climate change101
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Before Paris, Cause for Optimism
If the international community were to fully understand the threat of climate change, and the likely cost of mitigation and adaptation, perhaps we would commit to continued tax breaks and incentives, and propel the renewable energy transition toward completion. In the long run, I am sure this would be less expensive than coping with the…
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How to Feed Everyone—and Protect the Environment
More than 500 leaders in agricultural research and organizations from 67 countries came together for the 2nd International Conference on Global Food Security to discuss how we can achieve global food security while reconciling demands on the environment.
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What Everyone Should Know About Climate Change
Young scientists sum it up: The climate is changing. We’re causing it. It’s going affect everyone, and be expensive. But we can do something about it. Watch the video…
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Climate Through A Different Lens: Poverty, Inequality, Sustainability
Technology has brought us low-cost global communication, and also enabled a global economy. It has also brought us closer and further from each other. We now know more about other cultures. We also see the differences, and sharpen our sense of inequities. Perhaps, this, rather than a control of greenhouse gases, needs to be the…
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Unlocking the Secrets of the Ross Ice Shelf
The Ross Ice Shelf is much like the Rosetta Stone. The historic stone inscribed in three scripts told the same story but in different tongues, so when matched together scholars could decode an ancient language. The Antarctic Rosetta Project also brings together three different “scripts,” each written by an Earth system; the ice, the ocean…
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The Paris Climate Summit: Resources for Journalists
Many experts at Columbia University’s Earth Institute are attending or closely watching the Paris climate summit. These include world authorities on climate science, politics, law, natural resources, national security, health and other fields, who can offer expert analysis to journalists. Here’s a guide to resources that journalists covering the summit can tap.
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From Copenhagen to Paris: Getting Beyond Talk
The climate issue seems to generate a high level of ideologically based politics, emotional rhetoric and political symbolism. It is time to move past symbols to pragmatism and political reality.
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Alaska: Hotspot for Oil and Climate Change
In September, Shell Oil abandoned its offshore oil drilling projects in the Alaskan Arctic. Why is Arctic drilling so controversial and what impacts will Shell’s announcement have?

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“
