State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

Month: February 2012

  • Social Media and the Love of Science

    Social Media and the Love of Science

    What is the role of social media in advancing environmental sustainability and conservation? Do tweeting, posting, and blogging really accelerate technological progress and science?

  • Watch an Antarctic Iceberg in the Making

    Watch an Antarctic Iceberg in the Making

    What does a glacier about to spawn an iceberg the size of New York City look like? A new animation from NASA flies you through the 19-mile crack that is slowly tearing Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier apart.

  • Climate Services: Providers, Users Must Partner

    Climate Services: Providers, Users Must Partner

    The potential of climate services depends on the strength of partnerships between those who provide climate information and those who need it, says Zhang Zuqiang, Deputy Director of China’s National Climate Center.

  • EPA’s greenhouse gas rule poses challenges for US policy review process

    Just in case anyone you missed it, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is moving, albeit almost imperceptibly, toward regulating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It took one more step in January, published the emissions of 6700 facilities with annual emissions of more than 25,000 MtCO2e. This category of emitters was required to report these figures…

  • Putting Wind in Trade’s Sails

    Putting Wind in Trade’s Sails

    International maritime trade represents a unique example of global cooperation. With the help of a growing number of renewable energy technologies, the global community can work towards progress in this limited area and use it as a model for addressing emissions in other areas of the global economy.

  • Climate News Roundup: Week of 2/19

    Climate News Roundup: Week of 2/19

    Climate change increased likelihood of Russian 2010 heatwave, The Guardian, Feb 21 The extreme Russian heatwave of 2010 was made three times more likely because of man-made climate change, according to a study led by climate scientists and number-crunched by home PC users. But the size of the event was mostly within natural limits, said…

  • Climates Services: Must Help Us Understand Risks

    Climates Services: Must Help Us Understand Risks

    The point is setting priorities right, and for an agency like the World Food Programme, our focus is of course vulnerable people in the most vulnerable countries, countries where climate change is a multiplier of hunger risk. –- WFP’s Carlo Scaramella, in the fifth in a series of video interviews.

  • MPA Student Explores Relationship between Social Justice and Environmental Sustainability

    MPA Student Explores Relationship between Social Justice and Environmental Sustainability

    “In classes like Adaptation to Climate Change and Climate Change in Africa, the link between social justice issues and climate change became very apparent to me, and I now feel equipped to use both my past work experience, the knowledge I have gained at Columbia and the skills I will acquire through my internship to…

  • Fixing Climate: Beyond Carbon Dioxide

    Fixing Climate: Beyond Carbon Dioxide

    Climate scientists at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science this week were elated to hear that the United States and five other countries had agreed to work toward cutting pollutants other than carbon dioxide thought to cause about a third of current human-influenced global warming. After all, many of them…

  • Social Media and the Love of Science

    Social Media and the Love of Science

    What is the role of social media in advancing environmental sustainability and conservation? Do tweeting, posting, and blogging really accelerate technological progress and science?

  • Watch an Antarctic Iceberg in the Making

    Watch an Antarctic Iceberg in the Making

    What does a glacier about to spawn an iceberg the size of New York City look like? A new animation from NASA flies you through the 19-mile crack that is slowly tearing Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier apart.

  • Climate Services: Providers, Users Must Partner

    Climate Services: Providers, Users Must Partner

    The potential of climate services depends on the strength of partnerships between those who provide climate information and those who need it, says Zhang Zuqiang, Deputy Director of China’s National Climate Center.

  • EPA’s greenhouse gas rule poses challenges for US policy review process

    Just in case anyone you missed it, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is moving, albeit almost imperceptibly, toward regulating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It took one more step in January, published the emissions of 6700 facilities with annual emissions of more than 25,000 MtCO2e. This category of emitters was required to report these figures…

  • Putting Wind in Trade’s Sails

    Putting Wind in Trade’s Sails

    International maritime trade represents a unique example of global cooperation. With the help of a growing number of renewable energy technologies, the global community can work towards progress in this limited area and use it as a model for addressing emissions in other areas of the global economy.

  • Climate News Roundup: Week of 2/19

    Climate News Roundup: Week of 2/19

    Climate change increased likelihood of Russian 2010 heatwave, The Guardian, Feb 21 The extreme Russian heatwave of 2010 was made three times more likely because of man-made climate change, according to a study led by climate scientists and number-crunched by home PC users. But the size of the event was mostly within natural limits, said…

  • Climates Services: Must Help Us Understand Risks

    Climates Services: Must Help Us Understand Risks

    The point is setting priorities right, and for an agency like the World Food Programme, our focus is of course vulnerable people in the most vulnerable countries, countries where climate change is a multiplier of hunger risk. –- WFP’s Carlo Scaramella, in the fifth in a series of video interviews.

  • MPA Student Explores Relationship between Social Justice and Environmental Sustainability

    MPA Student Explores Relationship between Social Justice and Environmental Sustainability

    “In classes like Adaptation to Climate Change and Climate Change in Africa, the link between social justice issues and climate change became very apparent to me, and I now feel equipped to use both my past work experience, the knowledge I have gained at Columbia and the skills I will acquire through my internship to…

  • Fixing Climate: Beyond Carbon Dioxide

    Fixing Climate: Beyond Carbon Dioxide

    Climate scientists at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science this week were elated to hear that the United States and five other countries had agreed to work toward cutting pollutants other than carbon dioxide thought to cause about a third of current human-influenced global warming. After all, many of them…