State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

minerals

  • As Greenland’s Ice Melts, Glacial Sand Deposits May Offer a Welcome Economic Opportunity

    As Greenland’s Ice Melts, Glacial Sand Deposits May Offer a Welcome Economic Opportunity

    Greenland’s majority Indigenous population is in favor of exploring sand extraction, according to an academic research poll.

  • Five Things the Energy Transition Can’t Do Without

    Five Things the Energy Transition Can’t Do Without

    Achieving the energy transition will take money, minerals, land, water, and skilled labor. Will we have enough of each?

  • Photo Essay: The Mystery of North American Diamonds

    Photo Essay: The Mystery of North American Diamonds

    People have been finding loose diamonds across the United States and Canada since the early 1800s, but for the most part, no one knows where they came from. It was not until the 1990s that geologists tracked down the first commercial deposits, on the remote tundra of Canada’s Northwest Territories. Yaakov Weiss, a geochemist at…

  • Deep Sea Mining: Out of Sight, Out of Mind?

    Deep Sea Mining: Out of Sight, Out of Mind?

    Are we willing to compromise deep sea ecosystems and biodiversity for prodigious amounts of mineral materials? Will deep sea mining have the largest footprint of any single human activity on the planet? The race is on to create more progressive, environmental regulations concerning deep sea mining, but much more scientific research is still necessary to…

  • As Greenland’s Ice Melts, Glacial Sand Deposits May Offer a Welcome Economic Opportunity

    As Greenland’s Ice Melts, Glacial Sand Deposits May Offer a Welcome Economic Opportunity

    Greenland’s majority Indigenous population is in favor of exploring sand extraction, according to an academic research poll.

  • Five Things the Energy Transition Can’t Do Without

    Five Things the Energy Transition Can’t Do Without

    Achieving the energy transition will take money, minerals, land, water, and skilled labor. Will we have enough of each?

  • Photo Essay: The Mystery of North American Diamonds

    Photo Essay: The Mystery of North American Diamonds

    People have been finding loose diamonds across the United States and Canada since the early 1800s, but for the most part, no one knows where they came from. It was not until the 1990s that geologists tracked down the first commercial deposits, on the remote tundra of Canada’s Northwest Territories. Yaakov Weiss, a geochemist at…

  • Deep Sea Mining: Out of Sight, Out of Mind?

    Deep Sea Mining: Out of Sight, Out of Mind?

    Are we willing to compromise deep sea ecosystems and biodiversity for prodigious amounts of mineral materials? Will deep sea mining have the largest footprint of any single human activity on the planet? The race is on to create more progressive, environmental regulations concerning deep sea mining, but much more scientific research is still necessary to…