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b"2011 has been marked by extreme weather. In the U.S. alone, a record dozen disasters caused more than $1 billion in damage. This, and the release last month of a special UN report on extreme weather, was the backdrop for this Climate One panel featuring three leading climate scientists. Chris Field, Professor of Environmental Earth Sciences, Stanford University, is Co-Chair of the IPCC working group that produced the extreme weather report. He says the report reached three main conclusions: that extreme weather events are increasing; that losses are increasing; and that there\\u2019s a lot we can do about it: \\u201csmart things that don\\u2019t necessarily cost a lot that can be protective of assets and protective of lives.\\u201d What the extreme weather events tell us, says Michael Oppenheimer, Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs, Princeton University, is that \\u201cthe climate is changing, and we have to learn how to deal with that. The good news, as Chris said, is that there are a lot of specific examples where we have been successful. We\\u2019re falling behind right now. But, at certain places, at certain times, people have done a very good job.\\u201d One area acutely threatened by climate change is food production, where decades of steady gains could be reversed. Chris Field notes that global food production has increased by a predictable 1% to 2% per year over the past 50 years. But, he warns, \\u201cI see food security at the heart of a perfect storm.\\u201d One proven hedge against this uncertainty is resiliency, says Karen O'Brien, Professor of Sociology and Human Geology, University of Oslo. \\u201cA lot of people think of resilience as going back to what it was before, but it\\u2019s also about being adaptive, being able to deal with these changes that are coming in a way that has a short- and long-term perspective.\\u201d The reality of extreme weather is forcing impacted individuals \\u2013 whatever their personal beliefs about climate change \\u2013 to acknowledge that something is amiss. \\u201cWhat we hear a lot from farmers, for example, is that they don\\u2019t really think about climate change by reading headlines about climate change forecasts,\\u201d says Dave Friedberg, Founder and CEO, The Climate Corporation. \\u201cThey think about climate change when they\\u2019ve had a significant loss two, three years in a row. I think the psychology of risk and the psychology of loss is such that you don\\u2019t necessarily think about it unless it is something you can relate to, or there\\u2019s an experience you\\u2019ve had associated with it.\\u201d This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on December 13, 2011\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices"