Center for Climate and Life

The Center for Climate and Life is a multidisciplinary climate science research initiative based at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO), a research unit of Columbia University. Center research focuses on how climate change affects access to basic resources such as food, water, shelter and energy. The Center's founder and director is Peter B. de Menocal, a paleoclimatologist and Columbia University Dean of Science in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.[1]

Center for Climate and Life
FocusUnderstanding how climate impacts the security of food, water, and shelter; exploring sustainable energy solutions.
Location
Locations
Key people
Peter B. de Menocal, Director
AffiliationsLamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University
Websiteclimateandlife.columbia.edu

Mission

“The Center for Climate and Life empowers the most innovative thinkers to generate new knowledge to understand how climate change impacts life’s essential resources — food, water, and shelter — and to develop sustainable energy solutions.”[2]

History

Columbia University provided the Center for Climate and Life an initial budget $3.1 million for its first five years of operation.[3]

Funding model

The Center aims to engage corporate philanthropists to support its research initiatives. Through private funding and partnerships, it aims to build an endowment, which will be used to distribute annual grants to Center scientists.[4][5]

In April 2016, the Center for Climate and Life partnered with the World Surf League (WSL). The philanthropic arm of the organization, WSL PURE, contributed $1.5 million to the Center to fund five research projects on the topics of ocean health and ecosystems, ocean acidification, sea-level rise, and the role the oceans play in climate change.[6][7][8]

Areas of emphasis

Center for Climate and Life initiatives focus on five areas:

  • Food security
  • Water availability
  • Shelter
  • Sustainable energy solutions
  • Ocean health

Research and education initiatives

Research by Center for Climate and Life scientists is focused on understanding how climate change will affect people and the basic resources and ecosystems that sustain them. Center activities address the widening “climate innovation gap” between the increasing need for knowledge and solutions, and declining federal support for climate and solutions research.[9]

The Center works with public and private sector partners to help stakeholders understand how climate-related impacts on essential resources will affect their bottom line and thereby guide rational business and policy decisions.[3]

The Center supports Climate and Life Fellows, who lead research projects on topics central to its mission. In 2016, the Center administered its first two grants to early career scientists: hydrologist Michael Puma of Columbia University's Center for Climate Systems Research and NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies received a $190,000 grant to study the impact of climate change on global food systems, and bioclimatologist A. Park Williams of LDEO received a grant of $180,000 for his research on historical drought and fire cycles.[4]

Peter de Menocal, the Center director, seeks to encourage climate action by talking about climate change in terms of how it will impact human sustainability.[10]

See also

References
  1. "Peter de Menocal Named New Science Dean and Con Ed Professor". Columbia News. 2016-09-30. Retrieved 2017-06-13.
  2. "Our Mission". climateandlife.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2017-06-13.
  3. "Columbia launches new Center for Climate and Life". Columbia Magazine. Summer 2016. Retrieved June 13, 2017.
  4. Tollefson, Jeff (2016-02-04). "University seeks private donations to offset climate funding crunch". Nature. 530 (7588): 16–17. doi:10.1038/nature.2016.19260.
  5. "How Wealthy Private Investors Might Save Climate Research". Fast Company. 2017-01-31. Retrieved 2017-06-13.
  6. SurferToday.com, Editor at. "WSL invests $1.5 million in ocean science research". SurferToday. Retrieved 2017-06-13.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  7. "This Is How Surfers Are Helping Fund Climate Science". www.climatecentral.org. Retrieved 2017-06-13.
  8. O'Connor, Lydia (2017-03-22). "Trump Won't Save Us From Climate Change. Maybe Surfers Will". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2017-06-13.
  9. Watch Full Episodes Online of SciTech Now on PBS | What is the climate innovation gap?, retrieved 2017-06-13
  10. "How Texas Republicans are fighting to save the planet". Business Insider. Retrieved 2017-07-18.
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