Research, ideas, and leadership for a more secure, peaceful world

Past Event
Seminar

Can Lessons from Earth’s Past Help Us Survive Our Current Climate Crisis? A Talk with Renowned Scientist Michael Mann

RSVP Required Open to the Public

In his latest book, Our Fragile Moment, award-winning climate scientist Michael E. Mann explores innovative approaches to combating climate change by examining Earth’s climate history and how the planet has coped with - and survived - extreme events in the past. Climate variability has at times created new opportunities for innovation. Mann argues that the greatest threat to meaningful action today is not denialism but despair among those who feel it is too late to do anything about rising temperatures and seas resulting from fossil fuel consumption. While the window is narrowing, he believes there is still time to take significant political, societal and technological steps to avert catastrophic global climate change.

Henry Lee, Director of the Belfer Center's Environment and Natural Resources Program, will provide introductory remarks. Cristine Russell, ENRP Senior Fellow, will moderate. Q&A to follow. Lunch will be provided (please arrive at 11:45). 

RSVP required. This event will be held in a hybrid format. A Harvard University ID is required for in-person attendance; all are welcome to attend via Zoom.

Sponsors: The Environment and Natural Resources Program and the Arctic Initiative at the Belfer Center; the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability; the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy; the HKS Climate, Energy, and Environment Professional Interest Council

For questions, please contact Elizabeth Hanlon (ehanlon@hks.harvard.edu). 

Date: Time: - Location: Rubenstein Building - David T. Ellwood Democracy Lab, Room 414AB
Our Fragile Moment

Speaker

Dr. Michael E. Mann is Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania, with a secondary appointment in the Annenberg School for Communication. He is director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media (PCSSM).

He has received many honors and awards, including NOAA's outstanding publication award in 2002 and selection by Scientific American as one of the fifty leading visionaries in science and technology in 2002. He contributed, with other IPCC authors, to the award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Mann received the Stephen H. Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communication from Climate One in 2017. He received the Award for Public Engagement with Science from the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2018 and the Climate Communication Prize from the American Geophysical Union in 2018. In 2019 he received the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement and in 2020 he received the World Sustainability Award of the MDPI Sustainability Foundation. He was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2020. He received the Leo Szilard Award of the American Physical Society in 2021 and was named Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association in 2023. He is author of several books including Dire Predictions, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars, The Madhouse Effect, The New Climate War and Our Fragile Moment.

Recording

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