Walter Robinson

Bio

Dr. Walt Robinson has taught at NC State, in the Department of Marine, Earth, & Atmospheric Sciences in the College of Sciences, since 2009. Dr. Robinson is a climate scientist – he studies why and how Earth’s climate varies and changes, recently with more focus on the impacts of climate change. He is excited to teach in the First Year Inquiry Program because it gives him and the students the chance to share and think about important topics for our futures and the future of our planet, including topics about which he is not necessarily the expert.

This fall he is teaching MEA 260, Human Dimensions of Climate Change. This class is a little bit about climate science but much more about all the ways climate change affects people, all the ways people affect the climate, how different people see the impacts of climate change on their lives, and how they seek to solve the climate problem. We will hear diverse voices and perspectives on climate change, from scientists to faith leaders to indigenous people to community organizers, and we will take a hard look at how climate change intersects with issues of social, economic, and racial justice. He hopes students will come away understanding that climate change is not primarily a scientific/technical problem, but a human one (a realization he, as a climate scientist, has come to only late in his career).