FUSE in the News

Recently, Radio Netherlands Worldwide released an hour long radio show called “a view from above” on their radio program Earth Beat. This hour long program featured a number of interviews ranging from climbing mount Everest to archeology and at 32 minutes an interview with Jason Aloisio, PhD student and green roof researcher at Fordham University.  Check out the program by clicking on the Image below!

OnEarth Documentary

A short documentary about FUSE was featured at OnEarth.org.  The video was narrated by Jason Aloisio and produced and edited by Luke Groskin and Jenny Shalant.

Compost for sustainability.

Humans produce large amounts of waste.  In fact, the EPA predicts that the average American produces 1,600 pounds of waste per year.  Some of this waste is recyclable, some is not, and much of it is decomposable because it is organic.

Decomposition is a process that involves the break down of chemically and structurally complex organic material into simpler and smaller molecules or even to the elemental stage.  This process is crucial to the earths ecosystem, because without it we would simply have tons of dead material piled all over the planet.  Furthermore, the products of decomposition are then re-used by organisms, thus completing the circle of life.

If we as humans continually dump all of our organic waste into the trash bin it will go to dumps, were it will sit with other non decomposable waste and will not improve the environment in a positive way.  However, if we take our organic waste, things like grass clippings and vegetable scraps from your kitchen, and put in in a compost bin we can allow decomposition to occur and then re-use the nutrient rich product.  The resulting nutrient rich compost can be used to fertilize a vegetable patch, spread out on planted beds, or cultivate potted plants.

Composting is a key component of sustainability, and when the FUSE team (Eric Osuna and David Garcia pictured below) had to remove the remaining plant biomass from the FUSE rooftop to prepare for winter….

We decided to build a compost container out of recycled shipping pallets and chicken wire at the Louis Calder Center.

FUSE in the News

This week, FUSE research was featured on a weekly environmental news radio program that covers issues from across Canada and Around the World.  Terra Informa, go to the website by clicking on the image below, has been gaining popularity in syndicates internationally.  On the radio program Jason Aloisio talks about the research he conducted in 2010, which was recently covered by Nature News.  If you want to listen to his segment click here it is about 3/4 of the way through the program.  A profile of Jason was also recently featured on the website of his Alma Marta York College of Pennsylvania.  York has a new Sustainability and Environmental Studies minor, led by Dr. Keith Peterman.  Check it out!

FUSE research was also featured recently in an issue of Inside Fordham. 

 

Ecological Society of America

This week is the 96th annual Ecological Society of America (ESA) conference.  The title of this years conference is “Earth Stewardship: Preserving and enhancing the earth’s life-support systems”.  ESA put out the following rational for the conference:

“Human society currently faces global-scale issues including climate change, loss of biodiversity, population pressures, food production, energy acquisition, and resource use that threaten the earth’s life-support systems.  Resolution of these issues will require integration of knowledge from many sources and simultaneous consideration of multiple problems, in contrast to the individualistic approach to problems commonly used in the past.  Ecologists are challenged to provide a scientific basis for addressing these issues and to lead in developing a sense of earth stewardship.”

Fordham University has sent two students this year, Alison Cucco and Jason Aloisio, both of whom work with faculty member Jim Lewis.  Alison Cucco is presenting a poster titled “Urbanization effects on nitrogen cycling and plant growth”, Jason is giving an oral titled “Biomass and plant diversity of naturally colonized green roof substrate in New York City” and Jim Lewis is giving an oral titled ” Industrial-age changes in atmospheric [CO₂] and temperature alter drought sensitivity of photosynthesis in Eucalyptus“.