BC3-UPC/EHU Seminars: Integrated challenges to achieving global prosperity for everyone: energy, climate, economics, and resources

BC3-UPV/EHU Seminars
“Integrated challenges to achieving global prosperity for everyone: energy, climate, economics, and resources“

Prof. Tyler Volk

Dept. of Biology, NYU, New York, NY, USA

Abstract

The gross world product has been growing at roughly 3% annually for nearly half a century. The result has been unprecedented economic well-being for large masses of people. If the trend continues then by year 2050 the average world’s lifestyle will be approximately equal to that of developed nations today. Will that be possible to achieve? Issues such as energy consumption, CO2 emissions, climate change, food production, water, and material fluxes are intricately tied together as a global system. In this talk I will review what global numbers, trends, and differences in consumption rates across various resources and region could mean for the challenges that lay ahead of all of us, collectively, in the future.

Lecturer

Prof. Tyler Volk

Dept. of Biology, NYU, New York, NY, USA

Profile Dr. Tyler Volk
Dr. Tyler Volk is Professor of Biology and Director of Science for the Environmental Studies Program at New York University. Volk’s research has focused on the global carbon cycle, the dynamics of the biosphere, and patterns of systems. His books include “CO2 Rising: The World’s Greatest Environmental Challenge”; “Metapatterns Across Space, Time, and Mind”; “What is Death? A Scientist Looks at the Cycle of Life” and “Gaia’s Body: Toward a Physiology of the Earth”. Papers and more information can be accessed at metapatterns.wikidot.com/members:tylervolk; also see http://biology.as.nyu.edu/object/TylerVolk.html. Tyler plays lead guitar for The Amygdaloids: http://www.amygdaloids.com.