Fighting Climate Change with discussants Nancy Pfund, Ad Melkert, Andrea Gardner and Larry Brilliant.
While many Californians consider buying hybrid cars and unplugging their computer, most of the world's 6 billion people covet having any kind of car and can only dream of having a laptop one day. Yet fighting global climate change will require lifestyle changes by everyone. How can that happen without slamming the world's poor, who are most vulnerable to the health and weather effects of global warming? How can California's innovation in climate policy and technologies help by decoupling carbon emissions from GDP growth?- Commonwealth Club of California
Bio
Dr. Larry Brilliant
Larry is an M.D. and M.P.H. and a former professor of epidemiology. He helped run the WHO smallpox eradication program in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh; was a staff member of the WHO "Global Commission to Certify Smallpox Eradicated" in Burma, India, Nepal, and Iran; and served as the last UN inspector to visit Iran to search for hidden smallpox.
The author of two books and dozens of articles on the epidemiology of smallpox, blindness, and environmental diseases, he has worked at city, county, state, federal, and international levels. Larry is also the founder of the Seva Foundation, which has performed 2 million free sight-restoring eye operations in India and Nepal.
As a technologist, he was a founder of The WELL, CEO of two public technology corporations (SoftNet Systems Inc. and Network Technologies), and most recently founded the WiFi company, Cometa. Dr. Brilliant is also a recipient of the 2006 TED Prize, which grants him one wish to change the world.
Andrea Gardner
Andrea Gardner is a Sustainable Solutions Manager.
Ad Melkert
Adrianus Petrus Wilhelmus is a Dutch politician, who served as chair of the parliamentary party and Minister of Social Affairs and Employment for the social-democratic PvdA. He led the PvdA to a historic low in the contentious 2002 general elections, which were won by the CDA and the List Pim Fortuyn party. He currently serves as Associate Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme.
Nancy Pfund
Nancy Pfund is a Managing Partner of DBL Investors. Ms. Pfund currently sponsors or sits on the board of directors of a number of private companies, including SolarCity, Brightsource Energy, Tesla Motors and Pandora.
Previously, Ms. Pfund was a Managing Director at JPMorgan. Ms. Pfund joined JPMorgan (then Hambrecht & Quist) in 1984 as a securities analyst and later joined its venture capital department as principal and then Managing Director in 1989. In addition to her private equity responsibilities, Ms. Pfund also built and directed H&Q's external affairs and philanthropic programs from 1996 to 2001. In 1988, President Bush appointed Ms. Pfund as a charter member of the National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology. In 1999, Ms. Pfund was appointed by President Clinton to serve on the Congressional Web-Based Education Commission. Ms. Pfund is a member of the board of directors of the California Clean Energy Fund (CalCEF), a not-for-profit fund mandated by the California PUC to invest in companies pursuing fossil-fuel alternatives, and is a founding officer and director of ABC2, a foundation aimed at accelerating a cure for brain cancer. She is also a member of the Advisory Board of the UC Davis Center for Energy Efficiency.
Malaria is not related to global warming. Mosquitos are a problem in Alaska and the northern portions of Russia. They have had outbreaks of malaria there before. When people make predictions like malaria becoming more of a problem, you really need to study history to see if malaria is really a problem limited to warmer climes.
The question is, should we be concerned about carbon at all? If so, then global warming would be the solution, not the problem. Consider how much CO2 is spewed into the air by snowplows and blowers having to clear snow from vast numbers of runways, parking lots, city streets, rural roads, highways and interstates every time it snows. Consider how much CO2 is spewed into the air when we have to heat our homes, businesses, hospitals, schools, and factories to a liveable temp of approx. 68 degrees. Consider the amount of CO2 that it produced in places that it frequently gets down to -20 - -40. Those temps must be raised 108 degrees to get to said 68. No, if CO2 is a problem, global warming is the best preventative.