Climate-Changed Society by Richard Norgaard

Press
Apr 26, 2013

THE ENERGY AND RESOURCES GROUP SPRING 2013 COLLOQUIUM SERIES PRESENTS:

 

SPEAKER:

Richard Norgaard

Professor, Energy and Resources Group

University of California Berkeley

DATE:   Wednesday, May 1, 2013

TIME:    4:00 p.m.

PLACE: 110 Barrows Hall

TITLE:  Climate-Changed Society

Climate change presents society with major challenges to overcome, but why is humanity so "climate-challenged", why are we having such difficulty confronting and responding to the reality of climate change? This lecture focuses on the scientific community and its interface with policymaking, exploring how the stories we tell -- about human progress, the nature of science, and how science relates to public action -- impede our "best" efforts to be scientific, i.e. logical and empirically informed.  The case is made for a wholly new story about change and knowing, us and nature-- a story better suited to the Anthropocene.

Professor Norgaard was trained as an economist (PhD, 1971, University of Chicago) but has had the good fortune to be able to continually broaden his education throughout his 43 year career at UC Berkeley. He currently serves on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Chairs the Delta Independent Science Board where California water politics hits the fan of science. His forthcoming book Climate-Challenged Society, coauthored with John Dryzek and David Schlosberg, will be published by Oxford University Press in November 2013. Dryzek, Schlosberg, and Norgaard edited the Oxford Handbook on Climate Change and Society published in 2011.