IIASA Podcasts: Recent Episodes
IIASA
IIASA specialists and prominent invited guests address scientific issues of the 21st century, sharing knowledge, insights, and concerns with a wide audience.
Prof. Mark Jaccard leads the policy module of the Global Energy Assessment. In this IIASA podacast he discusses the vision for the GEA and the policy challenges and opportunities that will need to be addressed to achieve a transformation of the global energy system, a transformation that is aknowledged as critical for improving energy access and energy security, while also adressing critical climate change challenges.
Fabian Wagner discusses the Copenhagen Accord, the upcoming COP16 meeting in Cancun, and the many options available for countries and individuals to tackle GHG emissions.
Professor Holling discusses how the rules of adaptive management, as they apply in ecological systems, can inform the evolution of social systems and their potential to succeed or fail.
Dr. Anthony Patt explains how a mix of policy and market based development initiatives could enable Europe and North Africa to transition to 100% renewable electricity supplies by 2050.
At a public lecture at the London School of Economics, Professor von Winterfeldt explains IIASA's new strategy for the coming decade.
Nobel Prize Laureate Thomas Schelling argues that, to tackle climate change, the world requires at least three institutions that do not yet exist.
Dr. Joanne Linnerooth-Bayer explains how insurance mechanisms can help poor nations adapt to the ever increasing risk of extreme events.
Professor Detlof von Winterfeldt explains his enthusiasm for leading IIASA and what he hopes to achieve over the coming years.
Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government and Head of the Government Office for Science, Professor John Beddington, CMG, FRS, discusses how science and innovation can help society deal with the interconnected issues of food security, energy security, water scarcity, and climate change.
At the Global Economic Symposium in Schleswig-Holstein in September 2008, IIASA Acting Deputy Director Nebojsa Nakicenovic talks with Romesh Vaitilingam about the options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions: improved energy efficiency; renewables; nuclear energy; and carbon capture and storage. (Reproduced with permission from VoxEU.org.)
Heterodox economist Dr. Ha-Joon Chang cites examples from economic history to describe how industrialized nations kick away the ladder they used to achieve their own development in order to prevent developing nations from following. For economists and non-economists alike.
The integrated approach to sustainability assessment is based on a cyclical process of scoping, envisioning, experimenting, and learning. Dr. Jäger discusses the development and application of ISA in the recently-completed European Commission-funded MATISSE project, of whose Core Group she was a member.
Dr. Mahendra Shah, Dean of IIASA's Young Scientists Summer Program, discusses the wealth of diversity in nature and the human world. He argues that the realization of the potential of this diversity is the key to promoting world-wide development.
Professor Kenneth Oye of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology analyzes the trends in emerging technologies and their implications for energy security, the environment, and development. His lecture includes case studies from both the biotechnology and automobile industries.
With trillions of dollars being spent on global health to lengthen lives, alleviate pain, and reduce misery, we are still confronted with apparent signs of a worsening situation. Dr. Landis MacKellar, Leader of IIASA's Health and Global Change Project, attempts to put global health trends, uncertainties, and challenges in perspective and determine whether the future will be worse than the present.
Professor Stephen Pacala, Director of Princeton Environmental Institute, analyzes fairness and climate mitigation and discovers the responsibility for emissions reductions does not travel with national identity or with DNA. Rather emissions go hand in hand with your income. Only by following the money can emissions reductions be fairly made.
In a cartographic strip-tease, IIASA Deputy Director Sten Nilsson points out how most of the land theoretically available for growing biofuels, as a substitute for fossil fuels, is either protected or already in use for growing crops, raising livestock, or supplying fiber.
After hearing Nobel Prize Laureate Thomas Schelling present his rather optimistic interpretation of the recent nuclear past and a nuclear future, Yegor Gaidar -- Director, Institute for the Economy in Transition, Russia -- scraps his own prepared conference address to respond. Gaidar warns that the world underestimates the danger of a mistake leading to the first use of nuclear weapons in warfare since 1945.
Nobel Prize Laureate Thomas Schelling argues how successful the world has been at maintaining nuclear non-proliferation, and how fortunate it is that no nuclear weapon has been exploded in warfare since 1945.
In his presentation at IIASA's thirty-fifth anniversary conference, Global Development: Science and Policies for the Future, Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Leader of IIASA's Energy and Transitions to New Technologies Programs and Co-Leader of its Greenhouse Gas Initiative, talks about the changing world from the perspectives of energy and climate, derives some of the social implications, and presents some possible response strategies.
World class economist and expert on global development, Jeffrey Sachs looks towards the world in 2050. He examines the fundamental drivers that are changing our world and the key challenges we face. Jeffrey Sachs was a keynote speaker at IIASA's thirty-fifth anniversary conference, "Global Development: Science and Policies for the Future." The conference looked at how to spread wealth and well-being to the billion or so people (15 percent of humanity) who see little or no benefit from globalized economic growth, and how to prevent escalating environmental problems from undermining that growth and damaging the wealth and well-being of all.
Drawing on his experience in three U.S. science advisory positions and his belief that a political decision informed by science is a better decision than one which ignores it, Dr. Norman Neureiter underscores the importance of scientific cooperation and dialog. His lecture is followed by an extensive discussion -- a dialog -- with his audience of international young scientists.
"Modeling is more an art than a science," claims IIASA specialist Dr. Marek Makowski. As he shares his ideas on good modeling practice, he discusses some challenges, limitations, problems, and warnings of modeling. You don't need to be a modeler to appreciate this talk.
Media relations expert David Kinley presents a three-part lecture comprising an overview of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a real example of communicating science using three reports into the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986, and tips for successful scientific communication.
In this provocative lecture, Professor Machiko Nissanke shares her thoughts and research results on how the process of globalization affects different aspects of poverty in the developing world. She presents a framework for "pro-poor globalization," noting that it will remain an elusive concept unless steps are taken to make it a realistic perspective. A lively discussion follows.
Chair of IIASA's Council and Moffett Professor of Biology at Princeton University, Simon Levin examines the conditions under which cooperative behavior emerges in complex natural ecosystems. He asks what lessons can be learned from our examination of natural systems, and how we can modify social norms to achieve global cooperation in managing our common future.
IIASA demographers present a new dataset of educational attainment by age and sex for 120 countries for the period 1970-2000. By exploiting the demographic dimension of the education data, the researchers show aggregate changes in educational attainment are a robust determinant of economic growth.
The "guru of the information age," Dr James Martin highlights some of the extraordinary changes that will mark the twenty-first century, making our grandchildren's world almost incomprehensible from current perspectives.
Professor Lynn Margulis gives a fascinating account of a revolution in evolution and her work in symbiogenesis.
Noted space scientists and educationist Professor Yash Pal presents his own personal excursions between the cosmic and the intimate during his passionate engagement with science, technology, education, and the people of India.
IIASA's first director Howard Raiffa, professor in managerial economics at Harvard University, mixes together an account of his life with examples of his research into how people make decisions.