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GSA 2019 ANNUAL MEETING & EXPOSITION

Feed Your Brain—Lunchtime Enlightenment

Michel T. Halbouty Distinguished Lecture
Climate Change: The Threat Multiplier
Tues., 24 Sept., 12:15–1:15 p.m., Phoenix Convention Center
Katharine Hayhoe, 2019 Michel T. Halbouty Distinguished Lecturer
For generations, human civilization has been building a climate debt, borrowing from
the stability of the future to power the economic growth of the present. Through fossil
fuel combustion and land-use change we have disrupted the carbon cycle, overwhelm-
ing the influence of natural forcing on Earth’s climate. As heat accumulates in the
Katharine Hayhoe
Photo credit Artie Limmer, climate system, it drives long-term increases in temperature and sea level and super-
Texas Tech Univ. charges hurricanes, heat waves, and heavy precipitation events. These changes in turn
exacerbate poverty, hunger, disease, refugee crises, and more. Today, the choice is
stark: Can we do what it takes to avoid widespread dangerous change? Or will we remain mired in inaction until
the full cost of this unprecedented experiment we’re conducting with our planet falls due?
Katharine Hayhoe is an atmospheric scientist whose research focuses on developing and applying high-resolution
climate projections to understand what climate change means for people and the natural environment. She is a
professor and director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University and has a B.Sc. in physics from the
University of Toronto and an M.S. and Ph.D. in atmospheric science from the University of Illinois. Hayhoe has
served as a lead author for the second, third, and fourth U.S. National Climate Assessments. She has also received
the National Center for Science Education’s Friend of the Planet Award, the American Geophysical Union’s Climate
Communication Prize, the Sierra Club’s Distinguished Service Award, and the Stephen H. Schneider Climate
Communication Award.

14 GSA Today | July 2019