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Berkeley Philomathia Forum Will Examine Climate Change, Urban Issues
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The issue of climate change could be the single biggest scientific story in our collective lifetimes. But beyond the science of how and why it’s happening, another question must be asked: how it will be affecting the people of the world, and impact the cities that they live in?

That’s what the 2016 Philomathia Forum at UC Berkeley seeks to answer.

BERC Energy SummitThe 2016 Forum on Energy and Environment takes place on Thursday, Feb. 18 at Sutardja Dai Hall on Berkeley’s campus. The theme of this year’s forum is Cities and People: Responding to Global Warming.

Leading climatologists, urban planners and designers will gather explore the state-of-the-art of adaptation and mitigation strategies to the severe impacts of global warming in cities.

Climate change and continually increasing urbanization – particularly in developing countries and impoverished areas – has presented a new set of challenges for managing urban infrastructure. Continued warming has implications on cities’ energy use, public health facilities, transportation infrastructure, and water, among other factors — all of which can be exasperated by the Urban Heat Island effect.

This year’s forum, which will be broken into four sections, will take a look at those sorts of issues. A full listing of the day’s proceedings can be found at the end of this post.

This year’s Philomathia Forum is part of multiple days of activities at the university. Among those will be the Berkeley Cleantech University Prize (CUP), where teams of students will present their clean energy startup ideas for a $50,000 grand prize; and the Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative (BERC) Energy Summit 2016 – the theme of which is “Shaping the Next 10 Years.”

Just the facts:

What it is: 2016 UC Berkeley Philomathia Forum – Cities and People: Responding to Global Warming.
Date:
Thursday, February 18, 2016.
Location: Sutardja Dai Hall, UC Berkeley.
Tickets and more information: Here.

Program for the day:

8:15: Registration, Coffee and Networking.

9:00: Welcome: Paul Wright, BECI

9:30: Session 1: Climate Change and Global Warming

  • Gabriel Lau, Professor of Geography and Resource Management, CUHK
  • Bill Collins, Director, Climate & Ecosystem Division, LBNL
  • Margaret Torn, Co – Lead, Climate and Carbon Sciences Program, LBNL
  • Steven Yim, Professor of Geography and Resource Management, CUHK
  • Andrew Jones, Research Scientist, Society and Integrated Earth Systems, LBNL

10:30: Break

11:00: Session 2: Risks – Health, Infrastructure, Economics, Negative Feedbacks

  • Linda Rudolph, Director, Center for Climate Change and Public Health
  • Cole Roberts, Energy and Resource Sustainability, Arup SF
  • Bruce Riordan, Program Director, Climate Readiness Institute
  • Rachel Morello-Frosch, Professor of Environmental Science, UC Berkeley

12:00: Lunch

1:15: Session 3: Mitigation – “Moonshot Strategies”

  • Mary Ann Piette, Director, Building Technology and Urban Systems, LBNL
  • Whendee Silver, Professor of Ecosystem Ecology, UC Berkeley
  • Jeffrey Long, Professor of Chemistry and Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, UC Berkeley
  • Rosey Jencks, Lead, Urban Watershed Management & Stormwater Planning, SF PUC
  • Max Moritz, Fire Ecology and Management, UC Berkeley

2:30: Break

3:00: Session 4: Adaptation/Resilience – “Moonshot Strategies”

  • Edward Ng, Professor of Architecture, Chinese University of Hong Kong
  • Thomas Auer, Professor of Architecture, Technische Universität München
  • Harrison Fraker, Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, UC Berkeley
  • Kristina Hill, Professor of Environmental Planning & Urban Design, UC Berkeley
  • Ren Chao, Professor of Architecture, Chinese University of Hong Kong

4:00: Conversation with Guest Presenter