Limiting the Magnitude of & Adapting to Future Climate Change
Videos, Wed, Feb 15th, 2012
Claudia Mengelt and Robert Fri talk about coping with climate change. What short-term actions can be taken to respond effectively to climate change? What promising long-term strategies, investments, and opportunities could be pursued? This session summarizes the findings from a recent series of reports by the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science highlighting options for adapting to and mitigating global climate change.
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Speakers: Robert W. Fri Resources for the Future Claudia Mengelt Download: Presentation (ppt) | Video (high resolution) Robert Fri is a visiting scholar and senior fellow emeritus at Resources for the Future, a nonprofit organization that studies natural resource and environmental issues. He has served as director of the National Museum of Natural History, president of Resources for the Future and deputy administrator of both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Research and Development Administration. Fri also has been director of the American Electric Power Company, vice-chair and a director of the Electric Power Research Institute, a trustee and vice-chair of Science Service, Inc. and a member of the National Petroleum Council. He is active with the National Academies of Science, where he is a national associate and vice-chair of the Board on Energy and Environmental Systems, and is a member of the advisory board of the Marion E. Koshland Science Museum. He has chaired studies for the National Research Council on health standards for the Yucca Mountain repository and on estimating the benefits of applied research programs at the Department of Energy (DOE). He currently chairs a study to evaluate the nuclear energy research program at DOE. Fri received his BA in physics from Rice University and his MBA from Harvard University. For more information click here. Claudia Mengelt is a senior program officer with the Ocean Studies Board at the National Research Council (NRC), which advises the government on science, engineering and medicine. She was the study director of Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change, a report that was part of the congressionally mandated study, America’s Climate Choices. At the NRC, she has been leading studies on a range of topics, including the analysis of global change assessments. Mengelt obtained her master’s degree in biological oceanography from the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. She subsequently received her PhD in marine sciences from the University of California, Santa Barbara. For more information click here. Editor’s note: these eight videos comprise a recent “Climate Science 101″ short course sponsored jointly by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), at George Mason University, and NOAA. The presenters in this series were selected for their subject matter expertise. Their views and opinions are their own and don’t necessarily represent those of OLLI and NOAA.
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| Historical Perspectives on Climate Change
Speaker: James Rodger Fleming Get a historical perspective on how our understanding of Earth’s climate system evolved through a succession of pioneering scientists in the 1800s and 1900s who asked, and answered, fundamental questions about the causes and effects of global climate change. | The State of the Climate
Speaker: Deke Arndt Drawing on the annual State of the Climate reports, published by the AMS Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, this session presents of the preponderance of scientific evidence that global climate change is occurring. | What is the Difference Between Weather and Climate?
Speaker: Dr. Wayne Higgins Learn about the relationships and differences between weather and climate, as well as the differences between natural climate variability and human-induced climate change. |
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| Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States Speaker: Anthony C. Janetos This evidence-based presentation makes it clear that climate change isn’t some future abstraction, nor is it a far-off phenomenon happening to people in other parts of the world. | Is the Breathing of the World’s Ocean Choking Marine Life?
Speaker: Dr. Christopher L. Sabine Review ongoing impacts of acidification on marine ecology and projections of likely future impacts on marine life if this trend continues. | Ethics and Issues Surrounding Geo-Engineering to Mitigate Climate Change
Speaker: Dr. Michael MacCracken This session explores of the pros and cons, as well as legal and ethical considerations, involved in options for “geo-engineering.” |
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| Climate Change Communication: Focusing on Public Engagement
Speaker: Matthew C. Nisbet, Ph.D. A summary about social scientists’ research into Americans’ attitudes and opinions about global climate change. | ||
