State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

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  • The Truly Serious Side of Roadkill

    The Truly Serious Side of Roadkill

    A new film how India’s fast-expanding road networks is fragmenting the few remaining refuges of many endangered creatures. The results are hard to watch.

  • Seeing the Forest for More Than the Trees: Adding Conservation into Holistic Development

    Seeing the Forest for More Than the Trees: Adding Conservation into Holistic Development

    International development increasingly recognizes that governance, economic growth, health, and human well-being are inextricably linked—multisectoral programming is the order of the day. But conservation too often gets left out of the picture.

  • Photo Essay: The Re-Greening of Puerto Rico

    Photo Essay: The Re-Greening of Puerto Rico

    Researchers survey the damage to Puerto Rico’s forests in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

  • Climate Change and the Re-Greening of Puerto Rico

    Climate Change and the Re-Greening of Puerto Rico

    Ecologist Maria Uriarte investigates the effects of Hurricane Maria on the forests of Puerto Rico, and how long-term climate change may affect them.

  • Palm Oil in the Amazon: Threat or Opportunity?

    Palm Oil in the Amazon: Threat or Opportunity?

    Small migratory farming is responsible for 70% of the annual deforestation in Peru. Can palm oil address this problem and lead the change towards sustainable development in the Peruvian Amazon?

  • Climate May Quickly Drive Forest-Eating Beetles North, Says Study

    Climate May Quickly Drive Forest-Eating Beetles North, Says Study

    Over the next few decades, global warming-related rises in winter temperatures could significantly extend the range of the southern pine beetle, one of the world’s most aggressive tree-killing insects, through much of the northern United States and southern Canada, says a new study.

  • Photo Essay: High in the Hills, Climate May Challenge Forests

    Photo Essay: High in the Hills, Climate May Challenge Forests

    Forests in the south-central United States are some of the country’s most productive and diverse. They also sit in a warming “hole”—an area where the progressive rise in temperature affecting most of the continent hasn’t yet taken hold. A team from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory is studying how these forests might shift—or even disappear—when…

  • How Will Shifting Climate Change U.S. Forests?

    How Will Shifting Climate Change U.S. Forests?

    One foggy spring morning just after a hard rain, Park Williams was tromping through the woods deep in Arkansas’ Ozark Mountains. Toiling down a steep slope, he supposedly was keeping a simultaneous eye out for rattlesnakes, copperheads, poison ivy and big old trees. Williams seemed mostly focused on the trees, though; attention to the other…

  • Seeing the Amazon’s Future Through the Fog

    Seeing the Amazon’s Future Through the Fog

    Scientists have developed a new approach to modeling the water and carbon cycles in the Amazon that could lead to better climate forecasts and improved water resource management.

Photo of the Earth from space with the text "Lamont at AGU25" on top.

AGU25, the premier Earth and space science conference, takes place December 15-19, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana. This year’s theme—Where Science Connects Us—puts in focus how science depends on connection, from the lab to the field to the ballot box. Once again, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Columbia Climate School scientists, experts, students, and educators are playing an active role, sharing our research and helping shape the future of our planet. #AGU25 Learn More

  • The Truly Serious Side of Roadkill

    The Truly Serious Side of Roadkill

    A new film how India’s fast-expanding road networks is fragmenting the few remaining refuges of many endangered creatures. The results are hard to watch.

  • Seeing the Forest for More Than the Trees: Adding Conservation into Holistic Development

    Seeing the Forest for More Than the Trees: Adding Conservation into Holistic Development

    International development increasingly recognizes that governance, economic growth, health, and human well-being are inextricably linked—multisectoral programming is the order of the day. But conservation too often gets left out of the picture.

  • Photo Essay: The Re-Greening of Puerto Rico

    Photo Essay: The Re-Greening of Puerto Rico

    Researchers survey the damage to Puerto Rico’s forests in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

  • Climate Change and the Re-Greening of Puerto Rico

    Climate Change and the Re-Greening of Puerto Rico

    Ecologist Maria Uriarte investigates the effects of Hurricane Maria on the forests of Puerto Rico, and how long-term climate change may affect them.

  • Palm Oil in the Amazon: Threat or Opportunity?

    Palm Oil in the Amazon: Threat or Opportunity?

    Small migratory farming is responsible for 70% of the annual deforestation in Peru. Can palm oil address this problem and lead the change towards sustainable development in the Peruvian Amazon?

  • Climate May Quickly Drive Forest-Eating Beetles North, Says Study

    Climate May Quickly Drive Forest-Eating Beetles North, Says Study

    Over the next few decades, global warming-related rises in winter temperatures could significantly extend the range of the southern pine beetle, one of the world’s most aggressive tree-killing insects, through much of the northern United States and southern Canada, says a new study.

  • Photo Essay: High in the Hills, Climate May Challenge Forests

    Photo Essay: High in the Hills, Climate May Challenge Forests

    Forests in the south-central United States are some of the country’s most productive and diverse. They also sit in a warming “hole”—an area where the progressive rise in temperature affecting most of the continent hasn’t yet taken hold. A team from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory is studying how these forests might shift—or even disappear—when…

  • How Will Shifting Climate Change U.S. Forests?

    How Will Shifting Climate Change U.S. Forests?

    One foggy spring morning just after a hard rain, Park Williams was tromping through the woods deep in Arkansas’ Ozark Mountains. Toiling down a steep slope, he supposedly was keeping a simultaneous eye out for rattlesnakes, copperheads, poison ivy and big old trees. Williams seemed mostly focused on the trees, though; attention to the other…

  • Seeing the Amazon’s Future Through the Fog

    Seeing the Amazon’s Future Through the Fog

    Scientists have developed a new approach to modeling the water and carbon cycles in the Amazon that could lead to better climate forecasts and improved water resource management.