--------- [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] and everyone. My name is Kate. I am here
from the Worcester Talking Book Library today, as I'm sure you're all aware. Um so yeah, today we're just going to be quickly going over um some of the materials that we carry, who is qualified to use our services, and then how someone can go about applying if
they are qualified and interested. So since it's a fairly small group, if you have questions throughout, definitely feel free to just raise a hand. Um but I will leave time at the end as well if anyone has specific questions or anything in particular they'd like to ask at the end. So, I'm ready to get
started. >> All right. >> U, so the talking book library is a free resource for people who are blind or print disabled. So, basically what that means is anyone who is unable to read a standard book either due to a visual
impairment, but also a physical disability or reading disability. So, this could be someone with neuropathy in their hands that makes it difficult to hold a book. It can be someone with a reading disability like dyslexia where it's it's challenging to read that
standard font. Um so the resources we provide are primarily large type books, braille materials and um audio materials as well. There are also some assisted devices that we are in the process of
cataloging. Um, so once those are all complete, we'll actually be able to send out um, magnifiers and other devices like that in the mail so that people can use them from their homes, try them out, see how that would work for them. So
basically, we have a physical space in the Worcester public library, but we primarily will send things through the mail. So for people in Aer, Shirley, Lunenburgg, that's probably how they would access these materials. Um, so for large type, the book would go into an
envelope like this. And there's no postage required. So this can just go directly into the mail. There will be a cardboard slip with their address, the patron's address on the front and ours on the back. So whenever they're finished with it, they can just pop it
back in the mail. No postage. There are also no late fees since it is by mail. So that's a little bit different from your standard library. Um, we do ask that people have them back in about 4 weeks, but if people need it longer, we're not too too picky. We just
try to make sure things are coming back to us. Uh, we also have a variety of children's materials, which I did bring with me today. So, this would be an example of a large type children's book, which as you can see is actually just the normal book. Most children's books
actually are already in large type. And then I also have some braille materials. So these are this is a really important resource not only for a child who's visually impaired, but if a caretaker is visually impaired and wants to read along with their child, this is
a really great way to kind of have that bonding experience even if the person may not be able to read the print themselves. And then lastly, I have this device here which is a talking book machine. So that is in our name.
We send these machines out to people. They don't need to purchase them. Everything is already included and free through our program. So we send these out and then these are digital cartridges that contain the entire book on here. So
there's no flipping tapes. This cartridge will just arrive in the mail. The Forgotten Garden by Kate Mortyn DB70900. So basically, because it's all on a cartridge, once it's popped in, it will
start playing automatically. Each of these buttons will tell you what it's doing when you press it. >> Volume up. And then if somebody takes this out and say goes to bed or starts another book, once they put it back in, it will start at the point that they
left off in the book. So that's a really important resource, especially if people are used to either tapes or CDs for audio books. This is a little bit more high-tech, which is important. And then the other thing I just wanted to mention about audio materials as well, if someone is a little bit more techsavvy
and is um comfortable using either a tablet, an iPhone, even on their laptop, they can actually download these books without having to use this machine, without having to get these sent in the mail. There's a service called Bard. Stands for Braille and audio reading
download. And patrons can just download things automatically to their phone, to their tablets. They don't need to really deal with us at all if they don't want to, which is helpful, especially for younger users or people who feel more comfortable. You know, as our population
gets more techsavvy, it's definitely going to be the way of the future for these machines. So, that's also important to note. Are there any questions at this point? >> Yes. >> And just one about the bard. How how typically would that happen? Would they
use their current library card to go into like what's how does the bar work like if we wanted to download something? >> So once someone is a member of our library so I'm going to go over the application in a bit. Um once someone has applied, their application has been
processed, it's been determined that they're qualified to use the service, then they'll they basically will have access to that app. They'll get a login to use. Yes. >> Okay. >> So, I guess that's a good segue into going over the application process. So,
basically, I have applications actually with me and I forgot to put them on the table. The application is going to ask for people's reading preferences and it's going to ask for the basis that they qualify for this service. So, if they
are visually impaired, if they have a reading disability, that would be indicated on the application. There's also a signature portion. So, this needs to be signed by either a anyone here actually could sign it. a
librarian, a social worker, a doctor, a nurse, someone who's familiar enough with our program to know who's qualified and is also familiar with the individual applying to know that they are in fact qualified. So that's this authorization form here.
Once this entire form is filled out, again, no postage required. This just needs to go into one of these blue envelopes. takes about a week or so to process and then that person if they are qualified they will become a patron.
These machines don't need to be sent back to us at any point. Also that's also a frequent question that we get. Once someone has this they can keep it as long as they need it. Um so that there's no sending it back and then receiving it back at all. >> Yeah. >> Because they qualify.
>> Correct. Uh we also have institutional accounts. So, this might be an option if either your library or school maybe has multiple people in mind for this service and isn't sure if they're going to want the service directly to their home.
>> Especially for a school if you wanted to kind of have your own small collection of either talking books, braille, large type, you could have that set up in your school. >> So, I have applications for institutions as well today and it's a similar process. Um, obviously there's no
signature for any one particular person. Um, but we would still just need to know, you know, for example, a preschool is probably going to want a certain age range and you can indicate that on here. Any other questions >> for like the institute? So like a
teacher could sign off or the librarian at the school institution one. >> Yeah. So if it's a school, um, the principal or another administrator would just need to make that final signature. Okay. >> It's just a little bit different because you again you're not authorizing a specific person. Yes.
>> Is this available only to people in Worcester County? >> So actually this is a nationwide program. >> Um it's part of the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled. And every state has a talking book library of some kind. In
Massachusetts we collaborate with Perkins. So, the two of us are the only two services for all um library services for the blind. [Music] >> Yes. >> Have a question. So, if we had an institution card and we had a
collection, um, would we need to be sure the person taking it out is someone who would qualify or see, I used to teach integrated preschool and is there's a lot of value of a typically developing child understanding what a braille book
is. So, could anyone check it out if we had an institutional collection? So once it becomes an institutional collection, it's kind of up to the institution to decide how those materials are utilized. Um like I said on this application, it
does just ask for a signature to confirm that someone is qualified that you would be providing the services to. Obviously the intent is to provide service for people with disabilities, but especially for younger people, you know, there may not be a formal diagnosis. So, it's just
important that the intent is always to keep this as a service for people, right? >> Yes, exactly. Any other questions? >> All right. Well, thank you all. Um, I'm
going to keep some of these materials up here. I also brought a bunch of pens and swag with me as well. So, if anyone would like some materials, definitely feel free to stop by. Um, like I said, I have applications up here as well. So,
if anyone would like some, definitely feel free to come up. >> Kate, I have just a a follow-up question about um how the uh talking book library is funded. Um, I mean, I know uh you receive money out of the um from the
Mass Board of Library Commissioners line every year. Is that where most of the funding comes from? Do you get other funding from, you know, a national source or is it is it pretty much all coming from the state? >> Yeah, so the majority is coming from,
you know, the um NBLC, but then these materials here are actually property of the Library of Congress. >> So you'll notice if you look closely, there is a seal on here. Um so the NLS does provide these materials. These are sent to us automatically every day. We
receive new materials. They are sent out to every talking book. So talking book library, excuse me. So these materials are federally funded. There's also the state component for um just you know keeping our lights on. And then to add
an extra layer of confusion, I'm technically a city employee in the city of so there is kind of multiple um >> pools where things are coming from and being funded.
And then I have another question just about the collections themselves. So when when you're receiving new materials, are you I mean are you getting like the latest best sellers? >> Yes. >> The same time like they're hitting the shelves in the library or in a bookstore
and that sort of thing. >> Yep. So I tried to bring somewhat recent arrivals. I guess these aren't super super recent, but yeah, we are keeping current with materials, making sure that we have the latest titles that people are going to be asking for. Again, with
the audio, it is a little bit challenging just because we really don't do our own collection development. So, we just have to wait for things to come in. >> Um, with the large type, it's a little bit different. Those we do order ourselves. >> So, do people place a hold for a specific title and wait in line or
>> It's similar. The I guess the main difference is it's not like with a library would you where you would say like oh I'm whatever number in line. >> Um we can put a reserve on an item and it's on reserve in that person's account.
>> Basically most people for large type they usually receive about two books a month. Sometimes more frequently if they're reading them more frequently but usually each shipment is going to have two books in it. and if they have a reserve list with say 30 40 titles, it's going to
keep pulling from that list. Okay? >> Because most of the time people have a pretty lengthy list of interest that they give us. >> That's actually that brings up a good point. Um some people choose to have their account set up so that they have a computer selecting what they receive
each month. So in that case, the computer would just select, you know, if they tell us they like mysteries and romance, the computer's going to automatically choose those for them every time they return items. Some people want to select specific titles. So if they look at the New York Times
bestseller list and they decide they want specific titles, they can have their account set up for only the specific things that they request. We also send out um every other month we send out a list of our newest arrivals. It's called either talking book topics
or the large type supplement. So they will receive that and they'll be able to select from that list. Um they can get it in audio form or in large type and they can select specific titles that are new. We also receive multiple of many titles.
So, it's typically a shorter wait than the public libraries would be. >> Yes. >> Just to clarify something. Um, let's say someone comes in, we we don't know them at all. >> They say, you know, I have dyslexia and
I want to use this service. >> Can we sign off on that or, you know, what is the, you know, >> Yeah. No, I understand what you're saying. Um, if you're not familiar enough to make that call, I would say to
maybe speak to them about talking to a doctor. Um, for reading disability, again, there continue to add layer. For reading disabilities specifically, the signature has to come from a doctor. >> Okay. >> For visual impairments and physical
disabilities, that's when that broader um category. So, librarians, teachers, social workers. So basically for reading disability specifically there does need to be a medical professional making that call.
>> Okay. >> Yes. Yes. >> Just quickly um the applications are those available on your site. So if someone came in and we didn't have them we could download one of them. >> Yes. Absolutely. It is in PDF form. I brought a bunch with me today and I'll probably just leave you all with
multiple so you're able to have them on hand, but yes, you can also download them from our website. >> All right. >> Sort of curious about um like circulation in terms of like are the large type books is that kind of the
biggest part of the collection the the the uh part that gets the most use or >> the talking? Yeah, the talking books we definitely have a larger collection. >> Um, the large type are popular, but I think because a lot of public libraries
also carry them, a lot of people are using multiple sources to get have access to them. >> So, the talking books are primarily what most of our collection is. >> How many machines do you have out there? >> I actually I have no idea.
>> Right. >> Um, it's a lot. I don't I don't have a number, but >> But do you know your how many active patrons? >> I don't know that number off the top of my head. Um I'm sure that number is accessible and I
could find it out for you if you had. >> Yeah, I don't know off the top of my head. >> That would be good to know though. I should probably look that up. >> Popular. Yeah, >> I remember my 90-year-old grandma, she had like a
>> eye degeneration or something and she was every time I visited, she had like a machine like that. >> So, I I just thought it was from probably the regular library, but maybe it was something more like she was from Rhode Island. >> Okay. Y >> and I don't think I think they just came
in the mail and she just listened to whatever she had and they were huge buttons and so she kind of felt them. She was she was legally blind so she know where the playing the stop was and stuff. So >> yeah. No, these are designed with
accessibility in mind. So they are pretty easy to use if someone is unable to see where the buttons are. Uh they also have in braille they have um the markers there as well. Not all of our patrons can read braille, but it is
helpful to have that on there. All right, thank you all so much for coming in today. Like I said, I'm going to stick around for a little while for questions for pens and highlighters and things. So definitely feel free to stop by with any
other specific questions you might have. Thank you. [Music] [Music] Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Part: 2
[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]
backdrop is the large time scales of of uh climate change. Uh so this is just a graph that I'll see a few times. This is going to help us uh our guideline throughout the talk. Um so the graph is set up to show 65 million years ago. This is when the dinosaurs went extinct up until present day. Present day being
like 1950 before um some of the more recent graphs that we'll show later. Um and this is a relative temperature scale on the y- axis. And so it's just showing this kind of overall cooling trend that the earth has been experiencing for about 65 million years. And so this is the backdrop um of how our ancestors
evolved. And so we talk very brief briefly in the book uh about the forces that created this kind of overall cooling trend. Um and the leading hypothesis about this is that the rise of the Himalayas and other similar mountains um created a cooling event uh
as you essentially as Earth builds mountains that helps to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. And so that has led to this long-term cooling trend. Uh that's the backdrop for the beginning of our book. So we then look at a somewhat shorter time scale from tens of millions to
millions of years. And over a time scale of some millions of years, human ancestors and then humans evolved. And uh during this period there was a shift on the whole toward cooler, drier
conditions with certainly interruptions. And so one of the ways in which that general trend toward cooler more dry conditions in Africa because that's where uh human ancestors originally evolved. One of the effects was that it
started to break up uh the rainforests where human ancestors lived and their preferred food was fruit. And so as they found themselves living in sort of more scattered areas, it created an evolutionary advantage for some changes.
uh such as uh tougher teeth teeth to eat a more varied diet such as tubers and roots and also for uh more mobility along the ground to kind of forage for things like again roots and and uh other things like that. So uh this is this is
a picture of a chimpanzeee not actually of a human ancestor right but if you think chimpanzees are extremely closely related to us and their their favorite food is fruit and so uh this did cause some challenge or disruption for human
ancestors this shift toward a somewhat drier uh climate in central Africa. So that's that's one way in which climate change actually influenced early evolution of human ancestors. And so as
uh a general cooling drying trend occurred and I want to be clear it doesn't mean that all of a sudden one day there was like a giant air conditioning effect over Africa. It's but nonetheless parts of Africa became somewhat cooler
and drier and so this led to break up of some of the edge of the rainforest and then expansion of grasslands and so in this era uh human ancestors uh did derive some advantage for being able to
move over a bigger area. of this created pressure is that u had the effect of contributing to ability to walk and run for a long period of time. Humans are actually quite good compared to some other animals and running for a long
time. Uh we think scientists think that this helped to help humans to hunt animals on the savannah or the grasslands in Africa. And as humans ate more meat that also seems to coincide with a with a larger brain. So you see a
whole bunch of ways in which shifts in climate were factors in evolution of both human ancestors and and uh early forms of humans related to modern humans. Um so then we start to focus on a
slightly um more recent in geological time frames uh time scale looking at changes over essentially the past million years. Um, and so if you're familiar with looking at climate change, you may have seen graphs that look like this, just showing how carbon dioxide and temperature have varied over the
past, in this case, 400,000 years, but this this record does go back about a million years at this point. Um, and so this is, this graph is set up similar. So here is presentish day. Again, present day is still 1950 from this graph's perspective. Um, going back in time, about 400,000 years on the um
towards the left. Uh and so in the book we describe the changes that were um that that we know about that have caused climate to change on this large time scale of hundreds of thousands of years. And these little animations at the bottom left are showing the three major things astronomical forces that we know
about that we can map pretty easily. Um and that can be predicted into the future that cause the amount of sunlight striking the earth to vary. Uh and so we know very well um because of our astronomical variations how this affects climate on Earth with no other if
natural forces alone were acting um we know how we would project temperature to change in the future um based on what we've observed in the past. So on this still long but shorter time scale eventually hundreds of thousands of years uh there were a series of of
shifts in Africa's uh biomes because of these shifts. So for example at different periods of time the Sahara desert uh shrank or grew. Uh there were periods of time over the last uh tens of thousands of years where parts of the
Sahara which are today mostly sand in fact were uh quite moist and had all sorts of animals that either don't live there today or live in very remote uh sort of areas today. And so this we think scientists think that this
contributed to dispersal of early humans. So different early humans dispersed in several different uh periods of time. U we're homo sapiens and homo sapiens and scientists debate the exact timing. So maybe it was 50,000
60,000 70,000 years. An expert on this debate could say a lot more. But on that time frame, our species did disperse from Africa. And so this is showing you this kind of general dispersal idea. And
as humans dispersed, they gradually went to other parts of the world. So you see humans dispersing toward Oceanana, Australia, Europe, and Asia. uh also rise in fall of sea level affected
dispersal roots. So for example during periods when the climate was slightly colder where water was locked up as ice if that's is locked up accurate word which meant lower sea levels conversely during slightly during warmer periods there
would be more water and so land bridges at different times did help dispersal. Uh I don't think there was ever a land bridge all the way to Australia, but I believe that uh humans could get closer to where got dispersed to closer to
Australia is now at previous periods of time. If you look down at this part of the map, so this map is just showing you dispersal of homo sapiens out of Africa and that process uh did show influence
of climate fluctuations. So during again we're on this time scale we're still before recorded history. Uh so time scale again in this area is still 10 20 30 40 50 60,000 years. There are no uh written records from this
period of time. Oldest oldest written records might be approximately 5,000 years old. Those of course only come from some places. Uh so we have to reconstruct what was happening from other sources
during uh cooling periods, ice sheets grew. And so as ice sheets grew in some cases, this led to the extinction of some lineages, but it also led to further dispersal. uh humans seem to
have been remarkably resilient and adaptable in some cases and living really pretty close to ice sheets. But at the same time, we have this concept of glacia of glacial refuges that is places that humans or frankly other animals might live during the periods of
ice age away from the you know the coldest areas. Other ways in which humans adapted was to create more clothing. uh we can't find clothes from tens of thousands of years ago because fibers you know don't last that long but there's indirect evidence
of clothing from the kind of tools like this drawing of a needle that would have been used and this these are diagrams of needles from the last glacial maximum which is you know commonly called the ice age and that that ice age is one
series of glacial maxima over what five six hundred thousand years so what we're seeing is people did adapt to the last glacial maximum. In some cases, they dispersed away from the ice. They also
made other changes in their lifestyle uh such as using fuel, probably bones from large game could have been a fuel source as well. So, the changes that we've talked about so far and the records that we have because we're talking about longer time periods um are mostly global in extent.
Um but when we focus on our next time scale, which is in more recent the past 10,000 years and sooner, um we actually are able to start to get into additional records that show that the global record that we have, which is obviously very helpful to examine, um but we can actually start to examine some regional variability. And so the graph that's on
the upper left hand side um has a bunch of crazy squiggles and colors um but it's because we have records from a bunch of different regions. And so we can start to get a sense of not only global climate change, but then once we have the backdrop of either warming or cooling, how does how does it how does it play out in different regions? And
what we find is that regions are quite variable um in how they react to forcing on a global scale. Um and so we are looking at the past uh well this this record starts about 12,000 years ago um which is when there was an overall starting to be a warming trend. uh we did dip down into almost glacial
conditions during this period and that's what that animation on the lefth hand side um is showing one of the discussions that we have is how changes in ocean circulation have it plays a kind of a dominant role in the book um because it has such a dramatic uh effect on climate uh and when we have observed
changes in the past like a major change that occurred 12,000 years ago um the younger dus is the um the time period I'm talking about if you've heard that term um it also played a role in the changes in the little ice age. So when there's a slowdown in ocean circulation,
uh that tends to lead to cooling and the question is whether or not that's global in signature. Um and so from the time period back to 12,000 years, we can look at that globally for the little ice age, which we'll talk about in a few minutes. Um we can start to look at how this change in ocean circulation affects
regions uh differently. Um so that's so the backdrop of the next time frame is primarily focused on the holosene. The holysine is the last 10,000 years. uh and so compared to the previous changes that we observed in climate which were much more drastic uh
in extent or in kind of going from extremes the last 10,000 years have been primarily stable in the grand scheme of geological time. Um and so this is the backdrop for when we started to see civilizations developing and so a huge part of the book is is based on this
particular time frame. Yeah. Yeah, the holosene is when all human civilizations have existed. Humans existed before the holene but did so in much smaller populations, very small compared to today's population uh
as hunter gatherers. And so any ancient human civilization that anyone can think of anywhere was a holene civilization. Farming also human farming occurred during the holene. Domestication of animals and plants mostly it may have
occurred a bit before but mostly took place during the holene. The holosene saw massive growth in human population. We would never have had a population of billions let alone of hundreds of millions of people uh before the holene. So the holosene is what people think of
when they think of history and frankly most prehistory as well regardless of what part of the world we're talking about. This shows you uh domestication of different crops in different parts of the world. So people in different regions began to domesticate crops
whether it was maize in the Americas or different forms of grain in the Middle East or rice in East Asia and you can see other examples and adopted farming and also uh were pastoralists raising animals in some cases and this did
contribute to a rise in population after the last glacial maximum. And again, the this the size of the population 60, 70, 80,000 years ago is hard to estimate, but it would really be
shockingly small compared to today. And so u this just shows you a image from Egypt. Egypt, Egyptian civilization was one of these many many halls civilizations. But again, so too would be Mesopotamia or uh the Incan or Aztec
civilization or early South American or Central American civilizations or really any civilization anywhere would be a holene civilization. And you see here some images of people uh working in agricultural tasks and again that would be the typical not the typical kind of
activity for most people in most places in the hall scene. There were still hunter gatherers, but the population, the proportion of the population committed or working in agriculture or raising animals just grew and grew and grew.
On the one hand, this created possibility for more specialization. It also probably created more possibility for endemic diseases. So there were pretty big changes with the holene. So this is an amazing example and we can't talk about all the examples we
discuss in our book or in class but we'll try to focus on a few. This is a really amazing one of how a remarkable human site both benefited from a comparatively stable
climate but also suffered gravely from a climate fluctuation. So what you're seeing here is an image of a city called Mahenjodaro. It's part of what what archaeologists call the Indis River civilization. The Indis River today you
would find in Pakistan in South Asia. Uh today this civilization is gone. It only survives in ruins or excavated sites. Uh this is an aerial photo. uh Mahindra Daro existed from I think
roughly 20 well roughly 4,400 years ago until uh roughly 3,800 years ago or historians sometimes use BC and sometimes BCE. It means the same thing more or less if we're dating things. So
u Mahenjadaro was sizable for its time, showed a high level of organization, high level of technological capacity again for its time and then the population uh ceased
to live there. So that's raised questions about why this happened. Why would people go to the trouble to build this large site and other sites like it and then why would they abandon a site after having spent considerable
time, energy, capital, labor, uh, ingenuity building it up? And so it's been kind of a mystery over the years and historians and archaeologists and scientists have moved toward an explanation which really focuses on climate fluctuations
in the hall scene. So an earlier theory suggested that invasion was responsible but we don't think that's the main the main factor anymore. Yeah. So this is work that came out of uh primarily from Woodsole Oceanographic Institution in Falmouth. Uh, and so scientists were able to collect cores
from um from the ocean that allowed us to understand a little bit more about what may have caused um the demise of the civilization. Uh and so so again not to take you through obviously I like graphs um not to take you through too many but um but the top graph is showing
evidence essentially it all leads back to the changes in the monsoon and how the changes in the rains associated with the monsoon um helped supply the river with plenty of of water uh and that helped obviously the civilization um with their agriculture. Uh and so the
top graph shows the changes in how how much water essentially there was um being emptied through the river out into the bay. Uh and so the graph is set up so high high levels are actually fresher water and then when you see dips those are saltier times and that means that there was less rain at that time. So the
the river became um there was less water flowing through river experienced a relative drought. uh and that is what led the the hypothesis is that the um the drought is what led to the demise of the civilization. Um there is additional records that I won't spend tons of time
talking about but the um that comes from the evidence for what type of vegetation was growing at the time. Uh that also if you have vegetation that can thrive in wetter climates versus drier climates um it gives a sense as well. It paints the picture just like the salt uh levels do
about how the climate shifted from one that was fed by plenty of monsoon rain um to one that was uh experiencing drought conditions. Uh and so the graphics on the bottom just talk a little bit about the changes in the civilization that Ben described. Um and then I have a little graphic
talking about the monsoons. Uh so I'm sure people are familiar with the concept of a monsoon but essentially uh the the interesting thing about this is that the strength of the monsoon changes as a result of the changing amount of energy we get from the sun. And so in times when we have more energy from the sun that leads to stronger monsoons. And
so that's about 45 um yeah 4,500 years ago. Uh this was a region that experiences strong monsoons because of the input from the sun. uh and as the input from the sun decreased a little bit uh the monsoons weakened and so the rains didn't get or the water didn't get
um quite to the indis river as much as it had in the past. Uh and so again this was a kind of a massive drought condition that led to the fall of the civilization. So there are lots of examples that we talk about in the book um that link directly to drought conditions and how that obviously you
need water to support your your farming. Um and so that was a huge part of the fall of many civilizations during this time. Generally over time large human societies in the hall scene u became somewhat more resilient to
shifts in climate based on their ability to just create large stores of food. Uh that's a slow trend over time up to a point. So the Roman Empire benefited from relatively favorable conditions and grew to be quite large. We'll skip over that pretty quickly.
U we then move on in a scale of hundreds of years to look at fluctuations in the hall scene over the last thousand years. And so this is a fascinating example of one of the one of the changes about a
thousand years ago of slight warming in the North Atlantic. Is that fair to say? And this meant it was a little bit easier to travel along the North Atlantic. And this is the period of time when uh people from Scandinavia, you know, we might call them popularly
Vikings, uh traveled to Iceland, Greenland, and then all the way to uh Newfoundland. And this is a a Canadian park, national park on the northwest corner of New Foundland where Vikings or people from Scandinavia set
up a base for probably 10, 20, 30 years. It's definitely a great place to visit. U they went there for various reasons. It was probably easier to make these trips during a slightly warmer period. So those fluctuations have an effect. And this is another amazing example. And
I we we can't take too much time to talk about all the individual examples. It's another civilization affected by climate chips. In this case, as Liz mentioned, drought has been one of the main threats to uh civilizations. Choco can was a
very elaborate uh indigenous or native site. You can find it in northwestern New Mexico. It has, I think, the largest structures built in what is now the United States up until the city of Chicago. Um, it's well worth seeing, I would say, having been there recently.
If you do visit, make sure you have a good car with good clearance. The road is really bad going in there, but it's fantastic. But the thing is that these ancestral people built up this amazing site. They traded in turquoise and then
once again, as in the case of Mujadaro, they apparently abandoned the site. There are different theories about why, but once again, drought seems to have been a major challenge that they faced. and on these types of time scales. So drought again is this common theme um for the time period that we're talking
about. Uh and so I talked about how changes in the monsoon strength obviously can um have an impact and cause drought. Uh on these other time scales we also bring in the concept of El Nino which again I'm sure many of you have heard about. Um El Nino tends to bring uh a lot of uh rain to some areas
but there are other areas that experience drought conditions and other excuse me other um in El Nino years. uh and so that we because we are able from climate the climate perspective to see regional variations uh in temperature and precipitation it allows us to
understand a lot more about how El Nino conditions can affect climate and therefore civilizations. Um okay and then we start to make the transition to more recent time scales. Uh this is a graphic that again some of you may be famili familiar with. Uh it's referred to as the hockey stick. uh to
where we start to see the kind of temperature decline a little bit and then at the red on the end is where we start to see our more recent uh human impacts on climate uh as temperature starts to to jump up. Um and so now we're looking kind of over hundreds of years the different forcings of climate
uh and we are getting into and shifting gears at this point for how climate was forcing changes to human civilization uh to now a time period where human civilization is starting to affect climate. We do discuss in the book that there are some hypotheses that uh humans
actually began to affect climate even as long as 8,000 years ago when farming began. Uh but for most of the purposes of the book, we talk about the most recent um pressures that we put on the climate because of the industrial revolution. Yes. So there there were some interesting theories that even early
farming had some slight impact on the climate because of release of methane. Uh but that uh was far far less powerful than than what we than recent industrialization. And there's still some some discussion of what to what extent early methane release from early
farming had an effect. What this shows you is that over the last several or five, six, seven centuries once again we see climate fluctuations having some effect. So the broad trend is quite a bit of resiliency by civilizations over
time as they develop transportation networks, right? As they're better able to move food around, as they're better able to stockpile food. But nonetheless, there's still a pretty uh major piece of evidence that drought is often very damaging. So in the case of China, uh we
can't say it's the only factor, right? their invasions and wars and dynastic struggles and rebellions. But it does seem that period cool and dry periods are associated with dynastic uh problems in the case of China. So you see the fall of the Ming dynasty occurred during
a comparatively cold period and the Ming dynasty was the last Chinese dynasty led by a Chinese uh family. After that, the the the Manchu or King dynasty was led by a Manchu dynasty from Manuria uh just
to the uh the north of China. So, this is a I love this this this picture. It's from the low countries, Netherlands, right? And it shows you uh pretty dramatically climate change on a scale at this point of hundreds of
years. This is during what historians sometimes call the Little Ice Age. slightly uh misleading term because it it was not an ice age, right? But it was a period of of comparative cooling in can we say the northern hemisphere occurred. It's probably at different
times in different places a little bit. But the amazing thing here is that these people are skating on canals. And the truth of the matter is is that nowadays that would be extremely hard to do in the Netherlands because it's almost
never cold enough to do this anymore. I won't say never, but almost never. So, there's a famous Dutch skating race with in which people skate from town to town and it hasn't happened for years now and I'm the you know short of a volcanic
eruption which would might cause temporary cooling. U I don't know that it'll it'll ever happen again. Can't predict that for certain, but the period of time since it last happened is just getting longer and longer and longer. But at the same time, uh, the Dutch really adapted to the cold. They built
up an empire during the cold. They built fireplaces, imported furs. So that shows you that resiliency. So civilizations were increasingly able, if they were wealthy and prosperous, to decouple themselves a little bit more from
fluctuations in climate. Uh, and again, looking at the little ice age is a interesting case study from the climate science perspective. uh because it it's recent enough that we have decent records uh that we can really examine what was going on. But there's there's still about three uh major forcings that are debated as being the
major impact on causing a cooling during this time period. Um so volcanic eruptions uh is one potential cause um that there was enough ash in the atmosphere over many many volcanic eruptions that it helped to lead to cooling. uh changes in ocean circulation as I mentioned before uh leads to
cooling um and then a reduction in CO2 in the atmosphere also could be connected uh during this time period to the little ice age the cooling and this is just a great picture by the Dutch master and what you see here of course his subject is not the little ice
age but you see uh people with nice clothing and the point is simply for our purposes that uh people in cold climates were able to you buy create good clothing and have fireplaces and good walls and adapt to
those kind of fluctu fluctuations. So the general trend is over time the more prosperous societies increasingly able to decouple themselves a little bit more from crises caused by climate fluctuations. Just to give you a sense
of what's going to happen that's going to shift. So that decoupling is ending. In other words, people are in many areas becoming increasingly susceptible to climate change. So the big change that uh we allude to
earlier was that at a certain point people became the major cause of climate forcing on the time scale we're looking at. Right? And this is one of the causes the industrial revolution. This is a model of James Watt's steam
engine. It was not the first steam engine, but it was an a more advanced steam engine. U so steam engines drew upon fuel sources. A great fuel a great fuel source for a steam engine turns out to be coal. And so what we see
with the industrial revolution is increasing demand for coal and eventually for uh oil and gas in in general for fossil fuels or fuels that are derived from fossils and that's had
a major effect. This just shows you that industrialization spread. It began in Britain. It moved to other parts of the world. This shows you street lights from Tokyo in the late 19th century. Uh so as industrialization spreads, right, as
more and more people want to have the same lifestyle, the same things, right, the same goods and services that people do in industrial countries, that can perhaps give them more benefits, more leisure, more stuff, but it also creates, you know, a higher use of of
fossil fuels. Then we look at the more recent changes that we've seen in climate and again taking that shift from uh climate causing kind of a forcing on human civilization to one in which humans are now the major driver in climate change. Um and so back to my graphs. Uh so this graph here on the
right hand side showing the temperature changes. It's actually a temperature anomaly. So a shift from a baseline that's represented at zero. So again, we're seeing the temperature increasing since 1880 um with some ups and downs um but overwhelmingly increasing especially in recent times and the rate of warming
is happening much faster in recent times. Uh and that is connected directly to our carbon dioxide curve over here on the left. Um this is a record that is taken from the Monolo Observatory in Hawaii. So that we started collecting CO2 measurements in 1958 and it's been
happening ever since. Uh and so this is kind of the the classic graph that you see representing climate change um as a result of human activity and the results are quite dramatic in in many places u reduced size of glaciers as you see in this case from the Olympic
National Park. there many many other examples. Um so um it's funny or not really funny right when I mean that there are people who will question this but the evidence is everywhere
uh from longer uh growing seasons of later frosts right uh more frequent so-called nuisance flooding in this case you're seeing work in Miami Beach to put in anti- flood pumps because it's just such a common occurrence now that it'll
just flood there over and over and over again. Um so the the climate has changed to the point that people are noticing this increasingly. One of my favorite trivia questions is the question of for how many months in a row
the global average temperature has been higher than the 20th century norm. So any any suggestions? So if you we can calculate the average global monthly temperature and we can calculate the average temperature for that month for
the 20th century. So for how many months in a row has the average global temperature been above average by that standard? Just guess or two. What do you think? It is trivia I admit but it's still pretty striking. Any guesses?
50 months. Take maybe one more. 120. 120. So, it's actually 416. Wow. So, it's pretty stunning. Now, that doesn't mean that it's always warmer than average every single spot on Earth, right? Obviously, there's a lot
of places on Earth and in any particular time, one might be cold, but the average trend is still stunning. And here's another sign of what's going on. This is Lagos, Nigeria. Many, many cities, towns across the world are built
close to the ocean. People like living close to the ocean, right? Makes sense. And yet that means that there's a tremendous amount of uh infrastructure, homes, dwellings at increasing risk.
Other risks come from extremes of drought and uh precipitation. So we've seen both extremes of drought and precipitation. And this is a forest fire very large from Fort McMurray in Canada from a few
years ago. Obviously we can't say that one forest fire was caused by climate change. That said, scientists are now carrying out what they call attribution studies in which they calculate how much more likely particular events are with climate change. And they're increasingly
able to give percentages indicating how much more likely certain events are because of climate change. And we're finding that not all, but many droughts and flooding periods are associated with climate change. scientists then come together and try to give best estimates
on uh what we can expect in the future. Uh and so this is a recent uh 2015 I think report from the um IPCC um showing our projected levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Uh and then from those we can get a sense of what our
temperature increase might be. Uh the various colors represent different pathways. So making assumptions about if we were to switch to 100% renewable today, what would our pathway look like if we do nothing? and continue on a carbonintensive uh fuel source, what would that pathway look like? Uh so
again, you see kind of a variation uh and then these are the estimates of carbon dioxide that give us a sense of what our temperature might look like. Um and so again we have a a variation uh based on those different inputs. Uh so anything from I at least 2 and a half degrees Celsius. Um but in extreme cases
we are going to get um incredibly warm. Uh so sometimes two degrees doesn't sound like a whole lot but it has caused dramatic changes in the past. it doesn't take too much temperature change to cause a big climate change. Uh and so um and so we have a a lot of change to look
forward to or not. Um again uh one of the things that I think is important to emphasize is that when we look at global changes uh those are uh fairly clear but they don't always mean that everywhere is warming at the same pace. Uh and so you can take the
variations of global climate or global temperature increase um and get a sense of which regions are going to warm up more than others. Uh and so you're seeing kind of the two extremes on the top you're showing you're seeing temperature uh expectations for different regions across the globe based on kind of a low carbon pathway on the
lefth hand side and a high carbon pathway on the right hand side. In all cases, almost everywhere is getting warmer. Uh, but the polar regions, especially the Arctic, uh, experiences the greatest warming under our models, um, under scientist models. And so, uh, that has a lot of concern because of the
melting of ice that we've talked a little bit about. Um, and that causes climate to change even further. Uh, the bottom panel shows expect expected changes in precipitation. So, as we examine in the book, drought conditions can sometimes have a greater
impact on on civilization than temperature alone. Uh, and so it is really important to look at how precipitation changes um how they're expected to happen and what regions are expected to change the most. And in this case, it's a little bit more complicated, but kind of the simple way of thinking about it is that areas that
are already dry are predicted to get drier and areas that already get plenty of rainfall are projected to get even more rainfall. And so extremes just become even more extreme under the um scenarios that are the the kind of our best understanding of these scenarios.
Um and so these are so we kind of examine broad changes and then some of the potential impacts that come from those um which again we could talk about forever but I don't think we did any slides on those just to keep it at a normal time scale.
Thank you very much.