Join us on Earth Day for a discussion on Climate Science, with topics ranging from Antarctic air bubbles to food production to coral reefs, and talks from scientists Jennifer Burney, Jeff Severinghaus, and Kate Furby.
All ages welcome. Food will not be available for purchase, but outside food is allowed, so feel free to bring your own!
Jennifer Burney
Is it possible to stabilize climate and feed the world?
The air we breathe and the food we eat are deeply connected. Food — production, processing, and consumption — is a key contributor to anthropogenic climate change. And changing climatic conditions affect food production and consumption. This talk will address the links between the climate and food systems in both directions, some of the counterintuitive things we now know about these couplings, and some of the major uncertainties that remain.
Jeff Severinghaus
Climate, ice cores, and our future
Air bubbles trapped in glacial ice from Antarctica tell us that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere today haven't been this high in at least the last 800,000 years. The heavy isotope of carbon, carbon-13, in those same bubbles tell us that humans are the cause of this increased carbon dioxide.
Kate Furby
Corals are not dead (yet)
Coral reefs are older than woolly mammoths and with a much more impressive emergency toolkit. They survived movement of continents but are now struggling to survive carbon emissions. Are corals doomed? These weird, fierce little animals are sometimes able to survive death itself. But they are not invincible. We need to understand how corals reefs function in order to protect them and, ultimately, ourselves.