Past Events
October 05, 2011
Howard Gruenspecht, Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
October 05, 2011
Speaker: Tsuyoshi Segawa
Six months ago, the strongest earthquake ever recorded in Japan caused the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, when the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan was inundated by a massive tsunami. The spectacle of explosions and a partial meltdown renewed fears of nuclear power in many people around the world. However, there are also many reasons to embrace nuclear power: it is carbon-free, reliable, and the fuel is potentially abundant. This
October 04, 2011
Some of America's top scientists discuss their frustration with the lack of progress on the pressing problem of climate change, and talk about their ideas for what scientists and citizens can do while policymakers fail to act. What does the latest research show on both the climate and the attitude of Americans?
October 04, 2011
Speaker: Cynthia Scharf serves on the UN Secretary-General's Climate Change Support Team and also works for the Secretariat of the UN's High-level Panel on Global Sustainability.
October 03, 2011
Speaker: Michael Mann (Penn State University)
Abstract: I will review recent work aimed at establishing the nature of, and understanding the factors governing, large-scale climate variability in past centuries. Among the approaches I will discuss are the (1) statistical reconstruction of past climate changes from climate proxy records, the (2) forward modeling of the processes recorded by proxy records, (3) climate model simulations of the response to estimated changes in radiative forcing, and (4) experiments in which proxy data are assimilated directly into climate models.
September 30, 2011
Speaker: Dan Chavas, Marty Singh, Tim Cronin
Abstract: What areas of policy-relevant climate research are strongest? Where are areas for potential advances in climate research in the medium-term? What are areas where the science is strong, but the policy ideas have not yet incorporated? And what are the kind of questions that climate science just can't answer in the near future? We need to understand these kinds of questions to craft effective climate and energy policy.