Walter Orr Roberts Public Lectures
Displaying 9 - 16 of 65 records
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The Surprising Importance of Forests in Global Warming: Will migration of Russian forests promote warming? |
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Speaker: Dr. Herman Shugart
Presented on 15 August 2007 |
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Dr. Shugart provides insight into how the Earth's carbon cycle works and into what still remains unknown about this essential Earth life support system. He discusses the unique importance of Russian forests in the global carbon cycle and presented the unexpected results indicating that climate change might alter the Russian forests in ways that may promote further warming. Dr. Shugart concludes by making the surprising point that Russian compliance with the Kyoto Protocol (by re-growing forests) might, in fact, produce further warming, combating the intent of the protocol. View  |
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Hurricanes and Global Warming: Mixing Science and Politics |
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Speaker: Dr. Greg Holland
Presented on 27 June 2007 |
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| Since Hurricane Katrina, there has been an increasing concern that a changing climate will bring about more frequent and more intense extreme weather events. This concern has motivated scientists to investigate the connection between global warming and extreme events such as hurricanes. In this lecture, Dr. Greg Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research discusses the scientific evidence that suggests a connection between global warming and hurricanes and comments on the political ramifications of this connection. View |
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Making Space for Wonder: Science, Experience and the Ecology of Perception |
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Speaker: Dr. David Abram
Presented on 16 August 2006 |
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| Dr. Abram's lecture addressed what it means if we accept Darwin's insights, and concede that the human species has taken shape, like other species, over the long course of evolution, then we must acknowledge that the enveloping earth is the very matrix within which our bodies and brains came to acquire their current form. He lectured that our senses, for example, have coevolved with the diverse textures, shapes, and sounds of the earthly sensuous. Our human eyes have evolved in subtle interaction with other, nonhuman eyes, as our ears are now tuned, by their very structure, to the howling of wolves and the thrumming of crickets. While gliding in huge schools through the depths of the amniotic oceans, or while racing beneath the grasses as tiny, nocturnal mammals, or swinging from the branch to branch as long-tailed primates, our bodies have steadily formed themselves in dynamic interaction and reciprocity with the manifold shapes and rhythms of the animate earth. View |
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Will the Living Planet Save Us from Climate Change? |
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Speaker: Dr. Peter Cox
Presented on 2 August 2006 |
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| There is a glimmer of hope that the living systems on Earth may be able to mitigate the effects of a changing climate. In this public lecture, Dr. Peter Cox, science director for climate change at the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research, addresses this subject. Cox discusses the complex interactions between the physical and biological elements of the Earth system, and how a brand new type of computer models called "Earth System Models" are being used to more accurately predict future climate change by taking into account these dynamic interactions. View |
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Global Warming and Aspen in the 21st Century |
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Speaker: Dr. Gerald Meehl
Presented on 5 January 2006 |
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Biodiversity & Climate Change |
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Speaker: Dr. Camille Parmesan
Presented on 23 July 2005 |
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| Climate change is only one of the forces that fall under the umbrella of "global change." Disruptions to ecosystems brought about by warming and other variables affect biodiversity and bring about significant change to the global environment. In this public talk, Dr. Camille Parmesan, research fellow at the University of California Santa Barbara, reveals the correlation between climate change and shrinking biodiversity and highlights examples of how specific species are impacted by a changing climate. In her conclusion, Parmesan stresses the fact that species will be unable to adapt to climate change in the short-term, and she suggests that only by curtailing the long-term warming trend of the planet will we be able to preserve current species and ecosystems. View |
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Natural Archives, Changing Climates |
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Speaker: Dr. Raymond Bradley
Presented on 18 July 2005 |
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| How can we better understand the future climate by investigating the past? As Ray Bradley explains, proxy records—things like tree rings, ice-cores, and sediment cores—offer an invaluable window into the past climate changes and their causes. Using this historical perspective, scientists can more accurately predict future climate change. In this talk, Bradley presents the careful detective work of paleoclimatologists and the implications of their findings for modern-day climate forecasting. View |
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Abrupt Climate Change and the Future of Humanity |
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Speaker: Dr. Kim Robinson
Presented on 13 July 2005 |
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| This Walter Orr Roberts Public Lecture features award winning science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson, who discusses abrupt climate change and the paradigm shift that accompanies this new scientific concept. In addition to presenting the evidence for abrupt climate change, Robinson comments on the resistance within the scientific community and society at large to climate change theories. He posits that a culture war between capitalism and science is currently waging and warns the outcome could have tremendous effects for the future of mankind. In his conclusion, Robinson praises the ethical values of the scientific community and suggests that society as a whole look to the scientific method as a means for political organization. View |
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