Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies Blog

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“There is nothing wrong with being helped to go on living. And that is what this[climate change] issue is all about,” stated a senior official from the Environmental Protection Authority of Ethiopia. I am at a ministerial gathering of 28 nations of the Cartagena Group/Dialogue for Progressive Action convening in the beautiful island of Bandos in the Republic of Maldives. The participants are from Antigua & Barbuda, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Ghana, Indonesia, Malawi, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Samoa, Spain, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Uruguay, UK and the European Commission. The Cartagena Group/Dialogue is an informal space, open to all countries that want ambitious and comprehensive outcomes in the UNFCCC, and that are committed, domestically to becoming or remaining low carbon…
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I took a great courses at FES last spring which has been pivotal in shaping my summer internship experience with Axio Power: Dan Esty's Environmental Law and Policy course. For those of you unfamiliar with Dan, I encourage you to check out how much comes up from a simple GOOGLE SEARCH.  Dan has his own page on Wikipedia, so he is definitely a big deal.  Dan's course focuses primarily on US environmental laws and regulations, including the political, regulatory and legal aspects of how we attempt to address environmental problems.  We were challenged in the class to approach each regulation critically, and identify ways that we would choose to improve it.  Perhaps someone in the Massachusetts legislature took one of Dan's courses, as they seem to have improved on…
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Last week was a watershed moment for the Massachusetts solar market.  Governor Deval Patrick joined Greenfield, MA Mayor William Martin and Paul Curran, Executive Vice President of Axio Power, in signing two contracts for the Greenfield Solar Farm - a 2 megawatt solar photovoltaic (PV) project on Greenfield's capped landfill.  Greenfield Community Television published a video of the event, which is available on their WEBSITE. I am interning with AXIO POWER for the summer to assist with their solar projects in the Northeastern markets, with a specific focus on Massachusetts.  Prior to the announcement of the Greenfield Solar Farm, the only significant, larger-scale solar developments in Massachusetts were completed by the regulated utilities, especially National Grid.  Other commercial and residential projects have…
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At Yale, I am a joint masters student between the schools of Forestry and Public Health interested in the relationships between ecology, environmental health, and human health outcomes.  My internship, as groundwork for the thesis that I will write next year, hastaken me to Patillas, Puerto Rico.  In Patillas, the Center for Disease Control Dengue Branch has ongoing research on the mosquitoes that transmit the dengue viruses. The story of dengue, how it has emerged and how it is propagated as an urban disease, provides a powerful illustration of how many of the feats of modernization can lead to the spread of disease. In collaboration with the dengue branch’s research in Patillas, I am working to incorporate the utilities of remote…
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