Sanjayan on CBS News: Planet’s Fever Is “Our Society’s Sink or Swim Moment”

The Nature Conservancy’s lead scientist M. Sanjayan has a new gig as a science and environment contributor for CBS News (including CBS This Morning, CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley and CBS Sunday Morning). In only his second segment, which aired on the CBS Evening News Saturday, Sanjayan tackled the topic of climate change.

In his two-minute commentary, Sanjayan, whose work has been published in journals including Science, Nature and Conservation Biology, said our planet has a fever and the symptoms are happening here and now “in our own backyards.” Over the last 326 months, for example, temperatures have been consistently warmer than the global average of the 20^th century.

Referencing recent high temperature records in all 50 states, Sanjayan noted that some Texas ranchers have moved over a million head of cattle to “greener, wetter, cooler pastures” in northern states such as Montana and Nebraska, as a result of extreme drought over the past year. And even the insurance industry is taking notice, assessing the risk of floods, storms and rising sea levels.   

Sanjayan, who specializes in human well-being and conservation, wildlife ecology and environmental education, also filmed a 2010 four-part series, Powering the Future, on the Discovery Channel.

Joe Romm of the Climate Progress blog called the segment “must see” and “one of the best segments ever on manmade global warming.”

See for yourself by clicking on the video above. And stay tuned for more of Sanjayan’s unique perspectives on science and conservation.

Lisa Hayden is blogger and writer for The Nature Conservancy

Photo by: Erika Nortemann/TNC (M. Sanjayan, Lead Scientist for The Nature Conservancy).