State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

climate change101

  • Before Paris, Cause for Optimism

    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…

  • How to Feed Everyone—and Protect the Environment

    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.

  • What Everyone Should Know About Climate Change

    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…

  • Climate Through A Different Lens: Poverty, Inequality, Sustainability

    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…

  • ExxonMobil and the Distortion of Climate Science

    What protection can we fall back on when a giant, powerful, multinational corporation leads an effort to change the nature of reality itself and redefine scientific fact? The answer is of course, is the protection of other powerful institutions: research universities like the one I work for, the Congress, and, in this case, the New…

  • Unlocking the Secrets of the Ross Ice Shelf

    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…

  • The Paris Climate Summit: Resources for Journalists

    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.

  • From Copenhagen to Paris: Getting Beyond Talk

    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.

  • Alaska: Hotspot for Oil and Climate Change

    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?

Composite banner with modern building at night and portrait of Dean Alexis Abramson that reads "Science for the Planet"

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

  • Before Paris, Cause for Optimism

    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…

  • How to Feed Everyone—and Protect the Environment

    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.

  • What Everyone Should Know About Climate Change

    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…

  • Climate Through A Different Lens: Poverty, Inequality, Sustainability

    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…

  • ExxonMobil and the Distortion of Climate Science

    What protection can we fall back on when a giant, powerful, multinational corporation leads an effort to change the nature of reality itself and redefine scientific fact? The answer is of course, is the protection of other powerful institutions: research universities like the one I work for, the Congress, and, in this case, the New…

  • Unlocking the Secrets of the Ross Ice Shelf

    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…

  • The Paris Climate Summit: Resources for Journalists

    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.

  • From Copenhagen to Paris: Getting Beyond Talk

    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.

  • Alaska: Hotspot for Oil and Climate Change

    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?