A.D. White Professor-at-Large Sir Partha Dasgupta spoke to a packed auditorium of over 200 people –– most of them students –– in the Plant Science building yesterday about nature's role in a country's economic development.

The practice of hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking, has caused an intense debate in the Ithaca community, pitting drilling companies against environmentalists. Last night Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton exchanged her thoughts on the issue with the local Ithaca and Cornell communities. Although not yet permitted in New York State, hydrofracking is legal in several states including Texas and Pennsylvania.

When developmental and environmental psychologist Gary Evans, an Elizabeth Lee Vincent Professor of Human Ecology, moved to the woods of Ithaca from his California home, he had two focuses in mind: the Human Ecology school and his children. He found a challenge by his students to look at poverty and education.

For much of last semester, student and local environmental activists spoke out against gas drilling in upstate New York. Local and campus groups decried the possibility that companies would harvest natural gas located under the Marcellus Shale through the controversial process known as hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking.

As time runs out to comment on the draft of the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement for Oil and Gas Mining through horizontal drilling and high-volume hydraulic fracturing, Walter Hang, president of Toxics Targeting, made a passionate plea last night to kill the draft of the SGEIS altogether.

With the prospect of a large-scale gas drilling project in Ithaca, many residents have voiced concern about such a project’s potential environmental and health impacts. Despite the potential profits from leasing land to gas companies for natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale formation, residents have vocally raised concerns.

Because of its commitment to sustainability and environmental conservation, Cornell was recently recognized as a Tree Campus U.S.A. for 2009; the first time an Ivy League institution has received such a title.

They are not hippie communes. They are not even about “living off the grid.” Largely unknown and misinterpreted, ecovillages are communities striving to “integrate a supportive social environment with a low impact way of life” according to the Global Ecovillage Network.

In discussions of sustainability, the environment often takes center stage while issues of social equity and economic sustainability are either relegated to the background or are not present at all. The Bioneers Conference — held from Oct. 16 to Oct. 18 on the Ithaca College campus — made inquiries into a more sustainable future from five perspectives: sustainable economy, our clean energy future, fortifying our food sheds, earth stewardship and health and well-being.

Food is the body’s source of energy and nutrients, without which the human body would cease to function. Most Americans are reminded of this fact three times a day, thanks to the extensively evolved agricultural system that has developed since our transition from hunter-gatherer ways 10,000 years ago. However, the delicate state of the environment leaves the future of food production uncertain, particularly for developing nations.