The Scripps Institution Oceanography will launch a new Center for Climate Change with a $5 million gift from longtime UC San Diego supporters Richard and Carol Dean Hertzberg.
“We’re giving this gift because we believe we’re all in it together,” said Richard Hertzberg at a press conference Monday.
Hertzberg, president and CEO of energy company ENPEX Corp., said he believes that “good science and technology” will ensure humanity does not “drown in the waste products of our own invention.”
The mission of the new center is to provide science-based strategies for adapting to climate change.
“This center will leverage the great strengths of UC San Diego in engineering, economics and public policy,” said Chancellor Pradeep Khosla, who predicted the center’s work would have national impact.
Rep. Scott Peters, who was present for the announcement, noted that while Congress debates whether climate change is real, San Diego is focusing on solutions. “We don’t have to wait for San Diego to take the lead on this,” he said.
Hertzberg said that when the Biblical commandment to “go forth and multiply” was issued, “I don’t think the industrial revolution and the steam turbine were in the plan.”
Scripps has been a worldwide leader in investigating the causes and impacts of climate change, and was recently recognized for supporting research into the Keeling Curve — the long-term rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The La Jolla-based institution has a staff of 1,400 and operates four research ships.
