Being Feynman’s Curious Sister

After the atomic bomb was used to end the second-world war, my brother Richard Feynman thought that the civilization would be in danger of being destroyed within 5 years. Obviously he underestimated the timing. But now in addition to this dreadful possibility we are facing not only nuclear threats but also a possibility that the human influence on climate will destroy the civilization. Here, in addition to sharing some of my experiences as Feynman’s curious sister and decades of efforts that have increased and advanced women’s roles in science, I will talk about the occurring of climate changes that led and can lead to climate instability with destructive effects on society. We have excellent information on climate change from ice-core records hundreds of thousands of years long. Thus agriculture only began after the Younger Dryas event (10,600 YBP) when climate became stable. Apparently it was the stabilization of climate that permitted the development and practice of agriculture. The current global warming seems to be associated with climate instabilities (droughts, floods, etc). Is the death of ocean corals, extinction of some animal spices, and increasing number of extreme climate events an indication of the return to climate instability?