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Michael Mann, professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, and leading author on several influential reports and books, lectured on April 4 about his role in the “raging contentious debates” over climate change. The “debate,” he argues, is unfocused, since the existence and importance of climate change is not contended within the scientific community.

Climatologist and author Michael Mann, director of Penn State’s Earth System Science Center and co-founder of the award-winning science website RealClimate.org will give a lecture titled “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars,” based on his book of the same name, on Monday, April 4, at 7 p.m., in the Chapel.

In his Jan. 25 talk “Leading Nowhere: the Futility and Farce of Global Climate Negotiations,” Oren Cass criticized the global approach to addressing climate change. He claimed that it’s not that leaders don’t want to reduce emissions, it’s that it isn’t possible based on insurmountable challenges like cost and complexity. 

Rachel Sobel ’15, a biochemistry and women’s studies double major, has been selected for the second consecutive year to attend the United Nations Climate Change Convention. She is one of eight students sponsored by the American Chemical Society (ACS) to attend the talks, being held this year in Lima, Peru, from Dec. 1-12.

USA Today published an opinion piece written by Associate Professor of Government Peter F. Cannavo titled “Global warming reveals our own Game of Thrones” on Oct. 16 in both its online and print editions. In his piece, Cannavo compares the manner in which many in the United States have overlooked or minimized the dangers related to global warming or, in fact, questioned its very existence, to that of the behavior of warring factions in the television show “Game of Thrones.”

Associate Professor of Government and Director of Environmental Studies Peter Cannavò presented a paper at the annual meeting of the Australian Political Studies Association in Sydney, in September.

On Sunday, Sept. 21, more than 45 Hamilton students, alumni, faculty and staff boarded buses, cars, trains, and subways to arrive at the corner of 71st and Central Park West in New York City to participate in the People’s Climate March. Along with approximately 400,000 fellow marchers, students waited eagerly -- with signs, whistles, costumes and posters -- so that they could demand action before the United Nations Climate Summit, which took place on Sept. 23.

Associate Professor of Biology Mike McCormick presented recent research findings at the annual meeting of Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). The conference was held Aug. 25-29 in Auckland, New Zealand.

Roughly every five or six years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) publishes a report that indicates the current impact of climate change and consequent policy recommendations. The most recent report, the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, contains three separate reports based on the IPCC’s working groups. Ming Chun Tang ’16, under the guidance of Professor of Government Peter Cannavo, is researching online news media’s coverage of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report for his Levitt Fellowship this summer.

From disappearing landmasses to widespread drought, descriptions of climate change’s potential impacts are grim. Its larger geopolitical and commercial ramifications are perhaps less talked about. On April 7, Peter Oppenheimer, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, delivered a lecture about the impacts of climate change in the Arctic.