Carbon Dioxide Removal Approaches: Their Potential Role in Addressing Climate Change
Wednesday, October 9, 4:30 pm
Lantern, Roux Center for the Environment

Wil Burns, Co-Director and Professor of Research, Institute for Carbon Removal Law & Policy, American University

In recent years, there has been mounting evidence that temperature increases of 1.5–2°C above preindustrial levels could have extremely serious impacts on global ecosystems and human institutions, especially in vulnerable developing countries.  There has also been growing concern that feckless climate policy responses may ensure that the globe exceeds critical climatic thresholds during this century, or that we could pass critical “tipping points” that precipitate abrupt, and nonlinear, climatic change on the earth. This has created a powerful impetus for research on, and potential deployment of, so-called “carbon dioxide removal” or “negative emissions technologies.“ While the initial focus was on the potential for bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), serious questions related to cost and sustainability has led to consideration of a much broader potential array of options. The purpose of this presentation will be to provide an overview of CDR/NETs options, including potential risks and benefits, as well as to briefly discuss governance considerations at the international level. (Laura Henry)

The Sourdough project: How Public Service and History reveal stories behind our daily bread (Matthew Morse Booker)
Thursday, October 10 7:00
Roux Center for the Environment Lantern

Join us to sample a fresh batch of sourdough bread from the Sourdough Project, and find out what stories a loaf of bread tell us about nature, culture, and the complex history of food.

In this engaging and interdisciplinary talk, Matthew Booker will share the initial results of the Sourdough Project. A global citizen science effort based at North Carolina State University, the project is a long-term effort to map and genetically sequence some of humanity’s many microbial partners: the yeasts and bacteria found in sourdough bread.

Finding the Good News on Energy and Environment (Richard Alley)
Thursday, October 10  at 7:30, Smith Auditorium

PBK Visiting Scholar Richard Alley, Evan Pugh University Professor of Geosciences at Pennsylvania State University, will visit Bowdoin College on October 10-11, 2019. Professor Alley will give his lecture, “Climate Has Always Changed Naturally – How Climate History Increases Concerns About Fossil-Fuel Burning,” in the Smith Auditorium of Bowdoin College’s Sills Hall. The event will last from 7:30pm until 8:30pm, and is free and open to the public.