State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

Author: Kevin Krajick45

Kevin Krajick was from 2007-2025 the senior editor for science news at the Earth Institute and the Columbia Climate School. He grew up in the Catskill Mountains and Hudson Valley of upstate New York, where he worked at his high-school newspaper. He has since reported from all 50 U.S. states and 30-some countries, writing about science, medicine, crime, immigration and other issues. His work has appeared in National Geographic, Newsweek, The New Yorker, Science, Smithsonian and many other publications. He was a finalist for the National Magazine Award for Public Service for his reporting on organized crime’s links to the toxic waste-disposal industry. He is two-time winner of the American Geophysical Union’s Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism, and his work has been featured repeatedly in the yearly book “Best American Science and Nature Writing.” His 2001 book “Barren Lands” is the true account of how two prospectors discovered vast deposits of diamonds in Canada’s remote far north. Krajick holds degrees in comparative literature and journalism from Columbia University. He lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with his family.

  • Cities at a Turning Point

    Scientists warn that many cities around the world may soon face big climate-change challenges: rising seas; shrinking water supplies; killer summer heat waves; rises in water-borne diseases as temperatures go up and sewers are swamped. No one is predicting that, say, London or Miami will simply drop beneath the waves–but these and other cities will probably have to be redesigned if…

  • Picturing Climate Change

    Intense public interest in changing climate has led to a wave of books. Among the entries,  one upcoming standout is Climate Change: Picturing the Science, from W.W. Norton in April. The book is a  journey around the globe via essays and images from top-flight scientists and photographers. The visuals and narration range from field research in remote polar regions to the giant gates now being erected in European…

  • Foot Forward

    In 1968, 14-year-old Paul Olsen of suburban Livingston, N.J., and his friend Tony Lessa heard that dinosaur tracks had been found in a nearby quarry. They raced over on their bikes.  “I went ballistic,” Olsen recalls. Over the next few years, the boys uncovered and studied thousands of tracks and other fossils there, often working into the night.  It opened the…

  • What Was That Big Bang?

    Iran seems to be moving toward an atomic bomb; North Korea reportedly could build a half dozen; and terrorist attacks have revived the specter of a faceoff between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India. Yet the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, forbidding  nuclear testing, has failed to win ratification from the U.S. Senate and lawmakers of some other nations. Opponents say scientists cannot reliably detect clandestine tests: Why should…

  • Geologists Map Rocks to Soak CO2 From Air

    6,000 Square Miles in U.S. Might Turn Emissions to Harmless Solids

  • Haiti Quake and Reconstruction Resources

    Earth Institute scientists are involved in long-term projects to study continued earthquake risk in Haiti and surrounding countries, and to aid reconstruction and development. Our Haiti Earthquake pages: https://news.climate.columbia.edu/blog/tag/haiti-earthquake/ contain continually updated resources for journalists. Seismologists, natural-disaster experts and others continue to provide interviews, images and essays on the implications and outlook. These include assessments…

  • J. Lamar Worzel, Physicist Who Set Man’s Ear to Oceans

    A wizardly improviser who guided sub warfare and charting of depths

  • Abrupt Climate Shifts May Come Sooner, Not Later

    Rising Seas, Severe Drought, Could Come in Decades, Says U.S. Report

  • Rocks Could Be Harnessed to Sponge Vast Amounts of Carbon Dioxide from Air, Say Researchers

    Proposed Method Would Speed Natural Reactions a Million Times

  • Cities at a Turning Point

    Scientists warn that many cities around the world may soon face big climate-change challenges: rising seas; shrinking water supplies; killer summer heat waves; rises in water-borne diseases as temperatures go up and sewers are swamped. No one is predicting that, say, London or Miami will simply drop beneath the waves–but these and other cities will probably have to be redesigned if…

  • Picturing Climate Change

    Intense public interest in changing climate has led to a wave of books. Among the entries,  one upcoming standout is Climate Change: Picturing the Science, from W.W. Norton in April. The book is a  journey around the globe via essays and images from top-flight scientists and photographers. The visuals and narration range from field research in remote polar regions to the giant gates now being erected in European…

  • Foot Forward

    In 1968, 14-year-old Paul Olsen of suburban Livingston, N.J., and his friend Tony Lessa heard that dinosaur tracks had been found in a nearby quarry. They raced over on their bikes.  “I went ballistic,” Olsen recalls. Over the next few years, the boys uncovered and studied thousands of tracks and other fossils there, often working into the night.  It opened the…

  • What Was That Big Bang?

    Iran seems to be moving toward an atomic bomb; North Korea reportedly could build a half dozen; and terrorist attacks have revived the specter of a faceoff between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India. Yet the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, forbidding  nuclear testing, has failed to win ratification from the U.S. Senate and lawmakers of some other nations. Opponents say scientists cannot reliably detect clandestine tests: Why should…

  • Geologists Map Rocks to Soak CO2 From Air

    6,000 Square Miles in U.S. Might Turn Emissions to Harmless Solids

  • Haiti Quake and Reconstruction Resources

    Earth Institute scientists are involved in long-term projects to study continued earthquake risk in Haiti and surrounding countries, and to aid reconstruction and development. Our Haiti Earthquake pages: https://news.climate.columbia.edu/blog/tag/haiti-earthquake/ contain continually updated resources for journalists. Seismologists, natural-disaster experts and others continue to provide interviews, images and essays on the implications and outlook. These include assessments…

  • J. Lamar Worzel, Physicist Who Set Man’s Ear to Oceans

    A wizardly improviser who guided sub warfare and charting of depths

  • Abrupt Climate Shifts May Come Sooner, Not Later

    Rising Seas, Severe Drought, Could Come in Decades, Says U.S. Report

  • Rocks Could Be Harnessed to Sponge Vast Amounts of Carbon Dioxide from Air, Say Researchers

    Proposed Method Would Speed Natural Reactions a Million Times