The second in the series of four Natural History Museum-sponsored lectures on Climate Change is next Tuesday, October 19 evening at the La Brea Tar Pits Museum. Though the series sold out, tickets are still available for those who show up at the door.
Based on the first one, it’s well worth attending if you can. The staff at NHM has taken great care to present the science behind what they describe as “the existential crisis of the 21st century.”
In her introduction of the series, NHM President Lori Bettison-Varga welcomed everyone to what she described as a very important discussion, asking how can we address the issue if we don’t talk about it. In collaboration with UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, NHM staff have broken the subject down into four evening lectures with experts in the field who make the science understandable as well as the solutions.
The first session was a primer, laying all the basic facts about what we know about climate change (which is really just weather) and how we know it, evidence of the impact of climate change and what we can do to mitigate the adverse impacts.
The big take away for me was the importance of voting, because most of the ways we can affect change are going to be local. It’s truly a grassroots efforts. And, try not to fly. Getting on an airplane is probably the biggest carbon footprint we make!
Next week, Emily Lindsey, Assistant Curator at the La Brea Tar Pits will join Augustin Fuentes, Professor at the University of Notre Dame and Department Chair of Anthropology and moderator Michelle Bezanson, Associate Professor and Chair of Anthropology at Santa Clara University to discuss Earth and Human Climate History.
Upcoming lectures include:
November 2 – A Tale of Two Cities in a Hotter World: Los Angeles and Beijing – It is tough to feel urgency when climate change seems like something happening to future generations, in faraway lands. The reality is, it is and will affect all of us, in every city on the planet. And it’s not all bad, by the way—some cities and people could benefit from global warming. To make climate change personal, local, and real, let’s talk about how it will affect two of the greatest cities in the world, Los Angeles and Beijing. We’ll compare notes on each city’s infrastructure and governance, actual on-the-ground impacts, and how residents might react. With UCLA Professor of Atmospheric & Ocean Sciences and Director, IoES Center for Climate Science, Alex Hall; UCLA Evolutionary Biologist Ecologist and Conservation Biologist, Brad Shaffer; and the founding Director of Natural Resources Defense Council’s China Environmental program, Alex Wang with moderator Stephanie Wear, Senior Scientist and Strategy Advisor at The Nature Conservancy.
November 16 – Imagined Futures for a Hotter Planet – Artists, writers and media organizations are playing vital roles in conveying the science and ethics of global warming. This conversation will explore how experiments in environmental storytelling and media imagine possible futures for different communities and ecosystems in the context of planetary climate change. With poet-scholar Rita Wong; Media artist and NYU professor Marina Zurkow; KCET Chief Creative Officer, Juan Devis; and Whittier College associate professor and Nadine Austin Wood Chair in American History, Natale Zappia, with moderator Allison Carruth, UCLA professor and director of LENS.
6:00 pm Doors Open
7:00 pm Discussion/Lecture followed by Q&A
8:30 pm Program Concludes
La Brea Tar Pits Museum
5801 Wilshire Blvd
LA, CA 90036
RSVP at NHM.ORG/Lectures
Admission is Free.
Charged parking is available in the lot behind the Museum.
