Is this our last chance? Talks

Online

November 20 – November 27, 2021

Landscape 1 <i>Longyearbyen, a Bipolar City</i> [Longyearbyen: İki Kutuplu Şehir] (2016) filminden bir kare ©Artcam Production
Still image from Longyearbyen, a Bipolar City (2016) ©Artcam Production
SALT Online YouTube Channel
youtube.com/c/saltonlineorg

SALT’s 2021 edition Is this our last chance? screening program is accompanied by a series of talks encouraging reflection and discussion on climate change and ecological crisis. The program has been calling attention to climate change, its impacts on humans, the environment, and the world at large since 2015. With the support of Garanti BBVA, the talks will take place online between November 20-27; scientists Prof. Dr. Burcu Özsoy, Prof. Karen O’Brien, Dr. Abdullah Kahraman, and Dr. Derya Akkaynak will present their ideas, thoughts, and projects on the current state of the climate crisis.

Is this our last chance? talks program will commence with opening remarks by Garanti BBVA’s Executive Vice President Ebru Dildar Edin on Saturday, November 20 at 15.00 and will be broadcasted on SALT Online’s Youtube channel and will be followed by Prof. Burcu Özsoy’s talk, “Dünya’da İklim, Kutuplarda İklim” [Climate of the Earth, Climate of the Poles]. Özsoy will expand on the effects of climate change in the Arctic and Antarctic regions, as well as the scientific studies Turkey has been conducting in the Poles. As the founding director of the Istanbul Technical University Polar Research Center (PolReC), Özsoy coordinated and led the first, second and third Turkish National Antarctic Expeditions under the sponsorship of the Presidency and the Ministry of Industry and Technology.

On Monday, November 22 at 19.00, the program will continue with Prof. Karen O’Brien’s talk titled “Climate Change: We Matter More Than We Think”. O’Brien received the BBVA Foundation’s “Frontiers of Knowledge Award” in Climate Change in 2020 for changing the paradigm of climate change action, previously confined to mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, by folding in the concept of adaptation to unavoidable impacts. O’Brien is a faculty member in the department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo and one of the founders of the cCHANGE platform, which encourages individual and social initiatives while combating the climate crisis. Her current research focuses on human behavior as well as personal, cultural, and systematic transformations in the context of climate change.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s 6th Assessment Report published in August 2021, included a chapter on weather and climate extreme events for the first time. Departing from the findings of the report, in his talk titled “İklim Değişikliği ve Ekstrem Hava Olayları” [Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events], atmospheric scientist Dr. Abdullah Kahraman will present the latest scientific data available on climate change’s impact on extreme weather and climate events on Wednesday, November 24 at 19.00. As a researcher at Newcastle University and the United Kingdom Meteorological Office, Kahraman focuses on extreme weather events in Europe. His research examines tornadoes, hailstorms, and severe thunderstorms in Turkey, Finland, and the USA.

The program will conclude with Derya Akkaynak’s talk titled “Değişen İklim Isınan Okyanuslar [Climate Change, Ocean Warming]” on Saturday, November 27, at 17.00. Akkaynak, who is a scholar at Florida Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in the USA, will examine the impact of the climate crisis on oceans. Upon receiving her bachelor’s degree from Middle East Technical University, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Akkaynak completed her graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She graduated from the dual Phd program in Mechanical Engineering and Oceanography offered by the reputable Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and MIT. During her post-doctoral fellowship at Princeton University, Akkaynak received the “Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists” in Physics and Engineering in 2019. The award was granted for her collaborative work with Dr. Tali Treibitx, an algorithm titled “sea-thru” which restores the colors of images recorded underwater.

Following the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) held in Glasgow, Scotland at the beginning of November, Is this our last chance? talks program will take place between 20-27 November and will be broadcasted live on SALT Online’s YouTube channel. The program is supported by Garanti BBVA and organized in collaboration with WWF-Turkey (World Wide Fund for Nature).


PROGRAM
SALT Online YouTube Channel

Saturday, November 20, 15.00

Opening remarks by Ebru Dildar Edin, Garanti BBVA Executive Vice President
Prof. Dr. Burcu Özsoy “Dünya’da İklim, Kutuplarda İklim” [Climate of the Earth, Climate of the Poles]
Moderator: Dr. Neyran Akyıldız, WWF-Turkey Group Head of Corporate Communications
In Turkish

Monday, November 22, 19.00
Prof. Karen O’Brien “Climate Change: We Matter More Than We Think”
Moderator: Fatma Çolakoğlu, Associate Director of Research and Programs at SALT
In English with simultaneous Turkish translation

Wednesday, November 24, 19.00
Dr. Abdullah Kahraman “İklim Değişikliği ve Ekstrem Hava Olayları” [Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events]
Moderator: Tanyeli Sabuncu, WWF-Turkey Senior Climate and Energy Officer
In Turkish

Saturday, November 27, 17.00
Dr. Derya Akkaynak “Değişen İklim, Isınan Okyanuslar” [Climate Change, Ocean Warming]
Moderator: Ayşe Oruç, WWF-Turkey Marine and Wildlife Program Manager
In Turkish


Prof. Dr. Burcu Özsoy, after completing her undergraduate and graduate studies at Yıldız Technical University, Department of Geodesy and Photogrammetry Engineering, she worked as a lecturer at Istanbul Technical University (ITU), Faculty of Maritime in 2001. Within the scope of her doctoral studies at the University of Texas in the USA, she participated in her first Antarctic science exploration with American and Swedish scientists. In 2015, she worked as Turkey’s project coordinator in the “Horizon 2020” which is a research project on Arctic and Antarctic regions. As the founding director of the Istanbul Technical University Polar Research Center (PolReC), Özsoy undertook the duties of coordination and expeditionary leadership of the first, second and third National Turkish Antarctic Expeditions carried out under the auspices of the Presidency and the responsibility of the Ministry of Industry and Technology. Özsoy, who received the “TÜBA-GEBİP Kutup Çalışmaları Ödülü” [Polar Studies Award] in 2020, is currently the vice president of TÜBİTAK Marmara Research Center (MAM) and the director of the MAM Polar Research Institute.

Prof. Karen O’Brien, received an award in the field of Climate Change at the “Frontiers of Knowledge Awards” organized for the thirteenth time in 2020 by the BBVA Foundation, which supports social responsibility and wide-ranging research-based in Spain. O’Brien is a Human Geography faculty member at the University of Oslo and one of the founders of the cCHANGE platform, which argues that climate crisis can be intervened with individual and social initiatives. She works on human behavior as well as personal, cultural, and systemic transformations in the context of climate change.

Dr. Abdullah Kahraman, is a researcher, an atmospheric scientist. Working mainly on tornadoes, hailstorms, and severe thunderstorms in Turkey, Finland, and the USA, Kahraman made operational weather forecasts for more than ten years before his academic studies. He continues his research on the change of extreme weather events in Europe due to climate change at Newcastle University and the UK Met Office.

Dr. Derya Akkaynak, After completing her undergraduate education in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Middle East Technical University, she completed her master’s and doctorate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As a mechanical engineer and oceanographer (marine scientist), Akkaynak, attended post-doctoral studies at Princeton University, Panama, Israel, and Germany. She won the “Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists” award in 2019 in physics and engineering for the algorithm she developed called “sea-thru” which corrects color distortion in images recorded underwater. She currently works at the Florida Harbor Branch Institution of Oceanography in the USA.

Dr. Neyran Akyıldız, WWF-Turkey Group Head of Communications

Tanyeli Sabuncu, WWF-Turkey Senior Climate and Energy Officer

Ayşe Oruç, WWF-Turkey Marine and Wildlife Programme Manager

SALT’s Is this our last chance? program is supported by its founder, Garanti BBVA.



Is this our last chance? Talks program by SALT is organized in collaboration with WWF-Turkey (World Wide Fund for Nature).
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