How low-carbon technologies will improve our climate, health, and national security and stabilize the world's economies

Monday, May 1, 2017
11:30 AM - 1:00 PM
(Pacific)
William J. Perry Conference Room
Encina Hall, Second Floor, Central, C231
616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305
Speaker: 
  • Rob Jackson

Abstract: In 2015 nations agreed to the Sustainable Development Goals, including ending poverty, protecting the planet, and ensuring prosperity for all. To accomplish them, we need to find synergies across the seventeen goals. Fortunately, some co-benefits are clear.  Cutting greenhouse gas emissions does much more than fight climate change.  It saves water and improves water quality. It saves lives, too, as witnessed by the ~20,000 or more people who die from coal pollution each year in the United States, with a million more people worldwide. The low-carbon economy will help stabilize national security, create net jobs, and more.

About the Speaker: Rob Jackson is Douglas Provostial Professor and Chair of the Earth System Science Department at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow in Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment and Precourt Institute for Energy (jacksonlab.stanford.edu).  As an environmental scientist, he chairs the Global Carbon Project (globalcarbonproject.org), an international organization that tracks natural and anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.  His photographs have appeared in many media outlets, including the NY Times, Washington Post, and USA Today, and he has published several books of poetry. Jackson is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the Ecological Society of America and was honored at the White House with a Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering.