'A Climate-Centered Chat on a Hot Topic' at USU's Museum of Art

The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art at Utah State University hosts special guest Robert Davies for a public lecture Tuesday, Oct. 12, 7-8 p.m.

 

Davies presents “Getting Through: Communicating Earth’s Changing Climate.”

 

The lecture is sponsored in conjunction with a new exhibit on display at the museum, EcoVisionaries: Designs for Living on Earth.

 

Davies is an associate of the Utah Climate Center and teaches physics and the physics of climate change at USU. He also serves on Logan City’s Renewable Energy Advisory Board and continues to be heavily engaged in public climate change education.

 

In his lecture, Davies will overview the evidence of the current climate predicament and discuss societal barriers to understanding and internalizing this predicament. He will also discuss the efforts of others in overcoming these cultural and emotional barriers.

 

“Earth’s changing climate is fast emerging as this century’s preeminent challenge,” Davies writes in an introduction to his lecture. “A diverse collection of broad, deep independent lines of evidence has led to robust scientific conclusions: Earth is warming, principally attributable to humans, and posing serious threat to humans, human society and the human ecosystem. So say all the world’s greatest scientific organizations. Yet faced with unprecedented risk, our response has been confused and hesitant … and the public remains largely indifferent.”

 

Davies plans to address these issues and answer questions from the public, explaining the varied and contributing factors of climate change.

 

Davies is a Utah-trained physicist and educator originally from South Dakota. He has worked for USU’s Space Dynamics Lab and NASA and taught on the faculty of three universities. In 2005, on a research stint at Oxford University studying the fundamental nature of light and information, he renewed his longstanding interest in climate physics, spending time with researchers at the university’s Environmental Change Institute and delving into the primary scientific literature.

 

Impressed with the sheer volume and diversity of data, with dramatic advances in the science — and with the sharp contrast between science’s broad consensus and the public’s near-extreme confusion — Davies decided take a year-long public service sabbatical in the northern Utah community he calls home. That was four years ago, and the work continues.

 

Before arriving at USU in 1991, Davies studied physics at South Dakota State University, atmospheric physics at Texas A&M University and served as an officer and meteorologist in the U.S. Air Force.

 

For more information or to schedule a tour of the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, call (435) 797-0165. The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art is on the USU campus at 650 N. 1100 East, Logan, Utah, 84322, (435) 797-0163; fax (435) 797-3423. Information is also available at the museum’s website. The museum is open Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The museum is closed Sundays, Mondays and holidays. Admission is free. The museum is accessible to persons with disabilities.

 

Parking for the museum is available in the Orange Lot west of the museum. The parking fee in this area is $5. Museum visitors who RSVP will receive free parking, and parking is free after 5 p.m. and on weekends. Two dedicated stalls in the Orange Lot are available for museum members. Call Rachel for reservations: (435) 797-1414. Parking is also available in the Big Blue Terrace, located near the Taggart Student Center, for $1.50/hour ($7.50/day maximum). Free parking after 5 p.m. is available at the Blue Lot, located at the corner of 700 N. and 1200 East (by Aggie Ice Cream).

 

 

Writer: Casey T. Allen, Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, (435) 797-0166, Casey.allen@usu.edu