PAST EVENTS & ARCHIVES

Climate Lecture Series 2017

On August 3rd, 2017, Dr. Jan Newton gave a talk on The State of the Ocean: Understanding effects from climate and humans to a packed audience at Brickworks in Friday Harbor, WA. Jan Newton is a principal oceanographer with the Applied Physics Laboratory of the University of Washington, and an affiliate assistant professor in both the UW School of Oceanography and the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs. Jan serves as co-director of the recently established Washington Ocean Acidification Center, which operates from the College of the Environment and fosters connections among researchers, policymakers, industry, and others to address key priorities established by the state legislature concerning ocean acidification. She also is the executive director of the Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems (NANOOS), which is part of a broader program of Integrated Ocean Observing Systems throughout the United States. Jan's expertise is in biological oceanography, and her work focuses on the physical, chemical, and biological dynamics of Puget Sound and coastal Washington, including understanding effects from climate and humans on water properties.

Climate Lecture Series 2016

On August 25, 2016, Dr. Roger Pulwarty gave a lecture on Drought, Water, and Climate Resiliency at the Brickworks in Friday Harbor.  Dr. Pulwarty is the Senior Science Advisor for Climate, and the Director of the National Integrated Drought Information System at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Boulder, Colorado.  Throughout his career, Dr. Pulwarty has helped develop and lead widely-recognized programs dealing with climate science, adaptation, and services.  He is a lead author on the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Reports on Water Resources and on Extremes, and a convening lead author on the IPCC Working Group II Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability.  He has served on advisory committees of the National Academy of Sciences, provided testimonies before the U.S. Congress, and acts as advisor on climate risk management and services to the Western Governors Association, the Caribbean Economic Community, the Organization of American States, the UN Development Program, the UN Environment Program, and the InterAmerican Bank and World Bank, among others.  Dr. Pulwarty chairs the World Meteorological Organization Commission on Climatology Climate Services Information System.

Climate Lecture Series 2015

On October 23, 2015, Dr. Daniel Kammen gave alecture on Decarbonizing Energy Systems: Addressing Climate Change Cooperatively at the Brickworks in Friday Harbor after spending a busy week at The White House.  Dr. Kammen is a Distinguished Professor of Energy at the University of California at Berkeley, and the founding Director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory.  He is Co-Director of the Berkeley Institute of the Environment, and Director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center.  He has served as a lead author on reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since 1999, and shared the IPCC’s 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”  He serves on the Advisory Committee for Energy & Environment for the X-Prize Foundation, served as the World Bank Group’s Chief Technical Specialist for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, was appointed the first Environment and Climate Partnership for the Americas Fellow by Secretary of State Hilary R. Clinton in 2010, and contributed to Pope Francis’ recent environmental encyclical.

On September 10, 2015, Dr. Nicholas Bond gave a lecture on Recent NE Pacific Warming or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blob at the San Juan Island Grange.  Dr. Bond is the Washington State Climatologist and a Research Meteorologist at the Joint Institute for the Study of Atmosphere and Ocean at the University of Washington.  “The Blob” is a large mass of warm water in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of North America, and was first detected in the fall of 2013 and spring of 2014 by Dr. Bond who coined the term “The Blob”.   An article about “The Blob” appeared in the July 31, 2015 issue of The Seattle Times quoting Dr. Bond and noting the effects now evident in the Puget Sound.

On June 11, 2015, Dr. Charles Greene gave a lecture on Fossil Fuel Junkies, Bioenergy, and Algae at the San Juan Island Grange.  Dr. Greene is Director of the Ocean Resources and Ecosystems Program, a professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and a fellow at the David R. Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future at Cornell University.  Dr. Greene served as a science adviser to Years of Living Dangerously, the groundbreaking film series that won the 2014 Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary produced by Showtime.