September 8, 2025
Even if we stopped burning fossil fuels today, the carbon already lingering in our atmosphere would continue warming the planet for centuries. This unsettling reality means that simply cutting emissions isn’t enough; the fight against climate change demands that researchers study all potential approaches and tools that could be used to mitigate the risks of the accumulated emissions.
A series of free public talks will examine the science, technologies, and policy implications behind large-scale interventions such as sunlight reflection methods (SRM), open-systems carbon removal, and glacial preservation. The series will feature leading researchers from the University of Chicago’s Climate Systems Engineering initiative (CSEi) and runs every Saturday morning at 11 a.m. from October 4 to November 22, 2025.
The Climate Systems Engineering initiative applies insights from systems engineering and climate systems science to study technologies that might reduce the risks of accumulated greenhouse gases. The talks, given by Profs. David Keith, Tiffany Shaw, and B. B. Cael, and potentially others from the institute, will serve as a primer on what's possible in this emerging field and what kinds of policy and research are needed to pursue these tools.
Sponsored by the Enrico Fermi Institute, the Arthur Holly Compton Lectures honor the Nobel Prize–winning physicist who led the pioneering 1942 UChicago experiment that produced the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear reaction. The series has been running since 1976 in order to make accessible the remarkable recent developments in physical science to the public. Videos from past lectures are available at the Enrico Fermi Institute site.
The free talks are located at the Kersten Physics Teaching Center, 5720 S. Ellis Avenue, in room 106. Learn more here.