Climate283
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Protestors Should Press the U.S.
By Dana Fisher At this point, most everyone agrees: the climate talks in Copenhagen will not result in a binding treaty. It is not for want of trying; negotiators have emitted tons of carbon flying to meetings around the globe for the past few years. Now, leaders have announced that the talks will merely serve…
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Cities Produce the Emissions. Cities Must Deal With Them.
By Elliott Sclar It is always good news when the international community gathers to address an important problem. On the other hand, an international conference on climate change implicitly frames this as a nation-state problem. It is, for all intents and purposes, an urban problem. Nations are supposed to be the ones governing carbon emissions;…
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Farming in Future Climates
Agronomist Pedro Sanchez has helped many regions of the world boost food production through better use of nutrients, and now heads the Earth Institute’s Tropical Agriculture and Rural Environment Program. He is at the Copenhagen summit looking for support to build a global soil map that will help farmers work more efficiently in the future.…
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Real Scientists Are Climate Skeptics
The emails stolen from climate researchers at East Anglia University and released online—“Climategate,” as it has come to be known to some–may say a lot about some of the scientists involved. But they also reveal much about the dangerous political atmosphere into which the messages have emerged, coincidental with the Copenhagen climate summit. Scientists need…
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Is it time to water down Copenhagen?
With the Copenhagen climate talks kicking off today, I thought it was worth highlighting the close connection between water and climate, particularly as it pertains to energy use. While goodness knows the delegates in Copenhagen will have enough to do to hammer out even a “framework” agreement, I hope some attention will be paid to the close…
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Climate and Meningitis in Africa
A new Google Earth tour explores the link between climate and meningitis outbreaks in Africa.
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You Can Ignore Polar Bears, But Not People
As the Copenhagen summit prepared to open, we asked geophysicist and social scientist John Mutter to talk about the prospects. While at sea, Mutter investigates the workings of deep ocean floors; on land, he directs the Earth Institute’s Ph.D. in Sustainable Development and works to focus science on humanitarian causes. Among other things, he pinpointed…
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There Must Be a Way to Weatherize New York City
With the Copenhagen Climate Conference about to begin, the issue of New York’s carbon footprint has taken center stage here—just as the city government has been forced to trim back its plans to require large buildings to reduce their use of energy. On Earth Day, 2009, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and city council speaker…
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We Can’t Separate Climate and Biodiversity
In 1940, after Copenhagen was occupied by Nazi Germany, many of its Jews were saved when Danes and Swedes cooperated to spirit them at night across the narrow strait from the Danish town of Helsingør to the Swedish town of Helsinborg. On the Danish side of the strait, there is now a monument, lit at…
By studying thousands of buildings and analyzing their electricity use, Columbia Climate School Dean Alexis Abramson has been able to uncover ways to significantly cut energy consumption and emissions. Watch the Video: “Engineering a Cooler Future Through Smarter Buildings“