On March 2, 2009, DISCOVER magazine and the National Science Foundation sponsored an expert-panel discussion on climate change at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. The event was the latest installment of Grand Challenges, a series of public events exploring the great questions facing science today. For a transcript of the event, check out the accompanying magazine feature.
About the Panelists:
Robin Bell A senior research scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Bell has coordinated eight major Antarctic expeditions. She studies the mechanisms of ice sheet collapse, the origins of subglacial lakes, and their hidden ecosystems.
Ken Caldera A professor at Stanford and staff member in the department of global ecology at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Caldeira works at the nexus of climate, the carbon cycle, and energy. He has studied issues such as ocean acidification, intentional intervention in climate systems, mass-extinction events in the earth’s geologic history, and the scale of change needed to address our present carbon-driven climate problems.
Bill Easterling Dean of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at Pennsylvania State University, Easterling studies global warming and its potential effects on the world’s food supply. He has served on the National Research Council and the National Science Foundation and was a lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) team.
Stephen Schneider A senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University, Schneider assesses ecological and economic impacts of human-induced climate change to identify potential political and technological solutions. He has been a principal member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 1988. In 2007 he joined four generations of IPCC authors, including Easterling, in receiving a Nobel Prize for their groundbreaking work.
Corey Powell Editor in chief of DISCOVER, Powell has been on the magazine's staff for the past 11 years. He considers himself an "armchair scientist," having studied the history of science at Harvard University and having worked—briefly—at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Powell is the author of God in the Equation: How Einstein Transformed Religion.
