Virtual only! Join us Thursday, December 5 from 6:30 – 7:30 p.m., on the library Facebook and YouTube. Terry L. Root, Professor Emerita at Stanford University, will discuss Climate Change and What We All Can Do to Help.
2023 was the warmest year since global records began in 1850. July 2024 was the hottest month ever recorded, and the 14 months from June 2023 through July 2024 were the hottest ever recorded for each of those months. Additionally, 15 months of global ocean temperatures, from April 2023 to June 2024, were the hottest ever recorded. This is resulting in the fourth recorded mass bleaching of tropical coral reefs, as well as causing sea levels to rise due to thermal expansion. Additionally, the rapidly melting Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets are expected to increase sea level by many meters. Indeed, millions of people are being affected by numerous extreme heat waves, extreme droughts, extreme floods, extensive wildfires, and longer, hotter summers. Unless we soon slow the rapid warming, the millions of people affected will become billions of people suffering due to escalating climate disruption. Countless numbers of animals and plants around the globe are being greatly affected by our rapidly changing climate with many facing extinction. The current extinction rate indicates that the 6th Mass Extinction has not only begun but is escalating. Thankfully, humans have caused the problem, so we know how to stop it. We must stop our fossil-fuel addiction to reduce the rapid warming of the globe. Each of us can do many things, collectively and individually, to decrease the emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
Terry L. Root is Professor Emerita at Stanford University. She was a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change 4th Assessment Report that in 2007 was co-awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with Vice President Al Gore. Also, she was a lead author for the 3rd Assessment Report (2001) and a Review Editor for the 5th Assessment Report (2014). In addition to other honors, Root was awarded the Spirit of Defenders Award for Science by Defenders of Wildlife in 2010, and Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016 for the conservation organization Point Blue. She served on the National Audubon Board of Directors from 2010 to 2019, currently serves on the boards of Defenders of Wildlife and Birds Caribbean, and is on numerous science advisory boards, including the Renewable Energy Wildlife Institute.
Root earned her undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Statistics from the University of New Mexico, her master’s degree in Biology from the University of Colorado and her doctorate in Biology from Princeton University. She was a professor at the University of Michigan for half her career, and then at Stanford University for the other half. Now she frequently gives talks around the US on climate change, and plastics and wildlife. Currently she lives in Santa Fe, NM, USA.