Climate Change | Penn Today

Tackling climate change on all levels

At the Perry World House Global Shifts Colloquium, experts from around the world discussed what governments, and individuals, can do to avoid the ultimate catastrophe.

Power struggle: Nuclear energy contends with climate change

Earth and Environmental Science Department Chair Reto Gieré explains how 40 years after the worst nuclear accident in the U.S., a global energy dilemma endures.

A group of three rows of people wearing nametags poses for a photo.

Confronting inequities, sharing solutions

At the annual meeting of the Global Water Alliance, faculty, students, and practitioners shared solutions and challenges around the issues of water access, sanitation, and hygiene in the U.S. and around the world.

Rising Waters fellows in Mumbai in January

The future of urban waters

Students and faculty of the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities’ Liquid Histories course study the impact of rising sea levels from the banks of Philadelphia and Mumbai.

Man running during Super Typhoon storm in Philippines

The language of climate change—and the Anthropocene

Hanna E. Morris, a doctoral student at the Annenberg School for Communication who researches environmental communication, explains the sudden rise of ‘Anthropocene’ as the latest buzzword in the climate dialogue.

flooded parking garage with floating life preservers

Procrastinating on climate change

Joseph Kable, Baird Term Professor of Psychology, studies how people make (or don’t make) decisions. He calls the circumstances around climate change a “perfect storm of features” that’s leading us to not act.

Satellite image of port of Semarang with vulnerable coastal areas labeled "Industrial Greenbelt" "Future-ready Port" "Resilient Kampung, "Re-Water"

Designing with resilience to prepare for a changing world

Urban designers joined with architects, engineers, city planners, sociologists, and other experts to share strategies for adapting to rising sea levels, fiercer storms, and sinking shorelines, coinciding with the launch of the Certificate in Urban Resilience at the School of Design.

statistics written out that read 280 million more people without access to adequate water, 120 million more people exposed to major river floods, 12 million more people subjected to coastal flooding, 24% decline in global maize productivity

Money alone won’t address climate change goals—we need policy action

Wharton’s Eric W. Orts joins other experts to analyze the likely outcome of the 24th annual Conference of the Parties, the two-week U.N. meeting where a plan of action to reverse climate change is the goal.

figure in rainstorm with back turned wearing a yellow raincoat and boots surrounded by flooding

Extreme weather won’t sway climate skeptics

Experiencing extreme weather is not enough to convince climate change skeptics that humans are damaging the environment, according to a new study based on research at the Annenberg Public Policy Center.

Pots on a table in a greenhouse filled with grasses in various stages of growth

Dry conditions may have helped a new type of plant gain a foothold on Earth

Plants reap energy from the sun using two photosynthesis pathways, C3 and C4. A new study led by Haoran Zhou, Erol Akçay and Brent Helliker suggests that water availability drove the expansion of C4 species, which may help to explain how different plant lineages came to be distributed on the planet today.

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