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Event: Dr. Tyler Volk, Associate Professor, Biology, New York University - "CO2 Rising: The World's Greatest Environmental Challenge"
Saturday, July 4th, 12:00 PM
The most colossal environmental disturbance in human history is under
way. Ever-rising levels of the potent greenhouse gas carbon dioxide
(CO2) are altering the cycles of matter and life and interfering with
Earth's natural cooling process. Melting Arctic ice and mountain
glaciers are just the first relatively mild symptoms of what will
result from this disruption of the planetary energy balance. In CO2
Rising, Tyler Volk explains the process at the heart of global
warming and climate change: the global carbon cycle. Volk describes
what happens when CO2 is released by the combustion of fossil fuels,
letting loose carbon atoms once trapped deep underground into the
interwoven web of air, water, and soil. To demonstrate how the
carbon cycle works, Volk traces the paths that carbon atoms take
during their global circuits. Showing us the carbon cycle from a
carbon atom's viewpoint, he follows one carbon atom into a leaf of
barley, then into an alcohol molecule in a glass of beer, through the
human bloodstream, and then back into the air. He also compares the
fluxes of carbon brought into the biosphere naturally with those
created by the combustion of fossil fuels and explains why the latter
are responsible for rising temperatures. Knowledge about the global
carbon cycle and the huge disturbances that human activity produces
in it will equip us to consider the hard questions that Volk raises
in the second half of CO2 Rising: projections of future levels of
CO2; which energy systems and processes (solar, wind, nuclear, carbon
sequestration?) will power civilization in the future; the
relationships among the wealth of nations, energy use, and CO2
emissions; and global equity in per capita emissions. Answering these
questions will indeed be our greatest environmental challenge.
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