Making Headlines
The following articles reflect our commitment to share sustainability-related accomplishments across the university — representing its colleges, departments, institutes, centers and other units — in the areas of research, student engagement, campus stewardship and collaborations with the public and private sectors.
The Logical Indian, 17-Dec-18
Modern agriculture practices have become one of the perpetrators of climate change that we are facing today. Despite the fact that, agriculture is one of the predominant causes of global warming, its impact on the environment is often overlooked. According to Dr Ratan Lal, professor of soil science at The Ohio State University “over the last 150 years, 476 billions of tons of carbon have been emitted from farmland soils due to inappropriate farming and grazing practices..." ...
Featured expert(s): Rattan Lal, professor of soil science
The Columbus Dispatch, 13-May-18
...Decomposing plant matter during the Northern Hemisphere’s fall and winter releases a pulse of carbon dioxide into the air. That peaks each April. As plants photosynthesize and grow during spring and summer, they convert that carbon dioxide into leaves and other plant parts. Annual low points in the carbon-dioxide cycle occur each October. ...
Featured expert(s): Steve Rissing, professor of Evolution, Ecology & Organismal Biology
Business First, 8-May-18
Crews have been working beneath the Oval on the Ohio State University campus, updating 3,000 feet of utility lines that snake through a brick-and-mortar tunnel system built in the early 1900s. Ohio State Energy Partners, ENGIE Services and Ohio State University are working on the project to support nearby building heating, hot water and repairing of the aging tunnels. ...
Toledo Blade, 2-May-18
As toxin-producing algal blooms similar to those that foul western Lake Erie each summer continue to rise exponentially throughout the world, a growing body of scientific data is emerging that shows they are getting harder to control because of climate change, invasive species, and global trade. ...
Featured expert(s): Jiyoung Lee, associate professor of environmental health sciences
Food Management, 2-May-18
Openings of a new AYCTE dining hall and six-station marketplace are among the recent highlights for OSU Dining. The past few years have been busy ones for OSU Dining Services, with the openings of a new two-floor 900-seat AYCTE dining hall, a new six-station marketplace location, a new coffee shop serving direct trade coffee and a new convenience store. ...
Columbus Monthly, May, 2018 issue
The longest ice core ever extracted from a Himalayan glacier now resides in a freezer at OSU. Scientists hope to unlock its secrets before it’s too late. To most people, they’re glaciers: majestic, impregnable walls of ice that tower above sea level. But to Ohio State University glaciologists Lonnie Thompson and Ellen Mosley-Thompson, they’re archives: perfectly preserved records documenting the planet’s history. For more than four decades, the husband-and-wife team has been hustling to extract those records and bring them home to Columbus for closer study. ...
Business First, 26-Apr-18
Only two more projects stand in the way of the completion of a years-long construction overhaul nestled at the center of Ohio State University's main campus. The university first began exploring restoration of the iconic Mirror Lake in 2013. In the years following, it started renovating surrounding buildings to increase safety, sustainability and create a modern learning environment, all in line with the school's Framework 2.0 plan. ...
Popular Science, 19-Apr-18
...Part of the tension comes from the fact that corals do have an ability to adapt or evolve to their environment, but it’s not clear how far that ability will be able to stretch. “There is evidence that some coral are able to adapt very rapidly,” says Andrea Grottoli, a coral biologist at Ohio State University. “But it is not the norm.” ...
Featured expert(s): Andréa Grottoli, professor of Earth sciences
The New York Times, 18-Apr-18
Agriculture could pull carbon out of the air and into the soil — but it would mean a whole new way of thinking about how to tend the land. Climate change often evokes images of smokestacks, and for good reason: The single largest source of carbon emissions related to human activity is heat and power generation, which accounts for about one-quarter of the carbon we put into the atmosphere. Often overlooked, though, is how we use land, which contributes almost as much. ...
Featured expert(s): Rattan Lal, professor of soil science
The Columbus Dispatch, 15-Apr-18
The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is one of the major controls on Earth’s surface temperature. That is as true today as it was in the past. A recent bit of research looked at that link during a crucial time in history, the Cretaceous Period, and did so by a fascinating method. ...
Featured expert(s): Dale Gnidovec, curator of the Orton Geological Museum