CUPID Conference

CUPID (Columbia University Partnership for International Development) is pleased to announce its annual conference, this year entitled: "Beyond Polar Bears: Looking Past the Environmental Impacts of Climate Change".

The focus is on the effects of climate change not often highlighted in the media and not often contemplated by the public, including effects on food security, public health, markets and business, and policy options. The conference will be held on Friday, February 15th.

It will feature two panels, a debate, and a keynote address by Professor Geoffrey Heal of Columbia Business School, each followed by an interactive discussion with the audience.

Confirmed participants include speakers from Ecosecurities, USAID, Pew Center on Global Climate Change, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Tufts University, Earth Institute and others.

12:00 - 12:15 - Welcome and Opening remarks from CUPID
12:20 - 1:20 - Keynote Speaker: Prof. Geoffrey Heal
1:20 - 1:40 - Coffee break
1:40 - 2:50 - Panel: Impact on Business and Markets
2:50 - 3:10 - Coffee break
3:10 - 4:20 - Panel: Health and Human Security
4:20 - 4:40 - Coffee break
4:40 - 5:50 - Debate: Where do we go from here?
6:00 - 8:00 - Wine and cheese reception

Attendees are free to come and go as they please throughout the day. The event is free and open to the public.

Register now at www.columbia.edu/cu/cupid
Speaker bios also available online

NOTE: Please note that the Earth Institute is not a sponsor of this event. The posting of events by the Earth Institute does not constitute an endorsement of the event.

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008 12-2pm
International Affairs 1118

"Who Fights? Participation in African Civil Conflicts"
with Macartan Humphreys

Please join the Institute of African Studies in welcoming Macartan Humphreys for a Brown Bag discussion of African civil wars, and an analysis of their participants.

Macartan Humphreys (PhD (Government) Harvard 2003, MPhil (Economics)Oxford, 2000) works on the political economy of development and formal political theory. Ongoing research focuses on civil wars, post conflict development, ethnic politics, natural resource management, political authority and leadership and democratic development. He has conducted field research in Chad, Ghana, Haiti, Indonesia, Liberia, Mali, Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Uganda and elsewhere. A new series of projects underway use field experiments to examine democratic decision making in post conflict and developing areas. He is a research scholar at the Center for lobalization and Sustainable Development at the Earth Institute.

Date
Thursday and Friday, March 27 and 28, 2008

Time
9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Conference
Thursday, 6:30 to 8:00 p.m., The Economist Debate

Location
Columbia University, Alfred Lerner Hall, Roone Arledge Auditorium
2920 Broadway (between 114th and 115th Streets), New York, NY
Information
Doors will open at 8:30 a.m.
Lunch is on your own. There will be a 1 1/2 hour lunch break each day.
The conference is free and open to the registered public.

Note:
Session 2: Addressing Areas of Conflict in Our Changing World
Moderator: Jonathan Ledgard, The Economist
Keynote
Jan Egeland, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Panel
Jean-Marie Guéhenno, The United Nations
Jill Shankleman, J. Shankleman Limited
David Victor, Stanford University

Background:
State of the Planet Mission
The State of the Planet Conference, held every two years by the Earth Institute at Columbia University, assesses the state of global natural and human systems in order to identify those factors central to achieving sustainable development. The conference brings together insights from the world's most influential and innovative thinkers in a wide range of academic fields, including the earth sciences, engineering sciences, biological sciences, health sciences, and social sciences, with those from opinion leaders in the media, government and the policy community.

Participants explore and debate in depth, on a global scale, the current condition of natural and human systems from the perspectives of both the natural and social sciences. In fostering constructive relations between these scientific communities and government leaders, international organizations, individuals and others, the conference promotes policy designed to reach the goals of sustainable development.

To secure our future as a species we must first understand what impact we have on the planet we inhabit. Getting to that understanding - and framing viable solutions for our future - is what this conference is all about.

RAZIL: February 7, 2008

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/46824/story.htm

BRASILIA - A senior Roman Catholic bishop criticized Brazil's government on Wednesday for energy and agriculture policies that he said were destroying the Amazon forest and threatening the livelihood of local populations.

"We cannot ignore deforestation by loggers who violate the country's laws and ... threaten tribal Indians and others who depend on (the Amazon)," said Bishop Guilherme Antonio Werlang in launching the church's annual Lent campaign to mobilize followers on issues of social concern.

The comments are likely to increase pressure on Brazil's government to rein in deforestation. Brazil is the world's largest Catholic country and the church remains highly influential despite falling membership.

Werlang's warning follows disagreement within the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva over increasing Amazon deforestation rates.

The environment ministry has blamed farmers and cattle ranchers for moving deeper into the forest in search of cheap land, while Lula and the agriculture ministry reject the charges. Between August and December an estimated 2,703 square miles (7,000 square km), or two-thirds the annual rate for the 12 months ending in July 2007, were chopped down.

Increased sugar cane production, the raw material for the country's much-touted ethanol program, also drives crops and cattle further north into the Amazon, environmentalists say.

"We have to question the energy programs that deteriorate our rivers and land with the construction of ever more hydroelectric plants and monoculture farm production," said Werlang, member of the Brazilian Bishops Conference CNBB. Part of its campaign this year in defense of life aims to raise environmental awareness.

The Lula government tendered in December the right to build a US$5 billion hydroelectric plant, the first of two along the Madeira river in the western Amazon.

Friends of the Earth, an environmental advocacy group, estimates that the project could attract as many as 100,000 settlers to the region, increasing pressure on land and natural resources.

(Reporting by Raymond Colitt; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)