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.

Understanding the local impacts of global climate change is crucial, especially in places like Aspen where warming poses a threat to the ski industry, the economic life-blood of the town. However, such regional-scale assessments are difficult to accomplish with a satisfactory degree of certainty. In this lecture, Gerald Meehl, senior climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, offers the best-available scientific predictions for Aspen's future climate and discusses the implications these findings have for Aspens environment, economy, and society.

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. 

Given Colorado's reliance on precipitation for agriculture and recreation industries, understanding natural variations as well as human-driven changes in climate patterns is a critical issue. Dr. Roger A. Pielke Sr. is the State of Colorado's Head Climatologist, and in this lecture he draws on his vast understanding of Colorado's climate to show past climate trends and comment on what the future climate may look like for Colorado residents. Pielke focuses in particular on the problem of drought explains how both natural processes and human behavior impact forecasts of future droughts. In his conclusion, Pielke suggests that in the absence of clear predictive capacity, we should assess future vulnerabilities, which in Colorado may include, flash floods, avalanches, insect infestations, and drought

The realization that society's reliance on fossil fuels is resulting in alarming changes to the Earth's climate is forcing people to evaluate a host of issues concerning energy consumption and its effect on the environment. This public event addresses these issues and endeavors to educate concerned citizens about the challenges that lie ahead. In the first half, David Keith, an expert on energy and professor at Carnegie Mellon University, describes the world's current consumption of fossil fuels and suggests future options for energy that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Keith presents the surprising idea that fossil fuel consumption can continue without its harmful side effects provided energy companies pursue carbon sequestration technologies, which Keith argues are both possible and practical. In the second half, Stanford University professor Steve Schneider talks about the challenging policy dilemmas presented by climate change in both the developed and developing world. As a possible model for pursuing environment-friendly policies, Schneider offers the case of Bhutan, a developing country that has favored environmental and cultural production over the material benefits of Western-style industrialization. This event is part of the Walter Orr Roberts Public Lecture Series. Recorded on July 25, 2000 in Aspen, Colorado.

Following the Earth Summit (aka "Rio") in 1992, the task became to develop agreements on how to curb greenhouse gas emissions across the globe. One of the great challenges was, and still is, to address developing nation such as China that are ever growing emitters of greenhouse gasses. In this video, Dr. Thomas Heller discusses some of the major issues involved with international environmental law and how they relate to China.

The twentieth century brought about sweeping environmental, economic, social, and political change. Each type of change was itself substantial, but collectively these changes collaborated to produce unprecedented impacts on the Earth and the human way of life. In this lecture, Nay Htun, Deputy Director of the United Nations Environmental Programme, addresses these changes and places them in the context of global environmental change. Dr. Htun describes the forces negatively affecting the global environment and talks about possible solutions to these impacts.