Peter M. Nicholas, a Duke alumnus whose volunteer leadership across more than three decades on the Board of Trustees, fundraising campaigns and school advisory boards was invaluable in advancing Duke’s teaching and research mission, died May 14 at his home in Boca Grande, FL. He was 80.

The first round of University-Wide Collaboration Grants on Climate Change will fund eight Duke University faculty teams to lay the groundwork for new research on climate change and its impacts. The teams will investigate topics including planetary engineering, climate justice, low-carbon heating and cooling methods, lithium mining, agricultural histories, coastal resilience, and the impacts of extreme weather on forest ecosystems.

On Earth Day, the Biden Administration announced an initiative to develop national measures called natural capital accounts that connect the value of ecosystem services to economic performance. In a Q&A, Warnell offered some insights into natural capital accounting: what exactly it measures, how it can help decision makers, and the work that lies ahead to implement a national system.

The recently merged Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions and Duke University Energy Initiative benefited from the work of 55 dedicated student assistants during the 2021–2022 academic year.

The interdisciplinary crew of student assistants hailed from undergraduate and graduate degree programs across seven Duke schools. They brought diverse skillsets and perspectives to their roles, further developing their expertise by working on real-world projects advancing environmental progress.

Henrik Österblom (Stockholm University) and John Virdin (Nicholas Institute) spoke to Ocean Science Radio about the dominance of the ocean economy by a small group of companies.

States collectively have not committed $9.6 billion in available funding to invest in water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure, according to a new report from the Environmental Policy Innovation Center (EPIC) and the Water Policy Program at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

The idea of an Internet of Water was first conceived at the Aspen Institute Dialog Series on Water Data, and formalized in the 2017 report “The Internet of Water: Sharing and Integrating Water Data for Sustainability.” This concept built on earlier academic work in water science, as well the federal government’s Open Water Data Initiative (OWDI), which substantially improved access to federal water data sets.

Duke University experts will share insights about international climate policy with university students across the nation in a free virtual seminar series funded by the U.S. Department of State. The series is also open to the Duke community, including students, faculty, staff, and alumni.

The COVID-19 pandemic presented opportunities to invest in energy systems and make them more resilient. It appears to have reinforced the status quo instead, write Amy Pickle and researchers from the University of Colorado Denver and the University of Tennessee in an op-ed for The Colorado Sun.

The study is the first in what researchers hope will be an annual series tracking global “trends and gaps” in government responses to plastic pollution, reported The Hill.