The oceans are warming and acidifying at alarming rates, threatening the collapse of marine ecosystems. Extreme sea-level events put coastal communities at risk. Melting permafrost will lead to landslides, avalanches, rockfalls, and floods.

A recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body responsible for assessing the science related to climate change, paints a dire picture about the state of our planet's ecological health, and calls for "timely, ambitious and coordinated action to address unprecedented and enduring changes in the ocean and cryosphere." The IPCC's Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate also calls for "ambitious and effective adaptation for sustainable development."

Daniel M. Kammen

Daniel M. Kammen is a Professor of Energy at the University of California, Berkeley, with parallel appointments in the Energy and Resources Group where he serves as Chair, the Goldman School of Public Policy where he directs the Center for Environmental Policy, and the department of Nuclear Engineering. Kammen is the founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL; rael.berkeley.edu), and was Director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center from 2007-2015. Dr. Kammen has served as a contributing or coordinating lead author on various reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since 1999. The IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

A professor in the UC Berkeley Department of Earth and Planetary Science, James Bishop investigates the mechanics of biogeochemical processes of aquatic and marine systems. Among his research interests, he explores new ways to follow the very fast (but largely unobserved) biological carbon cycle: photosynthesis, grazing, sedimentation, and respiration. These processes, collectively known as the "ocean biological carbon pump" transform CO₂ into organic matter and sequester it in the deep sea, impacting levels of CO₂ in the atmosphere. The biotic carbon flows in the ocean are substantial and there are open questions regarding the stability of these flows in the face of human induced warming and acidification of the ocean.
 

Alexander Arroyo is a PhD candidate in Geography at the University of California, Berkeley, with a designated emphasis in Science and Technology Studies. His work broadly explores the entanglements of science and technology, militarism, and capital in "fluid geographies"-- oceanic, atmospheric, and electromagnetic environments. His dissertation focuses on how the emerging figure of the "digital ocean"-- an assemblage of digital infrastructures and techniques designed to sense, map, model ocean space-- shapes speculative geopolitical and geoeconomic encounters with the Pacific and Arctic Oceans in the context of climate change. He is author, with Pierre Bélanger, of the award-winning book Ecologies of Power (MIT Press 2016), examining the role of the US Department of Defense as the largest building owner, contractor, and landholder in the world. His research has been supported by the UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Fellowship, Social Science Matrix, and Peder Sather Center for Advanced Study, and he is a Bancroft Fellow for 2019-2020. He hold prior degrees in Landscape Architecture (MLA, Harvard University Graduate School of Design), Philosophy, and Human Rights (BA, Columbia University).