Anthropocene Dialogues: Decoupling Economic Prosperity from Carbon Emissions

Anthropocene magazine is a new science magazine produced by Future Earth. Its mission is to bring together the world's leading scientists, technologists, and creatives to explore on-the-ground stories of sustainability science in action. For AGU 2017, Anthropocene magazine will stage an "Anthropocene Dialogue" based on its July 2017 issue. Anthropocene Dialogues are panel discussions about the successes and challenges of transformative science-policy collaborations by leading science journalists, researchers, and practitioners. The focus of this dialogue is: What are the scientific and technological innovations that drive the decarbonization of economies—from plugging artificial intelligence into electrical grids to new experiments in solar geoengineering. Panelist include: Robert Jackson of the Global Carbon Project discussing the historic decoupling of carbon emissions from GDP, Oliver Morton of The Economist speaking on how geoengineering can be a key element of a decoupling process; Robinson Meyer of The Atlantic outlining a coal "retirement plan" based on supply side economics; Wayt Gibbs of Scientific American tackling the quintessential question, How much energy will the world need? and Mark Harris of IEEE Spectrum looking at new experiments in artificial intelligence that could pull fossil fuels out of electrical grids, factories, data centers, and transit systems. For more information on these stories, visit: anthropocenemagazine.org/in-print/. Free sample copies of the magazine will be available at the session.