2011
PICS, UBC & SFU Fall 2011 Lecture Series
November 24th, 2011:
"Harnessing Technological Innovation for a Carbon-free Future"
David Wilkinson, Professor (Canada Research Chair), Chemical and Biological Engineering and Director, Clean Energy Research Centre, UBC and Elicia Maine, Associate Professor, Beedie School of Business. To watch the archived lecture click here.
October 20th, 2011: "Climate policies for real-world politics"
Mark Jaccard, Professor, Faculty of Environment, SFU and Kathryn Harrison, Professor of Political Science at UBC. To watch the archived lecture click here.
September 14th, 2011: "Engaging BC in Sustainability Education"
David Zandvliet, Associate Professor, Faculty of Education, SFU and Alejandro Rojas, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Land and Food Systems , UBC. To watch the archived lecture click here.
PICS Special Lectures - 2011
June 27, 2011: PICS Lecture: Merchants of Doubt presented by Dr. Naomi Oreskes, Professor of History and Science Studies, University of California San Diego and author of Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, and co-authored with science historian Erik Conway, is an outstanding investigative report in terms of exposing the well-organized campaign to distort and misrepresent key scientific findings about the dangers of DDT, tobacco smoke, acid rain, and global warming. To watch the archived lecture click here.
June 7, 2011: PICS Lecture Climate Change: Why do we know that we know? prsented by Dr. Thomas Stocker, University of Bern and Co-Chair, Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change To watch the archived lecture click here.
April 8, 2011: When are the Americans coming? Prospects for the WCI and a Brief Structural Comparison with the EU-ETS presented by Dr. Sonja Klinksy, PICS Fellow and Post-doctoral Researcher, Department of Economics, Cambridge University, UK. A recording of the presentation is available. To watch the archived lecture click here.
May 25, 2011: . Climate Change and Health: Acting to reduce risks and vulnerabilities" Hosted by SFU Gerentology Centre and PICS at SFU.
Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing humanity. Along with other environmental changes brought about by global population and economic growth, it will put increasing strain on our health systems. Environmental health expert, Dr Carlos Corvalan from the Panamerican Health Organization, PAHO/WHO talked on how climate change is already impacting people around the world, how the international public health sector is addressing the problem, and what action is needed to protect our health into the future. To watch the archived lecture click here.
Global Warming Seminar Series. Febrary - March 2011
Series sponsored by the SFU Faculty of Science with PICS SFU supports.
For information about the abstracts click here.
Global Warming Seminar Series. Lecture 6: Responding to the Climate Change Challenge Video
Speaker: Thomas Pedersen, Professor and Director of the Pacific Institute for
Climate Solutions, University of Victoria, B.C.
Host Department: Chemistry and Earth Sciences (Tim Storr and Gwen Flowers).
Global Warming Seminar Series. Lecture 5: The CLOUD Experiment at CERN
Speaker: Jasper Kirkby, Head of the CLOUD Experiment, CERN, Geneva.
Host Department: Physics (Igor Herbut ).
Global Warming Seminar Series. Lecture 4: The Role of Clouds and Water Vapor in Climate Change
Speaker: David Randall, Professor, Department of Atmospheric
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado.
Host Department: Physics (Mike Plischke).
Global Warming Seminar Series. Lecture 3: The Role of the Oceans in Climate Video
Speaker: Kevin Trenberth, Senior Scientist and Head of the Climate Analysis Section, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado.
Host Department: Biosciences (Wendy Palen).
Global Warming Seminar Series. Lecture 2: Climate Change and the Melting Polar Ice Caps Video
Speaker: Kenneth Golden, Professor of Mathematics and Adjunct Professor of
Bioengineering, University of Utah.
Host Department: Mathematics (Nilima Nigam).
Speaker: Francis Zwiers, Director of the Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium (PCIC), University of Victoria, B.C.
Host Department: Statistics (Richard Lockhart).
PICS, UBC & SFU Lecture Spring Series - 2011
April, 2011: Climate Change and its Impacts: Fire and Rain. Dr. Phil Austin (UBC) and Dr. Charmaine Dean (SFU) were our special guest speakers. Dr. Austion presentation was about on the atmospheric side of precipitation and drought, looking in particular at satellite observations and climate model forecasts. Dr. Charmaine Dean from SFU talk was on “Climate Change Impacts on Forest Fires in Canada” To watch the archived lecture click here.
March, 2011: "Public Health and Climate Change" Dr. Mike Brauer and Dr. Tim Takaro were our special guest speakers. Dr. Brauer's presentation was about“Fires, smoke and heat: a good news bad news story?” and Dr. Takaro followed with the presentation “Local and global challenges for public health: Water resources and disease in a world of shifting populations.” To watch the archived lecture click here.
February, 2011: "Sustainable Systems as if People Mattered" presented by Drs. Robert Woodbury, Lyn Bartram from SFU and Dr. Stephen Shepard from UBC were our guests speakers for this lecture. To watch the archived lecture click here.
January, 2011: "Creating a Climate for Change" presented by Dr. Alex Clapp from SFU and Dr. Simon Donner from UBC. Lecture 4th was about the scientific and social factors that influence the public’s uncertainty about climate change, including socio-cultural barriers such as long-held beliefs that weather is beyond human control. To watch the archived lecture click here.
March 2011
PICS Special Talk: Taking Responsibility for a Low Carbon Economy Video
Presented by Mr. Bob Elton, Chair of Simon Fraser University Board of Governors and Advisory Board member of the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions. A lecture sponsored by PICS SFU. Click here for a link to the poster.
January 2011
"Climate Response to Climate Emissions: Characteristics and Policy Implications" video.
Part of the Faculty of Environment Spring 2011 Lecture Series
With the development of coupled climate-carbon cycle models new insights into the response of the climate system to anthropogenic CO2 emissions are emerging. Dr. Kirsten Zickfeld (Assistant Professor, Geography Department, Simon Fraser University) presented results of climate-carbon cycle simulations showing that: (1) CO2-induced climate change is largely irreversible on timescales of centuries to millennia, even after complete elimination of emissions;(2) ongoing regional climate changes after elimination of CO2 emissions are significant, despite almost constant global mean temperatures; and (3) the persistent warming from past emissions is proportional to cumulative CO2 emissions. These findings have important implications for climate policy, as they suggest (i) the millennial legacy of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, and (ii) the challenge of reversing global warming, should the actual level of atmospheric CO2 concentrations turn out to be "dangerous".