Past Events
October 18, 2006
Despite their calm demeanors, Kerry Emanuel and Ernie Moniz impart grave and pressing concerns about global warming to this Museum gathering. Emanuel admits that he was still a skeptic 20 years ago, but that detailed analysis of the earth’s climate record, and sophisticated modeling have convinced him and a vast majority of his colleagues that we’re witnessing a rapidly changing environment due to greenhouse gas emissions. The world is in the process of doubling its carbon dioxide emissions over the pre-industrial value of 280 parts per million.
October 18, 2006
Speakers: Prof. Ernest Moniz, and Prof. Kerry Emanuel. As part of the Soap Box - Special Series on Energy at the MIT Museum. The Soap Box is a series of salon-style, early-evening conversations with scientists and engineers who are making the news that really matters. Soap Box is a public forum for debate about important ideas and issues in science and technology.
October 11, 2006
Speaker: Paul Sclavounos, MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering. The presentation will focus on the development of an innovative floater concept and its anchoring system supporting a 5MW offshore wind turbine for deployment in 1-2 GW offshore wind farms and in water depths ranging from 30 to several hundred meters. The floating wind turbine system has been designed to float stably prior to its anchoring to the seafloor by using concrete and water in internal ballast tanks.
October 10, 2006 - October 12, 2006
SESSIONS: EU Emissions Trading Scheme — Review of Phase 1 and preparing for Phase 2; Will Climate Policy Benefit from the EU Policy Agenda?; The Effectiveness of Existing Policies and Measures in Greenhouse Gas Mitigation; The Adequacy of Current Forecasts of Climate Change; Evaluation of the Role of Adaptation in Climate Policy; Possible Dimensions of Future International Climate Negotiations
June 15, 2006
When Ron Prinn spins one “Wheel of Fortune,” he arrives at a one in four chance of the Earth warming up at least 3 degrees centigrade, and the beginning of an irreversible melting of polar ice sheets. When he spins the other wheel, the odds of this level of dangerous warming fall to one in 40. The first wheel, Prinn suggests, represents the risks involved in doing nothing about climate change. The second wheel is attainable only by enacting a climate policy that stabilizes carbon dioxide levels in the near future.
May 18, 2006
Changes in the Land: Environmental Stresses and the Terrestrial Biosphere's Capacity to Store Carbon
Jerry Melillo bears a formidable burden of knowledge. He studies the forces behind global warming, and attempts to predict how they will shape the future of the planet. Melillo's research involves both small-scale and large-scale studies, in different regions of the world, and allows him to form a truly global picture of the ways carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, or stored within terrestrial ecosystems.