By Steven Cohen, Ph.D., Director of the M.S. in Sustainability Management program, School of Professional Studies
This past Saturday, Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory held its annual Open House. The Open House is a sort of carnival of earth science exhibits, many designed to educate and inform children and scientific learners like me. The program that took place last weekend is linked here to give you an idea of the richness and depth of Lamont’s science. Last year, in the midst of the science funding crisis caused by Donald Trump and his attack on university-based research, the Open House was cancelled. Fortunately, this year it was resumed, along with a request for a voluntary donation of $25. The Observatory is an environmental science powerhouse. I first started working with them in 1987 when I was the associate dean for curriculum and faculty of the School of International and Public Affairs. At my request, they designed and started teaching a course on environmental science for policymakers. A little more than a decade later, that single course became the building block for the science curriculum of the MPA in Environmental Science and Policy. This was a set of courses that included: environmental chemistry, hydrology, climate science, ecology, and toxicology. These courses were selected for their importance to public policymakers but were not the same courses with similar titles taught to future scientists. The goal was to create a curriculum that enhanced scientific literacy in future policymakers, not to develop future scientists. Therefore, the content of the curriculum was designed for application in policy analysis and decision-making.
A quarter century later, that curriculum is still offered, taught by Columbia’s environmental scientists, several of whom are Lamont Research Professors. My goal in facilitating this curriculum was to help overcome scientific illiteracy in many public, private, and nonprofit organizations. I had experienced and contributed to that ignorance of environmental science during my years at EPA. Including environmental science in a public policy program also had the goal of building funding support and understanding of the importance of Earth observation and analysis. Medical science is far better funded than environmental science, and there is exponentially more understanding of the human body than of the Earth that provides the environment required to enable humans to live in the first place. Even before the Trump attack on science, I wrote about this issue in 2024. At that time, I observed that:
“In fiscal 2024, the United States federal government spent about $203 billion on research and development. This included nearly $50 billion on defense research and development (R&D), about $23 billion on health research, about $8 billion on general science and basic research, about $8 billion on space flight research, $4 billion on energy research, $2 billion on agricultural research, and only $2 billion on environmental science. We spend ten times as much on the science of the human body than on the science of our planet’s ecosystems. The National Institutes of Health alone had a budget of $47 billion. This does not include the massive amount of private research funding for drug research. Pharmaceuticals can be incredibly profitable, and so a great deal of money is invested by private companies in drug research… It makes sense that we pay more attention to our own health than the health of the planet. No scientists ever believe they have enough research funding. Most medical researchers will tell you that they need more funding for their research than they receive. Nevertheless, the medical world and medical science is far richer than the world of environmental and ecological science. In private philanthropy, we see the phenomenon of the “grateful patient” who is cured by medical science or sees a family member helped by medical breakthroughs who then makes a large donation to a hospital or a medical research laboratory. While some private foundations and nongovernmental organizations spend money on conservation, land preservation, and environmental protection, precious few fund basic or even applied environmental science.”
While I see no evidence that resources will grow for the study of Earth systems science, my hope is that advances in observation technology will make Earth observation less expensive. The use of satellites and drones, as well as sensors that can communicate by transmitting data from the field to the lab, is making it possible to monitor environmental conditions without the expense of extensive time in the field. The use of Artificial Intelligence will also make it more cost effective to analyze, model, monitor, and understand environmental conditions.
The crises in climate change, toxics, and biodiversity loss are also motivating students, scholars, and practitioners to search for solutions to the damage we are doing to our natural environment. Investors are increasingly factoring environmental risk into investment decisions because they must account for all sources of financial risk. And environmental risk can translate into financial risk. Forest fires, floods, and damaging winds cause billions of dollars in damage every year. The methodology of life cycle assessment is also raising questions about the causes of environmental damage and the financial cost of mitigating that damage.
My work with the Lamont Observatory ramped up when I served as Executive Director of Columbia’s Earth Institute from 2006 until 2018. During that time, I was responsible for overseeing the management of the Institute, which was directed by a series of outstanding science managers including Mike Purdy, who served as director from 2000 to 2011; Art Lerner Lam, who was Interim Director from 2011 to 2012; and Sean Solomon, who led Lamont from 2012 until 2020. I learned the most during my time with Mike Purdy, as he introduced me to the management of environmental scientists. All three of these Lamont directors taught me about the difficulty of balancing scientific vision with available dollars. I learned how entrepreneurial these scientists were as they hustled constantly to generate the scarce soft money they required to pay most of their own salaries and the cost of their labs. They didn’t need much help from me, which I limited to hosting seminars for donors, helping Mike establish the position of Lamont Research Professor, and finding the money to increase bus service between the Morningside and Lamont campuses. Once a year, the Lamont Directors and I briefed the Provost and senior Columbia administrators about the finances and strategy of the Earth Institute and Lamont Observatory. I was always struck by the care and effort Lamont made to juggle multiple financial balls in the air while achieving scientific excellence.
The Lamont Observatory scientists were not only among the top scholars in their field, but they also understood, as most academics do not, that they were managing a business. My deepest worry at the time was their over-dependence on federal funds. They had an endowment and 150 acres of beautiful land overlooking the Hudson, just south of Nyack, but I was determined to help develop additional revenue streams for them. Due to those efforts, an increased number of them began teaching various parts of Columbia’s expanding offerings in climate and environment. But to this day, the financial footing of this (and most other) outstanding environmental science institutions remains precarious.
This is a difficult time for those of us who want to grow the economy and eliminate poverty while protecting the planet. To manage something, it must be measured. Without measurement, you can’t tell if the situation is getting better or worse. As technology continues to advance, we are improving human lives and lifespans, but if we don’t protect the environment, those gains will be short-lived. Anyone whose home was damaged or destroyed due to climate-accelerated extreme weather suddenly starts paying more attention to climate scientists. We need to prevent environmental damage, and with intelligence, foresight, and care, we can live good lives without destroying ecosystems and communities. Environmental science and Earth observation are prerequisites for environmental sustainability. The Lamont scientists spend their days and nights learning how to understand environmental conditions and improve them when needed. They work with environmental engineers, scholars, and organizational leaders from a variety of fields seeking to create solutions to the problems they see. Their work is as crucial as it is challenging. Despite the difficulties, I remain optimistic. As I often say: ‘the human species is ingenious and not suicidal.’ Somehow, we will figure it out.
Views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Columbia School of Professional Studies or Columbia University.
About the Program
The Columbia University M.S. in Sustainability Management program offered by the School of Professional Studies in partnership with the Climate School provides students cutting-edge policy and management tools they can use to help public and private organizations and governments address environmental impacts and risks, pollution control, and remediation to achieve sustainability. The program is customized for working professionals and is offered as both a full- and part-time course of study.
Prospective students are invited to attend an upcoming in-person information session and alumni panel on the evening of October 21 to learn more about the program’s curriculum, admissions process, and flexible study options.
