DEEP TIME, GLOBAL
CHANGEAND
AND YOU
7 BILLION
THE PAST AS A GUIDE TO THE FUTURE
A David and Cecilia Ting Endowment Fund Lecture Series
January 30, - March 13, 2014
Maintaining Humanity’s Life Support Systems in the 21st Century
Presented by Dr. Anthony D. Barnosky, Department of Integrative Biology,
University of California, Berkeley
Thursday, March 13, 2014, 7:00 pm,
Room 1900, SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings
Abstract: Given that human impacts already define the Anthropocene as a unique time in Earth’s history, and that those impacts are almost
certain to increase as the human population grows from its present seven billion to over nine billion by the year 2050, it is inevitable that Homo
sapiens’ place in the biosphere will continue to evolve. While some ways that people have altered the planet have resulted in net gains for humanity, a growing body of scientific studies going back more than three decades has firmly documented some human impacts that, if they keep
going in the directions they have been, in the best case pose serious risks for maintaining a quality of life that is at least as satisfactory as humanity now finds it, and in the worst cases will have great costs to people, other species, and the planet in general. Those impacts take the form of
five negative trends, all of which have been accelerating since about 1950: increasing climate disruption, growing numbers of extinctions, loss
of non-human dominated ecosystems, growing pollution of air, land, and sea, and rapidly growing human populations. The pace and nature of
planetary change caused by each of these impacts and their interactions exceeds what is “normal” for Earth’s past, making plausible unexpected,
planetary-scale state shifts that take place within human lifetimes. Despite the ‘gloom-and-doom’ scenarios these global problems often engender, solutions are not only possible, as indicated by past human achievements, but are beginning to gain momentum. Current successes have
depended on much more than science and technology, and indicate that solutions at the grand scale that is needed will require the actions of,
and interactions between, people in all walks of life: scientists, policy makers, the business community, technological innovators, thought leaders
and the public-at-large. A key question is whether society will decide to simply continue business as usual and hope for the best, or try to actively
guide the planet’s future to maximize the probability that what is now healthy and productive for people and other species remains so, and what
is now broken is repaired.
Bio: Since 1990, Anthony D. Barnosky has been on the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, where
he currently holds the posts of Professor of Integrative Biology, Curator of Fossil Mammals in the Museum of
Paleontology, and Research Paleoecologist in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. Author of numerous scientific
publications as well as op-eds and blog posts, he is a renowned paleobiologist who studies the evolution and
extinction of species and how climate change and other disturbances impact earth’s ecosystems. He has spent
three decades conducting research related to past planetary changes, and what they mean for forecasting the
changes to come on Planet Earth in the next few decades. His research has taken him to South America, India,
China, Africa, Europe, and wild lands of the western United States, in a quest to learn how past species reacted
to major environmental changes and what that tells us about the changes to come in our future. Most recently
his work has focused on why mass extinctions of species take place, and how to solve today’s extinction crisis,
soon to be published in a forthcoming book (UC Press). He is also the author of Heatstroke: Nature in the Age of
Global Warming (Island Press, 2009), which explores what global climate change means for nature, for the wild
places we love, and for our future.
Deep Time, Global Change and You is a series of free public lectures and discussions by leading thinkers on how paleoecology can shed light
on the consequences of ecosystem disruptions. It is not news that our global environment is currently in a period of rapid and dramatic change, with
uncertain long-term consequences. Scientists working in the area of “paleoecology”, the study of past environments and communities of plants and
animals, can contribute insights into the long prehistory of natural changes on earth, and shed light on likely future consequences of ecosystem disruptions.
Over the long history of our planet, many changes, ranging from continental drift and sudden climate shifts, to wildfires and the recent rise of civilizations have
altered our ecosystems, and will continue to do so. How such disturbances have shaped our present environment, and how they might change it in the
future is the focus of this series.
Reservations:
As seating is limited, reservations are recommended: www.sfu.ca/reserve
Contact:
For more information, contact lauriew@sfu.ca
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Sponsors:
Faculty of Environment, SFU
Faculty of Science, SFU
David and Cecilia Ting Endowment, Lifelong Learning, SFU
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