Abstract: We are now witnessing large-scale amplification of warming-driven extreme weather events, impacting close to 5 billion people. Fossil fuels, the major source of warming, are still contributing more than  78% of global energy. I will describe a new approach for bouncing back from the crisis cleaner, healthier, and stronger. It will target climate resilience, built on three pillars: Mitigation, Adaptation, and Societal transformation. For societal transformation, I will describe ideas considered by social scientists to bring more Americans in favor of urgent climate actions. These involve narrative changes: from climate change to public health to get more public support; individual actions such as avoiding waste; pivot from short-termism to long-term co-benefits such as a cleaner and more technologically advanced America; among several others. Alliance with local to regional faith leaders should be explored to unpack climate change from all the other issues that have divided our Nation.

Bio: Veerabhadran “Ram” Ramanathan discovered the greenhouse effect of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) in 1975 and showed that a ton each of CFC-11 and CFC-12 has more global warming effect than 10,000 tons of CO2. This discovery established the now-accepted fact that non-CO2 gases are a major contributor to planetary warming and also enabled the Montreal Protocol to become the first successful climate mitigation policy. For this work, he was awarded the 2009 Tyler Prize by Nobel Laureate Sherwood Rowland. In 1980, Madden and Ramanathan were the first to make a statistical prediction that global warming will be detected above the background noise by 2000, a prediction which was verified by the IPCC in 2001. He led a NASA study with its climate satellite to show that clouds had a net cooling effect on the planet and quantified the radiation interactions with water vapor and its amplification of CO2 warming. He led international field campaigns and developed unmanned aircraft platforms for tracking brown cloud pollution worldwide. His work has led to numerous policies including the formation of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition by the United Nations to reduce short-lived climate pollutants (HFCs; Methane; Black Carbon and Ozone).

This event is presented as part of the 2023 Perspectives on the Climate Change Challenge Seminar Series:

• Most Mondays, Spring Semester 2023, 2:45-4:00pm
• (via Zoom OR In person in 155 Olin Hall)

This university-wide seminar series is open to the public, and provides important views on the critical issue of climate change, drawing from many perspectives and disciplines. Experts from Cornell University and beyond present an overview of the science of climate change and climate change models, the implications for agriculture, ecosystems, and food systems, and provide important economic, ethical, and policy insights on the issue. The seminar is being organized and sponsored by the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering and Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability.