Dr. William Ruddiman will speak on The Impact of Early Agriculture on Global Climate on Saturday, April 17 at 3:00 p.m. in Calvert Marine Museum’s auditorium. Dr. Ruddiman, Professor Emertius, Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, has written and lectured widely on the topic of climate change. He published Earth’s Climate: Past and Future, as well as Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum.
Dr. Ruddiman’s hypothesis suggests that very early farming caused releases of carbon dioxide (by deforestation) and methane (by rice farming and livestock) that initially had small, but not trivial, effects on global climate. As agriculture gradually spread across most continents in the tropics and subtropics over thousands of years, this impact had grown surprisingly large by 1850, the time generally regarded as the start of major industrial-era human impacts on global climate. As a consequence, the warming effect from early agricultural emissions of CO2 and methane offset most of a natural cooling that was being driven by natural variations in Earth’s orbit around the Sun and by now would have caused the start of the next (natural) glaciation in Canada and northern Eurasia.
This lecture is third in a series of stimulating PEM Talks on climate change at the Calvert Marine Museum featuring speakers dealing with Paleontology, the Environment, and Maritime History.
Funded by matching grants from The Boeing Company, and the Southern Maryland Heritage Area Consortium and the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority, all PEM Talks are free and open to the public.
Join the Calvert Marine Museum in celebrating 40 years of excellence in 2010. The museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $7 for adults, $6 for seniors and military with valid I.D., and $2 for children ages 5 to 12; children under 5 are free. For a complete listing of museum activities and programs, visit the website at www.calvertmarinemuseum.com or call (410) 326-2042 ext. 41 for more information.
