Note: Due to a family emergency, we had to cancel Dr. Cynthia Gilmour’s originally scheduled talk on mercury pollution on Jan. 18, and are replacing it with the climate change talk at the same time below.

Virtual Earth Optimism lectures are back for the new year at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC)! The 2022 series will remain all online, with recordings available for those unable to watch live. Dr. Pat Megonigal, director of SERC’s Global Change Research Wetland, will kick off the series with a talk titled Restoring The Balance: Nature’s Role in Future Climate.

Since the Industrial Revolution, humans have driven a transformation of Earth’s climate, outpacing many of Earth’s natural cycles. But natural forces are still at work. In our first Earth Optimism lecture of the year, Dr. Megonigal will illustrate some of the unseen forces driving climate change. Join us for a myth-busting journey from the massive ice sheets of Antarctica to microbes in the soil, as he explores the natural phenomena both accelerating climate change and keeping it in check.  Dr. Megonigal will also reveal ways people are already using nature to fight climate change, through natural climate solutions.

This webinar will be recorded! By signing up on Zoom, you’ll be able to watch the live event and receive a link to the recording via email a few days after it airs. Closed captioning will be available at the live webinar and on the recording. The Earth Optimism lecture series airs live on Zoom every third Tuesday of the month at 7pm Eastern, from January through October.

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More info about the Earth Optimism lecture series