Welcome to Our Earths Future. A new course produced by the American Museum of Natural History about the science behind climate change. I'm Dr. Deborah Tillenger, I'm a climate scientist and I'll be your instructor for this course. [MUSIC] The museum's global mission to discover, interpret, and disseminate information about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe could not have greater relevance of tackling this complex subject. To design this course, we called on resources from among the museum's hundreds of research scientists and educators, and it's vast collection to offer a unique experience. We will bring you into our halls, visit research sites around the world, and introduce you to scientists working on the cutting edge of climate change research. [MUSIC] One of the most rewarding parts of preparing this class is that I was able to invite some of my favorite scientists here to the museum to give lectures. >> What do we do, to deal with these problems? >> Those lectures were part of our Onsite class. And now, we're fortunate to be able to make them available to all of you. >> You can't just respond post disaster. >> You'll hear from experts some of the top scientific institutions in our area. >> What's the point of education? What's the point of communication? >> We have scientists coming from NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies, from Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory. And from right here at the American Museum of Natural History. But first we're going to learn what science is, and more importantly what it isn't. Once we're all on the same page about science, I'm going to give you a little bit of a background about climate science. In order to talk about climate change, we have to understand the system that's being changed in the first place. >> Anybody who's speaking in public. >> After that you'll hear form Dr. Gavin Schmidt, the Director of Goddard Institute for Space Studies at NASA. He's also the founder, and one of the Editors of the blog, www.realclimate.org. Which has been favorite online source for climate information for awhile now. He's going to talk about why we communicate about science, the ethics of that communication, and also the mechanics of it. This course is about climate and about science, but it's also about communication. Throughout this course, you're going to learn how to talk about climate change, how to be fluent in the language that scientists use. In such a way that you can talk to your friends as well as to us. To that end, I'm going to ask you to contribute to discussions on our website, and to take what you've learned out into the world on whatever social networks you already use. I'm really excited to be your instructor, and I'm looking forward to getting to know you through this course. Welcome to the American Museum of Natural History and our Earth's future.