My Public Talk: "Our Climate Dilemma: The Political/Economic Agenda vs. the Straight Science"

Tannery Arts Center, Apr 19, 2018

One of my former Astro 7 students, Charles, suggested to his very arts-involved wife that I would be a good speaker to have at their Studio, and present the latest science and images. The idea was to inspire their printmaking in both artistic and in socially meaningful directions on the climate change we face. I was introduced, with great emotion in this very emotionally charged subject, and actually felt a little bad that the science was not more encouraging. My talk, as usual, was quite dense... it's becoming clear I need to find a way to put in a lot more images and tone down the word count for the public talks. While dense, it's a good summary of the most important aspects of climate change, minus the techno-fixes (which I only briefly introduced at the end). That'll have to be a separate talk I have promised for a while now.

We had perhaps 20 members of the print-making group, a dozen of my students (some stayed for the photo below), and another dozen others from climate activism around the county. It was quite a cozy and people-dense atmosphere, unlike the auditoriums and classrooms I usually talk in. If only the mic had workd! (The test of the equipment was fine, it just had a way of turning itself off if not powered on in the right order and begin recording soon thereafter, as I found the hard way).

I'll post some stills from the video, and then I will use PowerPoint to make a narrated presentation because, alas, there is nothing but static on the audio of my mp4. Too busy till after the semester's over to do that now. For now, please ponder my Presentation as a PDF file.