It's really really wonderful to see
everybody here I'm from file but

as the proles an executive vice president
of academic up pairs hero taken

in on behalf of President Peterson and all
the rest of the leadership and colleagues.

I want to welcome all of you.

I want to thank you for

joining us as being the full day of fact
he with his help we celebrate billfish L.

launch of the Global Change program
there have been small events and

gatherings with faculty staff and
students for all the day and

I am truly excited for
this afternoon's keynote lecture.

Please remember that after we enjoyed the
lecture you were only invited to join us

for a reception in the West architecture
for floor which is just right across.

Let me take a moment also to give special
welcome to the representatives of

the race there are some from the nation
who we saw today are John Lynn year

Valerie Bennett and Lori blank.

Thank you very much for being here also
joining us from the from the rain and

I call and.

We're incredibly grateful for
our relationship was a racy and

there's some foundation by the way race
there from was a graduate of Georgia and

the recipient of an honor of
the three from this institution.

They have really helped some of us I mean
Nischelle Plesch of seven hundred fifty

thousand dollars to the best of the Center
for Business Strategies course was taken

out and the subsequent five million
dollar commitment that launched that race

center push for a stable business and
by that if you don't know and

I are sure to go on learn a little bit
of Gracie Anderson he made his name in

carpet not a factoring of doing so state
level manufactor him and really and truly.

Acknowledged asked.

Really there in that field.

There AC and
their son interface Ceri natural systems.

Things are shell industrial
system engineering school

research support point of route buyers
instead to force the same old system.

For paper time time think not only on the
civil engineering department are also some

of the recipients of their
generosity We're also on or

rather relationship with the foundation
today they have committed five

hundred thousand dollars to support the
Global Change Program thank you very much.

Me Thank them for
doing it they also thank Kim Carr

president I married to
swing Cluff where it came.

After.

They died there were that haven't.

Stopped all this launch of
the Global Change Program the launch

of the Global Change program follows
really the year they have or

more of the liberation of twenty two

member executive committee of
company CUMPLE stakeholders

other Dr clubs direction their work
discovered there are many ongoing global

change airports happening in schools
unit some centers across things.

At the end of their communities were
they so great promise in bringing

these groups together in a cordon made
it quite a lot more of the way and

that brings also police officer long
day scheme cop serving as director of

the program we'll have out
your depth to strengthen and

I'm pleased by the thought
leadership that already exists and

I want to emphasize really already it says
expand our academic Grecian the space.

Bolster our relationship we seem to the
period situations that are also looking

to make an impact in global change.

Program development and
implementation is on their way there.

First year will see curriculum this
time for undergraduate students

creational plan energy and
climate minor and climate solutions for

the program will also holds companies
what speakers time round table events

will be built on that critical connection
points that allowed your DUP take

control case and allowed your debt
think to choke raise the breath and

there's a global change related subjects
being addressed by our research and

I got any faculty these opportunities
to make a pulse at the about

a lasting impact in the global change
space mean out of the classroom

providing the exposure and the real
world hands on experience that our

that our students are demanding as they
prepare for their government years

we have a tremendous opportunity to
continue to influence callers to.

See our only shoots of Global Change
the opportunities some potential

are tremendous and we're proud to see
what comes next as an individual that

have set a goal that is that on Sunday the
vehicle that has worked on this topic for

quite a lot of time I personally welcome

this opportunity if anything it gives me
something to go after stop being pros.

But really and truly it's about time there
is so much going on and he said about

time that we put it together and
synergize our efforts to have it Marjory.

I'm pleased now to introduce
this afternoon speaker and

reskin is our speaker we're
honored to have you here on to

have been written about global and
environmental change for more than thirty

years he's one of America's most on
our own experience Jordan at least and

all sorts focus on environmental and
human souls they might be leaving

his pieces have taken him from
the North Pole to the White House.

I want to go home but I'm not going to.

Need to live out the.

His bio states he began reporting
on climate change in the 1980's

the magazine's never stop.

His site claim career has include it but

he got the invasion investee
got the reporting in probably

the New York Times science that yes some
Discover magazine just to name a few

his career also includes scientific
scholarship and grad recording the Sunday.

Just recently he joins us thout of the
National Geographic Society that's try to

take up by some for environmental and
science journalism where it will help

expand the societies funding and support
system for your notice on story and

story telling that kind
of human journey and

served by a biological diversity in
a century of momentous global change and.

I also understand that he
said I have a songwriter and

these the hot sun valley roots
band breaking that reach review

you're going to hear some of his original
works on the Right now the first center

at seven pm as he will take parking
parting a performance event book signing

titled changed live much to climate change
in song portrait feature in faculty and

students without further ado please
join me in welcoming and reckon.

With.

Sort of the so-called together.

This is a pleasure to be here especially
on a day like today when you're starting

such an ambitious and important initiative
that's implicitly interdisciplinary and

has relationships with other campuses
Emory and elsewhere and is about.

Taking a sustained look
at this issue you know.

So we know the environment is under
momentous change we know that we are.

Under an unparalleled high speed change in
how we communicate which used to be around

a campfire and then I was just talking to
communications didn't hear earlier about

social media in the ninety's for the band
Dave Matthews Band Richard which I wrote

about the road music a little bit was they
would play a show at a university and

students there would record
the show on a couch set tape and

then put it in the envelope and send it
to a friend at another campus and that

was social media because what happened was
when they were still an amateur act that

that social networking
built an audience so

big that Dave Matthews told me for
a story that for

the times that when they drove to Williams
College one night a blizzard got there and

at a show and they realized everyone in
the audience was singing their songs even

though they had not been on the radio they
did not have a record deal and they had

never been there before and it was that
was a social network before the days of

social media and so that think
about the amplification of that now

with all the tools we have and of course
they've largely been co-opted to a certain

extent but
I think my implicit guarded optimism

looks at the current moment in the noise
of turbulence as being sort of growing

pains this is all brand new Twitter than
exist in two thousand started two thousand

seven that's hard that's a heartbeat
in the way things evolve so

there's implicit there's always going
to be noise and experimentation and and

co-option and
co-opt what is the right word co-opting it

in the early days of something and
then hopefully things settle out

of me though is who are trying
to pursue advances.

Progress using these same media
platforms can take the foreground

that's my hope and National Geographic
Society the reason I jumped in to

take the position that we just
created there is they got a huge.

Increase in their endowment It's a
nonprofit part of the National Geographic

universe and that means there's this
perpetual flow of money to go to

communication innovation and
service of sustainability and

my dream that's going to include
things like online primers for

scientists who want to become more
communicative and to know why a tripod

matters if you're going to take video that
kind of thing so to say we're going build

tools we're going to fund individuals then
hopefully engender some progress going

forward sort of that a similar model when
you're trying to do the campus here so

go to it my role in all this and
as you heard a minute ago is mostly but

as a journalist and it has been a long
time I didn't grow up wanting to be

journalists say I grew up wanting to be
a marine biologist in Rhode Island and

Cousteau was my you know the pied
piper that I was following.

But journalism was a benefit.

For my view of the world which is
I'm interested in everything and

to be a scientist you have to
point take one thing lobster.

Process and that was you done bigger
thing for eight or ten years and

that didn't feel right so I went into
journalism early on as you can see this

kind of a little bit of a visual summary
of some things I've done the Amazon rain

forest writing about a murder of Chico
Mendez who was a robber Tapper who tried

to organize the resistance to
deforestation as the ranchers were moving

in I was at the Vatican for a meeting
on sustainable humanity sustainable

planet our responsibility that was the
name of the meeting in two thousand and

fourteen a week of presentations and
discussion it was an incredible experience

and I'll talk a bit more about
that what it might mean the Arctic

moments look like Hannibal Lector
there with this plastic face mask and.

A Lennox Turgeon in the Hudson River
the parade headquarters and

the Paris climate talks
the covering the protests and

covering the watershed of
the Hudson River on the Hudson.

And climate climate climate as you
heard my fourth book is coming out and

in a way what I'm going to scribe today
is a microcosm of what's in this book

the book is a it's a history
of our understanding of and

relationship with the climate system
told in one hundred moments so

it's a book for the modern reader
you can pick your moment and it and

send it where and
when it reveals is interesting it's.

When you step back from all
this new isn't an endless

discovery around global warming you
realize it's part of this very long

discovery process we've had in building a
sustainable relationship with climate and

the thing that's unique about or juncture
as I was looking through these moments all

but way back through time is first of all
of our history as a species in terms of

our vision of the climate system was one
way climate did stuff weather happened and

you either died and put on clothes and lit
a fire moved into a cave or were moved.

Or and that was it you you were reacting
all the time we were reacting to these

changes and the and the variations and
now as it was climate was directional and

now it's two directions and that's what's
become evident through more than a hundred

years of cumulative science and
it doesn't surprise me anymore and

it did surprise me how long it took for
us to sort of

settle in around this question and
as you know it's still a divisive one but

the basics of this being a two way
relationship going forward are profoundly

clear the answers are not how
do we behave on this planet how

do we minimize our impact on the system
and minimize impacts on us and at the same

time maintain our energy abundance
that's made us such a prosperous species

remains an open question which is that
they one that you all will be working on.

So the other thing that has
changes is kind of alluded to

is the information environment.

I this is me.

Now mostly a folksy rootsy musician but
back in one thousand nine hundred one when

I was a journalism school economy that was
me and pretty much a punk band we were

from those who were alive back then it was
the name of the band was Jack Abbott and

the bad habit this was this guy
who murdered someone in Norman

he was had a popular defender who claimed
he was and he was a good guy he was not

nineteen anyone is the same here that
Walter Cronkite made his last sign off and

those of you who have spent most of
your time in the twentieth century and

there are a few of us recall he used to
say that's the way it is Tuesday March

twenty seventh one thousand nine hundred
one and that was such a comforting way for

us to receive information because we
didn't actually have to do any work just

there was one or two or three white of on
killer men on T.V. who provided the entire

country every household was dining on
the same information before every every

night spaghetti or mac and cheese or
whatever it was all comfort food and

you didn't have to think
the authority model of journalism

was kind of like Moses
coming down from them and

that is so so twentieth century
compared to where we are now so

in my my career started in all these
old media I actually have paper this

paper copies of these old artifacts
called magazines science magazines.

This is a nuclear winter was my first
article on on our relationship of climate

which is if we burn enough cities that are
in the in a cold war a nuclear exchange

the atmosphere would be full of
schmutz and it would cause a famine

agriculture failure and
soon after right around the time I wrote

this article Steve Schneider prominent
climate scientist in another colleague and

car owner wrote a paper they were looking
a little more carefully at the simulations

and they said it actually felt like
they would be morally nuclear autumn.

And that that was a really important.

Dozens of me in my early media days
where's your headline a nuclear autumn

that's one thing you know if your arm
couldn't follow catastrophic nuclear war

it is OK and then what you know so.

And it also showed me that what happens in
science often is very inconvenient we all

expect science to more science
makes things clear but actually

more often than not science when more
science is applied to the same question

which initially looks dark and maybe
dramatic it makes things what's clear and

that's that's one of those realities
we have to live with this aside and

you know it's not like you just magically
get an answer that makes it all easy.

And so nine hundred eighty eight was when
the sent back to the same supercomputer

centers that were studying this and

they had already been studying the
greenhouse effect much earlier the effect

of this heat trapping gases on the climate
system so it went back to Boulder and

a couple other places and wrote my
first cover story on global warming and

that's one thousand nine hundred thirty
years ago thirty years is interesting it's

a good span of time to weigh climate
questions because actually most media

meteorology defines climate as a period
of roughly thirty years the average

weather conditions through that period is
the climate that's the sort of then when

climate change climate change is judged as
you look at staggered periods of time and

see where the well things are changing
precipitation or were temperature and

all that stuff so and also one hundred
eighty eight was the last time the level

of carbon dioxide the atmosphere was at
three hundred fifty parts per million

which was that Jim Henson and a few others
feel that it's kind of a threshold for

safety you want to get back
there that there's lots of

rich questions about where you set
that number but that gives you another

reason to think back to one hundred P.C.
see the Intergovernmental Panel

on Climate Change was it was launched that
year I went to the first international

conference on the changing atmosphere
in Toronto that year and that for.

Ceded lead to and it's kind of created
the template for the first treaty

treaty the one thousand nine hundred two
Framework Convention on Climate Change.

This is the meeting in Toronto it was
the first one where scientists and policy

makers settled on some proposed cuts in
emissions that would you need to slow

global warming and then what's happened
since then well hasn't really worked

out that that way you know everything's
been up up up my first book on global

warming came out in one thousand nine
hundred two and here's where I kind of.

A kind of it when you're writing
a book there are these rare moments

where you just sort of you're
just blathering a little bit and

it is moments when you can expose your
interest putting together facts and

the end of a chapter on the human
changes on the planet had this line

perhaps Earth scientists of the future
will name this new post Holocene era for

its cause a development for us and the
Holocene was this geological period a book

from the last of the last ice age eleven
thousand seven hundred years ago till now

and at that time it felt to me in looking
at the literature like we're beyond that

for better or worse we're entering an age
that might someday be referred to as say

the end through seems just my literally
musing you know just doing that and

after all it's a geological age of our
own making so I basically predicted.

A problem when it happened in two
thousand and two thousand and

two a couple scientists came
up with a more formalized.

Proposal that we have really we if you
didn't think it was consequential what was

happening on Earth already at that point
it's basically earth systems that matter

are all in our sway not yet

in our control because we haven't even
learned how the system fully operates our

key manager controls something that you're
not even fully understanding yet and

this Anthropocene concept has become
more and shrines it's still not a formal

thing but it's it's kind of
moving in that direction and.

I had this sort of moralizing
a line this is one of my

you know I don't say it's a mistake but
it was a let's say an over.

There's the aspect presumption
that people like me or

scientists can tell the world what to do
you know the challenge now is to find

a way to act geologists of the future look
upon the sages the remarkable time of time

in which species begin to take a species
began to take into account the long term

impact of its actions so I had this really
hopeful sense in this kind of moral

ethical sense that we were going
to get in the driver's seat and

more of what I do more of what scientists
do will be the thing that will make us all

kind of get on board and change and
and I moved into this medium which I

hadn't full I had to head out of one brief
moment of the bit eighty's that The L.A.

Times but when I started The New York
Times in one thousand nine hundred five

then I learned the real issues related to
the news process the magazines you have

a fact checker you can sort of sit and
suck your thumb and talk to colleagues and

do another interview but when you're in
a newspaper it's it is what it is and

I learned those lessons and learned about
the weaknesses of how journalism is formed

in the strengths the great strengths it's
ultimately so correcting most of the time

but that authority that Walter Cronkite
notion presumption of authority

has weak spots and I started to list
them I've done a couple book chapters on

coverage of the environment and related
things that I call them Terry nice.

Overwhelming obligations the tyranny
of the front page thought is this

process where the N.S.F.
funds the scientists to study sea ice and

he or she finds a result writes
paper the abstract of the paper

crystallizes the result in the cabbie outs
are mostly sprinkled through the paper and

then the press officer for
the University of that person looks for

the front page fault when it's going to
catch the attention of a reporter and

the and a separate set of press.

At least if it's that they can have news
thing and also does the same thing and

then the reporters from
the front page thought in and

said what happens on an issue like climate
change quite opposite as you would end up

with a sort of over distilled sense
of what's new or real and that and

that's that can kick back or lead to is

a false sense of certain certainty and
some things that could be problematic and

I ended up often feeling like
the complexities of what is happening

to the Greenland ice sheet or
get left on the cutting room floor and

into that and to me it was even worse than
radio so that was frustrating the need for

the new I don't think about this you
know I probably written well at least

dozens of stories about aspects of the
Greenland ice sheet and sea level rise but

you when you're in THE NEWSROOM competing
with the reporter writing about the latest

stock market correction and and something
about the president whoever it is and

something about some looming
conflict overseas and

you have a with seems to be
really important paper on

the change in the rate of
some important lasers and

Greenland in the header based This is
what we write about green I think so

that that's a process that
definitely impedes understanding and

then this shock to trance mode where
where some big about what happened and

then are they ever going to sleep and
that's for

everything Obama President Obama I think I
never heard that phrase before but it was

his first year in office when gas prices
spike and he gave a really great speech on

the importance of awaiting avoiding
a shock to trance energy policy and

think about that in the context
of California's water supply or

Houston's flood.

Or so many other issues where
risk is rare and real and

we're building vulnerability and then it
goes away and we forget and that how can

we do that what's the role of academia and
you know this is again is where you get

integrated approaches to knowledge
building policy people sociologists

involved in how do you convey risk is
really important conflict you know for.

Ph D.

there is an equal and opposite ph to
anyone here who is a period of that's

true and in journalism of conflict that's
just the way it is that's why C.N.N.

and even worse Fox and other networks have

the capacity as it when science gets into
a courtroom it's the same way this is just

happening out in the West Coast to this
lawsuit against the oil companies.

And then you're the jury or
the judge of your journey not an expert on

how to judge climate liability and
it gets really tough and on and

on so journalism is as it was done
in those days is really tough and

all through this time you know I I said I
had this expectation that well better and

better science more I.P.C.C. reports more
prize winning articles by me and others

could it could stem the tide to get us all
kind of focused on things and the killing

curve here which is measuring the
concentration this is the level of water

in the bathtub not the flow of emissions
into the system up up up up up about

when it's this is a seven hundred fifty
till now instrumental record is there and

and then you start to think well what
is this that's going on and I or I find

myself increasingly have to write myself
that not not being to climate centric.

If you're just climate centric and you're
thinking the some grand unique aspect to

that and you're not thinking about all the
other curves the curves of us our impacts

of water nitrogen phosphorus land use and
not all of them have it

absolutely zoom quality but taken together
you get the sense sense of a profound

change in the system then if you
think it is just a climate problem or

a C O two problem you're missing that
there's something bigger going on and

that became something that really
captured me a certain point and

I realized I had mistaken.

The climate problem for pollution problem
and I grew up in the seventy's and

eighty's when environmental problems.

You passed a law or you regulation or

someone came up with a smokestack and
and I don't know it was.

Ninety's oxides or other pollutants
could be captured before at least you

have seized the molecules
pretty ozone layer

really a minor inconvenience in terms
of our economy not like C O two so

I had this expectation we all wrote about
this as it was a pollution problem and

it's so much more profound this is to me
the Anthropocene is this bigger human

influence on earth systems going forward
and you know when you compare it to

in the way we worked through our history
it's totally explosively explosive rate

of change and so that led you know I've
probably if you're focused on these issues

some point you felt like this camera man
at the climate talks in two thousand and

nine I took this picture in the back
room of the press room at the Copenhagen

kind of climate talks at the end of the
talks and after Obama's for a failed and.

And they're both felt that way I'm going
to take you a little bit further down

into that feeling whole lot of
the feeling is going to get worse and

the negative find some ways
forward one of my ways forward.

Was.

Especially when I got bummed out
about the nature journalism and

the newsroom I got out of the newsroom and
I went to the Arctic three times and

three in two years started
at the North Pole and

it was this trip to the north pole that
made me a passionate multimedia and

audience listening journalist this is
if I hadn't brought a video camera this

is two thousand and three the New York
Times had a nascent video unit but

it was a really in consequential
that they had cameras and

I thought if I'm going to go to
the north of the New York Times and

not come back with every possible
form of journalism being a highly

irresponsible person there was
nothing in my union contract or

you know my obligations to do anything
except write stories but I brought.

This is when you see that this is so
unlike the South Pole the North Pole

you're on the ocean the arctic ocean and
the ice is about eight feet thick in this

case the helicopters over there
this was a an opening a pulling it

that had formed the waters fourteen
thousand three hundred feet deep in twenty

nine degrees Fahrenheit so he's come up
with these things are rushing template.

Of the scope of the Ensure
of this two by four.

And there are cracks and
sounds nice makes it easy sounds.

That's the sound of the ice yes
he's trying to close it and.

Punching I think it's only.

Going to feel a sense of the you know like
you were wrong that he's starting to fail

before you'd be doing create
something presumably So

let me shoot back at him What did
you do is jump over the crane.

I wasn't satisfied with that answer.

Me But he has to stand in the Naval
Postgraduate School he's been up there

are a number of times and and it is sort
of a slow motion process although there

was a story of a Russian
plane that had landed they

use a bulldozer create a runway on this
ice floe and the planes come in and

land that stuff and then take off again
and that supposedly there was a day

when I was there when the plane took
off and like an hour later a crack like

that form in the what had been the runway
you know became an open water thing and

if that plane still been there it
was still be there on the floor of

the arctic ocean so it was an amazing
experience said you know part of what I

was trying to do when I went there was
that right about the process of science.

Many aspects of our
fantastic the interesting

I did a book in two thousand and six about
that for mostly for younger readers and

to me the more a rich
person can grasp the way

science works the better off will be
it's way more important to be that P..

Appreciate that process then to appreciate
the structure of D.N.A. I mean that

matters too but it is only as we're locked
into thinking that when the scientists

is arguing with other scientists that
that means they don't know anything that

that's a problem and there are many other
aspects of that lack of understanding that

are a problem so I created Dot Earth in
two thousand and seven at the Times Same

deal no one was saying Hey Andy we
really need a sustainability bill which.

Is the full time reporter and I created it
because as those dimensions of this human

age became clear to me as a journalist
became clear to me also that they really

don't fit very well in the conventional
news article which is so distilled and

kind of artificially authoritative and
so I created the blog and

as you can see here this is not many of my
headlines had a question mark you know how

can we move from a sprint to a to
a marathon you know more can we grow up

as a species or risk to be locked
in this sort of adolescent spree.

Driven not by testosterone so much as
fossil fuels it's a really open question

still and it became an interactive
way to reach out to readers a lot of

questions and a lot of interactivity
when I was on sea ice at the North Pole

the other thing I did was we did a was
the first time ever tried doing him

a reader form a very savvy editor on
that web page in two thousand and

three said let's post a note on the Times
website saying it he reckons that

the North Pole you want to ask him some
questions so it's like that and A.M.A.

on Reddit you know way before anything
like that existed and that was really that

captured my interest and but then here's
the downside of this part of this kind of.

Reporting and writing it's noisy and
it's noisy and

if your thing is climate you think back to
the well to Cronkite image where we all

had comfort food we all had the same
meal each night when night it was forget

even when night it was pizza here you
still get comfort food but it's whatever.

Your comfort is said we have the world's
biggest information but fate and

whatever your issue is gun rights or
abortion or if you cation policy or

whatever this is what's out there and

this is what has and I think individually
took a lot of us by surprise those of us

who were early adopters of communication
were so excited by the coming seventy and

the ability the possibility of having
someone here in Georgia appreciate risk

to a family and
in the Amazon rain forest from whatever

intrusions of branching or that kind of
thing and then there's this the it works

to compartmentalize us not necessarily
connect us unless you work at it and

it works in both directions and
that that was the pressing in and

then how do you cut through the noise How
do you create whether it's Georgia Tech or

an individual how do you create a path to
a meaningful path to engage with people.

In this kind of media is very it's
a tough question and the distillation and

the attempts to get attention.

All around the questions like
global warming became tough

I remember when I wrote about
this picture of this polar bear.

This Reza.

But some environmental groups had sent
this far and wide this is before that

recent video of the starving polar
bear which had the same viral impact.

And then you know what's kind of sad
it turns out that the reason the polar

bear was looking up and kind of looking
stressed out because the helicopter

from which the photo was taken was about
a hundred feet overhead this downwash

improvement and it took a nanosecond for
some skeptic to point that out and

so is that exist Ceci got
a lot of attention a viral

impact on people who care about global
warming and it's actually it's a fictional

It doesn't really relate to the issue
at hand and that's a problem and

then you have senators throwing snowballs
in the other the other end of the spectrum

and that then gets you to thinking well
how do you cut through this and then you

have the firehose which is that just
this too much information on everything.

And that can be a problem.

Stepping back you know.

So I started eighty eight.

By then by by like two thousand and
seven I've done a documentary.

Started a blog hundreds of
articles both online and

print and I started to assess you
know what am I seeing here and

as a narrative captures a phrase that
comes to mind sort of like the tyrannies I

mention where you get stuck thinking
about a problem in a certain way and

it's hard to break free of that and
then look at it in a new way

I presumed as I said the global
warming was a pollution problem and

that meant that the solutions you would
presume would be the solutions were sort

of like we did with the Clean Air Act you
know regulatory tools top down stuff and

the limitations of those have become very
clear the Paris Agreement was a great

success in only one way it got to roughly
two hundred countries to sign on something

but it the only way they could do that
was by being completely flexible and not

not mandatory which means it has nothing
none of the parameters that we would

assume we wanted back in the twentieth
century as a top down regulatory solution.

The one of the bigger.

Failures I had was in the first twenty
years writing about this as kind of

a technical mistake things too was as this
hitting impact you had the atmosphere

he's the oceans and he does these things
and that changes ecosystems of and

water supplies and here's some things we
can do about it very simplistic you know.

A systems approach but very simple
system and then I started looking it

as things got very hot and angry and
especially two thousand six hundred

seven after Al Gore's movie came
out a lot of other things happened.

I started to talk to sociologists and

psychologists are there any
in the audience so still.

You rock it and
the thing that was sort of pressing.

Well as I talk to behavioral
scientists and they would say well I'm

sure you know it's ration mostly doesn't
matter you know when an issue becomes.

Polarized people be.

Retreat into their tribal affiliations and
it's actually very logical that's

it's a very adaptive smart thing to do you
know your tribe matters more to you than

reality if that were true we
wouldn't have religions and

all the things we have around this
you know Glee clubs and whatever and

so that to me is that as a communicator
journalist that was shocking journalists

never studied stuff you just did
your thing and did it more and

did it more and it really beat that was
you know as an information for of a or

to understand the reality was really
hard to many scientists I know but

as you physical scientists have not
done you know that literature can

kind of startled by it and it feels
like it's a dead end but it's not.

But it was one of my bigger
problems I think and

here's another one this is different.

I mean you know how I probably use the
word we don't know twenty times already

and in in my writing like in that book we
are changing the planet we are this that

and the other and as I got around the
world more especially developing countries

I began to realize there is no we there's
no single We Are All the same species but

when it comes to energy needs or
energy issues and

climate we're not even remotely the same.

I spent time in India last year where.

Most of the energy for cooking coming is a
woman's energies spending time collecting

wood spending a couple hours twice a day
building a fire and then cleaning the pots

you know hours and hours of woman's
time is the energy required to cook and

the pollution levels are unbelievable it's
about four hundred cigarettes an hour

worth of small particle pollution in
that household and most my sisters I'm.

Upgraded kitchen in their city and
then New York City and.

Hartman dwellers like one of the most
efficient creatures on the planet when it

comes to energy because the York has a
very low footprint because people walk and

walk to work and they live in small
spaces they're all community heated but

there's such a profound change
there's no we wanted or G.

needs I went in two thousand and

sixteen I burned too many fossil fuels and
I was at a meeting in Singapore and then.

I was in Nairobi and you know this
shows you that the climate impacts

there's no we we did a big package
in the Times in two thousand and

seven called the Climate divide in which a
woman from the Netherlands told a reporter

they bought this house that was designed
to float on this of its foundation and

one of those river floods and
then come back down again and

we did the whole packages on
this divide between wealth and

technology insulate human for the most
part from climate hazard and she's this

woman said to the reporter Sarah Lyall
who went to the Netherlands she said but

we look forward to putting someone in
a test driver house you know you pay good

money for a floor of a house you want to
see that it works and another reporter.

Had gone to India and there was a family
that had been flooded out three times from

their home and crops that was stated and
it's not a party you know so

that is a this is this gardens by the bay
in Singapore someone here has probably

been there when I went through this giant
botanical garden I realised it was in

a museum of climates because there is
one of their that it's like it's a.

Mediterranean climate is about
seventy degrees it's dry air they have

olive trees growing it growing the equator
and I realize I'm looking at like

I said as long as Singapore has wealth and
technology.

It has a piece of that climate there and

there's another one there was like
a raid cloud forest climate and

we have that capacity you know we could
go a long ways in that direction but it

would not be the the human communal human
being that would feel those benefits.

And as I said earlier the psychology
there's no we in this room this is kind of

a self selected room or it may be there is
it we in this room when it comes to energy

and climate but maybe not in Georgia
maybe not in the United States and

those issues can leave you dispirited but
there are ways forward for

sure I did this piece in two thousand and

nine on the work of a dental pain at
the Yale Law School behavioral scientist

to cultural cognition that is a BIG
is not the only body of science but

it's an important body of
science on on this cultural

filter that we all use to evaluate
information or arguments around us and

I think this kind of survey of you can
basically find a Nobel Prize winning

physicist to support any stance on climate
and we want and waste time until you're

sure which that's kind of the hard part
now what I want to tell you last year.

When Trump was actually thinking
of having a science adviser.

He interviewed two people one of
them was will happen who is a very

respected physicist that Princeton
a member of the Jasons it was

you know they advise the Pentagon
on big things and and a member of

the National Academy of Sciences and
he's famous for having a very.

Strange view on carbon dioxide and
many people of many community journalists

don't even want to interview him because
it's he's you know a nut case and

so I suppose that if you.

It was a snowstorm I
would've gone to visit him

did a Skype sit just listen to
this is like two minutes is just.

It's funny sort of.

So you really do see it as a non-problem
not as something worth investing and

absolutely I think not only a non-problem
I think the C O two is good you know let

me be clear I don't think it's a problem
at all I think it's a good thing.

Now this is.

I.

Mean who.

You are who.

You know or.

You know there he was her.

Over here to.

Go.

So if I had stopped the car if I'd ever
had chosen to argue the point zero two is

hazards that in the down
the down side is you think

we would have wasted forty minutes right
and so I had to sort of wall off that

feeling in my head and ask him some
questions about science funding and

he looked he went on about Argo buoys and
ocean observation and

then he went to NO whole long really
articulate position on science education

drawing on experience of some of the great
twentieth century scientists or had

great high school teachers and I thought
wow if I had to stop the conversation.

You know we would be locked in this thing
that you've seen every one of those in

this field who's been out there knows his
views on C O two but I thought especially

with a Republican controlled House
you know the Committee on Science and

Technology having someone like him on
the record as saying when everything or

global warming C O two.

Having a good view of the system and
sustained What was last time you heard

someone like that make the case for
sustained observation and

best Mustaine of fish know when it no one
likes that because there's no breakthrough

there it's just sort of you know very
much a mistake it's not very just for

the scientists it's I thought it
was amazing it was amazing and.

It says something about the work
of the it is worthwhile to me to.

As I say you know when it's hard it's
worthwhile listening to people and

trying to dig in the see what's there

John Holdren agreed John Holdren was
President Obama's science adviser and

it would have or was of the news he
said as he has these I think are wildly

wrong on climate change and immigration
he's not particularly divided but

would still be beneficial to have someone
like her whispering in the president's ear

on the importance of basic research
as that's John Holdren who is you

know strident advocate for action on
climate and I tend to agree with him.

But of course the president has
chosen not to have a sense of either.

And here I want to get a little
bit deeper on this in.

Time for a question so
that we're going to go.

You know we think of this
is a desire believe or

are going to be one denier worrier
thing but we have to get on the believe

as they believe people who are very like
minded approaching the climate problem

they can have divergent utterly their
version views of what you do about these

two guys who I've known since the eighty's
that we killed and enhanced and they've

locked themselves to the same fences and
at the White House and coal plants but

they have complete Jim Hansen has
called a renewable energy paths to

decarbonise future tooth fairy stuff and
Bill McKibben of course is all about

that and Jim Hansen is about nuclear power
he thinks that the thing that first press

forward is nuclear power Sarah is with
someone right or wrong there or they just

divergent how they look at them the risks
in front of them for various reasons and

what do you do about that when you're
trying to build a campaign toward a safer

climate future it implies that some level
of tolerance for divergent views is

is inevitable if not adaptive in the I
see this all around you know I got to

interview Bill Gates for an hour.

In Seattle that's on my.

It's kind of a fun thing I had
a good time forty five minutes

with the man who was then the richest
man in the world but not anymore and

he's approaching this all as a long term
breakthrough energy zero carbon high tech

thing and then there's Bill million
parachutes innovator who I met

then back in two thousand and five at a
protest like that at the climate talks in

that he's running a thing called Solar
mosaic it's a financial business

to do finance for the solar panel
installation and low income housing.

Is kind of the end and that this is a bill
he's an Indian innovator in clean energy

working at the village scale on models for
energy efficient and

renewable future in
the this young duo is it

they're the founders of trans
atomic power they're Ph D.

graduates of the mighty who are their
vision is a month small modular reactor

and I'm not going to say that
anyone in this picture is right or

wrong they're all part of a journey that
would listen to be very heated to rid of

some kind of approach to this climate
issue that will be sustainable

response diversity I'm not to waste time
just google for response diversity and

read can you can learn about that there's
an ecological model for that that

it's having a diverse range of
responses to an environment of risk for

ecosystems at the very least is
demonstrated to be a good thing and

communication plays a huge role even if
it's not needed Old Time reporter you know

coming here and writing an article about
something here there's so many layers and

and approaches to communication
that can make a big difference

Randy Olson my good friend is and have
been for escaping from the nerd loop as he

calls it that's where we all talk to each
other all day about communicating how to

communicate better as opposed to just
doing it you know and he said get out

of that just try some stuff as these.

Richard Alley has that
are very gutsy guys.

First he has tenure in a Tyler prize and
stuff so it's easier for him to be

adventurous communicator of science and
this was a post I did on Dot Earth Wind

and he and the Bunn Western Washington
University was going to Siberia of

the bunch of students and this way he
got in touch with me to go with them and

I thought like it's really expensive
really buggy but you're going anyway so

why don't you send me a bunch of stuff and
I'll put it on better it wasn't a news

article it was it wasn't a press release
by any means it was a curated body

of information that he had his students at
me through the audio clips and stuff and

so that kind of experimentation is
really vital going forward I'm a fan

of Twitter that everybody yours has tugs
are great it was invented heard believe.

Christmas a nun two thousand and
seven working at Mozilla.

Invented the hashtag in this in
this tweet August two thousand and

seven he said hey let's just organize
conversation around the thing with that we

are talking about on Twitter this way and
of course it's exploded since then it's

a way to cut through the noise the noise
is everything Bieber Fever Cardassian

from from from from from from from
from capitals or capsule accounts and

with a hash tag you can have
a cogent conversation or or

have people communicate about certain
themes or my favorites is farm hat

which I met some young farmers at
a meeting in the Hudson Valley and

the future of agriculture there
are small farmers who are trying to

innovate use technology to make sort
of small scale farming profitable and

that's fantastic the mantra has Ian
is this is a great construct by

Katie and Roth who economist
in England who was tired of

men getting in the way of progress and
she she tweeted that she's not so

afraid of the Anthropocene as
the man from the scene I love

I love that one I wrote about it on others
and so it's just and the most important

one here I think for scientists for
sure is this one and

I've used this in workshops where.

Or you know if you want to start
thinking about communicating your work

to the public start with by filling
in the blanket of that sentence

I am a scientist because we're
in a journalist because and

that's the way you gauge when people don't
talk about mass spectrometers or cores or

or isotopes even those That's what
you do to answer your question but

what drew your trigger question
why are you who you are and

then you can get going on the other stuff.

And there's some great innovators
out there being the signal of

you know here are some people including
right here Rob Lowe It's not always easy

you can get you know there are trolls and
all kinds of weird creatures under

the under the bridges but but
get out there you can also listen you

don't have to be a public person
on the media to get the feel for

how they work and then a lot of
universities are rendering journalists

increasingly obsolete by having
their own their own put.

There's a way to have a conversation in
a divided world on things that make sense

cutting cutting vulnerability
to climatic and

coastal hazards as can be implicitly
nonpartisan this is Louisiana

that's a house that's almost two hundred
years old look at that it's built

off the ground imagine that this is ours
because in the one nine hundred seventy S.

around about about Congress and
I can tell you I can talk to a libertarian

conservative or liberal about and
and they'll say there's something

wrong with this picture so
there's ways forward that matter and

I'll let you have the rest of this online
somewhere but I do want to and don't

forget the camera if you're going to film
these of the interesting great gas there.

Was he added the Go Pros to his plane
as an afterthought and he was studying

the impact of proven gold miners in
the rain forest doing technical work but

then it was the video that he shot
that became a very big deal in Peru so

when and I'm sick and scrolled And
there's much more to say but

I as I tend to do I went on
I will end at the Vatican.

Where this meeting was a really
valuable meeting Walter Monk

who just turned one hundred last year
I hope is evidence of them living.

He basically helped the Winward to by
developing a wave forecast model for

beach landings.

A very quantitative oceanographer and

we were this being from week into
the end of this meeting I said them.

We're sitting in the interest of water so

what is going to get us through this
century this millennium He paused for

a second and he said I thought it so I geo
engineering here I don't know where or

when I think you might say he said
it will take a miracle of love and

unselfishness and I thought that
captures the reality of these

issues are going to be resolved we think
you know science will be the thing but

science is shaped by our values and
what we directed toward how we

approach it how wide a lens you
use is as a values thing so

he's right about that as far as I can tell
and that means that the more cross talk

the better the wider the circle
the better finding ways to bridge gaps is

is a better solution than anything I can
think of and onward into the future to go.

So we're here.

To see any rocks and
here's my new digs thank you very much.

Uhlans.

One minute for the question.

We have time for a couple questions.

So when he repeats.

OK how everybody my name is Michael Bryant
I'm a second year it's National Fish

three law student study concentration
environmental policy and

so I just one of the AS alone
your many adventures and

all of the things that you've done
you know what what elements and

what offense did you see college
students like myself taking as you were

in these different areas different
places interacting with people yeah.

Lots of things.

Some of which FS forwarded
through the they their students.

Here.

This is a type of program
West Virginia University.

With a tiny grant from the Center for
some air quality issues related to

transportation a one hundred thousand
dollars grant they began testing car B.

W.'s and looking it they weren't looking
for the problem they found but the problem

they found was that this huge cheating
thing that was going on the software in

these you know these so wasn't some
government program or regulatory police

that unveiled the biggest pollution
scandal of recent time and

it resulting in a multi-billion dollar
thing it was it was students and faculty

testing stuff with a very small budget the
tragedy of this is that they're actually

their budget is straining right now
they're there they're running out of money

and this is going to hear settlement in
this case but they found the problem but

they haven't benefited from
something about ways to incentivize.

The capacity on this campus or any other
campus to be out there you know doing

that kind of diligence is an interesting
question as a policy question and

the law question there are there are
precedents for it in river pollution but

finding a way to do that with atmosphere
stuff is interesting and just everywhere.

I go there was who I met a woman in
Nairobi who was helping to create.

A map sort of a safety map of the slum.

Knew women particularly knew which
which lanes were dangerous and

which were not where the lights are or
not it was very interactive sort of Google

based map compare a map I think is going
to compare a map of the road and I can't

tell you how many other people I've seen
out doing things like that my students

a Pace University we've had six films in
six years where we traveled to places like

poor village a town in Baja Mexico on
the peninsula where sea turtles were

being drowned in fishing outs and they
were trying to come up with a model for.

Using eco tourism where the where there
are so that the fishermen were catching

sea turtles as part of the considerations
of the biology project and and

tourists get this see all this is sort
of a way to pay for it and student as

the filmmakers can make a difference to
and on and on and also at those climate

talks in the in in students in the halls
there make a difference too so

getting in the face of the man you know is
still a part of what can happen as well as

many many more that read going to G.-Mail
if you want to get some more examples.

First of all I have to say something
to make you look at weather.

As Puerto Rico and
the center Yes I was there.

To about it here it was well exactly
no it isn't terrible you don't want to

be in the center but you've got
the port bend your graphic correct.

Question I have you made a comment that.

It's sort of.

War me a little bit is that for example
in a way it works in your miles bite.

Tyrion and.

That's the way to put it and

I'm bad I think yeah I know
I in fact I have slides.

I this is like a denim to my talk
now it's the only program and

it was a mistake that we all made for
twenty years to think that there could

be a man a top down targets and timetables
treaty with one hundred ninety six

participants in fact when I wrote
because of the Times about this where.

You can perceive it either way I mean it's
an utter failure if your hope is that

this is the device that
would save us from you know.

Big climate changes but
it's it created an architecture.

The whole process for

twenty years from one thousand nine
hundred two when I was reading about this

through Copenhagen two thousand and
nine the architecture was

it's a journey to a destination and the
destination was a contract Well you know

some of these people would sign in the and
it would be enforced in some way and

from two thousand and nine through Lima to
Paris emerged something that was actually

the framework for the original idea
that into a convention which was sadly

aspirational voluntary and but it's
the only way to get two hundred countries.

The table he created in
architecture is a road.

Paris is the destination was a journey
it's one hundred year journey

is lays out an architecture meeting every
five years you know learn and review.

Share information on what you can do
domestically it is the path forward and

it was the first time this is a knowledge
is a long term process not a not

a magical kind of intervention from on
high that will create a mechanism that

would force us all to the current eyes so
I actually in a deeper sense I

see it as a success it's
ultimately a failure at the same

time if the if you're judging
success by something being the thing

that will be determinative and what I've
learned through all this is a lot of.

You know I've always been learning and
I think what I learned in that process is

the treaties tend to delineate what's
already doable they don't determine

what happens they deliver they
they frame what's possible and

they're sort of a common framing of
the country is determined to be possible.

Yeah.

That going back all
the way to the Rio accord.

That was the book.

With that huge.

Response I'm sorry is that there
was a book on the Rio court.

That was read to largely by a chairman
nobody Industry Group money was a few

thirtieth largest
industries in the world and

it was by a guy named Stephens from
a shiny and he starred human was that

this will change when private sector
particularly find them sector.

Controlled the flow of money and.

They understand that there's a lot
of activities when I saw that and

when I actually met.

That this is the solution
is to make a change because

people get their act
together rest a little but

it never happened yeah and
yes White House because energy.

It's the old reality energy access
trumps climate concerns and

I don't mean to to President
from there it energy needs.

Completely dominate climate concerns
it has been the case always through

still is in the sense that that when
you look at developing countries.

You know India again where I spent time
last year even when you add up rich India

and desperately poor India it's
got a the average per person

carbon footprint is two tonnes per person
per year and here at seventeen and

seventeen is great we were at
twenty two just like five years ago

in the United States so we're doing a nice
job of lowering our carbon input but

this is when I was I wrote a piece
criticizing John Kerry in the run up to

Paris when he went to Indonesia and gave
this kind of finger wagging you need to

get off of coal faster speech in India and
Al Gore's new movie if anyone to see that

his recent film is this really interesting
scene where India is the ministry of power

young guy maybe forty second
Al Gore sitting at the table and

he says you know basically he says you can
get us to start think about getting off

coal in about one hundred years you know
we were up to your level of presidency and

that that's this issue that and

commerce I'm not saying that
the commercial sector doesn't have

a role in they did have a role in the C.

of C.

ozone issue you know solution but

the role in energy is so limited of any
one party that it's a tougher thing.

When I wrote that I think it's in my I can
reverse the other ninety ninety two book.

Peter when C.B.S. who has some.

Functionary involved in that.

One thousand nine hundred two treaty he
said you know the C.F.C.'s you could get

the heads of all the companies that
made them into a room you know like one

of these classrooms thirty people and
C O two is a fundamental emission from

everything we do in modern but so it's
a it's not even in the same game that was

one of my learning moments was that
it's just not like what I thought it was

it's different with the beauty of what
restrained it was saying is that I think.

The people that hold it I mean that and

saying yes in this room yeah I know but
lots of talk more about

how they're interested in figuring out
how to get them to meet and then they get

something to happen you know micro some
little Someone said there Soros was trying

to create some kind of little tiny micro
tax off of every international transaction

if you like a thousandth of a Thousands of
a penny if you did that be enough money to

transform the energy system there
are things to be done there but.

So happy to work with you
on how to do that but

just say you know Paris this slide so.

You have to it's like cold shower
sometimes you need a cold shower you know.

Just kind of remind yourself
of the scale of things.

This was the whole Paris thing
Paris was this debate like this

between twenty twenty and twenty thirty.

We're going to this is safe that's
business as usual for emissions and

Paris was about these little
delay due to differences between.

Trajectories for emissions and so and
you know lots of page one headlines and

stuff but I always have to the issue
is not a ten year twenty year

issue it's this is Paris is there
here's a hundred years this is

twenty from now through twenty ninety and
this is safe.

And that is business as usual and
this was Paris.

So tell me how much this
feels relevant to that.

And that's why I've read a lot for
more than ten years about

basic science basic research and
development of energy frontiers.

And of the ways they've people
are filling this gap involved.

Capturing these massive amounts
of carbon and it's a long story

it's called backs P.C.'s and and
it's fantasies they play with me so.

This issue is it is that issue
persons like this park and

our current president is.

Here.

And I did a piece on Pro Publica
reminding people that if you look at

trajectories for what he is talking
about doing compared to Hillary Clinton

it's like this tiny little the limitation
there the things that have been done that

are damaging to Broken Government policy
are mostly not related to climate change

related to pollution regulation and
things yeah.

I'm not sure I got the question put.

To the knack to inherit
health human being on the.

So-called crime issue right so that that's
not traced back to because I have that

he may raise can use fire
rather than modernization and

he said it well if you mean
if you're questioning that

the impact from burning fossil fuel if
you were there is this evolution right.

To current change if it does not
trace back to because we use

fire to compare burnt things right
there our species cannot do this.

Modernization we make other changes.

Well we have to come to a way
to mobilize and in heat cool and

run our servers and everything else with
the carbon emissions from burning in

there that's where you get these questions
How much can come from renewables on with

comparable nuclear power how much can come
from capturing some of that carbon and

taking it back into the system and

less we construe as a show for
years and years about how under

invested we are in basic science on
the frontiers compared to things and we.

Were not going to have a good answer
to that question in terms of.

OK We're going to have to make they going
to last we're going like and they're only

going to walk right it costs courtyard
here it's the reception where and

am sure we'll continue these discussions
because Okuma got very much like one of my

Sorry science magazines
I forgot you know here's

a side of incremental progress right
one thousand nine hundred ninety five

science magazines back then science
magazines made money this way.

That's is science magazines is so
they don't do that anymore so that's

a sign that things can change and it can
take time but they consume Thank you.