Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory will host a "State-of-the-Planet" conference on Nov. 15-16 to celebrate the Observatory's 50th anniversary and to assess the state of the Earth in terms of climate, natural resources, natural hazards and human impact on the planet. The conference will be held in the Rotunda of Low Library on Columbia's main campus and is free and open to the public.

The event brings together scientists, journalists, policymakers and business leaders to share their views on how the planet is faring. From discussing how best to live with a global climate that appears to be warming to understanding the limits of natural resources, the conference is designed as a forum for some of the world's greatest thinkers on these issues to raise public awareness for the Earth's current condition and examine outlooks for the future.

Experts will address topics key to the planet's sustainability at four sessions: Living in the Earth's Changing Climate; Living in a Human-Dominated Biosphere; Living with Finite Natural Resources and Living with Natural Hazards.

Conference speakers include: Wallace Broecker, a Columbia University geochemist who has won the Blue Planet Award and the President's Medal of Science for his work on global warming; Gale Christianson, author of Greenhouse: The 200 Year Story of Global Warming; Joel Cohen, director of the Laboratory of Populations at Rockefeller University and author of How Many People Can the Earth Support?; James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies; Robert Hass, recent Poet Laureate who writes about the environment; Robert Kaplan, critically acclaimed author of The Ends of the Earth; William O'Keefe, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute; F. Sherwood Rowland, the 1995 Nobel laureate in chemistry; Maurice Strong, chairman of the Earth Council and senior advisor to the United Nations and the World Bank; and James Watkins, retired United States Navy Admiral and president of the Joint Oceanographic Institutions.

In addition, William Baker, president and CEO of WNET-Channel 13, Cornelia Dean, science editor of The New York Times, Ira Flatow, host of NPR's Science Friday and Joan Konnor, dean emerita of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism will serve as moderators of the four sessions.

Located in Palisades, NY, the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory has the broadest expertise in the earth and environmental sciences of any academic institution in the world. The Observatory houses a staff of more than 450 research professionals, including more than 120 scientists and nearly 100 Ph.D. students who study all of the Earth's components. Lamont-Doherty scientists have been credited with scientific breakthroughs that include laying the groundwork for the theory of plate tectonics, creating the first computer model that accurately predicts the occurrence of El Niño, and discovering that the Earth's inner-core spins faster than the Earth itself.

The "State-of-the-Planet" conference is sponsored by the Vetlesen Foundation, Doherty Foundation, the Schlumberger Foundation, the Columbia Earth Institute and Graphic Image Inc. The conference will be aired live on the internet via www.earthscape.org, a new interdisciplinary on-line scholarly publication by Columbia University, which contains current research, breaking news, policy debates and curriculum models in the earth sciences.

Reservations to attend the conference can be made by e-mailing markin@ldeo.columbia.edu or calling (914) 365-8565.