State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

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  • Nature-Inspired Robots

    Nature-Inspired Robots

    Scientists at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland created a new breed of robots to advance their research in robotic movements. But the cheetah-cub robot is not the first animal to bound across laboratory floors. Scientists have produced a “mechanical menagerie” of robots that mimic four legged mammals, compact insects, and everything in…

  • Climate-Vulnerable Species in Need of Conservation Attention

    Climate-Vulnerable Species in Need of Conservation Attention

    As the Earth progressively warms with climate change, species that are not able to adapt to shifting temperatures will be propelled towards extinction. Yet according to a new study by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) published in research journal Plos One, the majority of species that are most vulnerable to climate change…

  • A Moon Holiday to Get Away From It All

    A Moon Holiday to Get Away From It All

    A national park on the moon? Preposterous? Not if the Apollo Lunar Landing Legacy Act, put forward by Congresswomen Donna Reed (D – Maryland) and Eddie Bernice Johnson (D – Texas) passes. We could very well be on our way to having a national park on the Moon protecting sites of historical value – where…

  • Sustainable Intensification, Jumbo Shrimp, and Peacekeeper Missile:  Which of these is an Oxymoron?

    Sustainable Intensification, Jumbo Shrimp, and Peacekeeper Missile: Which of these is an Oxymoron?

    Lists are immensely popular these days and there are lists for almost anything. I was curious if there is a list for oxymora, or contradictions in terms, and sure enough there is – oxymoronlist.com. I was prompted on my search because of the recent appearance of the term “sustainable intensification” and I wanted to see…

  • World Population Projected to Cross 11 Billion Threshold in 2100

    World Population Projected to Cross 11 Billion Threshold in 2100

    In 2011, the U.N. announced that the world population had reached 7 billion. This year’s new projections for future population growth are higher than previously expected. Projects like Millennium Cities hope to alleviate many of the pressures that crowded cities place on infrastructure, public services, and the environment.

  • Urban Trees Fight CO2 Emissions

    Urban Trees Fight CO2 Emissions

    Trees play a vital role in cleaning air and absorbing carbon dioxide.

  • Birds, Ballasts, and the Fate of the Biosphere

    Birds, Ballasts, and the Fate of the Biosphere

    The Biosphere really needs its own newspaper. Yes, there are lots of newspapers out there, but when it comes to the Biosphere, important stories just don’t get the top billing they deserve. Take discoveries of new species, for example. Just in the last month, a new spoon worm, white toothed shrew, corpse flower, and tailorbird…

  • Strange Bedfellows in the Climate Change Saga: Taiga to Tundra

    Strange Bedfellows in the Climate Change Saga: Taiga to Tundra

    In the nine-hour drive on the great Dalton Highway to Toolik Field Station one starts out in the boreal forest, which is also called the “taiga,” but the forest eventually disappears. More accurately, trees disappear. Leaving Fairbanks, one drives through beautiful stands of spruce, birch, and aspen trees, but as one gets closer and closer…

  • Strange Bedfellows in the Climate Change Saga: The Quest for the Arctic Wolf

    Strange Bedfellows in the Climate Change Saga: The Quest for the Arctic Wolf

    When you travel northbound on Alaska’s famous Dalton Highway heading toward the Arctic Sea, the northern edge of the world, you carry a radio to communicate with the enormous rigs that roar along the road, the giant trucks made famous by the History Channel’s Ice Road Truckers. Radio messages between truckers and non-truckers are simple…

  • Nature-Inspired Robots

    Nature-Inspired Robots

    Scientists at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland created a new breed of robots to advance their research in robotic movements. But the cheetah-cub robot is not the first animal to bound across laboratory floors. Scientists have produced a “mechanical menagerie” of robots that mimic four legged mammals, compact insects, and everything in…

  • Climate-Vulnerable Species in Need of Conservation Attention

    Climate-Vulnerable Species in Need of Conservation Attention

    As the Earth progressively warms with climate change, species that are not able to adapt to shifting temperatures will be propelled towards extinction. Yet according to a new study by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) published in research journal Plos One, the majority of species that are most vulnerable to climate change…

  • A Moon Holiday to Get Away From It All

    A Moon Holiday to Get Away From It All

    A national park on the moon? Preposterous? Not if the Apollo Lunar Landing Legacy Act, put forward by Congresswomen Donna Reed (D – Maryland) and Eddie Bernice Johnson (D – Texas) passes. We could very well be on our way to having a national park on the Moon protecting sites of historical value – where…

  • Sustainable Intensification, Jumbo Shrimp, and Peacekeeper Missile:  Which of these is an Oxymoron?

    Sustainable Intensification, Jumbo Shrimp, and Peacekeeper Missile: Which of these is an Oxymoron?

    Lists are immensely popular these days and there are lists for almost anything. I was curious if there is a list for oxymora, or contradictions in terms, and sure enough there is – oxymoronlist.com. I was prompted on my search because of the recent appearance of the term “sustainable intensification” and I wanted to see…

  • World Population Projected to Cross 11 Billion Threshold in 2100

    World Population Projected to Cross 11 Billion Threshold in 2100

    In 2011, the U.N. announced that the world population had reached 7 billion. This year’s new projections for future population growth are higher than previously expected. Projects like Millennium Cities hope to alleviate many of the pressures that crowded cities place on infrastructure, public services, and the environment.

  • Urban Trees Fight CO2 Emissions

    Urban Trees Fight CO2 Emissions

    Trees play a vital role in cleaning air and absorbing carbon dioxide.

  • Birds, Ballasts, and the Fate of the Biosphere

    Birds, Ballasts, and the Fate of the Biosphere

    The Biosphere really needs its own newspaper. Yes, there are lots of newspapers out there, but when it comes to the Biosphere, important stories just don’t get the top billing they deserve. Take discoveries of new species, for example. Just in the last month, a new spoon worm, white toothed shrew, corpse flower, and tailorbird…

  • Strange Bedfellows in the Climate Change Saga: Taiga to Tundra

    Strange Bedfellows in the Climate Change Saga: Taiga to Tundra

    In the nine-hour drive on the great Dalton Highway to Toolik Field Station one starts out in the boreal forest, which is also called the “taiga,” but the forest eventually disappears. More accurately, trees disappear. Leaving Fairbanks, one drives through beautiful stands of spruce, birch, and aspen trees, but as one gets closer and closer…

  • Strange Bedfellows in the Climate Change Saga: The Quest for the Arctic Wolf

    Strange Bedfellows in the Climate Change Saga: The Quest for the Arctic Wolf

    When you travel northbound on Alaska’s famous Dalton Highway heading toward the Arctic Sea, the northern edge of the world, you carry a radio to communicate with the enormous rigs that roar along the road, the giant trucks made famous by the History Channel’s Ice Road Truckers. Radio messages between truckers and non-truckers are simple…