A podcast All Together Different
Join George Mason University President Gregory Washington as he invites experts, change-makers, innovators, and thought leaders to engage in meaningful conversations about the greatest challenges of our time.
Listen and learn from audacious people from Mason and beyond who represent the diversity of insight, the agility of collaboration, and the tenacity required in the struggle for a better future that is at the essence of the Mason Nation.
President Gregory Washington hosts each episode of the Access to Excellence podcast, recorded on the campus of George Mason University.
What will become of the Amazon? (Episode 58)
Jeremy Campbell, associate director for strategic engagement in George Mason University’s Institute for a Sustainable Earth, says that at its current pace the vast Amazon rainforest, in five to 10 years, could pass a tipping point in which it could transform into grasslands. That process, fueled by deforestation and climate change, is a threat to the biodiversity and socio-cultural aspects that define the region, and has global implications as well. In this fascinating conversation in recognition of Earth Month, Campbell explains to Mason President Gregory Washington the magnitude of what the loss of the Amazon rainforest would really mean and how the Institute for a Sustainable Earth is on the front lines in the region. Listen now.
"Where there used to be forest, you're not going to get any more of that transpiration cycle, and so the dryness isn't limited to the places where deforestation happens. Where things are really dry, things get hotter. And when you add what we had last year, with the horrible situation throughout the Amazon of an El Nino induced heat spike and drought, then you have villages that rely on the rivers to get around that are literally stranded. So the drying out of the Amazon is a tremendous biodiversity challenge, it's also a tremendous economic challenge. But it's also a human tragedy that is taking tremendous costs on the people of the Amazon as well."
Jeremy Campbell
Access to Excellence, Episode 58
Jeremy Campbell is associate director for strategic engagement at George Mason University's Institute for a Sustainable Earth.
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All Episodes
October 15, 2020In a conversation with John Hollis, Mason's Charles Chavis, a historian of the early civil right movement, puts the current protests for racial justice in historical context.
July 27, 2020Did you know the torch relay began at the 1936 Berlin Games?
July 17, 2020Mason professor Laurie Robinson, who during the Obama administration was co-chair of the White House Task Force on 21st Century Policing, explains a complicated legacy.
June 16, 2020Jeannette Chapman, director of Mason's Stephen S.
June 3, 2020How does Monday and Friday as work-at-home days sound? Mason professors Matt Cronin and Kevin Rockmann talk with John Hollis about how the pandemic could change how we view the office.
June 3, 2020How does rhetoric play into debates about vaccination? Mason professor Heidi Lawrence tells John Hollis about her research into the role that professional communication from physicians, health officials, and researchers plays in shaping public debate and parental beliefs about vaccines.
April 21, 2020University Professor Thomas Lovejoy, known worldwide as the "godfather of biodiversity," tells John Hollis why the great rainforest is so imperiled, and how he fell in love with the region he has visited since 1965 and calls "a biologist
March 10, 2020Mason sport management professor Craig Esherick, a former head coach at Georgetown, tells John Hollis why the tournament might be the best it's ever been, has a new story about Mason's 2006 Final Four run, and discusses different paths t
March 2, 2020Host John Hollis speaks with Shobita Satyapal and Ryan Pfeifle about their discovery of three galaxies with black holes at their centers that, when they collide, could shake apart matter and light up gravitational wave detectors on earth.
February 7, 2020Host John Hollis speaks to Mason’s Wendi Manuel-Scott and George Oberlie about the lives and culture of the slaves at Gunston Hall, and the Enslaved People of George Mason memorial being constructed on Mason’s Fairfax Campus.