1 Residence Unit-Climate School
1 RU Climate School
1 RU Full Time Enrollment in the Climate School
-
Instructor:
Cari E Shimkus
Info - 0 points
1/2 RU Climate School
1/2 RU tuition for Climate School students
-
Instructor:
Cari E Shimkus
Info - 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.
- MW 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
- MW 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Jason Smerdon
CULPA: 4 h-index: 47 Info - 4 points
Regional Climate science and forecasting
Regional climate & foreca
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.
- W 1:10 p.m.-3:40 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Andrew Robertson
Info - 3 points
Climate Change and Disaster Management
Climate Change Disaster M
As climate related disasters continue to grow, the impacts of climate change and sustainable development on disaster threats and vulnerabilities are increasingly pronounced. Many of those in the field of disaster management are having to contend with increasing frequency and severity of disasters. Concurrently, disaster risk reduction and response frameworks are struggling to meet the challenge of 21st century disasters. At the same time, the field of disaster research is generating new insights into how the built environment, social structures, and ecological dynamics are intersecting to set the stage for disaster vulnerability, and thus can be better engineered for resilience. As this field continues to evolve, many who many not necessarily identify as disaster managers are also increasingly involved in disaster management in some capacity. With this, the dynamics of disaster risk reduction and disaster management are essential in working with communities and negotiating development activities in ways that are inclusive of a broad range of values, goals and incentive structures.
- R 1:10 p.m.-3:40 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Jeffrey Schlegelmilch
Info - 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.-3:40 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
- T 4:10 p.m.-6:40 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Alexander M Desherbinin
Info - 3 points
Earth Studio: Toward Climate Justice and
Earth Studio: Climate Jus
“Earth Studio: Toward Climate Justice and Resilience: 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.
- R 4:10 p.m.-6:40 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Johanna Lovecchio
Info - 3 points
Climate Change Law and Policy
This course surveys the legal and policy mechanisms, and political and social forces, that can be utilized to mitigate the emission of greenhouse gases and to adapt to a warming planet. We will start with a brief introduction to the kinds of policy challenges that climate change poses to international and domestic legal regimes. The course will then consider the international, federal, state and local legal regimes applicable to climate change, with an emphasis on U.S. law and policy.
In particular, the course will cover the negotiation, implementation and current status of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol, the Copenhagen Accord, the Paris Agreement, the Glasgow Climate Pact and the Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan. The focus will then turn to the past and proposed actions of the U.S. Congress, the executive branch and the courts, as well as regional, state and municipal efforts. The Clean Air Act and the National Environmental Policy Act will receive special attention, as will the authority of an administration to reverse prior policy. We will examine efforts in the U.S. and other countries to use the courts to force action on climate change.
We will evaluate the various legal tools that are available to address climate change, including cap-and-trade and carbon offsets; command-and-control regulation; litigation; and securities disclosures. Implications for international human rights, environmental and climate justice, international and intergenerational equity will be discussed.
- M 1:10 p.m.-3:40 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Sheila Foster
Info - 3 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.
- R 10:10 a.m.-12:40 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Kristina Douglass
Info - 3 points
Disaster Research Methods
The field of disaster research is relatively new in the United States, as a specific field of study, with the first disaster research center being founded in the early 1960s. The field itself is now highly multi-disciplinary, drawing from the social sciences, anthropology, political science, computer science, engineering, earth sciences, psychology, and medicine and public health. These academic fields have intersected with the practice community by informing holistic emergency planning for all members of a community. Furthermore, these research outputs have informed federal and state policy, the private sector, and community organizations to inform program design and implementation. Translating research into practice remains a constant challenge in this rapidly evolving field. The methodological approaches to disaster research are just as diverse and have become increasingly complex with the advent of big data, the ubiquity of spatial information, and novel cross-disciplinary research. As a new era of compound and cascading disasters has triggered a constant “response” mode within the field of emergency management, the need for practitioners and research with a fluency in research and evaluation methods is required to critically evaluate or generate high quality and ethically based research.
- T 10:10 a.m.-12:40 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Jonathan J Sury
Info - 3 points
Climate Risk Assessment
This graduate-level course surveys the many components that go into climate risk assessment, with an emphasis on climate impacts and vulnerability. We will survey the latest research on climate hazards, with an emphasis on the types of extreme weather events that have the largest societal impacts. We will then explore these impacts in detail, by sector and system. We will next investigate determinants of vulnerability, and how vulnerability magnifies climate impacts. We then query how climate solutions can be integrated into risk assessments in a recursive manner. Throughout the course, we will strike a balance between foundational (‘IPCC-type’) examples on the one hand, and emerging topics like compound extreme events and existential risk on the other. Throughout the course we will study and employ a number of risk assessment methodologies, based on case studies from within the private, public, and non-profit sectors.
- T 10:10 a.m.-12:40 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Radley M Horton
Info - 3 points
Extreme Weather Events and Climate Chang
Extreme Weather and Clima
This seminar class will give an overview of the current knowledge of extreme weather events and the impact of anthropogenic climate change on their characteristics. We will start the course by defining extreme weather events and the current state-of-the-art knowledge of how anthropogenic activities influence them, including trends, detection and attribution, as well as future projections. We will discuss the methods typically used for analyzing extreme events and what are the existing uncertainties. The existing warning systems and forecasts for extreme events will be briefly discussed, including their communication and impacts and possible mitigation measures.
- R 1:10 p.m.-3:40 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Suzana J de Camargo
Info - 3 points
Spatial Analysis of Food Security
Spatial Analysis Food Sec
Globally, over 2 billion people are suffering from moderate-to-severe food insecurity and the Sudan famine being the first famine declared in 2025 since 2020. One key aspect to understanding food insecurity is its spatial distribution and trends that contribute to how food secure a population is. This course will teach students how to collect and analyze spatial data related to food security, as well as touch on important topics in food insecurity. The course will focus on taking real-life food security questions and applying spatial analysis techniques to these questions. In the course, we will cover an introduction to spatial analysis, natural experiments in geography, applying remote sensing to food insecurity, climate shocks and food security, and seasonal forecasting and food security.
This class will have a lecture aspect, which will mainly focus on topics in food security and how they relate to data collection, and a lab section, which will be an opportunity for students to collect data directly, clean the data, and analyze the data using the R programming language with spatial research methods. Example topics in class will be climate variability and food insecurity, policies that can successfully address food insecurity, and understanding spatial aggregation in food security statistics and how that can influence interpretation. These topics will then be further explored in the lab section of the class: specifically focusing on downloading weather data for time series analysis, using a convergence of datasets to map hotspots, and investigating how survey data intersects with spatial datasets.
- R 10:10 a.m.-12:40 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Sarah L Blakeley
Info - 3 points
Computing and Research Methods for Clima
Nearly all subdisciplines in climate now rely on aspects of data science to understand problems and evaluate solutions. Climate science is generating “big data” including petabytes of observations from sources such as NASA and even more from climate models. With this big, complex data burden comes the need for advanced data science techniques such that scientists can better understand our climate system and explore possible solutions to the challenge of climate change.
This course is a broad introduction to research computing and data science drawing from examples in climate science. Students will learn how to work with, analyze, and visualize big datasets. The course will utilize the scientific python ecosystem, Unix/Linux, shell scripting, terminal commands, git/github, and other techniques.
- M 1:10 p.m.-3:40 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Daniel Westervelt
Info - 3 points
Sovereign Finance, Climate and Developme
Sovereign Finc, Climate,
The ability of many emerging market and developing economy (EMDE) countries to meet their climate financing objectives depends to a large extent on their cost of capital, which in turn is impacted by the actual and perceived risks of their sovereign debt. According to the Jubilee Report published in June 2025 by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and the Columbia University Initiative for Policy Dialogue, 54 countries spend over ten percent of their revenues on interest payments, and 3.3 billion people live in countries that spend more on interest than healthcare. EMDE countries need workable tools to reduce financing costs and manage sovereign debt in order to fund their development needs and to achieve the climate objectives set out in their nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement.
This course will explore the roots of the problem, including the pro-cyclical nature of sovereign financing and refinancing; the role of international financial institutions and credit rating agencies; and the main obstacles to resolving sovereign debt distress in an orderly and timely way, contrasting resolution tools for sovereign debt with those available in the private sector. Drawing on real-world case studies, we will look at structural innovations that could help debottleneck climate finance, and how effective they can be. We will consider several prominent proposals to reorient the global financial architecture, focusing on whether and to what extent they can reduce EMDE funding costs and unlock financing for sustainable development and climate investment.
- F 1:10 p.m.-3:40 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Andrew A Bernstein
Info - 1.5 points
Climate in Practice: Leadership and Coll
Climate in Practice-Leade
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.
- F 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
- 1.5 points
Climate in Practice: Leadership and Coll
Climate in Practice-Leade
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.
- F 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
-
Instructor:
Sandra Goldmark
CULPA: 4
Info
-
Instructor:
Andrew J Kruczkiewicz
Info -
Instructor:
Radley M Horton
Info -
Instructor:
Marcia N Macedo
Info - 1.5 points
Water Governance
Water is widely recognized as the most essential natural resource for both society and Earth’s ecosystems. Yet the relationship between society and water is complex. While water is critical for livelihoods, it is also frequently a hazard. Floods, droughts, and contaminated water are formidable threats to human well-being. To deal with this dual nature of water, people have long modified the water cycle through engineering schemes like dams, reservoirs, irrigation systems, and interbasin transfer systems as well as through land use and land-cover change.
We need more than just technical solutions. Society needs a clear and robust plan to manage and govern water given its intertwined relationship with this critical resource. In Water Governance, we will explore the political, social, economic, and administrative systems that affect the use, development, and management of water resources. You will be introduced to current themes that influence water governance including sustainable development, integrated water resource management, water rights and pricing, corruption, and equity for marginal groups. These themes will be explored at the local, national, and international levels to provide you with a broad understanding of water governance issues.
- R 1:10 p.m.-3:40 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Michael J Puma
h-index: 23 Info - 3 points
Insurance for Climate Change in the Glob
Climate change is overwhelming the world’s capacity to manage climate risk. Index insurance and other financial risk transfer tools, such as derivatives, cat-bonds, and humanitarian disaster funds are being increasingly looked to as solutions to address year to year climate risk to support climate adaptation. However, success is mixed, with experiences of inadequate performance, opaqueness, exploitation, incentivization of mal-adaptation, and approaches that undermine sovereignty and governance. Co-generation and governance tools are not yet developed enough to assure that those who the financing is intended to benefit have an adequate voice in design, or understand critical limitations. There are no easy solutions, with many difficult trade-offs, unsolved problems, and justice challenges.
In the class, students work to understand the relationship between academic research and project level challenges. The course will be an insider view of practical real world case studies. Students will use real world project materials, data, and software tools to work through the evolution of thought over time, exploring issues such as incentivization of adaptation through community driven strategies, avoiding potential pitfalls, and responsibly implementing financial solutions for large numbers of low-income people. Students will use interactive software tools, quantitative games, and project workflows to analyze case studies and cumulatively develop their own real world case study, guided by academic debates and their own insights to build their own interactive tools and finance solutions.
- W 1:10 p.m.-3:40 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Daniel Osgood
h-index: 23 Info - 3 points
Climate and Energy Solutions
Key scientific concepts related to sustainable fuels, energy carriers, emissions management technologies, and the role of subsurface resources in meeting our energy needs in a sustainable manner are discussed. Students will apply the fundamentals of material and energy conversions and recovery to better establish the technological basis of harnessing natural resources in a responsible manner. Students will also evaluate the impacts of existing and emerging energy technologies on the environment.
- R 10:10 a.m.-12:40 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Greeshma Gadikota
Info - 3 points
Information for Strategic Climate and Di
Climate/Disaster Communic
Better climate communications have become a priority across sectors as the impacts of climate change continue to shift daily lives for individuals, communities, and organizations. Whether it be exploring more effective ways to communicate science, navigating difficult conversations stemming from different viewpoints, or connecting more meaningfully with individuals and groups in a changing world, at the center of climate communication is the convergence of science and the dynamics of human behavior. This course invites participants to explore how to apply research from psychology, adult learning theory, cognitive science, and social neuroscience to improve climate change communications and support meaningful change in their specific contexts.
This course is designed for students who are, or will be, tasked with communicating climate change–related information in a range of settings, from professional and policy environments to community engagement, education, and everyday encounters. Every context and audience is unique; for that reason, the course emphasizes tailoring climate communication strategies to specific audiences, institutional settings, and decision-making environments. Using an applied, action-learning approach, the course follows a structured developmental arc in which students move from analyzing climate communication challenges, to modeling cognitive and systemic dynamics, to developing and refining a practicum proposal, and ultimately to designing a final applied climate communication strategy.
The course combines short lectures, guest speakers from the field, and applied, in-class activities focused on mental modeling, systems thinking, and decision-making under uncertainty. Students will complete a practicum project that allows them to generate localized, evidence-informed communication strategies addressing an ongoing or emerging climate communication challenge relevant to their work, research, or community context.
- T 1:10 p.m.-3:40 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Joshua Devincenzo
h-index: 1 Info - 3 points
Coastal Hazards & Resilience in the Twen
This course provides a comprehensive, quantitative, and solutions-oriented view of coastal hazards and resilience in the twenty-first century. Covered topics include the importance of coastal zones for human livelihoods, history, resources, economies, and ecosystem services; the hazards coastal communities face in the realm of flooding, salinization, water security, and agricultural productivity; the forms of mitigation and/or adaptation to these hazards (e.g. embankments, groundwater recharge, buffer zones, migration); and the basic geography of coastal environments (e.g., deltas, estuaries, beaches) and environment-specific hazards and resilience strategies. Emphasis will be placed on how resilience strategies for the twenty-first-century need consider interactions between extreme events (e.g., the 100-year storm) and more gradual changes (e.g., 100 years of climatic sea level rise); and the impact of these cascading hazards on the physical, ecological, economic, and social systems of densely populated coastal zones. The course will spotlight several case studies including the Hudson Estuary (NYC) and the Mississippi Delta (LA).
- T 10:10 a.m.-12:40 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Austin Chadwick
Info - 3 points
Climate Adaptation and Disaster Finance
Climate and Disaster Fina
Climate impacts and unsustainable development are leading to increasing impacts from disasters. As a result, the impacts of disasters are measured in increasing costs, as well as in the overall number of billion-dollar disasters. Paying for disasters requires accessing resources from government, private, and humanitarian sectors, with varying economic consequences in the short and long term based on pre-disaster resilience. Additionally, as climate disasters increase, new mechanisms for climate adaptation and disaster resilience financing are being developed and implemented.
This course provides an overview of how money flows before, during, and after disasters through readings, analyses, and case studies. Students will learn to quantify disaster risk using the core metrics that drive pricing and decision-making, and to assemble layered portfolios of financial instruments. Students then apply this knowledge in analyzing country-level disaster finance risk and opportunities, in developing novel approaches to climate adaptation and disaster financing through a group pitch, and in a capstone simulation that requires teams to manage the resilience finances of a city over time.
- W 1:10 p.m.-3:40 p.m.
- 3 points
Circular Cities: New York City
Cities are where materials, products, food, water, energy, buildings, infrastructure, capital, and people converge—and where many of the opportunities for a more circular economy can be seen most clearly.
Circular Cities: NYC uses New York City as a living laboratory for exploring how circular economy principles operate at the scale of an urban system.
Through field visits, case studies, guest practitioners, mapping, observation, and research, students will “read” the city by investigating the systems that make New York function: what enters the city, how resources and materials move through it, what is retained or recirculated, and what ultimately leaves as waste or emissions. The course will examine circularity at multiple scales, from everyday products and services to buildings, food systems, infrastructure, waste, water, and the policy and cultural conditions that shape them. Students will assess existing circular initiatives in New York, identify barriers and opportunities for scaling them, compare New York with approaches in other cities, and explore the roles of government, business, communities, designers, and other actors in enabling urban circularity. The semester will culminate in a collaborative vision for a more circular New York, identifying promising interventions and the conditions needed to bring them to scale. No prior coursework in the circular economy is required. The course will provide a foundation in core circularity principles while allowing students with previous experience to apply those concepts in greater depth in a real urban context.
- F 1:10 p.m.-3:40 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Sandra Goldmark
CULPA: 4
Info
- 3 points
Food Policy and Climate
Food systems are both a major driver of the climate crisis and one of its most effective solutions. This course examines how urban and local governments globally are uniquely taking up this challenge: designing food policy that curbs emissions while building resilience to climate shocks, supply disruptions, and market volatility.
Students will explore the practical mechanics of food policy—how municipalities use tools like public procurement and behavioral design to drive meaningful change, and how cities coordinate across agencies and through city networks to act at scale. The course pays particular attention to the narratives and communications strategies that governments use to make food policy publicly acceptable when it touches consumption, identity, and culture.
Through case studies from New York City and municipalities across the globe, students analyze policy mechanisms and political strategies, with attention to stakeholder engagement, resistance, and tradeoffs. The course prepares students to engage with food policy as a practical governance challenge, and to pursue careers at the intersection of climate, food systems, and urban policy.
- M 1:10 p.m.-3:40 p.m.
- 1.5 points
Food Production, the Environment, and th
Food, Environment & Net Z
Changing climate, population growth, and changing diets make managing agricultural production one of the defining challenges of the 21st century. Agricultural production is highly vulnerable to changes in climate and climate variability; it is also a principal driver of global environmental change: it is a major driver of emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs), emissions of air pollutants and pollutant precursors, land-use change, and nutrient pollution of aquatic and marine ecosystems. These environmental impacts can be influenced by changes in diet, food demand, socio-economic context, and policy. As a sector, agriculture is a “hard-to-abate” source of GHG emissions and poses a serious challenge to achieving net zero emissions.
With a focus on the production side of food systems, this half-semester (7-week) graduate course investigates agricultural production and the biogeochemical cycles of carbon and nitrogen, which mediate many of the complex interactions between climate, agricultural systems, and the environment. These cycles also underlie emerging efforts to address the challenges posed by these interactions, such as regenerative agriculture, carbon capture & storage, Nitrogen 2.0, and innovations in livestock methane mitigation.
Students will:
Explore the challenges of agricultural impacts on climate.
Understand the underlying biogeochemistry of food production systems.
Analyze regional variations in management and mitigation potential.
Critically evaluate proposed mitigation solutions and obstacles to their success.
- M 1:10 p.m.-3:40 p.m.
- 1.5 points
Financing the Energy Transition
Financing Energy Transiti
This is a modeling course in quantitative policy planning for the clean-energy transition. Over seven weeks, students working in teams of four build a twenty-five year energy transition plan for a single country, set within its regional energy system, and identify the public and private investments required and the timing of those investments. Students work throughout in a country model supplied at the start of the course, together with data instructions. The model runs annually and covers demography, output, energy demand by sector, vehicle fleet turnover, the existing fossil fleet and its retirement, renewable resource supply curves, cross-border trade, and the resulting generation, capacity and emissions path. Students populate this model for their assigned country and then build on top of it the financial layer that converts a physical build path into a financing plan: capital expenditure by year, the capital stack, the debt schedule, the tariff path, and the fiscal account. The final product is a country transition and investment plan, assembled from the weekly deliverables, together with the completed workbook.
- F 1:10 p.m.-3:40 p.m.
-
Instructor:
Jeffrey D Sachs
CULPA: 15
Wikipedia
Info
- 1.5 points
Quantitative Methods - LAB
Lab section corresponding to CLMT 5002 Quantitative Methods for Climate Applications
- W 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
- W 6:10 p.m.-8 p.m.
- W 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
- W 6:10 p.m.-8 p.m.
- 0 points
Special Topics in Climate: Climate and P
Climate & Perception
From Aristotle to TikTok: How Biology, Culture, and Technology Shape How We See
Odds are there are microplastics in your blood right now. You’ve read that. Have you ever felt it? Today’s biggest threats, from the slow vanishing of old-growth forests to the CO₂ in the room you’re sitting in, unfold at scales of time and space no human body was built for, which is why they are so hard to see. We know about them. We don’t perceive them. And what we don’t perceive, we can’t value, let alone protect. Perception sits upstream of every law ever written to protect anything. Attention is the part of perception we choose. That makes attention a moral act, and most of us give ours away for free. In this class we trace our perceptual blind spots through biology, culture, and technology. We ask why it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism, why we keep placing ourselves at the center of everything, and how the same satellites that track carbon from orbit turn a living forest into data we can know but never feel. We look at how language decides whether the living world is an object or a subject, and why a corporation can sue you while a river, almost everywhere, cannot. The course is taught by an artist, built as a collision between the humanities and the sciences, and fed by film clips, readings, and guests: scientists, philosophers, and writers whose work bears on how we see. Robin Wall Kimmerer sits next to David Foster Wallace and NASA data. Arguments rarely change minds. Stories do. Once you’ve come to know a forest through story, you can no longer see it as timber.
- T 1:10 p.m.-3:40 p.m.
- 1.5 points
Disaster Recovery in Practice: Field-Bas
This is a condensed, field-based travel course on disaster risk reduction, response, and long-term recovery, taught in Türkiye during Spring Break. Students work in teams with faculty and students from a partner university in Türkiye to produce a case study grounded in the recovery from the February 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquakes, which caused catastrophic losses across the Hatay region.
The course runs in three parts. Before departure, one to two sessions and a working workshop establish the hazard and governance context, set each team's research question, and cover field methods, research ethics, and travel logistics. The travel week takes students from lectures and a comparative virtual workshop in Istanbul, to briefings, organizational meetings, and site visits in Hatay, and back to Istanbul for a public presentation with Turkish partners. A post-travel session closes the course with revised presentations and the final written case study.
Students see the systems in practice that are responsible for managing housing, debris, displacement, livelihoods, cultural heritage, and local government capacity as one connected problem rather than as separate sectors. They also have the opportunity to interact with those who are doing the work: national agencies, municipalities, humanitarian organizations, local civil society, and residents themselves.
-
Instructor:
Jeffrey Schlegelmilch
Info - 1.5 points
Paris: A Living Climate Lab
Across the international climate landscape, Paris occupies a distinctive position. As a city whose municipal government pursued an aggressive—and, at times, contested—program of urban greening and mobility transformation, Paris is an international leader in the green energy transition. As the namesake of the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement, the city has established itself as a major player in international climate diplomacy. And after a deadly 2003 heat wave, which killed over 15,000 people across France, the city refashioned itself a leader in urban climate adaptation through its efforts to prepare for future extreme heat events.
Over the course of a 5-day intensive in Paris, students will engage directly with the policymakers, practitioners, and academics who are actively shaping the city’s climate response. Through a combination of guest lectures, site visits, and self-organized expert meetings, students will gain a broad overview of the climate and energy political landscape in Western Europe, along with firsthand insights into how climate commitments are developed, implemented, and revised on the ground. Rather than treat the city as a fixed success story, the course approaches Paris as a “living laboratory,” in which ambitious policy commitments confront the practical constraints of urban governance, finance, and politics.
-
Instructor:
Leah V Aronowsky
Info - 1.5 points
Energy Solutions and Critical Minerals i
Energy and Minerals in Gr
Western Macedonia is Greece’s historic lignite-mining and coal-power heartland, and is now undergoing one of Europe’s most consequential regional energy transitions — from coal-fired electricity generation toward renewable energy, storage, and a diversified regional economy. This field-based travel course immerses students directly in that transition through introductory lectures, site visits and stakeholder engagement in the city of Kozani, in academic partnership with the University of Western Macedonia (UoWM). Students explore the diversification of energy resources, renewable energy deployment, critical mineral recovery, and advanced manufacturing and the associated labor and community impacts in the region. The course is deliberately interdisciplinary, pairing technical and engineering analysis with policy, governance, and regional-development perspectives.
-
Instructor:
Greeshma Gadikota
Info - 1.5 points
Climate School Independent Study
Clim School Independent S
-
Instructor:
Adela J Gondek
CULPA: 2 Info - 1.5-3 points
Capstone: MS in Climate
In this course, students will work jointly with a client organization in the climate field. Under the guidance of the instructors, they will take a short request from the organization for a specific product (data analysis, program development, curricular and training material, or other related items), develop a work plan, implement the work plan, and present the final product to the client. This course gives students direct experience in the co-production of knowledge in the climate field, a valuable skill in the contemporary world. It extends the training in the integration of natural science and social science that is a hallmark of the MS in Climate program. It includes training in the construction of a boundary object--a final product--conducted jointly with the client organization; this training includes instruction in project design, implementation and evaluation, and in communication between organizations.
- T 4:10 p.m.-6:40 p.m.
- 3 points
Capstone: MS in Climate
In this course, students will work jointly with a client organization in the climate field. Under the guidance of the instructors, they will take a short request from the organization for a specific product (data analysis, program development, curricular and training material, or other related items), develop a work plan, implement the work plan, and present the final product to the client. This course gives students direct experience in the co-production of knowledge in the climate field, a valuable skill in the contemporary world. It extends the training in the integration of natural science and social science that is a hallmark of the MS in Climate program. It includes training in the construction of a boundary object--a final product--conducted jointly with the client organization; this training includes instruction in project design, implementation and evaluation, and in communication between organizations.
- T 4:10 p.m.-6:40 p.m.
- 3 points
Capstone: MS in Climate
In this course, students will work jointly with a client organization in the climate field. Under the guidance of the instructors, they will take a short request from the organization for a specific product (data analysis, program development, curricular and training material, or other related items), develop a work plan, implement the work plan, and present the final product to the client. This course gives students direct experience in the co-production of knowledge in the climate field, a valuable skill in the contemporary world. It extends the training in the integration of natural science and social science that is a hallmark of the MS in Climate program. It includes training in the construction of a boundary object--a final product--conducted jointly with the client organization; this training includes instruction in project design, implementation and evaluation, and in communication between organizations.
- T 4:10 p.m.-6:40 p.m.
- 3 points
Capstone: MS in Climate
In this course, students will work jointly with a client organization in the climate field. Under the guidance of the instructors, they will take a short request from the organization for a specific product (data analysis, program development, curricular and training material, or other related items), develop a work plan, implement the work plan, and present the final product to the client. This course gives students direct experience in the co-production of knowledge in the climate field, a valuable skill in the contemporary world. It extends the training in the integration of natural science and social science that is a hallmark of the MS in Climate program. It includes training in the construction of a boundary object--a final product--conducted jointly with the client organization; this training includes instruction in project design, implementation and evaluation, and in communication between organizations.
- T 4:10 p.m.-6:40 p.m.
- R 4:10 p.m.-6:40 p.m.
- 3 points
Capstone: MS in Climate
In this course, students will work jointly with a client organization in the climate field. Under the guidance of the instructors, they will take a short request from the organization for a specific product (data analysis, program development, curricular and training material, or other related items), develop a work plan, implement the work plan, and present the final product to the client. This course gives students direct experience in the co-production of knowledge in the climate field, a valuable skill in the contemporary world. It extends the training in the integration of natural science and social science that is a hallmark of the MS in Climate program. It includes training in the construction of a boundary object--a final product--conducted jointly with the client organization; this training includes instruction in project design, implementation and evaluation, and in communication between organizations.
- R 4:10 p.m.-6:40 p.m.
- 3 points
Capstone: MS in Climate
In this course, students will work jointly with a client organization in the climate field. Under the guidance of the instructors, they will take a short request from the organization for a specific product (data analysis, program development, curricular and training material, or other related items), develop a work plan, implement the work plan, and present the final product to the client. This course gives students direct experience in the co-production of knowledge in the climate field, a valuable skill in the contemporary world. It extends the training in the integration of natural science and social science that is a hallmark of the MS in Climate program. It includes training in the construction of a boundary object--a final product--conducted jointly with the client organization; this training includes instruction in project design, implementation and evaluation, and in communication between organizations.
- R 4:10 p.m.-6:40 p.m.
- 3 points
Capstone: MS in Climate
In this course, students will work jointly with a client organization in the climate field. Under the guidance of the instructors, they will take a short request from the organization for a specific product (data analysis, program development, curricular and training material, or other related items), develop a work plan, implement the work plan, and present the final product to the client. This course gives students direct experience in the co-production of knowledge in the climate field, a valuable skill in the contemporary world. It extends the training in the integration of natural science and social science that is a hallmark of the MS in Climate program. It includes training in the construction of a boundary object--a final product--conducted jointly with the client organization; this training includes instruction in project design, implementation and evaluation, and in communication between organizations.
- R 4:10 p.m.-6:40 p.m.
- 3 points