Our Economy Depends On Earth Observation And Scientific Research

Since the mid-1970s I have studied and worked as a practitioner in the areas of environmental policy and public management. In helping to build the academic field and profession of sustainability management, I have had the opportunity to combine these areas of study. One of the founders of the field of management was a brilliant and practical man named Peter Drucker. A famous “Druckerism” is: “if you can’t measure something you can’t manage it.” Without measurement, you can’t tell if your management decision-making had made the situation better or worse. In order to measure something, you must observe it. Earth observation is a central need of sustainability managers. Is the air getting cleaner? Are there toxics in the fracking fluid? Is our waste leaking toxics? Is the water safe to drink? If not, why not? What is the source of the pollution? Here at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, a great resource for answering these questions is our Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. That scientific powerhouse is situated on a beautiful campus twenty miles north of New York City overlooking the Hudson, has a $100 million endowment, but remains largely dependent on winning highly competitive federal science grants for most of its annual budget. Columbia’s scientists are world-class and win many of the competitions they enter, but the amount of funding available is now threatened by the president’s proposed budget. The effort to add to the military budget without i...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news