Students will have the chance to hear the senior editor at Physics Today lecture about the science involved in global climate change Tuesday night.
Barbara Levi, a noted physicist and co-editor of the book “Global Warming: Physics and Facts” will be speaking tomorrow at 8 p.m. in Philips Hall at the Performing Arts Center.
“She has followed a lot of the climate change science,” Cal Poly physics professor Pete Schwartz said. “She can tell us what people have said and put it in the context of what’s going on in the world.”
Levi, a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, has been an editor at Physics Today for over 30 years. She comes to Cal Poly to talk about her background and the inner workings of some of the science behind climate change.
“It’s certainly one of the fundamental issues of our day,” Cal Poly professor Randy Knight said. “(It’s) a problem that affects every student, not just this year but throughout their lifetime. It’s really important for students to understand more about this.”
Although her expertise is foremost in journalism, Levi has dedicated herself to the understanding of modern-day physics. “My expertise is essentially communication, climate change is one of the things I try to communicate about,” Levi said. Her long career of reporting is part of the reason why she was selected to talk.
“She has a lot of ‘on the ground knowledge,’” Schwartz said. “She has something like 20 years of experience and will be able to convey that in regards to climate change at her talk.”
Levi says that speaking to college-aged students is vital. “The more someone can understand the science behind (climate change) the more one can understand the consequences behind it,” she said. “I think it’s a very important issue (for students) today and it’s something that will affect their future.”
The event is being co-sponsored by the by the Cal Poly Department of Physics and the Empower Poly Coalition. It is open to the public including those who are not convinced of the sincerity of climate change.
“There are a number of objections that have been raised by the climate change skeptics,” Levi said. “I feel there are some answers that can be made to those.”