Creating a World Resilient to Climate Change

Climate change is creating increasingly uncertain futures for people all over the globe. From melting ice caps, to rising sea levels, to wildfires and drought, every community is feeling the impact. We can react to disasters by providing aid and rebuilding, but how can we get out in front of them? Jacqueline McGlade has spent years studying climate change, worked with the United Nations Environment Programme, and is currently a Professor of Resilience and Sustainable Development at the University College London. She discusses how new technology and a growing understanding of the world’s ecosystems can help us adapt. She shares lessons she learned while studying the Inuit of Greenland and living with the Maasai in East Africa and explains how cultures focused on community can thrive in regions most-susceptible to climate change. McGlade argues there are at least seven principles, which if followed, can help build a resilient world.

Watch (Re)active Resilience: How to Thrive in a Changing Climate.

Can the World Breathe Easy?

UCTV Prime’s series “Lifting the Blanket: The Pursuit of a Climate Change Solution” has been following  the remarkable journey of Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s Veerabhadran Ramanathan, whose scientific curiosity took him from a refrigeration plant in his native country of India to becoming a globally recognized leader in climate change research.

Episodes one and two tracked the progress of his groundbreaking research that identified the significant contribution of CFCs and black carbon soot to global warming. In episode 3, “Can the World Breathe Easy?,” Ramanathan returns to India with an international collaboration to demonstrate that improving cooking methods in the developing world could slow global warming and improve public health along the way.

Watch episode 3 now, or catch up with Ramanthan’s quest to find human-scale solutions to climate change at the series website. Stay tuned February 12 for the fourth and final installment, “Scientific Authority Meets Moral Authority.”

Lifting the Blanket: Pursuit of a Climate Change Solution

Lifting the Blanket: Pursuit of a Climate Change SolutionBeginning his career as an engineer at a refrigeration plant in India, Veerabhadran Ramanathan went on to make one of the most important climate change discoveries when he identified chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) as even larger contributors to global warming than the previously identified culprit, carbon dioxide.

UCTV Prime’s new four-part series “Lifting the Blanket: Pursuit of a Climate Change Solution,” follows the Scripps Institution of Oceanography scientist’s remarkable path that changed the face of climate change research and has introduced possibilities for human-scale solutions.

The first installment, “The Second Front,” sets the stage for Ramanathan’s incredible journey and it’s available now for free online viewing. Stay tuned February 5 for episode two, “The Dirty Sky.”

Alternatives to Insecticides: High Impact Solutions Without Environmental Trade-offs

To mark the 50th anniversary of “Silent Spring,” Rachel Carson’s landmark book that helped launch the environmental movement, the Center for Ethics in Science and Technology presents
“Alternatives to Insecticides: High Impact Solutions Without Environmental Trade-offs.”

In this talk, Stephen Welter of San Diego State University focuses on biologically-based alternatives to insecticide use in American agriculture that also consider non-target environmental effects, worker safety issues, and consumer needs, as well as the more traditional models of economic trade-offs.

Tune in to UCSD-TV tonight at 8 or watch it now!