[S-C] SFNHS Thursday, October 25, 2007

[Margaret Goodale]

The San Francisco Natural History Series
presents
Ken Caldeira
Department of Global Ecology
Carnegie Institution of Washington

"Solving the Climate Carbon Problem"

At Stanford University the Caldeira Lab conducts research to try to  
improve the science base needed to allow human civilization to  
develop while protecting our environmental endowment.  According to  
Caldeira, the climate-carbon problem poses one of the grand  
challenges of the century.  Alleviating deep poverty in the  
developing world will take huge amounts of energy.  If this energy is  
provided by burning coal, oil, and gas in conventional ways, the  
resulting greenhouse gases will initiate melting of the ice caps,  
cause rainfall patterns to shift, and have many other challenging  
climate consequences.  Efficiency measures, like driving hybrid cars  
and using compact fluorescent light bulbs can help, but improved  
efficiency alone will not be enough.  This talk will survey the  
various technologies and systems that might be able to help provide  
the vast amounts of power that will be needed later this century,  
such as wind, solar, and nuclear energy, and the use of fossil fuels  
with geologic disposal of carbon dioxide.  A major effort is needed  
to develop revolutionary new clean technologies while we redouble  
efforts to deploy clean technologies already at hand.

7:30 PM, Thursday, October 15, 2007
Randall Museum
199 Museum Way
San Francisco, CA 94114
554-9600 x 16