1 Residence Unit-Climate School

1 RU Climate School

1 RU Full Time Enrollment in the Climate School

• 0 points

1/2 RU Climate School

1/2 RU tuition for Climate School students

• 0 points

1/4 Residence Unit Climate School

1/4 RU Climate School

1/4 RU tuition for Climate School Students

• 0 points

Extended Residence Climate School

Extended Residence CLIM

Extended Residence enrollment category for Climate School students.

• 0 points

Quant Methods for Climate Applications

Quant Methods-CLMT Applic

Required course for students in the Climate and Society MA program. An overview of how climate-societal and intra-societal relationships can be evaluated and quantified using relevant data sets, statistical tools, and dynamical models. Concepts and methods in quantitative modeling, data organization, and statistical analysis, with applications to climate and climate impacts. Students will also do some simple model experiments and evaluate the results. Lab required. Pre-requisites: undergraduate-level coursework in introductory statistics or data analysis; knowledge of calculus; basic familiarity with R programming language.

• M 1:10 p.m.-3:40 p.m.
• 4 points

REGIONAL CLIMATE SCIENCES AND FORECASTIN

REGNL CLIMATE & FORECASTI

Prerequisites: CLMT GR5001, CLMT GR5002. Effective climate adaptation requires the wise application of climate information to decision making on an everyday basis. Many decisions in society are at local scales, and regional climate information considered at appropriate scales and in appropriate forms co-developed by scientists, forecast providers and users is central to the concept of climate services. Students will build an understanding of the dynamics of climate variability and change at regional and local scales, along with the sources of modern climate information used to help manage climate-related risks and adapt to climate change. This includes hands-on Climate Data Analysis and proactive Risk Analysis using historical climate data, real-time monitoring, climate forecasts, and climate change projections.

• M 10:10 a.m.-12:40 p.m.
• Instructor: Andrew Robertson
  Info
• 3 points

Applications in Climate and Society

Applications in Clim & So

This seminar is focused on practical applications of climate information and research. The objective of the course is to teach students to integrate their understanding of climate science, social science, policy studies, and communications to address real world problems, especially those they will encounter in academia or on the job after graduation.

• R 4:10 p.m.-6:40 p.m.
• 3 points

Strategic Communications for Climate Cha

Climate Communications

This class is designed to equip students with the most effective means of communicating about climate change for various types of audiences in the context of the current media landscape. After learning key foundational concepts of communications; understanding different types of media, audiences, messengers, and framing; and developing one’s own theory of change to structure strategic communications narratives, students will produce their own communications materials that aim to animate or persuade people into taking various types of climate action.

• W 6:10 p.m.-8 p.m.
• 3 points

Social Impact: Business, Society & the E

Soc Impacts: Bus, Soc & E

The Social Impact: Business, Society, and the Natural Environment course explores the relationship between corporations, society, and the natural environment. Specifically, it examines the ways in which governments, (for-profit and non-profit) organizations, and investors (fail to) have positive impact and manage issues where the pursuit of private goals is deemed inconsistent with the public interest.

• T 1:10 p.m.-3 p.m.
• Instructor: Caroline Flammer
  Info
• 3 points

Climate Mobility

It is widely accepted that climate factors can and do affect human mobility, though the degree of their influence varies depending on local contexts. In the case of population displacement, rapid onset climate extremes have a relatively direct impact on mobility, and for longer-term migration climate factors also have been shown to play a role, often mediated by more direct drivers. There is a growing recognition that underlying institutional and structural factors (i.e., root causes) shape the way the climate stressors impact local migration decision-making, and that cultural proclivities and inequitable access to resources, markets, and political power structures often set the stage for ensuing migration flows (domestic and international). In many low income settings the donor and development assistance community are grappling with these complex nexus issues as they seek to develop policies and programs that reduce the potential for distress or mass migration. Responses to date generally fall into four categories; 1) those that address the livelihood aspects of climate migration -- e.g., by improving the prospects for local adaptation; 2) those that seek to facilitate mobility as an adaptation mechanism; 3) those that resettle people in new locations and offer migrant protections; and 4) those that seek to mitigate the impacts of those movements, including environmental impacts, on receiving communities. In high income settings, responses to current and potentially increased immigration from developing countries tends to fall into two camps: a resurgent nationalism with measures to prevent or deter migration versus more migrant-friendly policies that seek to protect migrant rights while acknowledging responsibility for historic greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, high income countries are facing climate impacts of their own such as sea level rise, riparian flooding and massive fires that have displaced thousands and prompted managed retreat from at-risk areas. All this has brought to the fore questions of equity and climate justice as marginalized populations everywhere are often disproportionately affected and least compensated. This interdisciplinary course focuses on the social, demographic, economic, political, environmental and climatic factors that shape human mobility, while addressing the legal categories of international mobility (e.g., migrant versus refugee). We explore underlying drivers of the various types of migration – from forced to voluntary and those forms in between – in ord

• R 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• 3 points

Post-Disaster Recovery: Housing/Economic

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.

• W 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• 3 points

Toward Climate Resilience and Justice

Toward CLMT Resilience &

“Toward Climate Resilience and Justice: Caribbean Basin
is a (3) credit elective course offered in the Columbia Climate School Masters of Climate and Society Program.
Taught in a collaborative format with GSAPP’s Water Urbanism Design (UD) Studio, this course will explore climate justice and action through the intersections of urban planning, design, and policy in support of communities and ecologies on the frontlines of the climate crisis.

• F 3:30 p.m.-5:30 p.m.
• Instructor: Johanna Lovecchio
  Info
• 3 points

Food Systems & Climate Interactions

Food Syst. & CLMT Interac

This graduate-level course provides an overview of current and future anthropogenic climate change impacts on food systems and vice versa. The first half of the course will explore the relationship between climate change impacts across food systems and how we grow, transport, process, and consume food impact climate and environmental change. The second half of the course will explore mitigation and adaptation measures across food systems. Throughout the course, we will undertake deep-dive case studies to provide local context to this complex relationship between climate change and food.

• R 10:10 a.m.-12:40 p.m.
• 3 points

Politics of Climate in Asia

Asia accounts for 60% of the world population while producing more than 30% of the global GDP. The region is also known for its hot spots of greenhouse gas emissions, water and air pollution, forest degradation, and biodiversity loss, all of which invite large-scale disasters and climate change. The region has special vulnerabilities, including extensive coastal populations susceptible to rising sea levels, large river basins prone to flooding, and many workers in climate-sensitive sectors, such as agriculture and tourism. By dividing the topics into problems, perceptions, and solutions, we try to grasp how politics matter in climate change policy and what we can do about it.

Nonetheless, prioritizing the environmental agenda is a challenge, especially in countries still suffering from domestic poverty, inequality, and lack of basic infrastructure. It is estimated that China alone has more than 100 million people living under $1 a day. It is not surprising, therefore, that governments of developing countries emphasize economic development and infrastructure building at the expense of the environment. In this context, what role can relevant stakeholders, such as foreign donors, media, and civil society organizations/NGOs play in mainstreaming the climate agenda in local contexts where economic development or other political concerns are urgently sought after?

By delving deep into the context of societies in Asia, we explore the potential of existing efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change and the dilemmas that decision-makers are facing. The first few sessions will be devoted to the developmental foundations of Asian societies that shape the range of climate and environmental policy choices. The second few sessions will focus on the “solutions” and the risk and unintended consequences they might incur. Greater emphasis will be placed on the use and conservation of natural resources (such as forests, minerals, water, and land) where “politics” affect the direction of climate mitigation and adaptation.

• T 10:10 a.m.-12:40 p.m.
• Instructor: Jin Sato
  Info
• 1.5 points

Black Ecologies

African and African Diasporic peoples have been central to the creation and transformation of global ecologies and landscapes. As the birthplace of humankind, the African continent features the longest archaeological record in the world, with abundant, yet often underrepresented, material and historical evidence for remarkable Indigenous African innovations in the areas of technology, food production, and resource and land use. This course specifically examines Black ecologies preceding and then radically transformed by the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Beginning in the late fifteenth century, the enslavement of millions of Africans and their forced translocation to the Americas and Caribbean precipitated ecological transformations on all sides of the Atlantic, as African peoples, knowledge, resources and ecological inheritances were appropriated by the European mercantile system. Enslaved Africans transformed American landscapes via extractive industries of plantations and mines and suffered the emergence of toxic landscapes and disease alongside Native American communities. Africans also recreated African ecologies as they created livelihoods and landscapes of resistance and freedom in the Americas. The legacies of the Atlantic Era maintain a persistent dynamic in which African and African Diasporic communities experience disproportionate burdens of environmental injustice today. The concept of Black ecologies reflects the marginality, systemic racism and dispossession experienced by Black peoples and their landscapes. Black ecologies also allow us to understand African and African Diasporic ecological innovations, resistance and resilience, and the pathways to future sustainability and justice they promise.

• W 1:10 p.m.-3:40 p.m.
• Instructor: Kristina Douglass
  Info
• 3 points

Climate and Energy Justice Practicum

Climate & Energy Justice

The Climate and Energy Justice Practicum gives students the opportunity to work on projects covering a wide range of timely and pressing applied topics and policies related to climate justice, energy justice, and just transitions.  Students work with federal, state, and local partner organizations (including government agencies) on current projects and developing policies. Students will be assigned to small groups (2 or 3 students, depending on enrollment and project scope) to produce a work product under the supervision of the organization and the professor.  Projects will vary in scope and content based on student interest and the needs of the partnering organization. Project topics might include community participation in regulatory matters (e.g. permitting of pipelines), advancing climate justice and clean energy priorities for disadvantaged communities in New York State, community air monitoring in disadvantaged communities, among others. Students might also have the opportunity to work with a specific local community on climate justice or energy transition-related matters. Some students will continue to work on their projects over the summer as part of their capstone projects for the Climate School, supervised by Professor Foster.

Class sessions will be of two types.  The weekly meetings will include readings and lectures on specific climate and energy issues and their intersection with questions of justice for disadvantaged communities. Some class sessions will also consist of (a) small group conversations between the instructors and each group and (b) intermediate presentations of results, progress and problems given by each group to the entire class. In the final two sessions (weeks 6 & 7) each group will present their draft project analysis in a 45-minute presentation to the class. Final projects will be completed and turned in before the end of the exam period.

• F 10:10 a.m.-12:40 p.m.
• Instructor: Sheila Foster
  Info
• 1.5 points

Quantitative Methods - LAB

Lab section corresponding to CLMT 5002 Quantitative Methods for Climate Applications

• M 4:10 p.m.-6:40 p.m.
• W 10:10 a.m.-12:40 p.m.
• 0 points

Integrative and Justice-Centered Researc

Research in Environ. & Cl

This discussion and presentation-based course will provide exposure to integrative research design through case studies across a range of key topics, with a focus on questions relating to climate and environment. The course will explore how the combination of traditional approaches and innovations in theory and methods can advance research by generating integrative, cross-cutting questions and creatively leveraging newly available technologies. Research design issues, data limitations, systemic constraints and anticipated future developments will be considered for each subject area. Students will be exposed to the challenges, limitations, and processes of successful studies, as well as less successful programs, to provide a practical awareness and guidance toward the development of their own research projects. All discussions and critical analysis of case studies will be centered in a co-production framework, with the aim of increasing our awareness of how academic research intersects with climate and environmental justice, and, ideally, how researchers can better contribute toward a just and sustainable world.

• T 1:10 p.m.-3:40 p.m.
• Instructor: Kristina Douglass
  Info
• 3 points