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BIOSPHERE PROJECT FUNDING CUT
By Allison Keller
Columbia University is cutting its funding for the Biosphere Project.
Although the school agreed to continue its management contract with Texas Billionaire and Biosphere owner, Edward P. Bass, the school does not see a need for further investment.
“The university has put $25 million to $30 million into the center since taking over its management in 1996,” reported the New York Times.
Biosphere 2, with Earth, in theory, as Biosphere 1, has held a mix of promise and problems since it opened in 1991. Biosphere was an extraordinary experiment in which eight humans, nicknamed "biospherians,” were sealed into a mock world along with 4,000 animal and plant species.
The mock Earth contained all of the different types of land forms and sections. There were a rain forest, marshes, a desert and a vestpocket ocean.
The project was conceived, built, and mostly paid for, by Mr. Bass. He spent up to $200 million or more on the gutsy project.
“It was a very daring thing to try and attempt,” Kelly Schmidt, an Environmental Issues teacher at the Sussex-Wantage Middle school stated. “There were a lot of risks attached to such a project.”
Some of those hazards did being to arise during the stint in the biosphere. By 1994, with noxious gases building up under its glass domes, invasive species thriving, and biospherians' tempers flaring, the effort ended.
The economic state of the country has caused the Columbia University to cut its funding. However, the failing partnership between the university and the organization running the Biosphere, is a bad implication as to the response of other interest from other schools. While other organizations continue to try to keep Columbia University funding, the biosphere is looking for other methods to keep this important biological and ecological containment running.
“Private funding, such as that provided by Mr. Bass, is being sought after,” a spokesperson from Columbia University stated. “Sadly, it is not everyday that someone wishes to donate large sums of money to a dwindling cause.”