UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Fires burn in all terrestrial ecosystems on the globe, and wildfires are getting larger, more destructive and deadly. Both humans and climate are contributing to this trend. The Fall 2021 EESI EarthTalks series, “Fire in the Earth System,” will address humanity’s long relationship with fire, how humans and climate create conditions conducive to megafires, and how policy makers and land managers can address the fire problem. The talks, which are free and open to the public, take place Mondays at 4 p.m. via Zoom.
The series schedule is as follows:
- Sept. 13 – Jessica Thompson, Yale University, “The early evolution of fire-human relationships”
- Sept. 20 – David McWethy, Montana State University, “Examining climate-human-fire interactions and feedbacks in temperate ecosystems”
- Sept. 27 – Rebecca Bliege Bird, Penn State, “Indigenous fire regimes and their ecosystem services under climate change”
- Oct. 4 – David Bowman, University of Tasmania, “Viewing the 2019-2020 Australian bushfire crisis through a pyrogeographic lens”
- Oct. 11 – Alejandra Domic, Penn State, topic to be announced
- Oct. 18 – Victor McCrary, Vice Chair, National Science Board, “National Science Board Vision 2030: Making a difference for America’s research ecosystem”
- Oct. 25 – Speaker and topic to be announced
- Nov. 1 – Rebecca Hamilton, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, topic to be announced
- Nov. 8 – Mark Cochrane, University of Maryland, “The role of fire and land use in tropical forest decline in Indonesia and Brazil”
- Nov. 15 – Phil Higuera, University of Montana, “Fire, climate change and the resilience of Rocky Mountain forests”
- Nov. 29 – Park Williams, University of California, Los Angeles, “The role of anthropogenic climate change on fire in California”
- Dec. 6 – Scott Stephens, University of California, Berkeley, “Fire policy and policy conundrums in fire-prone Mediterranean climate forests and shrublands”
The EESI EarthTalks series is hosted by Penn State’s Earth and Environmental Systems Institute. For more information about the fall 2021 series, visit the EarthTalks web page.