Past Events
October 09, 2007
The pace of global carbon emissions may be such that humanity’s best efforts to stabilize them below current levels by 2050 won’t be enough to prevent a significant increase in Earth’s temperatures. Margaret Leinen, drawing on the U.N.’s recent climate reports, and the latest research from the field, shows the dire graph: a red line of CO2 emissions marching steadily upward, with accompanying graphics depicting hoped-for impacts of international efforts to mitigate greenhouse gas release.
October 09, 2007
It took a crisis to shift Roger Angel’s gaze from the stars back to Earth, but we may all benefit from his full attention, locked as it is on helping crack the problem of global warming.
October 09, 2007
In 1845, the Dietz Company of New York introduced the sperm oil lantern, which nearly wiped out some whale species. A decade or so later, Dietz began to manufacture lamps using other oils, and gas lighting fixtures, giving whales a reprieve. More than a century has passed, and we’re “about to do it again,” says Daniel Nocera, consuming a precious resource and endangering this time not whales but our world. Nocera wonders, “What will be the savior,” the answer that will save the entire planet?
October 09, 2007
ABOUT THE LECTURE:
Downward swooping lines on the graphs say it all: The world’s fish populations, and hence its fisheries, are collapsing. Daniel Pauly has analyzed reams of data -- including number of boats fishing, their reported catch, the amount of fish thrown overboard -- from every significant fishing area of the world over 50-plus years, and has concluded that today, 30% of our fisheries have crashed, and that by 2048, if the trend continues, most will have disappeared.
October 09, 2007
Dianne Newman is exploring the deep connection between bacteria and rocks -- specifically, the possibility that some varieties of ancient microorganisms gave rise over millennia to vast mineral deposits. She’s intrigued in particular by enormous banded iron formations found on every continent that contain rich evidence of the important role of bacteria.
October 09, 2007
Peeling away billions of years of the Earth’s history, Paul Falkowski reveals how our watery and rocky world underwent a massive transformation to become oxygen-rich and biologically diverse. He elucidates the complex geochemical and geophysical processes underlying the “Story of O” – how oxygen made its appearance on the planet.