global warming – Page 2

All About Those 2° C

Among the international delegations of climate experts gathering in Paris for COP 21 this month, leading researchers from the University of California are presenting “Bending the Curve,” a thorough report covering their top 10 scalable solutions for reducing global warming and addressing the impacts of climate change.

For a preview of what they are prescribing and why 2° C matter, check out the UC Climate Solutions series, featuring speakers from the UC Carbon and Climate Neutrality Summit held at UC San Diego in October. Joining the preeminent UC faculty are California Governor Jerry Brown, UC President Janet Napolitano, energy and other business leaders, policy makers, entrepreneurs and UC students who are responding to the call to “Bend the Curve.”

Explore all programs from the UC Carbon and Climate Neutrality Summit.

Water Policy and the Drought

If you’ve spent anytime in California in the last few years, you know this: California is in the midst of a severe drought. But while the lack of rainfall is not in dispute, there is widespread disagreement on how to respond.

A panel convened for Cal Day at UC Berkeley explores policy options that could attract support throughout the state, even from groups with conflicting interests. These experts argue that despite the diversity of perspectives in California, the state is well-positioned to achieve bipartisan consensus on solutions that will affect everyone.

Just what do they have in mind? Watch Water Policy and the Drought to find out!

Browse more programs from The Public Policy Channel.

Understand Climate Change – and What You Can Do About It

Learn more about climate change with new programs that examine its impact from a variety of perspectives. Discover how humans and climate interact and affect one another, learn what you can do to reduce greenhouse emissions, and get a behind-the-scenes look at the Pope’s call to protect the environment.

8232 Climate Change, Consumerism and the Pope with Daniel Kammen and Jennifer Granholm

After being summoned to the Vatican to advise on climate change, Dan Kammen of UC Berkeley shares an insider’s view on what inspired Pope Francis to issue such a passionate plea to protect the earth in Laudato Si, his 2015 encyclical on the environment. As a practicing Catholic, former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm praises the Pope for presenting “human ecology” as a moral issue in this lively exchange with Kammen and Henry E. Brady, dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley.

Watch Climate Change, Consumerism and the Pope with Daniel Kammen and Jennifer Granholm.

8232 What Are You Going to Do About It? The Effect of Uncertainty on Climate Change Policy

Taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions imposes costs now in order to avoid potentially very large costs from more severe climate change in the future. Steve Polasky, Professor of Ecological/Environmental Economics University of Minnesota, reviews major sources of uncertainty and how that alters the choice of optimal climate change policy. He discusses current debates on how best to frame climate change policy, and whether it should be framed as setting limits on greenhouse gas concentrations to avoid potentially catastrophic damages or as an application of benefit-cost analysis.

Watch What Are You Going to Do About It? The Effect of Uncertainty on Climate Change Policy.

8232 CARTA: Human-Climate Interactions and Evolution: Past and Future

According to earth scientists, paleontologists, and scholars in other fields, the planet has entered a new geological phase – the Anthropocene, the age of humans. How did this transition of our species from an apelike ancestor in Africa to the current planetary force occur? What are the prospects for the future of world climate, ecosystems, and our species? This symposium presents varied perspectives on these critical questions from earth scientists, ecologists, and paleoanthropologists.

Watch CARTA: Human-Climate Interactions and Evolution: Past and Future.

Climate Change, Consumerism and the Pope

Why is this Pope different from all other Popes? What inspired his cry from the heart to preserve “our home” in Laudato Si, his recent letter to Catholics and all residents of this glorious, yet troubled, planet?

Dan Kammen of UC Berkeley was among those summoned to the Vatican to advise on climate change and he shares what happened there, as former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and Henry E. Brady, dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy, respond with passion to the Pope’s critique of our consumer-driven way of life. A fourth guest joins midway, this one with black fur and four legs, presumably comforted by the Pope’s call to protect all creatures great and small.

Watch Climate Change, Consumerism and the Pope on the UC Public Policy Channel.

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.”