February Happy Hour – Bruce Melton on Climate Change
Join us for a visually stimulating discussion of the challenge of our age: climate change. The topics that may be covered are enumerated below and with some audience input a select few will be explored.
Bruce Melton, PE
Bruce Melton is a science author and filmmaker, outreach specialist, professional engineer with primary research in stormwater treatment, and CEO of the Climate Change Now Initiative (nonprofit 501c3). Founded in 2005, the Initiative has created over 400 reviews of academic climate science literature, 50 popular press articles, two experimental documentaries (rockumentaries), a book, and 36 songs. ClimateDiscovery.org
Bruce holds a unique perspective built on personal observations collected from around North America and Greenland, dedicated review of scientific publication, and a clear understanding of the profound risks with which we are encumbering ourselves. Yet he combines this understanding with a deep optimism regarding what can be done to confront such risk.
February 28, 5:30 – 8:00 p.m.
Scholz Garten
1607 San Jacinto St.
Please RSVP
The Climate Change Now Initiative, the oldest independent climate science education organization in the world, presents scientific and policy interpretation of the most critical new scientific publishing and global developments of 2016. The program’s backdrop is the Initiative’s field work in reporting major climate impacts happening now across North America and Greenland. What Climate Change Now considers critical to the discussion includes:
- Ecoregime change( forest die-off) in high latitude forests of Western North America
- Apparent drought where an increased warm season can create drought conditions even with above normal precipitation
- Increasing extreme weather
- Abrupt sea level rise and beach disintegration ongoing on barrier island beaches in Texas
- Dramatic increase in Greenland ice discharge
- Ongoing shutdown of the Gulf Stream
- Collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet:
New modeling of timelines and dramatically increased rate of collapse
Feedback from warming induced increase in sea ice
Prevention of complete collapse initiation through ocean heat content reduction - The history of current climate reform strategies and their efficacy considering successful implementation
- Definition of Dangerous Climate Change and new developments reducing the dangerous limit
- Global Warming Psychology: a description of the disconnection between climate science, the public, policy makers, and environmental advocates, and the role of global warming psychology in increasing climate science awareness
- The psychology of a healthy climate, what this is and how we can achieve it
- The need for strong negative emissions
- Well-developed industrial scale atmospheric CO2 capture technology, the controversy over economic feasibility and a “license to pollute” given the opportunity to remove CO2 directly from the atmosphere
- The demise of fossil fuels and the ongoing disconnection of CO2 emissions from future scenario projections, the role of fracking and dramatically reduced costs of alternative energy, and implications of future cost reductions of solar PV and fugitive emissions from methane.
“Imagine a company intellectually immersed inside the EV market with master certified electricians installing today’s most advanced EV charging systems, laid out strategically across Texas. An entity whose single focus is to provide a complete turnkey solution for their Residential, Commercial and Industrial customers with the highest quality standards in customer service and craftsmanship. Pioneers continuing to provide all EV drivers with the most attractive, affordable and reliable means of EV charging available. Now imagine that company inside every major metropolitan city across America and what such deployment can do to accelerate the advent of EV’s in a worldwide effort to reverse the damaging affects of CO2 emissions on our planet. “That’s the driving force behind Smart Charge Residential” says CEO, Joseph Barletta. “The sheer presence of a Smart Charge Residential inside the marketplace will encourage a general sense of security, piece of mind, reliability, service expertise and understanding for EV’s from today’s mainstream consumers. Such focus is critical to accelerating EV adoption as we move forward with restoring our planet to an environment our children’s children can enjoy. This is the single most important factor that drives our intensity and lays the foundation for our company’s mission.” Barletta is now working on Smart Charge America, SCR’s parent company, in an effort to continue scalability across the US.
Dan Seif is Managing Director of Grid Economics, a clean energy policy, markets, business development, and financial advisory consulting firm. Prior to cofounding Grid Economics, Dan was a Sr. Consultant with The Butler Firm, an Austin-area boutique clean energy legal and consulting firm. Dan also previously led the solar program as a Principal at Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), was an investment team member of the private equity firm, US Renewables Group, and led global energy optimization and carbon emissions mitigation for the semiconductor manufacturer, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Mr. Seif holds a BS and MS in chemical engineering from the University of Virginia and the University of Arizona, respectively, and an Masters of Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School.