State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

food5

  • New Program Tackles Climate Threats to Food Security

    A new multimillion dollar research program by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research aims to alleviate climate-related threats to the food security, livelihoods and environment of people living in the developing world. One of the key intellectual forces behind this initiative has been the IRI‘s Jim Hansen. He’ll be leading efforts within the program…

  • Getting Back on Track: Ending Global Hunger and Undernutrition

    One of the targets of the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) is to reduce the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by half between 1990 and 2015, with hunger measured as the proportion of the population who are undernourished and the prevalence of children under five who are underweight.

  • Food Miles, Fair Miles

    It’s not often that when we purchase food from a bodega or grocery store that we consider where it came from.  Is my apple from New York, Washington, or China?  Were my tomatoes grown in Florida, California, or Mexico?  Whose hands planted and picked them?  Why did this planter choose this variety? Wherever our food…

  • Changing the Urban Relationship to Food

    With an Italian background, from a culture of food, as biologist and one time theatre producer, to me it makes sense to work with a research group that has the courage to break many taboos and re-discuss academic assumptions in an open and innovative way.

  • The Stuff of Sustainability

    Recently, New York Times reporter, Leslie Kaufman wrote an excellent story on an interesting and important video called “The Story of Stuff”.  Kaufman writes that: “The video is a cheerful but brutal assessment of how much Americans waste, and it has its detractors… The video was created by Annie Leonard, a former Greenpeace employee and…

  • New Program Tackles Climate Threats to Food Security

    A new multimillion dollar research program by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research aims to alleviate climate-related threats to the food security, livelihoods and environment of people living in the developing world. One of the key intellectual forces behind this initiative has been the IRI‘s Jim Hansen. He’ll be leading efforts within the program…

  • Getting Back on Track: Ending Global Hunger and Undernutrition

    One of the targets of the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) is to reduce the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by half between 1990 and 2015, with hunger measured as the proportion of the population who are undernourished and the prevalence of children under five who are underweight.

  • Food Miles, Fair Miles

    It’s not often that when we purchase food from a bodega or grocery store that we consider where it came from.  Is my apple from New York, Washington, or China?  Were my tomatoes grown in Florida, California, or Mexico?  Whose hands planted and picked them?  Why did this planter choose this variety? Wherever our food…

  • Changing the Urban Relationship to Food

    With an Italian background, from a culture of food, as biologist and one time theatre producer, to me it makes sense to work with a research group that has the courage to break many taboos and re-discuss academic assumptions in an open and innovative way.

  • The Stuff of Sustainability

    Recently, New York Times reporter, Leslie Kaufman wrote an excellent story on an interesting and important video called “The Story of Stuff”.  Kaufman writes that: “The video is a cheerful but brutal assessment of how much Americans waste, and it has its detractors… The video was created by Annie Leonard, a former Greenpeace employee and…