First UCSC Climate Science Conference

More than a dozen nationally prominent climate scientists and policy makers gathered for the first Climate Science and Policy Conference at UC Santa Cruz Friday, February 28 and Saturday, March 1. This conference was organized by UCSC's divisions of Social Science and Physical and Biological Sciences. The well-attended conference featured opening and closing keynote addresses by climate scientists Susan Solomon and Michael E. Mann, and three panel discussions focused on the current state of climate research, mitigating the effects of climate change, and adapting to future effects.

Solomon, now at MIT, is a renowned atmospheric chemist who was the first to attribute the ozone hole to chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). She opened the conference Friday evening with the Fred Keeley Lecture on Environmental Policy and compared the challenge of climate change to past environmental challenges–specifically, lead pollution and the ozone hole–and finds hope in the way those challenges were met.

Climate change, however, is an especially daunting problem. She said we are accustomed to dealing with environmental pollution that is reversible but the changes happening now because of manmade carbon emissions (greenhouse gases) are largely irreversible for at least 1,000 years.

For more information about the Conference, check out this article.