Over the past three weeks in Sana’a, rain has fallen nearly every day. So much so that the primary drainage canal for the Old City (the Salia)—normally a roadway—has run with feet of water on multiple occasions. See the Salia running with water in this FAS Youtube video. It is an arid city, but [...]
9 August 2010 More than just a resource, water is the essential force for life. And in an arid region such as the Middle East, its scarcity forces water and those places with abundant water to take on near-mythical properties. Called Felix Arabia or Happy Arabia by the Romans, Yemen was long the breadbasket of [...]
As they wrap up their meetings on the development of the International Science Partnership (ISP) between the U.S. and Yemen, Dr. Charles Ferguson and Lindsey Marburger share their perceptions on the future of the ISP, the needs of Yemen and the Yemeni scientific community, and areas for collaboration between American and Yemeni researchers. Click here to [...]
6 August 2010 Welcome to Sana’a. To set the scene for the city, imagine eight inches of rain a year, falling on a city at 7000 feet with a population of 2 million, growing at over 5% per year. Add in a limited and sporadic electrical grid, a water-hungry cash crop (qat) that has replaced [...]
Consider this city: climate models predict that its annual precipitation over the next fifty years will dramatically decrease, in some years disappearing altogether; the summers are likely to get hotter; the population is steadily growing and with it, electricity demand; as the population increases, the city is expanding outward and demand for transportation infrastructure, private [...]
Because a kilowatt saved is a penny earned. Actually, the average cost of 1 KW of electricity in the US as of September 2009 was 12.6¢. And while this figure doesn’t seem very large, all those cents add up when you consider that an average household consumes more than 34,000 KWH of electricity annually, including [...]
In his speech last Tuesday, President Obama defended the reputation of insulation, stating “See, I told you, insulation’s sexy.” His assertion that insulation is a hot and sexy building material is based on the cost-effectiveness of insulation for both new construction and retrofits. And when he stated that “if you saw $20 bills just sort [...]
Over the opening days of the Copenhagen Climate Negotiations, which began this Monday, each country has been asked to consider how it can contribute to the 25-40% carbon emission reductions climate scientists believe to be necessary to keep climate change below the 2C mark. Key issues at stake for the 170 nations represented include commitments [...]
You can meet up with friends, go shopping for high fashion clothing, browse through a fanciful New York City, and build your dream house. You can also participate in your company’s annual conference, practice patient care in an O.R., and attend a lecture by a Harvard professor. All in the Second Life virtual world. And [...]
In the ongoing efforts to reduce our nation’s carbon output by improving the energy efficiency of our built environment, a new old idea is shaping up to be a key player: cool roofs. Used throughout the Mediterranean and tropical climates worldwide, the solar reflectance value (albedo) of a white or light-colored roof has been long [...]