Maxwell School News and Commentary

Natalie Koch, professor of geography and the environment, argues that state lawmakers need to update the state’s 43 year old water law and create more active management areas to regulate water use across Arizona. “There needs to be some way of monitoring and regulating who is drawing what from the aquifers,” says Koch.

"Powering the next wave of green energy innovation," co-authored by David Popp, professor of public administration and international affairs, was published in PLOS Climate.

“Pumping groundwater in Arizona remains largely unregulated,” writes Natalie Koch, professor of geography. “It’s this legal failing that, in part, allows the Saudi company to draw unlimited amounts of water to grow an alfalfa crop that feeds dairy cows 8,000 miles away.”

How can governments properly prepare now for when the next disaster strikes? Chris Mihm, adjunct professor of public administration and international affairs, provides six steps that give leaders a practical approach to emergency preparedness in a report published by the IBM Center for The Business of Government.

Rather than generating heat, these devices transfer heat from the cool outdoors into the warm indoors and vice versa during warm weather. Heat pumps rely on electricity instead of natural gas or propane, both of which have a higher carbon emission than renewable electricity such as wind or solar, says Jay S. Golden, Pontarelli Professor of Environmental Sustainability and Finance. 

"Catching Air: Risk and Embodied Ocean Health among Dominican Diver Fishermen," authored by Assistant Professor of Anthropology Kyrstin Mallon Andrews, was published in Medical Anthropology Quarterly.

“I don’t think they’ve proven to be effective in actually coming up with a kind of international agreement with binding limits on countries that would penalize them if they were not to abide by the pledges,” Matt Huber, professor of geography and the environment, tells the Toronto Star.

The agreement between Syracuse University and the Northeast Clean Energy Council aims to raise the visibility and impact of emerging research on clean climate technologies; increase engagement in the region for governments and businesses looking to meet their net-zero carbon transitions through clean energy policies and innovations; and create career-building experiential opportunities for students.

“The environmental benefits are largely going to impact disadvantaged communities if you think typically about tailpipe pollution,” says David Popp, professor of public administration and international affairs.

Peter Wilcoxen, Ajello Professor in Energy and Environmental Policy, is one of twenty members and one government observer who have been named as part of the establishment of the committee. The new committee will provide information and analysis to the Financial Stability Oversight Council.