SUSAN JOY HASSOL

Susan Joy Hassol is a climate change communicator, analyst, and author known for her ability to translate science into English, making complex issues accessible to policymakers and the public for two decades. In September 2006, Susan was honored by the Climate Institute with its first ever award for excellence in climate science communication.

Susan Hassol and colleagues don survival suits as they prepare to head out on the Arctic Ocean from the island of Svalbard near the North Pole.

Susan was lead author of Impacts of A Warming Arctic, the synthesis report of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, published in 2004, on which she worked for four years with 300 scientists from the Arctic and beyond. She testified about the impacts of Arctic warming before the U.S. Senate in November 2004.

Susan wrote HBO's global warming documentary, Too Hot Not To Handle, which premiered in April 2006. She was a lead author of Climate Change Impacts on the United States, the synthesis report of the U.S. National Assessment of the Consequences of Climate Change, published in 2000. She co-authored a chapter on Arctic climate impacts for a book titled Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change, published by Cambridge University Press in 2006.

Susan served as Senior Editor of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program's report Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate to be published in 2008, and as Associate Editor of the Climate Change Science Program's report Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere, published in 2006.

Susan Hassol, Glaciologist Bruce Molnia, orca whales, and sea lions on Glacier Bay in Alaska during the filming of HBO's Too Hot Not to Handle.

In recent years, Susan has discussed climate change on national television shows including 20/20 on ABC, Frontline and NOW on PBS, and dozens of radio shows. Susan has addressed many influential groups including the U.S. Conference of Mayors (2007), the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation (2004), the Sundance Summit of Mayors for Climate Protection (2006 and 2007), the AARP Women's Leadership Circle (2007), and the National Council on Science and the Environment's Conference on Climate Science and Solutions (2008).

At the invitation of Robert Redford and Rocky Anderson, Susan attended the Sundance Summit where she addressed U.S. mayors on climate change.

Susan is also very interested in solutions to global warming, including both policy and technology responses. She co-authored a chapter on energy efficiency in a book titled Innovative Energy Strategies for CO2 Stabilization, published by Cambridge University Press in 2002. She wrote a feature article titled "A Change of Climate" in Issues in Science and Technology (Journal of the National Academy of Sciences, Spring 2003) focusing on the actions of U.S. states, cities, and corporations in mitigating climate change.

Susan earned a bachelor's degree in Public Communication summa cum laude in 1981 from Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communication and Maxwell School of Public Affairs and Citizenship. She has gone on to spend over two decades working to improve understanding of climate change science and solutions.

HISTORY

Susan has been involved in environmental research and education since the 1980s. To help people save energy in their homes, Susan led hands-on workshops with SunShares in Durham, North Carolina, and later wrote a series of Home Energy Briefs for the Rocky Mountain Institute in Snowmass, Colorado. She also wrote a series of handbooks for the Windstar Foundation about how people can reduce their negative impacts on the environment in the areas of energy, recycling, and everyday chemicals.

Susan designed demand-side management plans to help electric utility companies reduce their electricity loads through energy efficient lighting. She wrote a weekly four-page newsbrief for the energy industry called IRT: Issues Review and Tracking, which summarized the latest strategic developments in the energy field for subscribers. She also wrote a series of special reports for IRT on various topics related to energy technology and environmental policy.

 

Susan worked at the Aspen Global Change Institute in the 1990s where she helped synthesize the results of interdisciplinary science meetings on a wide variety of global change topics and edited a series of five annual books titled Elements of Change, 1994-1998. She also helped develop educational materials including the Ground Truth Studies Teacher Handbook, designed to help K-12 educators teach about global change.

Since 1998, Susan has been working as an independent analyst and climate science communicator on such projects as the U.S. National Assessment of the Impacts of Climate Change, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, the HBO documentary Too Hot Not To Handle, and many more. She has also written and spoken widely about climate change.

Susan Hassol can be reached at susan@climatecommunication.org.