Carbon Curves

Jane Lubchenco, Former Administrator, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Ben Santer, Climate Scientist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

The droughts and superstorms of 2012 were followed in 2013 by ravenous fires and heat waves. Do those extreme weather events have human fingerprints? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has forwarded further scientific evidence of human-caused climate disruption. This discussion will focus on where the science is firm (precipitation events, surface temperature, sea level) and where it is less clear (hurricanes). It also will touch on what kind of severe weather we can expect in coming years and how the scientific “debate” plays out in public.

Nicholas Stern: The Stephen Schneider Award
Nicholas Stern, Former World Bank Chief Economist; Professor of Economics, London School of Economics 

Few people have impacted the discussion of economics of carbon pollution more than English economist Nicholas Stern. Lord Stern authored the highly influential 2006 “Stern Review,” which concluded that the problem was one of risk management on an immense and unprecedented scale. The costs of inaction were far greater than the costs of action. He has more recently emphasized the great opportunities in the transition to the low-carbon economy. He now leads a think tank at Imperial College London created by Jeremy Grantham, co-founder of one of the largest money managers in the world, GMO.

Lord Stern will receive the $10,000 Stephen Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communication, awarded each year in memory of the late Stanford scientist Stephen H. Schneider. Dr. Schneider was a founding father of modern climate science, a fearless communicator, and the first member of the Climate One Advisory Council. He passed suddenly in 2010 and shortly thereafter Climate One established the award to recognize people who create new understanding in the physical and social sciences and communicate to a broad public. The two previous recipients are Richard Alley of Penn State University and former NASA scientist James Hansen.