1 RU Full Time Enrollment in the Climate School
1/2 RU tuition for Climate School students
1/4 RU tuition for Climate School Students
Required for students in the Climate and Society MA Program Prerequisites: undergraduate course in climate or physics; undergraduate calculus An overview of how the climate system works on large scales of space and time, with particular attention to the science and methods underlying forecasts of climate variability and climate change. This course serves as the basic physical science course for the MA program in Climate and Society
Required for students in the Climate and Society MA Program Prerequisites: undergraduate course in climate or physics; undergraduate calculus An overview of how the climate system works on large scales of space and time, with particular attention to the science and methods underlying forecasts of climate variability and climate change. This course serves as the basic physical science course for the MA program in Climate and Society
Required for students in the Climate and Society MA Program Prerequisites: undergraduate course in climate or physics; undergraduate calculus An overview of how the climate system works on large scales of space and time, with particular attention to the science and methods underlying forecasts of climate variability and climate change. This course serves as the basic physical science course for the MA program in Climate and Society
Required for students in the Climate and Society MA Program Prerequisites: undergraduate course in climate or physics; undergraduate calculus An overview of how the climate system works on large scales of space and time, with particular attention to the science and methods underlying forecasts of climate variability and climate change. This course serves as the basic physical science course for the MA program in Climate and Society
This survey course provides an overview of the tools (technologies, policies, etc.) that can be used to mitigate the impacts of climate change. This course will utilize scenario planning frameworks to explore pathways to economy-wide decarbonization. In this work, the course will explore not only the technical options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions but also the policy responses, market-structures, and behavioral change that can support progress to net-zero. The course will also utilize a series of case studies of decarbonization pathways for different geographies in low- middle- and high-income countries to provide insights on mitigation strategies, including risks and opportunities. This course is intentionally multidisciplinary, weaving together STEM, policy, and other social sciences. It will be primarily focused on applications of mitigation solutions and will highlight both what net-zero “end states” may look like and the transition pathways to achieve these end states.
Utilizing a case-study approach, this course will offer a focused study of climate change adaptation policy, exploring dimensions of adaption across sectors and scales. With a thematic focus on pervasive global inequities, students will also consider challenges associated with international development and disaster risk management. An inter-disciplinary framework will enrich the course, and students will learn about perspectives from the natural sciences, law, architecture, anthropology, humanitarian aid, and public policy.
In the 2015 Paris Agreement, the international community vowed to “reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible,” and to achieve “rapid emissions reductions thereafter.” Despite that, however, global emissions continue to increase. The lack of progress has spurred interest in the possibility of removing greenhouse gases directly from the atmosphere. Modelling by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests that atmospheric greenhouse gas removal (GHGR) could help to combat climate change in three ways. First, GHGR could be used to reduce net emissions in the short-term, while countries are in the process of decarbonizing. Second, GHGR could be used to offset residual emissions from hard-to-decarbonize sectors (e.g., aviation) and thus achieve net-zero emissions. Third, in the longer-term, GHGR could be used to achieve net-negative emissions if deployed at levels exceeding residual emissions.
Scientists have proposed a variety of GHGR techniques, but questions remain about their efficacy, benefits, and risks. Technical feasibility is not the only consideration as large-scale deployment of GHGR could raise a host of social, ethical, and governance issues. For example, some climate activists have argued GHGR may discourage action to reduce emissions, and further entrench fossil fuel use. Others have expressed concern about the equity and justice implications of deploying GHGR, arguing
that it could exacerbate existing inequalities and place the most vulnerable at greater risk. Existing governance frameworks may not be effective in preventing these negative outcomes nor maximizing the benefits of GHGR.
This course will explore possible technique for large-scale GHGR. We will discuss the feasibility of deploying different techniques, with a particular focus on the ethical, social, and governance issues that large-scale deployment could raise. We will also consider strategies for advancing just and equitable deployment and explore the role of different actors (e.g., governments, the private sector, and civil society) in ensuring that occurs.
Disaster management is a continuum that is affected by decisions, investments and dynamics that occur before, during and after disasters. The issue of equity in disaster management is emerging from an abundance of evidence that shows that societal inequities often translate into inequitable outcomes and disproportionate impacts from disasters. Community engagement strategies are often touted as a solution to the inequities, but many aspects of community participation are complex, with additional effort and investments required for working with vulnerable and marginalized communities. Further, power dynamics between disaster experts and vulnerable communities may bias approaches to disaster management as well as representation within relevant power structures. This course is designed to explore the variables that impact vulnerability and inequity in disaster management, ultimately leading to inequitable outcomes. It also provides an overview of current and emerging strategies in community engagement designed to foster a “whole of community” approach to disaster management. The purpose of this course is to prepare those entering the climate policy and practice workforce for addressing these challenges by providing an overview of issues of equity and building community partnerships in disaster management. At the end of this course learners will be able to:
Describe social determinants of disaster vulnerability and resilience
Describe how governance and financial structures can drive inequity in the disaster cycle
Identify whole community approaches for disaster management
Identify mechanisms to develop partnerships with underserved communities and emergent partners in disaster management
Demonstrate the ability to develop strategies for disaster management based on best practices for community engagement and addressing equity concerns
This course presents decision science to students, showing it to be a source of concepts and techniques to promote more extensive and effective climate action. It emphasizes the relevance of decision science to students who are planning professional careers in climate-focused organizations and sectors, while also being of value to students who plan future studies in academic and professional programs.
As is widely recognized, there has been insufficient progress towards the goals of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations at safe levels and of adapting to existing and projected climate impacts. Understanding how individuals and organizations make decisions is a key step to reducing this gap. Decision science can help design resources (finance, regulation, governance, information and communications) in ways that promote action.
The field of decision science emerged decades ago, drawing on psychology, economics and other social science fields to address problems of poor decision-making in areas such as finance and health. Recent research has extended this field to climate action. It has clarified the obstacles that impede climate decision-making in many settings, and it has developed techniques to improve these decisions. There is an increasing body of empirical research that tests the effectiveness of these techniques in a wide variety of settings.
This course familiarizes students with central concepts and methods of decision science. The modules of the course focus on specific concepts and on techniques linked to them, drawing on concrete examples from climate-relevant domains such as disaster risk reduction, health, energy, water and food security. The readings include studies which assess the effectiveness of specific techniques to support climate decisions. The course covers a range of different approaches. It shows that each of these can be useful to address obstacles to effective decision-making, but there is no silver bullet. Instead, the course provides students with means to select the decision techniques that are effective to address specific issues in specific contexts.
This course is designed as an elective to the Climate and Society Master of Arts degree program. The purpose of this course is to prepare those entering the climate policy and practice workforce for addressing these challenges and solutions by providing an overview of the fields of economic and housing recovery within the context of climate change and climate driven disasters.
This course brings students from The School of the Arts and The Climate School together to explore new and compelling approaches to navigating climate solutions in the worlds we create and the stories we tell in theater, film, television, digital, visual art, and creative writing. In our current era of rapid change and transformation, artists and environmentalists have an important role to play in grasping the zeitgeist through an integrated lens of science, culture, and imagination.
Interdisciplinary collaboration in storytelling can drive feelings of understanding and agency by articulating the massive social changes that are imminent and the emotional uncertainties around climate. There’s a rapidly growing audience for these stories — but there are way too few of them. Delving into key areas of environmental concerns, students will learn how to access and analyze systems of science-based research and innovation, and build new muscles in storytelling, cultural strategies and longterm thinking for a wide range of artistic visions. Arts students will strengthen climate literacy and sciencethinking skills; Climate students will strengthen storytelling skills. We will study the connection between stories and audiences, including multi-cultural perspectives across the platforms where we consume arts and entertainment today. Together we will explore a multitude of narrative structures and styles of storytelling and we will produce fresh thinking for this generation around the role that climate storytelling can play in popular culture and adapting to change. Students will track their evolution of their vision over the span of the course, culminating in Week/Class 11: The Republic of Zeitgeist & Our Future, where students lead and co-teach this class around our collective visions for what our future should be.
Students will participate through creative writing assignments, student-led discussions and team exercises, and watching & reading climate content. We will practice collaborative strategies to explore new ways to tell creative and complex human stories in the arts and assess effective ways to shift culture to imagine and adapt to what life on a transformed global scale may become for all of us.
This course explores the carbon cycle on Earth and its role in the climate system. Students will gain a broad overview of the cycling of carbon among the major biogeochemical reservoirs, the terrestrial biosphere (Module 1) and the ocean (Module 2), as well as their exchange with the atmosphere. Major topics include climate variability and change on human, millennial, and geological time scales (Module 3). In Module 4, we will explore perturbations to the carbon cycle from human activities, and how the use of fossil carbon since the industrial revolution has led to profound transformations in the cycling of carbon among land, oceans, and atmosphere and disrupted Earth’s climate.
In this course, we examine the complex interdependencies between global food trade systems, climate-related and socioeconomic shocks, and human migration patterns. Together, we'll explore how disruptions propagate through international food networks, analyzing these systems through the lenses of agricultural economics, climate science, and geopolitics. We will investigate how various shocks—from climate extremes and armed conflicts to market volatility and pandemics—impact food security and trigger population movements across diverse regions and scales. Throughout the semester, we'll pay particular attention to climate change as a threat multiplier that intensifies existing vulnerabilities in our global food systems. By combining data analysis, case studies, and theoretical frameworks, we'll develop a nuanced understanding of the food-climate-migration nexus that shapes our modern world.
This multidisciplinary approach will enable us to examine concepts of resilience and evaluate diverse solutions for strengthening food systems' ability to absorb shocks, from diversified production and redundant supply chains to adaptive governance mechanisms and transformative policy interventions that enhance robustness across scales. We will specifically investigate how different metrics of resilience—including redundancy, diversity, modularity, and connectivity—can be operationalized in food trade networks to reduce vulnerability to cascading failures that often trigger migration responses. Through quantitative analysis and case studies, we'll assess how strategies such as regional food reserves, alternative distribution channels, and early warning systems affect both food security and human mobility patterns. This integrated approach allows us to explore interventions that simultaneously strengthen food systems and provide migration-sensitive adaptations, recognizing that human mobility itself can be both a vulnerability and a resilience strategy in the face of food system disruptions.
This course examines the complex interplay between energy systems, political power, and societal transformation across historical periods—from the coal-powered dawn of the Industrial Revolution to the contemporary turn to renewables. Throughout, we focus on three interrelated threads: the political economy of energy regime shifts, the role of technological innovation in shaping these transitions, and the centrality of labor and labor politics in energy transitions. Themes and topics include: the relationship between fossil fuels and modern state formation; the centrality of energy resource control to geopolitical power; the history of electrification and its social impacts; the political dimensions of nuclear energy development; the rise of environmental movements; energy justice and democracy; corporate influence on energy policy, labor-environmental coalitions, and the contested politics of climate change mitigation. Though primarily historical in its focus, the course also draws on literature from science and technology studies, environmental sociology, political economy, energy studies, and climate policy analysis. Students will gain insight into how energy transitions both reflect and reshape political possibilities, with particular attention to recent debates surrounding the Green New Deal and other decarbonization strategies.
The course addresses an important issue in climate action. Much progress has been made in recent decades in identifying the causes and consequences of climate change, and in developing a wide variety of approaches to address these two. Because of these advances, options for action have multiplied. In many sectors, a set of different approaches have been proposed. Before any one of those approaches is put into practice, it is useful to weigh it in comparison to the other approaches, to see whether it fits the specific context and population best.
This course critically examines key concepts to enable students to navigate contested terrains and design more effective approaches to climate action. Students will develop skills to critically assess climate narratives, concepts, and communicate with nuance and depth to important audiences in the climate sphere. The frameworks are assessed through a critical lens, looking at the challenges of bridging different languages–whether the six official UN languages, or national and Indigenous languages, or the languages of experts and everyday communities. The course has a strong environmental justice lens as well, looking at how seemingly slight variation in approaches can have significant consequences on marginalized communities. By the end of this course, students will have the tools to critically examine the role of frameworks and language to design impactful climate action.
The course goes through the main concepts, starting with Module 1: Foundational Climate Systems, which unpacks our use and understanding of the concepts that provide building blocks that the climate movement is built on: nature, environment, society, economy and politics. Central Park will serve as a case study to illustrate the connections and differences between these concepts. This is followed by Module 2: Dynamic Climate Systems, which examines the concepts that describe progress of climate action and the climate movement through time: sustainability, development, resilience, transformation and Indigenous knowledge. Elizabeth Kolbert’s book H is for Hope will serve as a resource to compare these concepts. Each concept will first be introduced through a lecture for the first half of class, followed by an integration of the concept to real-life contexts through interactive activities, grounding in documents, and projects. Module 3: Multiple Frameworks for Climate Sectors integrates the first two modules and examines their relevance for specific sectors o
This course is a core course for all Climate School students in the MA in Climate and Society and MS in Climate 1.5 credits in the fall and 1.5 credits in the spring. It is a practicum-style course focused on the application of classroom learnings in a range of professional and real-world situations.
At the beginning of the fall semesters, students will be grouped in teams and assigned a previous years’ Capstone project (a summer project that former CS students have produced in partnership with an external partner). Students will use this previous capstone project to practice skills including: stakeholder engagement strategies, communication and presentation skills, systems thinking, and project planning.
The fall will be focused on grounding in the topic and challenge of the capstone project, stakeholder discovery and mock engagement, and evaluating its application to the New York City context. The spring will be focused on evaluation of problem definition of the client, work planning and project planning, learning from the client and/or alumni about the outcomes and contemporary challenges/applications of the project, and producing a final project as a team. By the end, students will be prepared to fully engage with their own capstone projects in future semesters, will have honed critical skills to support successful professional applications of their Climate School courses, and will have a ‘mission and values statement’ to guide their future practice as professionals.
This course is a core course for all Climate School students in the MA in Climate and Society and MS in Climate 1.5 credits in the fall and 1.5 credits in the spring. It is a practicum-style course focused on the application of classroom learnings in a range of professional and real-world situations.
At the beginning of the fall semesters, students will be grouped in teams and assigned a previous years’ Capstone project (a summer project that former CS students have produced in partnership with an external partner). Students will use this previous capstone project to practice skills including: stakeholder engagement strategies, communication and presentation skills, systems thinking, and project planning.
The fall will be focused on grounding in the topic and challenge of the capstone project, stakeholder discovery and mock engagement, and evaluating its application to the New York City context. The spring will be focused on evaluation of problem definition of the client, work planning and project planning, learning from the client and/or alumni about the outcomes and contemporary challenges/applications of the project, and producing a final project as a team. By the end, students will be prepared to fully engage with their own capstone projects in future semesters, will have honed critical skills to support successful professional applications of their Climate School courses, and will have a ‘mission and values statement’ to guide their future practice as professionals.
This course is a core course for all Climate School students in the MA in Climate and Society and MS in Climate 1.5 credits in the fall and 1.5 credits in the spring. It is a practicum-style course focused on the application of classroom learnings in a range of professional and real-world situations.
At the beginning of the fall semesters, students will be grouped in teams and assigned a previous years’ Capstone project (a summer project that former CS students have produced in partnership with an external partner). Students will use this previous capstone project to practice skills including: stakeholder engagement strategies, communication and presentation skills, systems thinking, and project planning.
The fall will be focused on grounding in the topic and challenge of the capstone project, stakeholder discovery and mock engagement, and evaluating its application to the New York City context. The spring will be focused on evaluation of problem definition of the client, work planning and project planning, learning from the client and/or alumni about the outcomes and contemporary challenges/applications of the project, and producing a final project as a team. By the end, students will be prepared to fully engage with their own capstone projects in future semesters, will have honed critical skills to support successful professional applications of their Climate School courses, and will have a ‘mission and values statement’ to guide their future practice as professionals.
This course is a core course for all Climate School students in the MA in Climate and Society and MS in Climate 1.5 credits in the fall and 1.5 credits in the spring. It is a practicum-style course focused on the application of classroom learnings in a range of professional and real-world situations.
At the beginning of the fall semesters, students will be grouped in teams and assigned a previous years’ Capstone project (a summer project that former CS students have produced in partnership with an external partner). Students will use this previous capstone project to practice skills including: stakeholder engagement strategies, communication and presentation skills, systems thinking, and project planning.
The fall will be focused on grounding in the topic and challenge of the capstone project, stakeholder discovery and mock engagement, and evaluating its application to the New York City context. The spring will be focused on evaluation of problem definition of the client, work planning and project planning, learning from the client and/or alumni about the outcomes and contemporary challenges/applications of the project, and producing a final project as a team. By the end, students will be prepared to fully engage with their own capstone projects in future semesters, will have honed critical skills to support successful professional applications of their Climate School courses, and will have a ‘mission and values statement’ to guide their future practice as professionals.
This course is a core course for all Climate School students in the MA in Climate and Society and MS in Climate 1.5 credits in the fall and 1.5 credits in the spring. It is a practicum-style course focused on the application of classroom learnings in a range of professional and real-world situations.
At the beginning of the fall semesters, students will be grouped in teams and assigned a previous years’ Capstone project (a summer project that former CS students have produced in partnership with an external partner). Students will use this previous capstone project to practice skills including: stakeholder engagement strategies, communication and presentation skills, systems thinking, and project planning.
The fall will be focused on grounding in the topic and challenge of the capstone project, stakeholder discovery and mock engagement, and evaluating its application to the New York City context. The spring will be focused on evaluation of problem definition of the client, work planning and project planning, learning from the client and/or alumni about the outcomes and contemporary challenges/applications of the project, and producing a final project as a team. By the end, students will be prepared to fully engage with their own capstone projects in future semesters, will have honed critical skills to support successful professional applications of their Climate School courses, and will have a ‘mission and values statement’ to guide their future practice as professionals.
Following the events of Hurricane Sandy, New York City has emerged as a leading city for climate action, pushing forward and experimenting with a broad range of climate policies and tools, including climate adaptation and resilience measures, decarbonization actions and legislation, environmental justice, and fossil fuel divestment, among others.
This course will offer a focused study of New York City’s approach to confronting our climate crisis. This will include an exploration of the many actions taken by NYC, their effectiveness, and proposals to build upon or improve them. This course is designed to encourage active participation and practical application of the material. The assignments and activities aim to help students build a solid understanding of key concepts while developing analytical skills, which will then apply to real-world scenarios. Guest lecturers with experience in New York City’s climate policy actions may join from time to time.
Course Objectives
By the end of this course, you should be able to:
Understand and critically engage with the varied narratives, objectives, and instruments of climate finance, and how they apply across sectors, regions, and institutional settings.
Understand and analyze the roles of key actors—governments, multilateral institutions, investors, insurers, and civil society—and the financial and legal mechanisms that shape capital flows.
Identify and assess the persistent challenges in climate finance, including disparities in access and cost of capital, weak institutional coherence, and gaps between risk frameworks and climate impact.
Critically evaluate current tools and approaches—such as blended finance, credit guarantees, insurance products, and rating systems—and engage with proposals for structural reform.
GIS for Climate Data Analysis will provide a foundation for understanding and applying spatial analysis and modeling with GIS and Climate Data. This course is focused on a rigorous look at the analysis of climate data in different contexts through a combination of lectures, labs, applied assignments, and a final project. Underlying all of the analyses will be the goal of learning how to apply spatial statistical and data visualization techniques to inform decision-making. The course exercises will illustrate the research process life cycle from data collection to publication preparation.
Students will explore concepts, tools, and techniques of GIS modeling and review and critique modeling applications used in a variety of contexts. The course will also offer students the opportunity to design, build and evaluate their own spatial analysis models. The course will cover both vector and raster-based methods of analysis.
We will draw examples from a wide range of applications in climate data analysis, use of satellite earth-observation (EO) data, climate risk assessment, climate data visualization, and how EO data are collected and used to map the spatial and temporal dimensions of climate and environmental change. Hands-on work will introduce students to a wide range of EO data – such as Sentinel, Landsat, and PlanetScope – and scripting in Python, (e.g., to build new data sets or map climate hazards and risks to support climate adaptation and decision-making).
This course builds on the quantitative analysis tools developed in the core course Quantitative Methods of Climate Applications and the certificate core course Computing and Research Methods for Climate Data. It focuses on advanced methods in hypothesis testing, regression models, time series and spectral analysis, geospatial analysis, significance testing, uncertainty quantification, modeling for assessing climate risk, and decision theory. Through in-class practice and course assignments using Python programming, students will apply these methods to understand climate signals, conduct risk assessments, and evaluate the value of climate information in decision-making.
Earth system and climate models are critically important tools for climate science research. They are used to study climate variability in the past, determine how climate change has contributed to recent trends and extreme events, and understand how various natural and anthropogenic forcing affect the evolution of the climate system now and into the future. This class serves as an introduction to the history, development, process representations, and practical application of earth system models.
Students will learn the history and evolution of earth system modeling and how these models have been used to inform some of the most important topics in climate science (e.g., detection and attribution, future projections, climate sensitivity). Lectures, and associated lab work, will introduce the processes integrated into various components of earth system models (e.g., atmosphere, ocean, land, carbon cycle, etc), important interactions between these components (e.g., climate system feedbacks, climate sensitivity), and how earth system models are used for future projections. Students will familiarize themselves with the wealth of climate model simulation data available from free public archives (e.g., CMIP6, the Multi-Model Large Ensemble Project), the protocols used for designing and running simulations, and practical tools for analyzing these datasets.
Classroom lectures will be supplemented by practical lab-assignments, where the students will use and develop their own models demonstrating the concepts learned in class. As a final project, students will develop their own research questions using available climate model simulations for their primary analyses.
The Methods for Analysis of Food Systems and Climate course is a required course for the Climate and Food Systems Certificate. Building on the core knowledge provided in the Global Food Trade, Shocks, and Migration and Food Systems and Climate Interactions courses, the first half of the class will cover foundational qualitative and quantitative methods employed in food systems and climate research. These methods include surveys, participatory research, life cycle assessment, spatial analysis, and more. The second half of the course will cover key applied methods used to analyze climate and environmental problems, including understanding the environmental footprint of the current food system, climate scenarios, climate risk and vulnerability assessment, and the economic and social disruptions these changes generate. By the end of the course, students will learn how to apply these methods to assess both the impacts of climate change on aspects of food production, distribution, and consumption, the impact of food systems on the changing climate, and approaches to reduce emissions and enhance the resilience and efficiency of food systems. Students will also learn how to apply these tools for policy analysis and recommend effective policies that support sustainable and resilient food systems to mitigate the impacts of climate change. The course will involve a mix of instructor and guest lectures, case studies, readings, hands-on group projects, and practical exercises to enhance the students' analytical and problem-solving skills.
Earth Ethics is a framework for examining the ways in which human societies interrelate with natural systems, and the implications for our collective decision-making and behavior. This includes queries such as: how do we respond to the reality that those hurt first and worst by the modern megatrends of pollution and depletion are generally those least responsible for causing them? What are the laws, policies and social norms that undergird those megatrends? What are our responsibilities to future generations? What values shape our relationships with other species? In the pursuit of sustainability, what exactly are we sustaining and why? How does social change happen? Drawing from faith and wisdom traditions as well as science and history, this course will explore the moral, spiritual, and cultural dimensions of our global ecological circumstances and discern the principles and framing questions that should guide our response.
This is the discussion that corresponds with the course CLMT 5015 Climate Change Adaptation. Students are required to register for a discussion section.
This is the discussion that corresponds with the course CLMT 5015 Climate Change Adaptation. Students are required to register for a discussion section.
This is the discussion that corresponds with the course CLMT 5015 Climate Change Adaptation. Students are required to register for a discussion section.
This is the discussion that corresponds with the course CLMT 5015 Climate Change Adaptation. Students are required to register for a discussion section.
This is the discussion that corresponds with the course CLMT 5015 Climate Change Adaptation. Students are required to register for a discussion section.
This is the discussion that corresponds with the course CLMT 5015 Climate Change Adaptation. Students are required to register for a discussion section.
This is the discussion that corresponds with the course CLMT 5015 Climate Change Adaptation. Students are required to register for a discussion section.
This is the discussion that corresponds with the course CLMT 5015 Climate Change Adaptation. Students are required to register for a discussion section.