State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

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  • Faculty Profile: Richard Deckelbaum

    Faculty Profile: Richard Deckelbaum

    Like many who have devoted their lives to global public health, Dr. Richard Deckelbaum is regularly challenged by the lack of financial commitment shown by the international community to make modest investments for drastic improvements in people’s lives. He has a hard time believing that governments cannot see—or simply choose to ignore—that nutrition and health…

  • All I Wanted for Christmas Was for These Pumps to Work

    All I Wanted for Christmas Was for These Pumps to Work

    We’ve just completed our first full station and are remarkably pleased with the results. We collected 8 seawater samples to measure helium isotopes; 20 to measure thorium and protactinium isotopes; 7 in-situ pump filters; 1 box core of the ocean floor; and more.

  • Doing Science When There’s No Science to Be Done

    Doing Science When There’s No Science to Be Done

    With an abundance of time and a dearth of work, we have begun to devise ways of doing science before we can actually do science at sea. Among other things, we set up an imaging system to take pictures of particle filters we bring back from the deep sea.

  • Day 2: What Am I Doing Here, Anyway?

    Day 2: What Am I Doing Here, Anyway?

    The South Pacific Gyre is the most nutrient-poor region in the ocean, and the waters are the clearest in the ocean. The sediments accumulate below the water at rates as low as 0.1 millimeter per thousand years. So, 10 centimeters of seafloor are equivalent to one million years of material deposition in the South Pacific.

  • Facing the Challenges for Women in Science

    Facing the Challenges for Women in Science

    Women scientists in the developing world face particular challenges tied to their societies’ cultures and institutional norms. In this video, five women attending an agricultural science conference last June in Zimbabwe talk about some of these challenges.

  • Setting Sail? Plan for the Unexpected

    Setting Sail? Plan for the Unexpected

    In the weeks before departing for my first scientific cruise, everyone I knew who had ever been to sea gave me some form of the same advice: Nothing ever works the way you expect it to work at sea.

  • Uncloaking the Secrecy Behind Large-scale Land Deals

    Uncloaking the Secrecy Behind Large-scale Land Deals

    Large-scale investments in agriculture and forestry have far-reaching implications for the lives of affected individuals and communities. They are also an integral part of efforts by national governments to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and improve the governance of land resources.

  • Faculty Profile: Vijay Modi

    Faculty Profile: Vijay Modi

    Vijay Modi is a professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia University and an Earth Institute faculty member. He also lead the UN Millennium Project effort on the role of energy and energy services in reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s). Currently, he is focused on making consumer-scaled versions of technology that is normally supersized available to developing countries.…

  • The Changing Climate of Security

    The Changing Climate of Security

    In the November Democratic presidential primary debate, Sen. Bernie Sanders said that the greatest threat to national security was climate change. But is there actually a link between national security and climate change, and if so, what is it?

  • Faculty Profile: Richard Deckelbaum

    Faculty Profile: Richard Deckelbaum

    Like many who have devoted their lives to global public health, Dr. Richard Deckelbaum is regularly challenged by the lack of financial commitment shown by the international community to make modest investments for drastic improvements in people’s lives. He has a hard time believing that governments cannot see—or simply choose to ignore—that nutrition and health…

  • All I Wanted for Christmas Was for These Pumps to Work

    All I Wanted for Christmas Was for These Pumps to Work

    We’ve just completed our first full station and are remarkably pleased with the results. We collected 8 seawater samples to measure helium isotopes; 20 to measure thorium and protactinium isotopes; 7 in-situ pump filters; 1 box core of the ocean floor; and more.

  • Doing Science When There’s No Science to Be Done

    Doing Science When There’s No Science to Be Done

    With an abundance of time and a dearth of work, we have begun to devise ways of doing science before we can actually do science at sea. Among other things, we set up an imaging system to take pictures of particle filters we bring back from the deep sea.

  • Day 2: What Am I Doing Here, Anyway?

    Day 2: What Am I Doing Here, Anyway?

    The South Pacific Gyre is the most nutrient-poor region in the ocean, and the waters are the clearest in the ocean. The sediments accumulate below the water at rates as low as 0.1 millimeter per thousand years. So, 10 centimeters of seafloor are equivalent to one million years of material deposition in the South Pacific.

  • Facing the Challenges for Women in Science

    Facing the Challenges for Women in Science

    Women scientists in the developing world face particular challenges tied to their societies’ cultures and institutional norms. In this video, five women attending an agricultural science conference last June in Zimbabwe talk about some of these challenges.

  • Setting Sail? Plan for the Unexpected

    Setting Sail? Plan for the Unexpected

    In the weeks before departing for my first scientific cruise, everyone I knew who had ever been to sea gave me some form of the same advice: Nothing ever works the way you expect it to work at sea.

  • Uncloaking the Secrecy Behind Large-scale Land Deals

    Uncloaking the Secrecy Behind Large-scale Land Deals

    Large-scale investments in agriculture and forestry have far-reaching implications for the lives of affected individuals and communities. They are also an integral part of efforts by national governments to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and improve the governance of land resources.

  • Faculty Profile: Vijay Modi

    Faculty Profile: Vijay Modi

    Vijay Modi is a professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia University and an Earth Institute faculty member. He also lead the UN Millennium Project effort on the role of energy and energy services in reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s). Currently, he is focused on making consumer-scaled versions of technology that is normally supersized available to developing countries.…

  • The Changing Climate of Security

    The Changing Climate of Security

    In the November Democratic presidential primary debate, Sen. Bernie Sanders said that the greatest threat to national security was climate change. But is there actually a link between national security and climate change, and if so, what is it?