Unlocking the Past to Predict Our Climate Future

Buy $5 tickets here! (meetup RSVPs are not counted)

There are two ways to prevent a bathtub from overflowing: turn off the tap or drain it. Except, what happens when that bathtub is Earth’s atmosphere, rapidly filling with greenhouse gases that drive global warming? How exactly can we turn off the warming “tap” or “drain” it away? What happens to Earth’s ecosystems, human and natural, when we do?

As we approach 1.5˚ and 2˚ C global warming thresholds - levels deemed to be “high ambition” for climate action - decision-makers (e.g. governments, companies, communities, and individuals) are increasingly seeking options for mitigation beyond reducing fossil fuels. These include strategies to draw carbon down from the atmosphere and store it as well as controlling the amount of incoming solar energy. And some of these strategies are driving big debates on what is possible, what is feasible, and even what is ethical.

This Taste of Science event will feature a casual conversation between two scientists, Drs. Ben Cook (Columbia University) and Sonali Shukla McDermid (NYU Environmental Studies), as they reflect on their work exploring a range of proposed climate solutions, what we know and don’t know about these strategies, and how to address one of our most urgent societal challenges.

Doors open at 7:00PM. Event is 21+ with limited capacity.

Our speakers:

Sonali Shukla McDermid, PhD
Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at New York University
https://sonalimcdermid.github.io/

Sonali Shukla McDermid is a climate scientist and Associate Professor in the NYU Dept. of Environmental Studies. Her research investigates both climate change impacts on agriculture and food security, and the impacts of land management on the environment. She is a climate co-lead for the Agricultural Intercomparison Project, evaluating regional climate change impacts on food security, and is a research affiliate at the NASA Goddard Institute forSpace Studies (GISS). McDermid is an Andrew Carnegie Fellow and Fulbright-Kalam Fellow awardee, which supports her work on climate mitigation and adaptation in agriculture. She holds a B.A. in Physics from NYU, and a Ph.D. from the Dept. of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University.

Benjamin I. Cook, PhD
Research Physical Scientist, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies & Adjunct Associate Research Scientist, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University
https://www.drbenjamincook.net/

Benjamin Cook is an interdisciplinary earth system scientist working at Columbia University. His research uses earth system models, observations, and the paleoclimate record to understand how anthropogenic processes, including climate change, affect the hydrologic cycle and the terrestrial biosphere. These include topics such as the past and future of drought variability and risk, how land use and management (e.g., irrigation) affect extreme events like heat waves, and how the terrestrial biosphere responds and influences the climate system. He teaches year-round at Columbia University in the Sustainability Management program and has written a textbook, Drought: An Interdisciplinary Perspective, published by Columbia University Press in 2019.

Buy $5 tickets here! (meetup RSVPs are not counted)