The Impact Series: Dr. Jim White

 This isn’t a future problem. It’s already happening. 

In this episode of The Impact Series, Mike Collignon sits down with Dr. Jim White—leading climate scientist and Dean at UNC Chapel Hill—to break down what decades of research are telling us: 

Sea level rise is inevitable. And once it starts, it doesn’t simply reverse. From melting ice sheets to warming oceans and shifting global systems, the changes are already in motion—and the timeline isn’t what most people think.

In this episode: 

• Why sea level rise can accelerate faster than expected 

• The hidden role of ocean heat—and why it matters more than air temperature 

• What “tipping points” really mean for climate and society 

• How insurance markets may be the first real signal of change 

• The long-term consequences we’re passing to future generations 

And one sobering truth: We don’t live on a planet of instant fixes. This isn’t just about climate science. It’s about what happens next—and who pays the price. 

Watch the full conversation. Then decide how urgent this really is. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Hello and welcome to the Impact Series on the Green Builder Media Network. I'm your host, Mike Kalignan. On this podcast, I'll have one-on-one conversations with leaders and innovators from a wide variety of disciplines. We'll talk about how they got into their field, the lessons they've learned, and advice they have for future generations of leaders. Today I'm very excited to spend some time with Dr. Jim White. He is the Craver Family Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Prior to joining UNC in 2022, Jim was the acting dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder for five years and had been a faculty member in the Department of Geological Sciences since 1989. An internationally recognized expert in climate science, his research focuses on past behaviors of the Earth's climate system, the evidence for rapid climate change in the past, and the dynamics of the modern carbon cycle. Jim has published over 200 peer-reviewed journal articles, is a highly cited researcher in the field, and regularly gives public talks on climate change and sustainability. And he was elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2014. Jim, welcome to the Impact series.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Well, thank you for having me, Mike.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

You know, I'm I'm happy to be talking with you again. Um we've had a lot of interactions over the past probably 10, 15 years. Um, I've enjoyed every conversation that we've had going back to the days when I was a lowly attendee of the Weather and Climate Summit put on by Storm Center. You remember those? Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Uh, you know, for our audience, um, if you ever attended any of those, uh, you know what I'm talking about. They they were incredibly enlightening. However, the online attendance numbers were not large. Uh, so I would be stunned if we had fellow WXCS attendees listening to us now. And honestly, it's okay because those annual events were meant for TV meteorologists. Um, I really don't remember how I even found out about it, but they were really cool. Uh, and it was it was a really great way to get climate information into the minds of very trusted members of their respective communities. And you were a big part of that.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Yeah, no, I it was uh um I was very privileged to be invited. Uh, I can't remember what year it was. I think I I went to many of them, more than 10. Might have been as many as 20 of them. Um, but it it was an opportunity to interact with and to um provide information for people who you know they have a what I call a real bully pulpit. You know, they're in front of a camera. So when you have the opportunity to speak to people from uh the weather channel or to speak to people from you know on national networks, um that's you know, that's important. Um and I thought it was important for um us to be able to provide them with the with the best information we could possibly give them at the time. So that you know, if they if questions were brought up by viewers about, you know, I'm seeing these things about uh weather changes, what does that mean in terms of climate change? What does that mean in terms of of changes in hurricane intensities, changes in tornado frequencies and things like that? Um, they could have the best information or they had the best information possible at the time. So it was a and plus I learned a lot myself. I mean, I came and talked about climate change, I came and talked about ice cars and sustainability and a whole bunch of sea level, sea level rise, a bunch of stuff like that. But at the same time, I got to listen to really, you know, the world's climate experts talk about things like, you know, how's the jet stream responding to changes in uh temperature and and how are, you know, uh stuff like that is just really and you know, are there is there any good data that says that you know we're seeing more more tornadoes than we used to? Things like that were you know, not in my area, which which I found very informative as well. Finally, Mike, great group of people. I mean, you know, if you if you want to assemble a group of extroverts, you get a group of folks whose job it is to get up in front of a camera and talk. And they were a just a fun, fun group to hang out with.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Well, and and that was the you know, the the diversity of that group was really incredible, right? Because uh you had meteorologists, like you said, from the weather channel. I remember Paul Goodlow was there, uh, Jim Cantori would go. Um, but then also you had uh local meteorologists, and it wasn't just from large metropolitan areas. Um, you had people from New York City, but you had people from Kentucky. Um, you had people from I I know one of uh the local meteorologists here from St. Louis was there. Um Kent Earhart was his name. And uh it just it was from all over the country.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

No, it's true. And and I I thought even more importantly, it was uh we they weren't vetted by whether or not they were um willing to say the climate change was real or not. That was not, you know, if it was you come, we will invite a whole spectrum of people with a whole spectrum of backgrounds. And that was also really to me fascinating. Because not only did you talk to them in in meetings, but you know, you had dinner with these folks, and we would sit down and talk about all right, you know, I know that you're a skeptic on the issue of climate change. Tell me more about you know, precision, you know, it it's what people, you know, today, you know, sort of bemoan we don't do anymore, uh, which is to have you know really good conversations with somebody that you know from the beginning. You don't disagree, you don't agree with their fundamental with where they're coming from, but you can have a conversation. And that that was a good place to do that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Yeah. Now, obviously, people are kind of getting a sense of this, the interesting background that you have from the intro and what we've already talked about. And I want to get into all of that. Now, I know you're at UNC now, and we'll we'll get to that part, but let's go back to when you got your master's and your PhD from Columbia University. What's the first job that you had with your brand new doctorate?

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Um, so the first thing I did when my brand, actually, first thing I did with my brand new doctorate was I ran the Carbon 14 dating lab at Lamont Doherty Geological Observatory. Um it was uh sort of a fill-in. Uh my advisor, Wally Broker, needed someone to do that. And uh it turns out I'm pretty good in the lab. So that was that was a short-term job. That lasted for a fairly short period of time. Uh, but then I I uh I did a uh a postdoc, postdoctoral research with um the French ice core group in uh in a lab just outside of Paris in Sacolade, France. Um, the French were at the time partnering with the Russians, or actually the Soviet Union at the time, on the Vostok ice corps. And they were beginning to measure uh things like basic temperature records, which is what I measure in my lab, stabilized Tops Ice. Uh, they were measuring carbon dioxide, they were measuring other greenhouse gases, and it was just a fantastically exciting time to be seeing, you know, the basic the records that today form the backbone of what we understand is the relationship between greenhouse gases and climate from an observational point of view. Uh, it was really fascinating to be there and watch this in real time. And to be able to, you know, I did a lot of copy editing as well.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

So which prepared you for being in academia because then you ended up at University of Colorado Boulder.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Yeah, we, you know, that's what we do. As scientists, we do a lot of writing, we do a lot of reading. Um, but as the the uh the native English speaker in the group, that was you know one of the things that I helped out on. So but it was, like I said, it was just really uh these are plus these are brilliant people. Jean Juzel was my boss in France, and he is just one of the smartest people I've ever met and a really excellent person as well. And that that was that was one of the and still is, I think, one of the you know, one of the one of the I'd say I'd just say fun aspects, and it is fun, but I don't know if that's the right word, of the ice coring community. It's international and it's populated with really nice people, you know, whether they're in the French group or the Danish group or the American group or you know, Japanese, Australian, New Zealand, you know, all just really wonderful people. And that was the that made it all a whole lot more fun. I mean, not only did you know you were doing something important for trying to understand how our planet works, but you were doing it with people that you really enjoyed being with. And frankly, you had to because sometimes we are stuck in the same ice core camp for you know six weeks. So if you didn't like them, that's a problem.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Right. Figure out how to get along pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Yeah, absolutely. You got no choice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

So let's let's talk a little bit about your work with ice cores. The research that you've done in that field has helped inform sea level rise projections. Um, what is the most current research or data uh on sea level rise projections?

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Um it's uh uh sea level rise is inevitable from a warming planet. You simply cannot warm up the air, and and particularly you can't warm up the ocean, the ocean's even more important, and not melt the edges of the big ice sheets, Greenland and Antarctica. Um when we first started to look at this, uh, it was the the the the the predictions, the calculations were pretty, I'd say straightforward, if not kind of rudimentary, that you know there's a certain amount of how fast can you melt a chunk of ice? Um, and that would sort of give you an indication of how fast sea level could rise. Um that those sort of simple calculations became much more sophisticated as time goes by from two avenues. One is an understanding of how ice sheets behave. So so believe it or not, there are ice streams in an ice sheet. You know, it sounds kind of unusual because you don't think of ice as you know flowing down, but there are places on ice sheets where there's really no friction at between the ice and the rock below. There's water. Um, there's uh it forms a uh a slick place for ice to flow over rocks. And those are places where a lot of ice can come out into the ocean in a fairly short period of time, fairly short being you know, decades to centuries. Um, but that's we now understand better that the uh the pace with which sea level is going to rise is going to depend on our understanding of these ice streams. Um and we had now have also, as I said, there's a couple things we've learned. The other is that we've uh spent a lot of time looking at at sea level positions in the past and trying to get a record of how rapidly has sea level, uh how rapidly can sea level rise over time. And the uh the answer is is not um all that great for us because sea level can indeed rise by meters in a century. Um, and it has done that in the past. So this is uh uh something that we have to be paying attention to. And frankly, there's still a lot of work that needs to be done. I mean, both in Greenland and Antarctica, we see we need to know better uh how these how are these ice streams behaving? What's what are the ways in which they can either rapidly pump icebergs out into the ocean which are gonna melt, or are there slow spots? Um and you know, from a practical point of view, are there places in the sea level rise occur where it's gonna pause for a while? Uh and uh can we reliably predict those? And because that that gives us as a society an opportunity to retreat and then you know retrench or so however you want to put that. But the pace of sea level rise is is going to be um it's gonna be important for us to understand that. Not only you know the fact that it's rising and and it's you know over the over the next century it'll be you know feet of sea level rise, um, but could it be even more than that?

SPEAKER_01 12:53

And for the for the novices who are listening to this, like myself, um you said, okay, in the past that the sea level rise has happened rapidly, um uh from that moment to now. Did sea level rise then kind of go back down? Or did we just uh are did our coastlines just uh adjust based on sea level rise? I guess ultimately where I'm going, Jim, is is there a way for us in any way, shape, or form to undo or to fix what we're doing?

SPEAKER_00 13:30

Um not on timescales that you and I would really care to think about, my not on human you know, the so ice is a very it's slow to accumulate, it's slow to come off of land masses, and it has some and it has a large amount of inertia to it. And that inertia is driven by the fact that when you warm up water, when you warm up the ocean, it doesn't immediately cool off quickly. I mean, you know this. It it I used to, when I give talks about sustainability and climate change, I I ask people, you know, do a thought experiment, put put two pots on the stove, um, identical pots, pour two cups of water in one of them, no water in the other one, turn the heat on identically, uh, wait five minutes, come back. You can put your finger in the water, and it may be a little bit warm. You know, thought experiment. You can put your finger in the other one, and the the sound is the sizzling of your finger. Same amount of energy went into both pots. Why is it that the water pot is not you know boiling already? It's because water has a lot of heat capacity. It takes a long time to warm up, but it also then takes a long time to cool off. So once we and we've you know, most of the heat energy we've added to the atmosphere from greenhouse gases is actually gone into warming the ocean. And so it's it's it's warmer, it's gonna stay warmer for a long time, and it's and it's warm water that chews away at the edges of these these ice sheets. Uh and so, yes, I mean, on tire scales that we care about, um you can't reverse it right away. This is not a um, as I as I tell people frequently, you do not live on planet instant gratification.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

Well, and this, yeah, it's a multi-generational uh fix or impact or you know, change. Um and and it reminds me of another question that I uh hadn't thought of ahead of time, which was the warming of the ocean is also messing with some of the currents. Is that correct? Can yeah, does that and so are we seeing are we seeing those currents start to change a little bit as well?

SPEAKER_00 15:46

Um you know, this is something we keep a very close eye on. So what you're what you're talking about is there's a um a very large flow of water in the Atlantic that flows up towards the uh southern coast of Greenland. And it cools off enough and it's salty enough that it begins to sink towards the bottom of the ocean. And it forms what's called a conveyor belt circulation, it's a very large circulation. It's actually a global circulation, but it brings a lot of heat up into the North Atlantic. If you look on a map, you can ask yourself why is it that England is habitable when it's you know at a latitude which uh should make it really cold and snowy all the time? And it's because there's a you know, the ocean's pumping a lot of heat up into that part of the of the world. Um it if you don't have if you have fresh water coming off of the Greenland ice sheet, that monkeys with the density of the water and and makes it harder for that water to sink up there. So that's sort of in a simple sense, you know, one of the things that we are watching very carefully, this North Atlantic, it's called North Atlantic deep water formation. Um is it slowing down? Is it um how fast can it stop? How fast can it can it change? These are fundamental questions that we've been asking um throughout my career. But uh, we still don't have full answers, but we understand how sensitive the system can be.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

And we're gonna set aside the Greenland topic for a moment because we're not gonna fix that bizarre obsession that seems to be in the national conversation right now. But uh I want to ask a broader question.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Okay, very nice people. I tell you, very nice. Been to Greenland many times, very nice people. Go on.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

No, I I knew you had a lot of experience in Greenland, so I was thinking about that as we were getting ready to do this. Um but I but I do want to ask kind of a broader question, and you hit on it a little bit, which was you know, we're still trying to figure this out. You've been working on this in this field for nearly 40 years. Is this type of climate research at risk right now? And if so, uh are you and your colleagues able to do uh anything to kind of overcome that?

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Um so the short answer is yes, it is. Um and the answer to your second question is not really uh the uh so the the the you know the we get most of our funding here in the United States from the federal government, through uh National Science Foundation primarily, but some of it through NOAA, NASA, other other governmental agencies. Um they make the decision of what areas they want to fund and what areas they think are important. And throughout my career, I have seen politics play out in this. So there have been times when writing proposals with the words climate change in them was not a problem. There have been times uh when writing a proposal with the words climate change in it would guarantee it you got tossed out. Um so you you you know I under you have to live within the the you know the times you're you're given, the political times you're given. And I understand that. That's uh you know, it is taxpayer money. Uh so I understand how that works. But you just you know you have to figure out how you're gonna adapt to that. Uh and you know uh there are things you can study that you know aren't overtly climate change. There are things you use you we you know, we still need to understand the physics of ice. Uh uh, we still need to understand the physics of oceans ocean circulation, thing basic things like that. And so sometimes it's really a a question of of uh just getting back into the basic science. And and that that seems to be something that that continues uh regardless of what are the politics.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

And as you yeah, and and well, no, and you have a lot of experience with this, and I think what's interesting is that you've got, you know, in essence, uh you've been doing a lot of benchmarking, and and this is really important to build that history to understand which way are things trending. What do we risk by neglecting some of this important scientific benchmarking?

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Um frankly, a lot. So if you look at the uh uh you know, just from sea level rise a lot, the uh the economic fallout of sea level rise is going to be huge. You know, it'd be if it you know it's no shock and no surprise to anybody that it's a lot of expensive real estate along the coast. And those people pay taxes, which you know funds communities, builds roads, does all the stuff it does. Um as you you know, as the the the value of those homes decreases because of the erosion of the beach and sea level rise and you know, homes falling into the ocean, which we see now, um they're not paying those taxes anymore. And they can't insure those homes anymore. And the um so the fallout to the communities could be can be very substantial. And um certainly the fallout to the insurance company and to the reinsurance companies is also something that people think about. You know, it gets harder and harder to get insurance uh for homes that are right on the beach, um, which is uh also has economic impact. That is something that is you know you can see and it's and it's right there. Um some of the other impacts are even larger and are less obvious. So, for example, uh a very large fraction of the world's population lives near the coast around the world. And there are whole countries now which are at threat from. Um sea level rise. And eventually those folks have got to move from where they are to someplace else. And we're not exactly um, we don't have a really good track record of welcoming people into other countries when you know when uh I think this is global, global, right? You know, imagine you know, Bangladesh is uh, you know, they're a lot of low-lying area, a lot of people have to move. Where are they gonna go? So the climate refugees, sea level refugees, is a problem that we're punting to our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren, and that's gonna be expensive. Um, because figuring out some of because you know, just think of the the the the geopolitical um unrest that comes with that and the costs that come along with that. Yeah, there's there's a lot there, and it's uh um we are passing off these problems to future generations. Uh frankly, it's something that bothers me deeply. I'm a grandfather now, and it's it really bothers me a lot. There are times when I look at my grandkids and I wish I didn't know what I knew about where we are and where we're going, because it is it is going to be a lot of expense to them and a lot of problem to them. And it's preventable.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

Right, because it's not just the the rolling back of some of the funding, it's also the literal retreat from some of the international organizations. And uh, I read an interesting article that talked about how you know those groups kind of rely on the United States to some degree to contribute their scientific knowledge. And if you take that out of those organizations, they're kind of like, well, we can continue, but it's like having a really valuable partner just walk out and that leaves a gap.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Well, not only leaves a gap, but it you know, from the from the United States point of view, um it takes us out of the uh the solution process.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

And there's some, you know, I don't I'm not an economist, but I know that you can make money when things are going well, and you can make money when things are not going well. And you know, when things are not going well and you have to have alternative forms of energy and you have to deal with you know a lot of these other problems, there are ways to make money from that. And we're not going to be as part of that as we would be if we were a player in the international community. So there's a you know, it is I it it I mean, I think there's very good arguments for why just staying involved in the international discussion is an important thing, and we're not knowing what you know about your colleagues internationally, um do you think privately they're sitting there going okay, we get it.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

We'll keep the seat warm for you. Um, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

Um I wish I had a much better understanding of international politics than I do. And I say that in all seriousness. I, you know, when I when I started as a climate scientist, it was mostly I was a scientist. I was chemist, I was fascinated by photosynthesis and why water flows in stream is and things like that. As I became more aware of where we are in in the whole realm of sustainability and climate change, I began to realize that understanding human behavior was just as important, if not more important, than understanding how the earth functions. Because we are, we humans are the number one agent of change on the planet in so many ways. And uh so understanding why we make the decisions we make, what are the what are the political drivers, what are the social drivers, what are the, you know, that in my opinion has become probably even more important than understanding the physics of climate change, because we we know it's getting warmer. We know sea level is gonna rise. Um, yes, we can work out some details here, but you know, what are we gonna do about it is a lot harder question than whether or not sea levels are gonna rise.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

It reminds me of the quote I've seen the enemy and he is us.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Oh go. Yep. Well, yeah, and and one other thing I want to hit on before we move to a different topic, and that was you mentioned insurance and reinsurance. And boy, I'd love to have somebody from those industries on this as well, because that to me was something that I started to pick up through the Weather and Climate Summit uh uh that was put on by Storm Center, and then I saw it a little bit more, believe it or not, Jim, in some of the energy code hearings that I would go to, where you would have some people who would hang out in the back of the room or that would be hovering around, and you would go, Why is this person from Lloyd's of London here? Or why is this, you know, Swiss re here? Because uh, you know, why are they here? And then you start to kind of put the you know, connect the dots and go, because they're the ones who have to put all of the noise, you know, got to mute all the noise and just simply look at okay, what is really happening? And I have to then project forward and make adjustments, and those adjustments from reinsurance companies is what really moves the markets. And I think it's why we're seeing a lot of the insurance changes in California, Texas, Florida, even here in Illinois.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Yeah. Um, absolutely. It's a uh uh you know, one of the things I've studied my entire career has been something called abrupt climate change. You know, there are times when the climate system seems to be capable of jumping large large changes in temperature in a very short period of time. As scary as that is, and as important as that is, the abrupt um tipping points, if you will, in the human system, I think are just as important. And insurance is one of those things. When you can no longer get insurance for your home, um that's a big that's a fundamental change in in how you view you know climate change, how you view the world, how you, you know, all this stuff. That's a fundamental change. And so I I think in those can be very rapid decisions. Like, I'm sorry, we're no longer gonna insure anything on the you know, pick pick a beach. Um, that's a wow. You know, you know, at that point, unless you are wealthy enough to buy a home and be and willing to write it off, you're not gonna you're not gonna build a home. You're not gonna buy a home. Um, so these these um insurance, I think, is is one of the really key human tipping points in this system. And where the and that can be a very rapid, you know, like, all right, we're done. You know, we we paid so much on this last hurricane, we can't afford any more uh payments here in you know in some community. And what do you got to do?

SPEAKER_01 29:44

Well, and you talked about the costs earlier of climate refugees. I mean, we see the climate uh the the costs of climate change with, like you said, those disasters and FEMA money that's going out. It's taxpayer dollars, it's to help US citizens. That's fine, right? It's it's it's helping those who live where those affected areas are, but you're dishing out billions of dollars.

SPEAKER_00 30:07

No, it's billions. And you know, the the sadly we are coming to the realization that it's not just on the coast that that um that's one of the things because I work on ice sheets, that's something that that I have worked on my entire career. But the reality is that the um the probability of a very large rainstorm, much larger than we've seen in the past, not much larger, but you know, certainly more frequently, uh very large rainstorms, that has gone up. And we saw that here in Western Carolina when Helene came through. It's like, wow, you know, when you can when you can get a couple of feet of rain, you know, in a in a short period of time, that has a devastating impact. And now we have an atmosphere which is warmer, which can hold more moisture, and you have these storms that can haul moisture in from the from the ocean and just dump it. And um, yeah, I mean, if you look at the the frequency of large rainfalls, particularly in the eastern United States, they've gone up and up. And there's uh so it you don't have to be on the coast to be in trouble with the insurance folks, um, as we found out Western Carolina.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Yeah, and I the other thing I was just reminded of was like the uh the heavy rains, the flash flooding that we saw in the hill country of Texas, uh, that went through that camp. And so like, yeah, so you're right, it's not just a coastal issue. Okay, so now you're at UNC Chapel Hill. Let's talk about the transition from the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachian Mountains. I I know you like to ski, uh, so what was that like? That move for you.

SPEAKER_00 31:47

Um it was so it is easier than you might think. So I was born and raised in East Tennessee.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

So I'm kind of going back to you know, an area that I understand. I call my peeps are here. I thought I've got a family, you know, in the general area. Um, and so it was for me a uh an op, you know, first of all, it's an opportunity to come to a university that's a top five state public university. And that that's you know, you don't turn that down. Um, but it's also an opportunity to come back to a little bit, a little bit of my roots and and closer to my family. Um, I give my wife, Chris, huge credit for this because her family is in Boulder, Colorado. Um we, you know, and we lived there for 30 years. I very, very sheepishly, Mike, came home one day and said, you know, what would you think about moving to North Carolina? Because I had applied, and um I expected to spend the night on the couch. Um we're not even inside the house. Um, but she said the sweetest thing. She she said to me, you know, we spent 30 years living close to my family. It's time we spent more time with your family. And I thought that was the sweetest thing. I just said I give her all the credits.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

That is that is that is awesome. That is really cool.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

So the the move as excuse me, but as the saying goes, I married up.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

So I can relate. Um now at the same time that you you got the the family element to that, I've got to think that that move also represents a new challenge for you, too, because you're going from one university where you spent a lot of your career, now you're going to a brand new university, like I said, a top five public university. Has it lived up to your expectations?

SPEAKER_00 33:51

Sure. Yes. Um, look, Chapel Hill is a is a is a fantastic university. It is, you know, it's been a lot of fun working within an environment where the students are just the the top, um, and faculty's excellent, and uh the state supports higher education here. So that that has been been really important. Um and I I will say that that while for most of my life my primary passion was to understand how the world functions. That was that drove me as a young person when I used to hike and camp in the smokies, drove me throughout most of my career as a climate scientist. As I grew older, I also started to appreciate more the value of education. The value of and the I got a liberal arts education at State University, a college education, and I began to appreciate and understand more and more how important that was. And so I I'd say equal now in terms of my passions is the value of a liberal arts education, the value of a college education. And the opportunity to um be a champion in that space is something that I could not turn down.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

Part of what you've done there at UNC is you've led a transformation of the College of Arts and Sciences where you're the dean. Can you give us kind of a little bit of an overview of that transformation? But more importantly, can you talk about why that occurred?

SPEAKER_00 35:28

So it here or at Colorado, are you uh at at UNC. At UNC? Um we so I'm I'm not sure what the what what you're thinking about there, but we so we have a new uh general education curriculum.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 35:44

Um and uh by the way, that doesn't happen very often in academia. Exactly. Um universities are not, you know, we are we are ocean liners, we are not nimble speedboks. Um but it was an opportunity. Uh they had made that change. I came in, and it was up to me really to figure out how we're gonna implement that, how we're gonna make that work. Um, but that was actually uh uh it was a challenge, but it was also a lot of fun. Um I think that you know you universities shouldn't be static, they should be constantly um analyzing how is it that we are getting you know the basic education, the information that we want to get to our students, how are we doing that? And are we doing it well? Um and can we measure that? And can we we um justify spending money here and not spending money there? These are really important things that that I think are critical. Um, and you know, it's like I said, I just enjoy working with the faculty here. They're you know, they're they're really smart. They, you know, they hold my feet to the fire when my feet need to be held to the fire. But they're they're they're working with us knowing that we have to make changes, knowing that we have to do things differently. I've been very impressed with how how willing they are to do that.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

That's great. That is awesome. That's I mean, to be in that kind of supportive environment is really cool. So I I'm I'm happy for you.

SPEAKER_00 37:13

Typically, if you go to any university, particularly state public universities, but also the privates, you know, there's a it's kind of a given that the faculty will not like the administration. That's still that's how we work. I this happened to me at Colorado. I mean, I spent 30 years on the faculty with people working with people. And when I was appointed interim dean, I I remember the first meeting I had with the chairs of the departments of the college. I walked into the room and I said, you know, you all know me. You've known me for a long time. But I can tell you that when I walked over the threshold into the dean's office, suddenly I had the Darth Vader helmet on. And I became evil. I said, we can't work like this. We have to find a way to trust each other. We have, and that's actually been one of my mantras as dean all along, is it's really important to find a way to earn the faculty's trust and then to keep the faculty trust and communicating often and letting them know what you're thinking about, and you know, taking responsibility for the for the bad things and giving responsibility for the good things or ways to do better.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

And I would posit that you know, your time with ice core research probably helped with that, right? You you know, you gotta spend six weeks with these people, you better be able to get along with them.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

Yeah, no, that's true. That's true. Um I you know, I I never set out to be a dean or actually to be an administration. That was not on my list of things to do. Um, I'm one of those folks who it I enjoy um helping people. I'm a service-oriented person. It gives me great satisfaction to help people succeed. Um, so I'm I guess I'm suited to that. Um, but it wasn't, you know, I didn't have plans to be a dean. It's one of these things where you you find out you're good at it, and then people just keep appointing you. And at some point you look back and you go, what happened? You know.

SPEAKER_01 39:18

You weren't scheming for the Darth Vader helmet.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

Is that no? I wasn't scheming for the Darth Vader helmet. And I, you know, and it's I actually I think some of the best uh administrators I've worked with over the years have been those who I wouldn't say they fell into it, but it was, you know, they weren't campaigning for it. Right. This is something that they, you know, they knew they were they they had they had both the science skills and the people skills, and they realized they could do this.

SPEAKER_01 39:46

Okay.

unknown 39:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 39:48

You mentioned uh the family earlier, the the grandkids. Um how are they doing? Do you get to do you get to see them very often now?

SPEAKER_00 39:57

So here's you know, there are times in your life, Mike, when changes occur and you just know you did the right thing. And in this particular case, um my uh I we have two kids who were living in Colorado, son and a daughter. Both of them decided to move to North Carolina. Um, we did not put any pressure on them or anything. And and I believe I've had all sorts of fellow grandparents look at me and go, how did you get so lucky? And I said, Not by anything I did.

SPEAKER_01 40:34

So they followed you?

SPEAKER_00 40:36

Yeah, my son and his boys followed us out here. He lives about 10 minutes away from us. And my daughter, who's always wanted to live in the South, she's now here with her two kids. And uh she lives in Durham, which is about 30 minutes away. So um I, you know, I get to see my grandkids frequently. Uh as a matter of fact, you know, that we we have a a house that has a couple of bedrooms upstairs, and our grandkids, particularly those in Durham that are 30 minutes away, they have their own bedrooms now. They they they know exactly where they're going. When they come in the door, boom, off we go. And you know, if they deign to say hi to me, you know, fantastic. If not, they're in the house.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

That's awesome. I'm very happy for you, sir. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 41:25

Yeah, and everybody's happy, and everybody, I think they're doing really well. Um, and that's just you know, it's it's whatever we did to uh to bring the family here was a really good thing.

SPEAKER_01 41:39

Awesome. That's cool.

SPEAKER_00 41:41

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:42

So as we've established, you've been in academia a long time. You get to interact with future leaders every day. You're you're around students who are thirsting for knowledge all the time. What advice or counsel are you giving them?

SPEAKER_00 42:00

Um the well, first of all, I try not to. Because you know, the the the the old fart syndrome is you know, you don't um but I I uh I have to say I've been very impressed with the with the current generation and previous generational students who have a their mindset is one of we want to make this world a better place. And I think that's the right mindset. There they're uh and I I what I tell them is both at Colorado and here in Carolina, you know, you you have an advantage. You you are first of all, you're smart. You're going to a you know large, you're going to a state public university, you you got in, you gotta be smart to begin with. You're gonna do well in your career. Um use some of that energy to turn around and uh as I said to folks, you know, the R work, responsibility. What is your responsibility? Is your responsibility just to yourself or is it to your community as well as to yourself? And that's one of the things that I tell them a lot. That in particularly today, um, you know, we're in a time when um we need citizens of this country and of the of global society that that understand and stand up for things like democracies and and you know where we are in that space. And uh nations require educated citizens, but they also require good citizens, citizens that that think about their communities, think about their states, think about their countries as well as themselves. And I have been impressed with the with the the students that I see today and their willingness to take that seriously. I think I I have hopes. I always have hopes. I mean, I the you as I say to folks, you cannot work at a university and not think the future's bright because you get to see the future every day and it's really impressive. I'm not sure I answered your question, but it was no no because I you know you're right.

SPEAKER_01 44:23

I mean, in my opinion, you do have to think beyond just yourself and and your little bubble. Um, because if you can't go through life completely by yourself, it just doesn't work, right?

SPEAKER_00 44:36

I mean well you can, but it's it's it's I don't think it's nearly as satisfying a life as a life that where you you you take some of your energy and you give it back. You you give it back to your to your neighborhood, you give it back to your wherever, state, local. Um, I mean you don't have to run for office, but you're you know, you can be active, you can talk to people. Um, I think that's you know, and and our form of government, and you know, many forms of government around the world require that we have educated citizens. You know, that it this university dates back to the to the Revolutionary War. And at the time, um, the universities that were forming in the United States, and this is one of them, this is the first state public university. Um the need was the need as articulated was really we need citizens. We have a fledgling democracy, and it's not at all clear that it's gonna work, it's not at all clear it's gonna hold together. Uh we but we need people, we need citizens who are willing to work for the country. And that's really what you know, early on, that's what our our universities were all about. Um, you know, yes, we we trained folks in technical skills, but it was it was all it was at the time all about that liberal arts education. I want really well-educated people because they're they're gonna be the ones who are going to step up and lead the country.

SPEAKER_01 46:08

Yeah. Well, Jim, thank you so much for appearing on the podcast. I hope that uh the spring semester goes really well. And uh thanks again.

SPEAKER_00 46:20

So do I, Mike. Mike, thanks. Great catching up with you. Uh hope to see you again soon. Uh take care. Thanks for for giving me uh you know chance to speak.

SPEAKER_01 46:28

Oh, no problem. Always love talking with you. Appreciate it very much. Stay tuned for more episodes of the Impact Series podcast on the Green Builder Media Network. I'm Mike Kalignan, and I'll see you again soon.