UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The ways Penn State is addressing global climate change will be discussed during the eighth season premiere of President Eric Barron’s monthly WPSU show, “Digging Deeper,” on Sunday, Sept. 26.

Barron will welcome a pair of University experts and associate directors of the Institutes of Energy and the Environment — Bruce Logan, director of the Engineering, Energy and Environmental Institute and an Evan Pugh Professor in engineering, and Erica Smithwick, distinguished professor of geography — for the program.

WPSU’s “Digging Deeper: Climate Change" will air at noon and 7:30 p.m. on WPSU-TV and can be streamed on live.wpsu.org. WPSU is a Penn State Outreach service.

Logan said global climate change has been difficult for some people to understand but its effects are now irreversible.

“When they hear it may be three degrees warmer, they don't really have a sense of urgency about that and that's really difficult,” he said. That's one of the biggest problems is they don't see the urgency. I mean, finally they are because states are burning up and countries are burning up and temperatures getting warm.”

Smithwick said Penn State needs to utilize its resources across the University to help combat climate change.

“We've got to leverage all of our interdisciplinary strengths across all of those sectors and support the research that's already happening and elevate it and let people know all about the good research that we're doing here at Penn State,” she said. “We need to partner with, as I said before, communities and businesses and government to really make those changes scalable.”

WPSU’s “Digging Deeper” explores how work being done at the University impacts the broader community. Penn State senior Andrew Destin serves as co-host and rounds out each episode by asking Barron questions that are on the minds of students, faculty, staff and community members.

Visit the WPSU website for more information on central Pennsylvania’s public media station.