Episode #20
Rocking the Climate
The numbers surrounding climate change are very real and frightening, leaving us with very few options. We can either warm (no pun intended) to the idea of extreme weather events that increase in both frequency and intensity, rising sea levels, severe droughts and wildfires, ocean acidification, and general disruption of the ecosystems that supported our evolution. Or we can take action to slow, and hopefully even reverse, the impact of carbon and methane in our atmosphere. Today we’re joined by Isabel Montañez , a sedimentary geochemist and paleoclimatologist who says that the lessons we are learning from the earth itself, when accelerated, may help us to radically and rapidly sidestep our own extinction. Stay tuned for what may be one of the most important and inspiring messages you’ve heard in a long, long time. Bio: Isabel Montañez is a sedimentary geochemist and paleoclimatologist whose research focuses on reconstructing past global and regional climates, in particular those during warming and major climate transitions. Her approach is interdisciplinary, integrating physical, biological, and chemical proxies of environmental and ecosystem parameters with multiple scales of numerical modeling to study Earth system processes and their interactions during climate and ecosystem perturbation.Awards:• Arthur L. Day Medal, The Geological Society of America • Endowed Biogeochemistry Lecture, Geochemical Society• The UC Davis Prize for Teaching and Scholarly Achievement• Union Fellow of the AGU• Francis J. Pettijohn Medal, Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM)• Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences • Jean Baptiste Lamarck Medal, European Geosciences Union• Lawrence L. Sloss Award for Sedimentary Geology, Geological Society of America• Fellow of the Geochemical Society• Fellow of the European Association of Geochemistry• Chancellor's Leadership Professor• Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science • Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation• F. Earl Ingerson Lecture, Geochemical Society• Herbert A. Young Society Dean's Fellow, College of Letters and Sciences• Fellow of the Geological Society of America• James Lee Wilson Award for Excellence in Sedimentary Geology SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology's Young Scientist Award)• American Association of Petroleum Geologists J. “Cam” Sproule Memorial Award
