Starmus Speakers at AUA: Christopher Rapley

About the Event:

Starmus VI Armenia is here! As the official university partner of Starmus International Festival, a global celebration of science and art aimed at inspiring and educating the next generation of explorers and regenerating the spirit of discovery, AUA will host several world-renown scientists. 

On September 7, within the scope of the festival, Christopher Rapley, professor of Climate Science at University College London, will visit AUA to give a talk titled “Climate Change Finding the ‘Agency’ to Act” and share his scientific and artistic endeavors with the University community and the public. He will discuss the spate of climate-related extreme events, such as the worldwide heatwaves, droughts and intense flooding events. He will look at the underlying reasons for/and consequences of climate change. He will then focus on the psychological and institutional reasons for the inadequate scale and pace of the human response. He will close with a description of the ‘mind science’ insights they have adopted in the UCL Climate Action Unit, which they use to help institutions and communities who are ‘stuck’ find their ‘agency’ to act.

Christopher Rapley’s AUA Visit Schedule:

• 11:30am-12:00pm Talk
• 12:00pm-12:15pm Open Q&A
• 12:15pm-13:00pm Youth Challenging Decision Makers

Registration is required. Please register here.

About the Speaker:

Christopher Rapley, CBE, is a professor of Climate Science at University College London. He is a fellow of St. Edmund’s College Cambridge, a Distinguished Visiting Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a member of the Academia Europaea, a board member of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, chairman of the European Space Agency Director General’s High Level Science Policy Advisory Committee, and chairman of the London Climate Change Partnership.
His previous posts include director of the Science Museum London, director of the British Antarctic Survey, executive director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, and head of the Earth Observation satellite group at University College London’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory. His current interests are in the communication of climate science. With the playwright Duncan Macmillan, he wrote and performed at The Royal Court Theatre in London the acclaimed play 2071 – The World We’ll Leave Our Grandchildren, available as a book published by John Murray. Rapley was awarded the 2008 Edinburgh Science Medal for his “significant contribution to the understanding and wellbeing of humanity.”

Language: English