News

The Cognitive Science of Political Thought
Oct. 7, 2019

Steven Sloman and Elke U. Weber team up to provide recommendations for improving our political discourse, from recognizing the assumptions people make about other's political motivations to the role of media in sharing scientific consensus-backed information.

Land use is critical for food security on a warming planet
Sept. 30, 2019
Author
Written by Keely Swan, Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment

The world is on a course to consume in 2050 more than 50% more crop calories, and 70% more meat and dairy products than in 2010. In the course of doing so, it is likely to clear hundreds of millions of acres of forests and produce far more greenhouse gas emissions.

The future of ocean life is bleak if we don’t cut carbon emissions
Sept. 25, 2019

Prof. Michael Oppenheimer speaks with PBS NewsHour about the findings of a recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on Oceans, Cryosphere, and Climate Change.

Searchinger Quoted in The New Yorker: Beef Consumption and Our Food Future
Sept. 23, 2019

Tim Searchinger weighs in on the future of the meat-less Impossible Burger and discusses how cutting beef consumption fits into plans to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions over the next 30 years.

Controlling methane is a fast and critical way to slow global warming, say Princeton experts
Sept. 20, 2019
Author
Written by Steven Schultz, Office of Engineering Communications

In independent studies, two Princeton University research teams recently identified surprisingly large sources of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, being leaked into the atmosphere. Pound for pound, methane causes a far greater warming effect in the atmosphere than does carbon dioxide — 86-fold more heating over 20 years, and 35-fold more over the course of a century.

Princeton collaborators bring layered approach to coastal resiliency in New York City
Sept. 16, 2019
Author
Written by Steven Schultz, Office of Engineering Communications

As a microcosm of the challenges facing coastal cities around the world, New York’s Jamaica Bay pretty much has it all.

C-PREE Researchers Discover More Methane Leakage than Expected on Offshore Oil and Gas Rigs
Aug. 15, 2019

C-PREE postdoc, Stuart Riddick, worked with Prof. Denise Mauzerall (C-PREE), Prof. Michael Celia (PEI), and an international team of researchers to measure powerful greenhouse gas emissions from oil and gas rigs in the North Sea, discovering that current counts underestimate the amount of methane being released into the atmosphere.

Creating a Sustainable Food Future: A Menu of Solutions to Feed Nearly 10 Billion People by 2050
July 17, 2019

By 2050, the world must feed many more people, more nutritiously, and ensure that agriculture contributes to poverty reduction through inclusive economic and social development, all while reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, loss of habitat, freshwater depletion and pollution, and other environmental impacts of farming. Pursuing any one of these goals to the exclusion of the others will likely result in failure to achieve any of them.

More Farmers, More Problems: How Smallholder Agriculture is Threatening the Western Amazon
July 12, 2019
Author
Written by B. Rose Huber, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs

A verdant, nearly roadless place, the Western Amazon in South America may be the most biologically diverse place in the world. There, many people live in near isolation, with goods coming in either by river or air. Turning to crops for profit or sustenance, farmers operate small family plots to make a living.

Occurrence of back-to-back heat waves likely to accelerate with climate change
May 8, 2019
Author
Written by Joseph Albanese

"Princeton researchers have provided the first estimation of the potential damage from back-to-back, or compound, heat waves, which the authors found will increase as global warming continues. But government warning systems and health care outreach do not currently calculate the risks of sequential heat waves. Instead, risk and response are determined by the severity of individual episodes of extreme temperatures."