A conversation with Wallace S. Broecker, the “Grandfather of Climate Science,” on the subject of climate change, natural disasters, and apocalyptic visions and predictions. Wally Broecker is the Newberry Professor of Geology in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University. He is also a scientist at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, and an Academic Committee member of the Earth Institute. Broecker is arguably one of the world’s greatest living geoscientists. For more than half a century, his major research interest has been the ocean’s role in climate change. He was among the pioneers in radiocarbon and isotope dating – the quintessential processes for creating maps of the Earth’s past climate fluctuations since as early as the Pleistocene period. Broecker’s studies regarding biogeochemical cycles of carbon and the influence of climate change on polar ice and ocean sediments have earned him decades of international attention.

Moderated by The New York Times correspondent John M. Broder. A reporter for the Times since 1996, Broder took over coverage of energy and environment in Washington after covering the 2008 presidential campaign. He is responsible for following domestic legislative issues, advances and energy technology and international climate-change negotiations.

Apocalypse Now: End Time and the Contemporary Imaginary is a yearlong series of conversations with writers that explores our current fascination with apocalyptic visions.