Roger Pielke Jr., a scientist at the Environmental and Societal Impacts Group at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., will present "Beyond Global Warming: Yes or No" at 7:30 p.m. April 11 in Syracuse University's Grant Auditorium. The lecture is part of the continuing Frontiers of Science Lecture Series.
Pielke's lecture will provide a critique of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change--which the Bush administration recently decided to abandon--and offer an alternative policy approach to dealing with climate change. Specifically, Pielke recommends that policy makers decouple energy policy and climate policy, focusing the former on energy efficiency and independence, and the latter on human and environmental vulnerability to weather and climate.
"For too long, climate policy has been defined as energy policy," Pielke says. "I argue that this approach offers little more than symbolic importance. It is time that we moved the global warming debate beyond simply asking 'is it happening: yes or no?' My talk will offer one way in which the debate might be moved forward."
Pielke, who holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Colorado, focuses his research on the relationship between scientific information and public and private sector decision making. His current areas of research involve societal responses to extreme weather events, domestic and international policy responses to climate change, and U.S. science policy.
In 2000, he received the Sigma Xi Distinguished Lectureship Award. He is chair of the American Meteorological Society's Committee on Societal Impacts and serves on the Science Steering Committee of the World Meteorological Organization's World Weather Research Programme, among other advisory committees. He is a co-author or co-editor of three books, including "Prediction: Decision Making and the Future of Nature," with D. Sarewitz and R. Byerly (Island Press, 2000).
Pielke's lecture is co-sponsored by the Syracuse Chapter of Sigma Xi, a scientific research society that promotes the integrity and process of research. The Frontiers of Science Lecture Series is sponsored by SU's Departments of Science Teaching, Biology, Chemistry, Earth Sciences, Mathematics and Physics in The College of Arts and Sciences; the L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science; the School of Education; the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry; and several community organizations.
