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Margaret Torn Participates in DOE Office of Science Panel with DOE Secretary and Deputy Director for OSTP1 min read

by Christina Procopiou on July 23, 2021

Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division

CESD Senior Scientist Margaret Torn was one of three experts invited to participate in the recording of a virtual panel discussion with Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Dr. Jane Lubchenco, the Deputy Director for Climate and Environment at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), on Thursday, July 22. The event was designed to educate the general public about Office of Science leadership in climate science research. Torn, pictured bottom left above, described EESA’s work studying how climate change is affecting vulnerable ecosystems, and shared what gives her hope in the face of the many challenges brought on by climate change.

Torn remarked, “DOE is pioneering a new way of studying what ecosystems do when experiencing more disturbance, starting with projects in the Arctic and the Tropics. These bring together large teams of scientists from across the country whose data are put into models that allow us to test our understanding of ecosystem changes and build the ability to predict the future, for example, what will happen as Arctic permafrost thaws or tropical forests burn.”

Asked how she remains hopeful despite the challenges brought on by the climate crisis, Torn said, “What gives me hope is that we know the U.S. can reach net zero CO2 emissions from energy by mid-century. I was part of a study that found this can be done affordably, and that there are multiple pathways to get there, as long as we start now. We know how to solve this problem, and how to support the creation of good U.S. jobs in the process. We could not have said that with technical certainty 10 years ago, but now we can.”

Watch the event here.

News & Events

Study Sheds Light on Microbial Communities in Earth’s Subsurface2 min read

August 16, 2023

  From the tops of tree canopies to the bottom of groundwater reservoirs, a vast amount of living organisms interact with nonliving components such as rock, water, and soil to shape this area of Earth known as the “critical zone.” Over half of Earth’s microbes are located in the subsurface critical zone, which ranges from…

Carl Steefel Honored in Goldschmidt Session on Reactive Transport2 min read

August 2, 2023

The contributions of Carl Steefel to the reactive transport modeling scientific community were recognized in a session held in his honor at the recent Goldschmidt 2023 conference (Lyon, France). Goldschmidt is the foremost annual, international conference on geochemistry and related subjects, organized by the European Association of Geochemistry and the Geochemical Society. The session was…

DOE Funds Projects to Advance Forest Carbon Dioxide Removal Efforts and Agricultural Soil Carbon Conservation4 min read

August 1, 2023

The DOE Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) and Office of Technology Transitions (OTT) recently announced $5 million in funding for four projects–two from Berkeley Lab with EESA leadership. The projects selected offer “promising solutions” to the nation’s climate change challenges by helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and will “accelerate their deployment…

Quantifying the strength of the land carbon sink3 min read

July 26, 2023

This article first appeared at nature.berkeley.edu/news. The world’s forests, grasslands, and other terrestrial ecosystems have played a substantial role in offsetting human carbon emissions—a capability that UC Berkeley researchers say would be threatened by continued global change. The assessment, published today as a new review paper in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, presents a comprehensive analysis of…

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