The Current Status of Climate Change - A Non-Partisan Analysis

On March 19, our talk was given by Prof. Rich Muller, and was entitled "The Current Status of Climate Change - A Non-Partisan Analysis".

Because of its huge economic and political implications, Climate Change is rarely presented without spin. This will be an attempt to do that. I'll discuss the physics of the greenhouse effect, and the data that indicate global warming. Among key topics are: Copenhagen -- why did we fail to get a major treaty? Climategate -- what really happened? IPCC standards -- and why they are undergoing major revisions. What are the top prospects among the many choices for alternative energy? What kind of example can the U.S. set that could be followed by the rest of the world? I'll also report on new results of our "Berkeley Earth" project -- a detailed re-analysis of the evidence for global warming; see www.BerkeleyEarth.org. 

Rich Muller is a Professor in the Department of Physics at UC Berkeley, and Faculty Senior Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. He was named a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Fellow in 1982. He also received the Alan T. Waterman Award from the National Science Foundation "for highly original and innovative research which has led to important discoveries and inventions in diverse areas of physics, including astrophysics, radioisotope dating, and optics." In 1999, he received a distinguished teaching award from UC Berkeley. He teaches the popular "Physics for Future Presidents" series of undergraduate lectures at Berkeley and is the author of an associated book, among other books, essays, and articles. He's also working on a system to view 3-D TV without glasses.

You can watch the video of his talk by clicking on the image below.