Abrupt climate change: Evidence and options for the future
Public lecture by Professor Emeritus Guy McPherson
Abrupt climate change is under way. Earth has warmed only 0.85 C since the Industrial Revolution began, but considerable evidence points toward increasingly rapid warming in the near future. For example, industrial civilisation has produced about twice as much atmospheric carbon dioxide since 1970 as before that time. There is about a 40-year lag between carbon dioxide emissions and warming, suggesting abundant warming is already locked into the planetary system. In addition, atmospheric methane has joined carbon dioxide as a major contributor to planetary warming. It appears the much-dreaded “clathrate gun” has been fired in the Arctic Ocean.
This presentation presents evidence regarding abrupt climate change and poses a few questions for consideration: Shall we respond to anthropogenic climate change? If so, how? What tools can be employed by society and the media to positively alter the future? What role do individuals play? How shall we live in light of this information?
Discussants:
Daniel Hikuroa, research director of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, New Zealand's Māori Centre of Research Excellence.
Sebastian Leuzinger, deputy director, Institute for Applied Ecology New Zealand.
Guy McPherson was born and raised in small-town northern Idaho. The escape from the benighted village came in the form of education, in large part because McPherson’s parents were lifelong educators. To pay for his undergraduate education, which led to a degree in forestry, McPherson spent summers working on a helitack crew. Staring down a large wildfire at the age of nineteen, he realized some forces of nature are beyond the human ability to manage.
Humbled by the natural world since his early years, McPherson now occupies a straw-bale home on a shared homestead in New Mexico. From within a few kilometres of the first designated wilderness area in the world, he gardens, tends an orchard and a flock of domesticated ducks, and writes and speaks about a diverse array of topics.
More than 10 years into a career in the academic ivory tower, McPherson began focusing his efforts on social criticism, with topics ranging from education and evolution to the twin sides of the fossil-fuel coin: (1) global climate change and (2) net energy decline and the attendant economic consequences.
Professor McPherson's latest chapter includes abandoning his tenured position as full professor at a major research university for ethical reasons. His story is described in his memoirs, Walking Away from Empire and Going Dark. You can read about those books and his many others, including his very recent text on human extinction, at his website: http://guymcpherson.com/my-books/
Organised by AUT's School of Social Sciences and Public Policy and the Pacific Media Centre.
Contact: Cristina Parra
When: Wednesday, 22 October, 5.30 pm
Where: WG126, Sir Paul Reeves Building, AUT University City Campus, Mayoral Drive
ALL WELCOME
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