Earth Institute scientists explore how the physical world works on every continent — over and under the ice in the arctic, in the remotest regions of Antarctica, in the grasslands of Mongolia and forests of Eastern Turkey, from volcanoes in Patagonia and subduction zones in Papua New Guinea to the streets of New York City.
As the world population grows toward 10 billion, consumption of water, food and energy is expanding at a rate that cannot be maintained without depleting the planet’s resources. If we fail to address these two issues together, we face a grim future of economic, social and environmental ills, warns a new report prepared by a group of scientists and other experts for the Royal Society.
From fossil teeth to carbon traces of plants in the soil, scientists are studying how changes in climate may have influenced early human evolution in Africa. Researchers from around the world gathered for a symposium held recently at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Watch the videos.
“The use of stone to make stone that can cut flesh is important,” Richard Leakey said. “We’re not empirical things, we’re thinkers. … What was it that triggered that response?”
The people living on the northeast coast of Japan had learned to expect large earthquakes. But despite being one of the best-prepared nations, they were caught off-guard by the force of the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami that devastated their coastline and led to the meltdown of reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. [...]
Can we manage the needs of 9 billion people for water, food and energy without depleting our resources and ruining the environment? “The solutions,” says Tim Fox, “are all within the capability of existing technology.”
The United States and five other countries agreed this week to fund an effort to cut emissions of methane, soot and other pollutants to start to slow the rate of human-induced climate change.
A new interactive, color-coded map created by a team at Columbia’s engineering school allows viewers to pinpoint and compare estimated energy usage, building lot by building lot, throughout New York City.
Russian scientists this week finished penetrating more than two miles through the Antarctic ice sheet to Lake Vostok, a huge freshwater lake that has been buried under the ice for millions of years. But they won’t know what they’ve found until next year.
The NYC Department of City Planning has proposed new zoning rules to make it easier to retrofit buildings for energy efficiency – including a provision on rooftop greenhouses.
State of the Planet is a forum for discussion on varying viewpoints. The opinions expressed by the authors and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Earth Institute or Columbia University.
