January 21, 2010
Faculty lecture: Climate change seen through the prism of the fossil record
Peter Ward has never been one to shy away from controversy.
As a paleontologist who has closely examined the most intricate evidence of evolution in the fossil record, he has spoken out on radio talk shows and editorial pages against teaching “intelligent design” as a scientific substitute for evolution.
As a prolific author, he co-wrote a scientific bestseller that challenged the notion that there are Vulcans and Klingons, ETs aplenty somewhere nearby, just waiting to be contacted by Earthlings. The “Rare Earth hypothesis” triggered a firestorm of scientific debate.
As a UW professor of biology and of Earth and space sciences, he has looked at how fast-changing conditions, from volcanic eruptions to a catastrophic asteroid impact, caused mass extinction events in Earth’s history, and he has extrapolated those observations into today’s often-contentious debate about climate change.
Ward brings that perspective of prehistory to the 34th annual Faculty Lecture, where he will discuss what the rock and fossil record from millions of years ago can tell us about what we might see from climate change in the coming decades. The view is less than reassuring, with threats to life and economies posed by both sea level rise and mass extinction.
The free public lecture — Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Climate? What’s the Worst Global Warming Could Do? — is at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 27, in 130 Kane and will be followed by a reception in the Walker-Ames Room.
Ward acknowledges that he’s often involved with controversial topics, whether discussing the potential effects of climate change or engaging in the debate about teaching “intelligent design” as a science along with, or instead of, evolution.
“If I thought I was right, if I thought it was something worth fighting for, I’d fight for it,” he says matter-of-factly.
But early on it wasn’t clear whether the Seattle native’s life would follow science or the water. “I grew up on Lake Washington and was always comfortable with the water,” he recalled, noting that he acquired his first scuba gear at the age of 16 and by 19 he was an instructor. He worked in marine salvage for a time, and did in-water maintenance on the Hood Canal Bridge (before the west half sank during a storm in the late 1970s). He used those scuba skills to rescue killer whales caught in nets near Whidbey Island, and later helped craft state legislation to protect marine mammals.
But early on he had a keen interest in science as well, and he got hooked on geology and paleontology by reading books about dinosaurs written by famed adventurer and naturalist Roy Chapman Andrews. In fact, Ward recalls finding clam and snail fossils in Seattle’s Seward Park while in elementary school, and he kept hunting fossils through his years at Franklin High School.
“Seattle’s not a fossil-rich area, but we used to go to the San Juans every summer. We’d see ammonites there and that set me on the path for my master’s degree.”
Ward earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at UW before moving to McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, for his doctoral work. It was then, on a trip to New Caledonia in the South Pacific, that he began doing in-water observations and experiments with nautiluses, descendents of ammonites like the fossils he found in the San Juan Islands.
Ammonites evolved quickly and so were very useful for studying evolution, and their fossils are important markers to determine geologic timelines in rock strata. (Large ammonite fossils that Ward recently brought back from Antarctica are currently on display at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture.)
Ward earned his doctorate in 1976 and, after teaching stints at Ohio State University and the University of California, Davis, he returned to Seattle in 1985 to join the UW faculty. The transition was difficult, he recalls, because paleontology was a highly valued discipline at UC-Davis but he felt it was not so greatly prized at the UW. That has changed today, he notes, with many more people at the UW involved in disciplines such as paleobiology and astrobiology.
He was among a handful of faculty members who brought what was thought to be the first graduate program in astrobiology to the UW. The program, which focused on life away from Earth, is highly interdisciplinary, as is Ward himself: his work touches on a number of disciplines, and he holds an adjunct appointment in astronomy.
In fact Scientific American reports that, at a lecture Ward delivered last week at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, moderator Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the museum’s Hayden Planetarium, struggled to find an apt description for Ward and finally came up with “paleobiogeoastronomer.”
Along with his research on mass extinctions and the fossil record, Ward has written or co-authored 15 books designed to bring science to the general public. He collaborated with UW astronomer Donald Brownlee on Rare Earth, which still sells thousands of copies a year and is one of the all-time best-selling books on astrobiology. In his most recent book, The Medea Hypothesis, he argues that our planet is actually detrimental to life, a notion recently listed as one of the most noteworthy ideas of 2009 by The New York Times Magazine. His 16th book, The Flooded Earth: Our Future In a World Without Ice Caps, is scheduled for publication this year.
“If you live long enough, you have plenty of free time. I don’t watch a lot of TV. If you write an hour a day, you can turn out a lot of books,” he says with a chuckle.
He also has been involved with making science documentaries for television, and he sees TV and books as an important part of his work, bringing science to the public in an understandable way. He laments that faculty members often are not valued for reaching out to the public in the same way that they are for publishing research in scholarly journals.
Ward has gotten much publicity through the years, both for his research and for his books, and he has traveled all over the world and seen things most people never will. But he doesn’t hesitate when asked about his biggest accomplishment.
“Parenting two fine boys, being a good father and husband, are probably my greatest achievements. That and this award,” he said. “I never wanted to be anywhere but here, and to get this award on top of that is amazing.”
