th Anniversary of the Construction of Giannini Hall
On September 16, 2005, the College of Natural Resources celebrated Amadeo Peter Giannini's foresight and his generosity to the University of California and to agriculture in California and throughout the world.
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Posted by Eva St. Clair at 0:34
26 October 2009
Can business be the solution and not the problem?
Sally Jewell, President and CEO of REI, delivers the Fall 2009 Horace M. Albright Lecture in Conservation.
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Posted by Eva St. Clair at 1:40
13 October 2009
Alum's Project is a Finalist for the BBC World Challenge
Andaman Discoveries, a non-profit organization founded by CNR alumnus Bodhi Garrett, is among twelve finalists in the 2009 BBC World Challenge. The BBC World Challenge recognizes "innovative business projects that increase investment into the local community and take a responsible approach to the environment in which they are operating." Andaman Discoveries was chosen by a jury of high-level executives from Shell, BBC World, the World Bank, IUCN, and Newsweek. The World Challenge winner, selected from among the twelve finalists by BBC viewers and readers via online voting, receives a $20,000 grant.
"Our connection to the villages comes from rebuilding our lives together, and our projects focus on the big picture, empowering people to define their own future. This means that, along with responsible tourism, we also support scholarships for 120 kids, reforestation, [and] a community development network," says Garrett.
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Posted by Eva St. Clair at 1:33
08 October 2009
Are you choosing products that are safe and environmentally-friendly?
What is the lifecycle of your sunscreen? How about the environmental impact of buying a laptop? Professor Dara O'Rourke discusses how he came up with the idea for The Good Guide, a consumer reference that helps people make informed decisions about products based on safety and environmental concerns.
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Posted by Eva St. Clair at 1:24
12 August 2009
Agroecology, Small Farms, and Food Sovereignty
Global forces are challenging the ability of develop ing countries to feed themselves. A number of countries have organized their economies around a competitive export-oriented agricultural sector, based mainly on monocultures.
It may be argued that agricultural exports of crops such as soybeans from Brazil make significant contributions to the national economies by bringing in hard currency that can be used to purchase other goods from abroad.
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Posted by Cyril at 1:10
15 April 2009
From Toxic Goop to Worm Poop
It looks like Thomas Azwell -- a graduate student whose work crosses disciplanary boundaries from Society and Environment, where he is pursuing his Ph.D., to microbial biology, where he works closely with plant biologist Norman Terry -- might be on to something with his army of worms.
Azwell has developed a promising approach to safe disposal of oil spill waste (see 2:00 mark in video.)
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Posted by Cyril at 6:12
02 July 2009
Tougher controls sought for DNA ancestry testing
As the popularity of take-home DNA kits to trace ancestry or calculate the risk for serious medical conditions grows, there is an increasingly critical need for federal oversight of "direct-to consumer" genetic testing, as well as of the use of DNA samples for research, according to researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and several other academic institutions.
In the past year, scientists, sociologists and bioethicists, among others, have come to agree that the technology of these direct-to-consumer tests, which run between $100 and $1,000 apiece, is problematic and that the test results can be misleading and lead to problems including skewed ethnic data and questionable membership claims to Native American tribes.
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Posted by Cyril at 5:29
14 July 2009
Singing the Praises of Native Bees
From Bay Nature:
Gordon Frankie is a UC Berkeley professor and a native bee expert. Bees are his unmitigated passion. But before you walk out the door to talk to him, drop anything you think you know about honey-making hive-dwellers. For him, the most important bees are the ones you probably see every day--but have never heard of.
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Posted by Susan Sabry at 3:46
05 June 2009
The Climate Gap (with Podcast)
| Hear the podcast from NPR's Living On Earth. |
"Climate change does not affect everyone equally in the United States," says Rachel Morello-Frosch, Associate Professor of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, and of Public Health at UC Berkeley and lead author of a new report on climate change. The report, The Climate Gap looks at the unequal harm climate change will have in the United States on people of color and the poor. Droughts, heat waves, poor air quality, floods, higher prices for basic necessities, and other challenges of climate change will have a disproportional impact on people of color and the poor.
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Posted by lauralyn at 3:14
21 April 2009
ELP Alumna wins Goldman Environmental Prize
Working to reduce the impact of Bangladesh’s exploitative and environmentally-devastating ship breaking industry, leading environmental attorney Syeda Rizwana Hasan spearheaded a legal battle resulting in increased government regulation and heightened public awareness about the dangers of ship breaking.
Hasan is a 2003 alumna of CNR's renowned Beahrs Environmental Leadership Program, which provides mid-career professionals and policymakers from around the globe with an opportunity to interact with UC Berkeley faculty engaged in up-to-date research and policy analysis on sustainable environmental management.
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Posted by Cyril at 3:27
02 March 2009
Prof. John Harte: Understanding the Global Environmental Crisis
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Posted by Cyril at 2:27
30 January 2009
Green Perspectives: David Roland-Holst
In a recent conversation with Green Technology magazine, Professor David Roland-Holst, co-author of two key reports on green economic policies, discussed workforce creation, federal stimulus money and governmental policymaking.
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Posted by Cyril at 7:14
28 January 2009
Video: Honey Bee Pollination Crisis - Professor Claire Kremen at the Commonwealth Club
Monoculture farming leaves us highly dependent on honey bees, whose pollination affects 75 percent of fruits and vegetables and 30 percent of all food production. However, managed hives are being wiped out by colony collapse disorder at an alarming rate.
Professor Claire Kremen discusses how wild bees can boost the effectiveness of managed hives and play a critical role in pollinating the crops that keep California's economy humming.
Watch the video below or download the podcast.
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Posted by Cyril at 1:36
02 January 2009
Household Exposure To Toxic Chemicals Lurks Unrecognized
Although Americans are becoming increasingly aware of toxic chemical exposure from everyday household products like bisphenol A in some baby bottles and lead in some toys, women do not readily connect typical household products with personal chemical exposure and related adverse health effects, according to research from the December issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior. Rachel Morello-Frosch, an epidemiologist and environmental health scientist within ESPM and the School of Public Health, is a co-author of the study.
“People more readily equate pollution with large-scale contamination and environmental disasters, yet the products and activities that form the backdrop to our everyday lives — electronics, cleaners, beauty products, food packaging — are a significant source of daily personal chemical exposure that accumulates over time,†said Brown University sociologist Rebecca Gasior Altman, lead author of the study.
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Posted by Cyril at 5:42
20 October 2008
Green Policies in California Generated Jobs
From the New York Times: "California’s energy-efficiency policies created nearly 1.5 million jobs from 1977 to 2007, while eliminating fewer than 25,000, according to a study to be released Monday."
The study, conducted by David Roland-Holst, an economist at the Center for Energy, Resources and Economic Sustainability at the University of California, Berkeley, found that while the state’s policies lowered employee compensation in the electric power industry by an estimated $1.6 billion over that period, it improved compensation in the state over all by $44.6 billion.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/20/business/20green.html
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Posted by Cyril at 3:04
07 November 2008
Collaborative Research on the Navajo Reservation
by Carl Wilmsen
Director, Community Forestry and Environmental Research Partnerships
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Posted by Cyril at 1:24
17 October 2008
On Biofuels: CNR Professors from the Energy Bioscience Institute
Above, Chris Somerville, professor of plant and microbial biology and director of the Energy Biosciences Institute, discusses the future of cellulosic biofuels.
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Posted by Cyril at 4:55
29 September 2008
Professor's startup company empowers consumers to see through "greenwashing"
Even when it was just an idea, Professor Dara O'Rourke's plan to deliver environmental, social responsibility, and public health information about consumer products directly to shoppers was making headlines.
Now, after an extended leave from campus to pursue the project as an entrepreneur, O'Rourke and his colleagues have publicly launched GoodGuide.com.
"I think there's a burgeoning awareness that there is a global supply chain behind a product," Dara O'Rourke, GoodGuide's founder and a Berkeley professor, told Wired.com. "People are seeing that there are real costs to these everyday low prices. The question is, can we deliver this information in a way that is simple and easy and helps people make decisions?"
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Posted by Cyril at 1:47
03 July 2008
Nature reserves attract humans, but at a cost to biodiversity, says study
BERKELEY – Rather than suppressing local communities in developing nations, nature reserves attract human settlement, according to a new study by researchers.
In an analysis of 306 rural protected areas in 45 countries in Africa and Latin America, the researchers found that, on average, the rate of human population growth along the borders of protected areas was nearly twice that of neighboring rural areas.
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Posted by Cyril at 9:26
27 May 2008
Addressing Global Hunger & Poverty through Agricultural Development
Continue reading "Addressing Global Hunger & Poverty through Agricultural Development" » | Permalink
Posted by Cyril at 5:59
15 February 2008
After the Wave
After the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman tsunami, hundred of thousands of survivors struggled to put their lives back together. "After The Wave" looks into the lives of villagers in Phang Nga province in Thailand, almost three years after the tsunami. The documentary also focuses on the efforts of a grassroots non-profit organization led by CNR alumnus Bodhi Garrett, which has helped the local population move forward in practical ways to rebuild their local communities.
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Posted by Cyril at 8:05
17 January 2008
"Buy local" applies to forests, too
by Dean Keith Gilless
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Posted by Cyril at 3:24
28 November 2007
Exploring issues of race, land, and identity, geographer Carolyn Finney finds a place for herself in ESPM
“People often ask me, how did you come up with this subject?†says Carolyn Finney, assistant professor of society and the environment. “And part of it was academic — I’m reading stuff in classes, I’m not seeing very much at all in geography about African Americans and the environment, that interaction. And when I do it’s about environmental justice, which is kind of a narrowly defined experience of the environment.
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Posted by Cyril at 0:31
26 October 2007
The Sierra Club lauds UC Berkeley for Society and Environment major
CNR's new Society and Environment major helped propel the University of California system to the #4 slot in Sierra magazine's new story on "green" colleges and universities. The feature, "Ten that Get It", in its November/December issue also congratulates the UC system on its "green policy."
"When such a large and important educational institution takes such significant, systemic steps toward addressing global warming it can’t help but influence the thinking of many tens of thousands of students,†said Bob Sipchen, the magazine’s editor-in-chief. “If students carry these strong environmental values back to their communities and into their careers, UC’s initiative will reverberate globally."
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Posted by Eva St. Clair at 0:53
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