State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

biodiversity12

  • Report #3: I’m Not Here to Eat Your Birds!

    By Justin Nobel, Columbia University Earth and Environmental Sciences Journalism Student My first impressions of Africa came from reading National Geographic articles like those in 2000 and 2001 chronicling ecologist Michael Fay’s African “megatransect.” His 2,000-mile, 456-day trek across the rainforests of the Republic of the Congo, Cameroon and Gabon described an impenetrable wilderness unspoiled…

  • Earth: Utilities Included

    by Shahid Naeem, Professor of Ecology, Columbia University The day all utilities and service providers stop sending us bills would be a day of unparalleled celebration, with ticker-tape parades for the executives of utilities companies, and the naming of national heroes. Until that day comes, we have Earth Day. Our most vital utilities and services…

  • Mapping Socioeconomic Data Reveals Trends

    Humans have provoked a lot of wobbling in the global food web, and one result is the explosion of infectious diseases. “All of our infectious diseases are other species making a living off of us,” says Joel Cohen, a populations expert at both Columbia and Rockefeller Universities. “Think of the thousands of bacteria in our…

  • Report #3: I’m Not Here to Eat Your Birds!

    By Justin Nobel, Columbia University Earth and Environmental Sciences Journalism Student My first impressions of Africa came from reading National Geographic articles like those in 2000 and 2001 chronicling ecologist Michael Fay’s African “megatransect.” His 2,000-mile, 456-day trek across the rainforests of the Republic of the Congo, Cameroon and Gabon described an impenetrable wilderness unspoiled…

  • Earth: Utilities Included

    by Shahid Naeem, Professor of Ecology, Columbia University The day all utilities and service providers stop sending us bills would be a day of unparalleled celebration, with ticker-tape parades for the executives of utilities companies, and the naming of national heroes. Until that day comes, we have Earth Day. Our most vital utilities and services…

  • Mapping Socioeconomic Data Reveals Trends

    Humans have provoked a lot of wobbling in the global food web, and one result is the explosion of infectious diseases. “All of our infectious diseases are other species making a living off of us,” says Joel Cohen, a populations expert at both Columbia and Rockefeller Universities. “Think of the thousands of bacteria in our…