SEMINAR: 11/8 - Global Warming and the Future of Planet Earth.

When: 11am-12, November 8, 2007
Where: Room 101-A, NRCCE Bldg, Evansdale Campus

Global warming is real and serious. Dr. Robert G. Watts,
Cornelia and Arthur Jung Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering, Tulane University, will discuss the science and reality of global warming.

Global warming is real and serious. Climate models and data indicate this with certainty. The various responses of the skeptics have been put to rest. We have passed the "tipping point" if it is defined as the point in time beyond which the Earth will suffer grave consequences regardless of what we do in the future. But there is still time to minimize these consequences.

The climatology is clear. The ball is now in the court of the engineering community.

Someone once said that if you think education is expensive, try ignorance. If you think developing energy systems that prevent even more warming is expensive, try waiting for the consequences.

Apparently we will.

About the speaker

Dr. Robert G. Watts is the Cornelia and Arthur Jung Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering at Tulane University. He received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Tulane (1959), a M.Sc. in Nuclear Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1960), and a Ph.D. from Purdue University in Mechanical Engineering (1965).

He spent a year at Harvard University studying Atmospheric and Ocean Science. He has worked at the Institute for Energy Analysis in Oak Ridge, TN and at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria. His research has concentrated on energy systems and climatology for more than 40 years.

He has edited two books on energy and global warming: Innovative Energy Strategies for CO2 Stabilization (Cambridge University Press) and Engineering Response to Global Climate Change (Lewis Publishers) and is the author of Keep Your Eye on the Ball: The Science and Folklore of Baseball (Freeman Publishing Company) and A Course in Applied Mathematics for Scientists and Engineers (Morgan and Claypool Publishers).

A new book, Global Warming and the Future of Planet Earth, will soon appear from Morgan and Claypool.

11/01/2007