CLIMATE TALK: Disruption: Defining Radical in the Age of Humans
DISRUPTION: DEFINING RADICAL IN THE AGE OF HUMANS
Speaker: Rob Davies
Bio: Robert Davies is a physicist and noted science communicator whose work focuses on complexity, global change and human vibrancy. Over the past decade Rob has delivered hundreds of public lectures ― to policymakers, business leaders, civic organizations and faith communities ― and his “performance science” theatrical collaboration The Crossroads Project | Rising Tide has been performed across the U.S. and in three countries. Dr. Davies has served as a scientific liaison for NASA on the International Space Station Project; as a project scientist with USU’s Space Dynamics Laboratory; and an officer and meteorologist in the United States Air Force. Originally hailing from the Black Hills of South Dakota, Rob is currently Associate Professor of Professional Practice in Utah State University’s Dept. of Physics, in Logan, Utah. About the talk: The BAD news…Sixty percent of Earth’s wildlife has disappeared in the past forty years. Ninety-nine percent of Earth’s coral reefs will likely be gone within two decades; and humanity’s disruption of the planetary climate is accelerating toward thresholds of extreme risk. Meanwhile forty million people today exist in modern slavery; seventy million are forcibly displaced from their homes; more than two billion live in states of critical deprivation; and just thirty individuals today possess the wealth of the world’s poorest half ― 3.8 billion people. The GOOD news…The human systems driving this situation… are going away. Humanity’s systems of food, energy, and economy require more resources than Earth can provide ― by a wide margin. The physics is crystal clear: The likelihood that these systems of ecological devastation will persist, for even a few more decades, is essentially zero. The BAD news…We exist in a state of planetary emergency. The party’s raging and we’re nowhere close to meeting the challenge. The GOOD news…We haven’t really tried. We have what we need to build a sustainable, just, and vibrant space for humanity. With courage and resolve, we stand on the edge of extraordinary achievement. Let’s try. —— Presented by HC3, the Towns of Breckenridge, Dillon, Frisco, and Silverthorne, and Summit County government.
