Science & Society Distinguished Public Talks
Co-sponsored by the UNM Chapter of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society, the Albuquerque Section of the Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and its Life Members Affinity Group, Sigma Xi (the Scientific Research Honor Society), the UNM Department of Physics & Astronomy, and the UNM Division of Continuing Education.
Planning the Survival of Civil Society in a
Rapidly Warming World
By
Alan Emery
Thursday April 18, 2019 5:30 PM
Meet and Greet at 5
The University of New Mexico Conference Center, Room B
1634 University Blvd. NE
Free and Open to the Public
Pizza with the speaker will follow the lecture
Alan Emery is former President of the Canadian Museum of Nature, Leader of the Stable Climate Group, and President of Kivu Nature Inc. He earned his Ph.D. in marine biology from The University of Miami in Florida. He pioneered direct observation underwater at night on coral reefs and in fresh water, and was among the first to dive under the ice in the Arctic. He has led expeditions to the Arctic, Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. and has been the subject of, technical advisor for, or written over 150 television shows for CTV, Discovery, and the CBC.
Abstract In the last 200 years, humans have been conducting an enormous but now “out-of-control” geo-engineering experiment on the global climate. In the next 50 to 100 years the world will, by its actions to control greenhouse gas emissions – or not – decide the environmental conditions within which the fate of future civil society will be decided for at least the next 1500 years. I will examine two realistic scenarios and one unlikely “best-case” of global climate change decisions, The approach will be to examine the most likely climate conditions that result from each of these scenarios, and set up adaption mechanisms that will do two things: first, maximize the survival and well-being of human society within each scenario, and second, establish the governance and infrastructure that will maximize continuing benefits to future societies. I will examine three time frames for each scenario: (i) the next 100 years as we lock-in the climate change impacts for centuries and millennia, (ii) from 100-500 years as the world adapts to and attempts to minimize the effects of locked-in impacts, and from 500 years on – assuming humans survive.