March 20, 2013, Berkeley
Addressing Climate Change, Carbon Cycle 2.0
Dr. A. Paul Alivisatos, Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, spoke on climate change at the Lawrence Hall of Science. Notable highlights of his lecture include the carbon cycle, the origins of climate science in the nineteenth century, increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, the role of CO2’s absorption spectrum in regulating/warming the earth’s temperature, and climate solutions based on lower carbon intensity energy sources, such as natural gas, wind, and solar.
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| “At each stage when a new discipline of physics developed, it very quickly ended up impacting our thinking about the planet, it informed our understanding about climate. Our understanding today of what is happening with respect to climate change today is actually rooted in the core of physics.” ~ Dr. A. Paul Alivisatos |
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| “The science community has come to an understanding of how human activity – now for the first time in history – really impacts the planet. But it’s also at the same time producing for us the knowledge that we need to avoid the difficult kind of situations that we could get into if we don’t pay attention to those problems.” ~ Dr. A. Paul Alivisatos |
Report by James George