Environmental expert to speak on current policy challenges of climate change
Date & Time: January 21, 2016 | 07:15 PM – 08:30 PM
Location: 012 Lewis Katz Building
Dr. Richard Alley, the Evan Pugh Professor in the Penn State Department of Geosciences at the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, will speak about climate change as the first speaker of the Penn State School of International Affairs’ spring colloquium.
Professor and U.S. Ambassador (Ret.) Dennis Jett, organizes the semester long event to bring thought leaders on topics ranging from food security to terrorism. The program features 14 speakers. Colloquium topics vary depending upon the current issues of the day. The course surveys some major transnational social problems confronting the world, suggested by the Copenhagen Consensus, such as: climate change; communicable diseases; conflict and arms proliferation; access to education; financial instability; governance and corruption; malnutrition and hunger; migration; sanitation and access to clean water; and subsidies and trade barriers. The course involves team teaching and guest lecturers. The course lectures are open to the public and made available via webcast.
Alley has authored more than 170 refereed scientific publications about the relationships between Earth's cryosphere and global climate change
Alley testified about climate change before the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology in 2007 and again in 2010.
Alley's 2007 testimony was due to his role as a lead author of "Chapter 4: Observations: Changes in Snow, Ice and Frozen Ground" for the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He has participated in the joint United Nations World Meteorological Organiation panel since 1992, having been a contributing author to both the second and third IPCC assessment reports.
Alley has written several papers in the journals Nature and Science, and chaired the National Research Council on Abrupt Climate Change. In 2000, he published the book The Two-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future. He has appeared in numerous climate change-related television documentaries and has given many public presentations and media interviews about the subject.