Climate Security – Virtual Program
November 13th, 2020 8:00AM -9:00AM
This is a virtual program, instructions on how to join this meeting will be sent the day before the event.
The United States security community is bracing for the national security consequences of climate change. From humanitarian disasters to conflict, water and food shortage, and forced population migration, extreme weather patterns and rising ocean levels will act more and more as accelerants of instability with the potential to draw the United States into new conflicts and exacerbate old conflicts. Climate change is also putting military installations are at risk domestically and abroad, undermining U.S. operational readiness. Join the World Affairs Council for a panel discussion on the security consequences of climate change and what effective policies must look like to address the rising threat.
About the Speakers
Marcus DuBois King, Ph.D. is John O. Rankin Associate Professor of International Affairs and Director of the M.A. Program in International Affairs at George Washington University’s Elliott School. His research focuses on environmental security, climate change and security, and water stress in fragile states. Prior to the Elliott School he was a research analyst at CNA Corporation’s Center for Naval Analyses. King’s government service includes presidential appointments during the Clinton Administration in the Office of the Secretary of Energy and the Office of the Deputy Under Secretary for Environmental Security at the Pentagon. He is Senior Fellow at the Center for Climate and Security and the Vice-Chairman of the Council on Strategic Risks.
Annalise Blum, PhD, is a AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow and a Lecturer at Johns Hopkins University. Previously, she was a visiting fellow with the American Meteorological Society’s Policy Program and postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University. Trained in water resources engineering, Dr. Blum has led multi-disciplinary research on floods, droughts, access to safe water, and ecological impacts of environmental change. She has served as a fellow in Policy and Global Affairs at the National Academy of Sciences and a National Science Foundation fellow at the U.S. Geological Survey. She also worked at the Center for International Development at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Annalise has a Ph.D. in environmental and water resources engineering from Tufts University, M.S. in environmental sciences and engineering from UNC-Chapel Hill, and a B.S. in environmental engineering from Stanford University.
David Titley is an Affiliate Professor of Meteorology and International Affairs at the Pennsylvania State University. He was the founding director of Penn State’s Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk.
After graduating from Penn State, Titley served as a naval officer for 32 years and rose to the rank of Rear Admiral. Dr. Titley’s career included duties navigator, meteorologist and oceanographer on five ships and afloat staffs, and ultimately as Oceanographer and Navigator of the Navy. In 2009, Dr. Titley initiated and led the U.S. Navy’s Task Force on Climate Change.
After retiring from the Navy, Dr. Titley served as the Deputy Undersecretary of Commerce for Operations, the chief operating officer position at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. From 2013 to 2019, Dr. Titley served as a Professor of Practice in Meteorology and Atmospheric Science and a Professor of International Affairs at the Pennsylvania State University.
In 2017 Dr. Titley gave a TED talk on Climate Change and National Security and has testified before the U.S. Congress numerous times on climate and security matters. He serves on multiple climate and security-related advisory boards and National Academy of Science (NAS) committees. He currently chairs the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine Climate Communication Initiative advisory committee, and is a member of the NAS Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate.
In 2020 Dr. Titley started a new career, volunteering for the National Park Service in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.
Dr. Titley received his Ph.D. in Meteorology from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate school. He received an honorary Doctorate degree from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the Penn State Alumni Fellow Award, and is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society.
About the Moderator
Jill M. Brandenberger is a coastal oceanographer with over 25 years of experience building multi-disciplinary teams to translate science to inform national security mission sustainment. Ms Brandenberger currently leads PNNL’s Environmental Intelligence program where she leverages partnerships across DOE national labs, universities, and industry to focus on advancing energy resilience, extreme event planning and recovery, and automating earth observations. In what is now a more data rich world, this program seeks to automate and integrate measurements with modeling platforms to evaluate interdependencies between human and earth systems under current and future conditions. Directly linking science to mission decision making enhances our resiliency.
Specific accomplishments include
· 2019 highlighted in the DOE Women in Energy Program
· 2020 Acknowledged as DOE STEM Ambassador
· 2014 to present - building an Environmental Security program to leverage DOE Office of Science Earth System modeling to understand global to regional impacts of climate change to national security.
Sponsored by the Henry M. Jackson Foundation
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