Meeting theClimate-Change Challenge
John P. Holdren
Director, The Woods Hole Research Center Teresa & John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy,Harvard UniversityPresident, American Association for the Advancement of Science
SES Distinguished Scientist Seminar Marine Biological LaboratoryWoods Hole 3 November 2006
In this talk I will argue that…
•Climate change is coming at us faster, with larger impactsand bigger risks, than even most climate scientistsexpected as recently as a few years ago.•The stated goal of the UNFCCC –avoiding dangerousanthropogenic interference in the climate –is in factunattainable, because today we are alreadyexperiencingdangerous anthropogenic interference. The real questionnow is whether we can still avoid catastrophicanthro-pogenicinterference in climate.•There is no guaranteethat catastrophe can be avoidedeven we start taking serious evasive action immediately;but if we wait even one more decade before starting, thechance of avoiding catastrophe will get very much smaller.
And I will talk about what, specifically, we need to do.
What climate change means
Climate consists of averages & extremes
of •hot & cold•wet & dry•snowpack & snowmelt•winds & storm tracks•ocean currents & upwellingsand the patternsof these in space and time.
Small changes in global-average surface T entail large &consequential changes in climatic patterns. Differencebetween an ice age & an interglacial is ~5°C.
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