Food security will be increasingly challenged by climate change, natural resource degradation, and population growth. Wheat yields, in particular, have already stagnated in many regions and will be further affected by warming temperatures. Despite these challenges, wheat yields can be increased by improving management practices in regions with existing yield gaps. To identify the magnitude and causes of current yield gaps in India, one of the largest wheat producers globally, we produced 30 meter resolution yield maps from 2001 to 2015 across the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP), the nation's main wheat belt. Yield maps were derived using a new method that translates satellite vegetation indices to yield estimates using crop model simulations, bypassing the need for ground calibration data. This is one of the first attempts to apply this method to a smallholder agriculture system, where ground calibration data are rarely available. We find that yields can be increased by 11% on average and up to 32% in the eastern IGP by improving management to current best practices within a given district. Additionally, if current best practices from the highest-yielding state of Punjab are implemented in the eastern IGP, yields could increase by almost 110%. Considering the factors that most influence yields, later sow dates and warmer temperatures are most associated with low yields across the IGP. This suggests that strategies to reduce the negative effects of heat stress, like earlier sowing and planting heat-tolerant wheat varieties, are critical to increasing wheat yields in this globally-important agricultural region.
Abstract: The threat of biological catastrophes-- stemming from natural, accidental or intentional causes-- looms ever larger as populations urbanize, global temperatures rise, and the access to biological weapons spreads. In fact, climate change and the increasing ease with which biological weapons may be obtained represent two significant threats to public health. As these threats materialize, they test nations’ resources, capabilities, and strength. Through an examination of the policy and scientific challenges posed by weaponized biological agents as well as by the growing public health risks stemming from climate change impacts, key gaps in bio-preparedness emerge. Bio-preparedness efforts, nationally and globally, do not currently keep pace with emerging biological risks. Will the scientific and policy communities find common ground to move the global health agenda forward through prevention, detection, and response?
Speaker Bio: Alice Hill is a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. She previously served at the White House as Special Assistant to President Barack Obama and Senior Director for Resilience Policy on the National Security Council. Hill led the creation of national policy regarding catastrophic risk, including the impacts of climate change and biological threats.
Hill previously served as Senior Counselor to the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). She headed the DHS Biological Leadership group and led development of Department strategies and policies regarding catastrophic biological and chemical incidents, ranging from pandemics to weapons of mass destruction. Hill also founded and was the first Chair of the Blue Campaign, an internationally recognized anti-human trafficking campaign.
Earlier in her career, Hill has served as a supervising judge on the Los Angeles Superior Court and as chief of the white-collar crime unit in the Los Angeles US Attorney’s Office.
She is a frequent speaker and has been quoted in the NY Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, among other publications. She has appeared on CBS, NPR, and MSNBC and her commentary has been published in Newsweek, LawFare, The Hill, and other media. She has received numerous awards and commendations, including the Department of Justice’s highest award for legal accomplishment, Harvard’s Meta-Leader of the Year Award, and the San Fernando Valley Bar’s Judge of the Year.
Alice Hill
Research Fellow
Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Although development organizations agree that reliable access to energy and energy services—one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals—is likely to have profound and perhaps disproportionate impacts on women, few studies have directly empirically estimated the impact of energy access on women's empowerment. This is a result of both a relative dearth of energy access evaluations in general and a lack of clarity on how to quantify gender impacts of development projects. Here we present an evaluation of the impacts of the Solar Market Garden—a distributed photovoltaic irrigation project—on the level and structure of women's empowerment in Benin, West Africa. We use a quasi-experimental design (matched-pair villages) to estimate changes in empowerment for project beneficiaries after one year of Solar Market Garden production relative to non-beneficiaries in both treatment and comparison villages (n = 771). To create an empowerment metric, we constructed a set of general questions based on existing theories of empowerment, and then used latent variable analysis to understand the underlying structure of empowerment locally. We repeated this analysis at follow-up to understand whether the structure of empowerment had changed over time, and then measured changes in both the levels and likelihood of empowerment over time. We show that the Solar Market Garden significantly positively impacted women's empowerment, particularly through the domain of economic independence. In addition to providing rigorous evidence for the impact of a rural renewable energy project on women's empowerment, our work lays out a methodology that can be used in the future to benchmark the gender impacts of energy projects.
Abstract: This talk examines the history of environmental data systems in the context of the Trump administration’s assault on environmental science. Tracking and understanding environmental change requires “long data,” i.e. consistent, reliable sampling over long periods of time. Weather observations can become climate data, for example — but only if carefully curated and adjusted to account for changes in instrumentation and data analysis methods. Environmental knowledge institutions therefore depend on an ongoing “truce” among scientific and political actors. Climate denialism and deregulatory movements seek to destabilize this truce. In recent months, with the installation of climate change deniers and non-scientist ideologues as leaders of American knowledge institutions, wholesale dismantling of some environmental data systems has begun. These developments threaten the continuity of “long data” vital to tracking climate change and other environmental disruptions with significant consequences for both domestic and international security.
Speaker bio: Paul N. Edwards is William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at Stanford University (from July 2017) and Professor of Information at the University of Michigan. He writes and teaches about the history, politics, and culture of information infrastructures. Edwards is the author of A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming (MIT Press, 2010) and The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America (MIT Press, 1996), and co-editor of Changing the Atmosphere: Expert Knowledge and Environmental Governance (MIT Press, 2001), as well as numerous articles.
William J. Perry Fellow in International Security
Stanford University
Abstract: We live in a world where the risks from a changing climate are clear. New research highlights the magnitude of the risks and the benefits of rapid, ambitious action. We also live in a world where the technologies for addressing climate change, for limiting the amount of climate change that occurs and for dealing as effectively as possible with the changes that cannot be avoided, are increasingly mature, affordable, and rich with co-benefits. In many ways and in many places, progress in deploying solutions is dramatic. But worldwide, progress is much slower than it needs to be, if we are to avoid the worst impacts. We need to find a global accelerator pedal for climate solutions. Key enablers include steps to level the economic playing field, government investments to drive down the costs and risks of technology solutions, and novel mechanisms to spur international collaboration.
Speaker Bio: Chris Field is the Perry L. McCarty Director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies. His research focuses on climate change, ranging from work on improving climate models, to prospects for renewable energy systems, to community organizations that can minimize the risk of a tragedy of the commons. Field was the founding director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology, a position he held from 2002 to 2016. He was co-chair of Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change from 2008-2015, where he led the effort on the IPCC Special Report on “Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation” (2012) and the Working Group II contribution to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (2014) on Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. His widely cited work has earned many recognitions, including election to the US National Academy of Sciences, the Max Planck Research Award, and the Roger Revelle Medal.
William J. Perry Conference Room
Encina Hall, 2nd floor
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305
Chris Field
Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies
Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University
Abstract: Over decades, assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and many others has bolstered understanding of the climate problem: unequivocal warming, pervasive impacts, and serious risks from continued high emissions of heat-trapping gases. Societies are increasingly responding with early actions to decarbonize energy systems and prepare for impacts. In this emerging era of climate solutions, new assessment opportunities arise. They include learning from ongoing real-world experiences and helping close the gap between aspirations and the pace of progress. Against this backdrop, I will consider core challenges in assessment, in particular: (1) integrating diverse evidence; (2) applying rigorous expert judgment; and (3) deeply embedding interactions between experts and decision-makers. Examples span climate risks and portfolios of mitigation and adaptation responses. For climate and broader global change, the presentation will explore how transparent, high-traction assessment can support decisions about contested and uncertain futures.
About the Speaker: Katharine Mach is a Senior Research Scientist at Stanford University, an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and a Visiting Investigator at the Carnegie Institution for Science. She leads the Stanford Environment Assessment Facility (SEAF). From 2010 until 2015, Mach co-directed the scientific activities of Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which focuses on impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability. This work culminated in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report and its Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation. Mach received her PhD from Stanford University and AB from Harvard College.
What next for climate? Assessing the risks and the options
Abstract: In 2015 nations agreed to the Sustainable Development Goals, including ending poverty, protecting the planet, and ensuring prosperity for all. To accomplish them, we need to find synergies across the seventeen goals. Fortunately, some co-benefits are clear. Cutting greenhouse gas emissions does much more than fight climate change. It saves water and improves water quality. It saves lives, too, as witnessed by the ~20,000 or more people who die from coal pollution each year in the United States, with a million more people worldwide. The low-carbon economy will help stabilize national security, create net jobs, and more.
About the Speaker: Rob Jackson is Douglas Provostial Professor and Chair of the Earth System Science Department at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow in Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment and Precourt Institute for Energy (jacksonlab.stanford.edu). As an environmental scientist, he chairs the Global Carbon Project (globalcarbonproject.org), an international organization that tracks natural and anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. His photographs have appeared in many media outlets, including the NY Times, Washington Post, and USA Today, and he has published several books of poetry. Jackson is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the Ecological Society of America and was honored at the White House with a Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering.
Rob Jackson
Douglas Provostial Professor and Chair
Earth System Science Department, Stanford University
Abstract: Effective climate risk management requires robust quantification of the probability of different kinds of hazards, such as heat waves, droughts, floods, and severe storms. As a result, there has been increasing interest in the extent to which historical global warming has influenced the occurrence and severity of individual extreme climate events. However, although trends in the extremes of the seasonal- and daily-scale distributions of climate records have been analyzed for many years, quantifying the contribution of observed global warming to individual events that are unprecedented in the observed record presents a particular scientific challenge. I will describe a framework for leveraging observations and large climate model ensembles to quantify the influence of observed global warming on the probability of unprecedented extreme events. This approach is grounded on three tenets: (1) Focus on understanding the physical causes of the individual event; (2) Use formal uncertainty quantification to test the probability of those physical conditions occurring in the current climate; and (3) Use formal hypothesis testing to compare the probability of those physical conditions occurring in the current climate and a climate without human influence. My group has applied our analysis to a number of different climate variables from a number of individual events, including temperature, precipitation, soil moisture, and atmospheric circulation patterns. Together, this work has shown that global warming can influence the risk of extreme events that are unprecedented in historical experience, particularly by altering the probability of the physical conditions that are responsible for the event. In addition, given the widespread public interest in “real time” attribution, the prospects for operational attribution analysis will also be discussed.
About the Speaker: Noah Diffenbaugh is a Professor and Kimmelman Family Senior Fellow at Stanford University. He studies the climate system, including impacts on agriculture, water resources, and human health. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of Geophysical Research Letters. He has served as an IPCC Lead Author, and has provided scientific expertise to the White House, the Governor of California, and U.S. Congressional offices. Recognitions include the Holton Award from the American Geophysical Union and a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation.
Encina Hall, 2nd floor
Noah S. Diffenbaugh
Professor, School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences
Stanford University
In a shack that now sits below sea level, a mother in Bangladesh struggles to grow vegetables in soil inundated by salt water. In Malawi, a toddler joins thousands of other children perishing from drought-induced malnutrition. And in China, more than one million people died from air pollution in 2012 alone.
Around the world, climate change is already having an effect on human health.
In a recent paper, Katherine Burke and Michele Barry from the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health, along with former Wellesley College President Diana Walsh, described climate change as “the ultimate global health crisis.” They offered recommendations to the new United States president to address the urgently arising health risks associated with climate change.
Bangladeshi children make their way through flood waters.
The authors, along with Stanford researchers Marshall Burke, Eran Bendavid and Amy Pickering who also study climate change, are concerned by how little has been done to mitigate its effects on health.
There is still time to ease — though not eliminate — the worst effects on health, but as the average global temperature continues to creep upward, time appears to be running short.
“I think we are at a critical point right now in terms of mitigating the effects of climate change on health,” said Amy Pickering, a research engineer at the Woods Institute for the Environment. “And I don’t think that’s a priority of the new administration at all.”
Health effects of climate change
Even in countries like the United States that are well-equipped to adapt to climate change, health impacts will be significant.
“Extremes of temperature have a very observable direct effect,” said Eran Bendavid, an assistant professor of medicine and Stanford Health Policy core faculty member.
“We see mortality rates increase when temperatures are very low, and especially when they are very high.”
Bendavid also has seen air pollutants cause respiratory problems in people from Beijing to Los Angeles to villages in Sub-Saharan Africa.
“Hotter temperatures make it such that particulate matter and dust and pollutants stick around longer,” he said.
In addition to respiratory issues, air pollution can have long-term cognitive effects. A study in Chile found that children who are exposed to high amounts of air pollution in utero score lower on math tests by the fourth grade.
“I think we’re only starting to understand the true costs of dirty air,” said Marshall Burke. “Even short-term exposure to low levels can have life-long effects.”
Low-income countries like Bangladesh already suffer widespread, direct health effects from rising sea levels. Salt water flooding has crept through homes and crops, threatening food sources and drinking water for millions of people.
“I think that flooding is one of the most pressing issues in low-income and densely populated countries,” said Pickering. “There’s no infrastructure there to handle it.”
Standing water left over from flooding is also a breeding ground for diseases like cholera, diarrhea and mosquito-borne illnesses, all of which are likely to become more prevalent as the planet warms.
On the flip side, many regions of Sub-Saharan Africa — where clean water is already hard to access — are likely to experience severe droughts. The United Nations warned last year that more than 36 million people across southern and eastern Africa face hunger due to drought and record-high temperatures.
Residents may have to walk farther to find water, and local sources could become contaminated more easily. Pickering fears that losing access to nearby, clean water will make maintaining proper hygiene and growing nutritious foods a challenge.
Climate change will affect health in all sectors of society.
All of these effects and more can also damage mental health, said Katherine Burke and her colleagues in their paper. The aftermath of extreme weather events and the hardships of living in long-term drought or flood can cause anxiety, depression, grief and trauma.
Climate change will affect health in every sector of society, but as Katherine Burke and her colleagues said, “….climate disruption is inflicting the greatest suffering on those least responsible for causing it, least equipped to adapt, least able to resist the powerful forces of the status quo.
“If we fail to act now,” they said, “the survival of our species may hang in the balance.”
What can the new administration do to ease health effects?
If the Paris Agreement’s emissions standards are met, scientists predict that the world’s temperature will increase about 2.7 degrees Celsius – still significant but less hazardous than the 4-degree increase projected from current emissions.
The United States plays a critical role in the Paris Agreement. Apart from the significance of cutting its own emissions, failing to live up to its end of the bargain — as the Trump administration has suggested — could have a significant impact on the morale of the other countries involved.
“The reason that Paris is going to work is because we’re in this together,” said Marshall Burke. “If you don’t meet your target, you’re going to be publicly shamed.”
The Trump administration has also discussed repealing the Clean Power Plan, Obama-era legislation to decrease the use of coal, which has been shown to contribute to respiratory disease.
“Withdrawing from either of those will likely have negative short- and long-run health impacts, both in the U.S. and abroad,” said Marshall Burke.
Scott Pruitt, who was confirmed today as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is expected to carry out Trump’s promise to dismantle environment regulations.
Despite the Trump administration’s apparent doubts about climate change, a few prominent Republicans do support addressing its effects.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the former chairman and CEO of Exxon Mobile, supports a carbon tax, which would create a financial incentive to turn to renewable energy sources. He also has expressed support for the Paris Agreement. It is possible that as secretary of state, Tillerson could help maintain U.S. obligations from the Paris Agreement, though it is far from certain whether he would choose to do so or how Trump would react.
More promising is a recent proposal from the Climate Leadership Council. Authored by eight leading Republicans — including two former secretaries of state, two former secretaries of the treasury and Rob Walton, Walmart’s former chairman of the board — the plan seeks to reduce emissions considerably through a carbon dividends plan.
Already an issue, malnutrition will increase with droughts in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Their proposal would gradually increase taxes on carbon emissions but would return the proceeds directly to the American people. Americans would receive a regular check with their portion of the proceeds, similar to receiving a social security check. According to the authors, 70 percent of Americans would come out ahead financially, keeping the tax from being a burden on low- and middle-income Americans while still incentivizing lower emissions.
“A tax on carbon is exactly what we need to provide the right incentives and induce the sort of technological and infrastructure change needed to reduce long-term emissions,” said Marshall Burke.
Pickering added, “This policy is a ray of hope for meaningful action on climate.”
It remains to be seen whether the new administration and congress would consider such a program.
What can academics do to help?
Meanwhile, academics can promote health by researching the effects of climate change and finding ways to adapt to them.
“I think it’s fascinating that there’s just so little data right now on how climate change is going to impact health,” said Pickering.
Studying the effects of warming on the world challenges traditional methods of research.
“You can’t create any sort of experiment,” said Bendavid. “There’s only one climate and one planet.”
The scholars agree that interdisciplinary study is a critical part of adapting to climate change and that more research is needed.
“If ever there was an issue worthy of a leader’s best effort, this is the moment, this is the issue,” said Katherine Burke and her colleagues. “Time is short, but it may not be too late to make all the difference.”
Abstract: A growing body of empirical evidence indicates that changes in climate are associated with increases in human violence. I review new and recent evidence on this topic, using data ranging from baseball games in the US to civil war in Africa. Across disparate settings, warmer-than-average temperatures are shown to cause increases in violence, with effect sizes that are both consistent and large. Economic theories of conflict appear to explain some of the linkage between climate and conflict, but are not consistent with the data in all settings. Constructive engagement with the political science and security communities will be very helpful in understanding and interpreting these findings.
About the Speaker: Marshall Burke is assistant professor in the Department of Earth System Science, and Center Fellow at the Center on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford University. His research focuses on social and economic impacts of environmental change, and on the economics of rural development in Africa. His work has appeared in both economics and scientific journals, including recent publications in Nature, Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Review of Economics and Statistics. He holds a PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from UC Berkeley, and a BA in International Relations from Stanford.
Marshall Burke
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Earth System Science
Stanford University
Bangladeshi children make their way through flood waters.
Climate change will affect health in all sectors of society.
Already an issue, malnutrition will increase with droughts in Sub-Saharan Africa.
