Climate change, basically, is a game changer.
It's no longer we could assume that the future is
going to look like the past.
Actually, we are--
I mean, it's being now quite accepted, broadly,
that the future is going to be different.
The future is going to change.
Even if we take significant mitigation efforts,
there is going to be still a level of climate change
that we are going to have to adapt to.
Something that distinguishes my work from many others
is we don't tend to focus on global climate, per se,
but we tend to focus on climate processes
at the regional scale.
And understand how global climate change
might impact regional climates.
Address things like how climate change
is going to impact agriculture in the American Midwest.
How climate change is going to impact
the availability of water in the Nile river basin.
How climate change may impact malaria incidence
and transmission in West Africa.
In a way, we provide a bridge between what the global models
are projecting is going to be significant changes
in the future, to phenomena and processes that are
really important for society.
I think the general picture is you have communities
in Africa and in Asia that do not have the capacity
to adapt to climate change.
Actually, they don't have the capacity
to even adapt to climate variability and deal
with climate variability.
And climate change would add another layer of challenges.
And those societies are not ready to,
basically, adapt to those.
It offers great opportunities for young people
who are looking to make careers studying the environment,
studying climate system, and doing
that in ways that really could have
significant impacts on society.
That would really make a difference, in terms of,
improving the ability of the human society
to live in sustainable ways.
And to be able to utilize the resources
and conserve them for future generation at the same time.