2100: A Climate-Space Odyssey

The Cambridge Climate Lecture Series (CCLS) is an annual event organised by Cambridge residents, including staff and students at Cambridge University. Based on a concept devised by Dr Tony Eva, the aim is to link key thinkers on climate change with as wide an audience as possible. Our intention is that audiences will cross demographics, cultures, prior scientific knowledge and educational attainment.We aim to do this by inviting world-class speakers on climate change and live-streaming the talks to make them widely available in real time. Everyone has the chance to interact with the speakers using social media, so do please get involved! Climate change affects everyone and we need many voices to help find solutions. Although climate science will feature in some discussions, we will also be inviting non-scientific speakers from a diverse range of social and political backgrounds. We hope this will help bring new angles to tackling climate change.

Cambridge Climate Lecture Series (CCLS)

2100: A Climate-Space Odyssey Hans Joachim Schellnhuber – Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research Over 50 million years ago, mighty geological processes caused the Earth to start cooling down, and 2.5 million years ago it eventually entered a cycle of ice ages born out of a subtle interplay between gravity and radiation. Under these heavily fluctuating environmental conditions, Homo sapiens developed. But civilization only emerged during the climatically exquisitely stable interglacial period that started some 11,000 years ago. Civilization experienced a massive boost following industrialization, which still primarily uses fossil fuels to generate energy. As an unintended side effect, since the 19th century, CO2 has gradually been accumulating in the Earth’s atmosphere, reinforcing the natural greenhouse gas effect. This leads to some fundamental questions: How does the character of the climate system change as a result of anthropogenic interference? What will be the consequences for nature and culture? Can these developments still be curbed and what are the technological, economic and social preconditions for this? The talk will discuss these questions. In particular, it aims to show that our planet, in the event of unabated emissions, could be set back by 15 million years in geological time and that climate stabilization can only be achieved by decarbonizing the world economy over the next three decades. In 2100, humanity will finally know which course has been set for spaceship Earth. Free wine, soft drinks and vegan food will be provided - with a great opportunity for networking after the talk.

Winstanley Lecture Hall, Trinity College

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