Maxwell School News

Some colors can affect divers’ physical and mental health, says Kyrstin Mallon Andrews, assistant professor of anthropology. For instance, because yellow water clouds the water’s surface, the fishermen must dive continually to see fish, an exhausting process. Yellow water also causes skin rashes and debilitating ear infections, along with “sort of generalized angst,” she says.

"The Colour of Seawater: Colour Perception and Environmental Change in Dominican Seascapes," authored by Assistant Professor of Anthropology Kyrstin Mallon Andrews, was published in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute.

"If we want to meet timelines to reduce emissions, we have to build wind and solar at a totally unprecedented rate,” says Ethan Coffel, assistant professor of geography and the environment.

"Does Community-Based Adaptation Enhance Social Capital? Evidence from Senegal and Mali," co-authored by Hannah Patnaik, managing director of the Maxwell X Lab, and John McPeak, professor of public administration and international affairs, was published in the Journal of Development Studies.

Hot air is less dense than cold air meaning planes have less lift when the mercury rises. “This is a physical restriction related to air density, and there are not a whole lot of direct technological fixes for it,” says Ethan Coffel, assistant professor of geography and the environment.

One of 15 geographers from 11 states and the West Indies, Farhana Sultana, professor of geography and the environment, will focus on climate and society. 

“This is a perfect sweet spot for a public power entity to take on some of that risk, to try to really get a technology that we need off the ground,” Matt Huber, professor of geography and the environment, says of TVA’s small modular reactor program. ​“They have the resources and the social mission to do that, where private capital wouldn’t.”

The funding will enable the Maxwell School assistant professor to build on his study of the crop-climate feedback cycle. 

Citing the work of organizations like Global Witness in conflict zones worldwide, Selina Gallo-Cruz, associate professor of sociology, points out that a significant part of the violence on this planet comes from the North's "extraction of natural resources through mining or deforestation—palm oil plantations are a big one—and mega-, mega-agricultural projects," all of which lead to "outbreaks of very violent conflict."

The Maxwell School professor participated in a conference on climate and sustainability.

"This can't continue as systems that become more unstable and unpredictable will harm more in chaotic ways," says Farhana Sultana, professor of geography and the environment.

When there is less precipitation than normal, warmer temperatures cause vegetation to dry out more quickly, says Ethan Coffel, assistant professor of geography and the environment.

What is clear is that the Canadian wildfires are a product of man-produced climate change and climate disasters are going to become more commonplace, says Jacob Bendix, professor emeritus of geography and the environment.

"Before this week, it was easy for those of us in the East to think that suffocating wildfire smoke was solely a West Coast problem. But no longer. The smoke clouding our skies, scratching our throats and watering our eyes shows we’re all Westerners now," writes Robert Wilson, associate professor of geography and the environment.

"So if we can pair climate decarbonization with more increased secure access to people's basic material needs, you could start to build a much broader popular base," says Matthew Huber, professor of geography and the environment. 

The 2020 presidential candidate and former hedge fund manager visited the Maxwell School as part of the inaugural Sustainable Syracuse series. 

“It’s a generational thing,” says Matt Huber, professor of geography and the environment. “A lot of younger generations are really fixated on climate and understand that nuclear is one our best options to deal with climate, so we gotta keep it on the table.”

“The authors show that the effect of warming on home runs is less for indoor stadiums and night games, making a somewhat controlled experiment,” says Ethan Coffel, assistant professor of geography and the environment. “There may have been other changes to gameplay or equipment which could have also affected trends in home runs, but one might not expect those things to differ between indoor and outdoor stadiums or night versus day games.”

"There are three primary effects [of climate change on flying]: a reduction in payload capacity for some flights because of rising temperatures, an increase in clear air turbulence on some flight routes, and changes in fuel consumption on some routes due to changes in upper level wind speeds," says Ethan Coffel, assistant professor of geography and the environment.

The fact that the costs of compliance are typically borne by workers and consumers is a fundamental flaw of carbon pricing programs, says Matthew Huber, professor of geography and the environment. It’s one that, he suggests, has led to the Biden administration’s relatively skeptical stance on cap-and-trade programs.