11/15
Amanda Mott
Director of News and Media
ammott@upenn.edu
Climate Change
The language of climate change—and the Anthropocene
The language of climate change—and the Anthropocene
Hanna E. Morris, a doctoral student at the Annenberg School for Communication who researches environmental communication, explains the sudden rise of ‘Anthropocene’ as the latest buzzword in the climate dialogue.
Procrastinating on climate change
Procrastinating on climate change
Joseph Kable, Baird Term Professor of Psychology, studies how people make (or don’t make) decisions. He calls the circumstances around climate change a “perfect storm of features” that’s leading us to not act.
Designing with resilience to prepare for a changing world
Designing with resilience to prepare for a changing world
Urban designers joined with architects, engineers, city planners, sociologists, and other experts to share strategies for adapting to rising sea levels, fiercer storms, and sinking shorelines, coinciding with the launch of the Certificate in Urban Resilience at the School of Design.
Money alone won’t address climate change goals—we need policy action
Money alone won’t address climate change goals—we need policy action
Wharton’s Eric W. Orts joins other experts to analyze the likely outcome of the 24th annual Conference of the Parties, the two-week U.N. meeting where a plan of action to reverse climate change is the goal.
Extreme weather won’t sway climate skeptics
Extreme weather won’t sway climate skeptics
Experiencing extreme weather is not enough to convince climate change skeptics that humans are damaging the environment, according to a new study based on research at the Annenberg Public Policy Center.
Monitoring heritage sites with drones and remote sensors
Monitoring heritage sites with drones and remote sensors
The Center for Architectural Conservation has been observing adobe ruins for three years as a harbinger for climate change. Any damage that the changing climate will do to exposed structures, it will do it to adobe first.
Dry conditions may have helped a new type of plant gain a foothold on Earth
Dry conditions may have helped a new type of plant gain a foothold on Earth
Plants reap energy from the sun using two photosynthesis pathways, C3 and C4. A new study led by Haoran Zhou, Erol Akçay and Brent Helliker suggests that water availability drove the expansion of C4 species, which may help to explain how different plant lineages came to be distributed on the planet today.
How plants cope with stress
How plants cope with stress
With climate change comes drought, and with drought comes higher salt concentrations in the soil. Brian Gregory and graduate student Stephen Anderson have identified a mechanism by which plants respond to salt stress, a pathway that could be targeted to engineer more adaptable crops.
Can changing our diets save the planet?
Can changing our diets save the planet?
Brian Berkey and Karen Glanz discuss how dietary changes could impact the overall health of the planet, following the United Nations’ recent report on climate change.
Want to reduce emissions? Start in the gut of a cow
Want to reduce emissions? Start in the gut of a cow
As concern about climate change rises, Dipti Pitta of the School of Veterinary Medicine is working to develop innovative strategies to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
Media Contact
In the News
Bloomberg
How the subtle but significant consequences of a hotter planet have already begun
R. Jisung Park of the School of Social Policy & Practice discusses his book “Slow Burn: The Hidden Costs of a Warming World.”
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WHYY (Philadelphia)
Climate policy under a second Trump presidency
Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences discusses how much a president can do or undo when it comes to environmental policy.
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Salon.com
Exxon CEO wants Trump to stay in Paris climate accord
Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences voices his concern about the possibility that the U.S. could become a petrostate.
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Associated Press
Amid Earth’s heat records, scientists report another bump upward in annual carbon emissions
Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences says that total carbon emissions including fossil fuel pollution and land use changes such as deforestation are basically flat because land emissions are declining.
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Associated Press
California air regulators approve changes to climate program that could raise gas prices
Danny Cullenward of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the Weitzman School of Design says that many things being credited in California’s new climate program don’t help the climate.
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The Independent
Climate scientists fear Trump will destroy progress in his second term – and the outcome could be ‘grim’
Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences says that a second Trump term and the implementation of Project 2025 represents the end of climate action in this decade.
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