Everyone talks about saving the earth, but Dr. Adam Frank thinks we have it wrong. “It’s not the earth, that needs saving, it’s us,” he writes. Frank will talk about this and other ideas Oct. 1 at 7 p.m. in a virtual presentation by The Cazenovia Forum.

Frank, an astrophysicist and a leading expert on the final stages of evolution for stars, will speak on “The Future of Life on Earth and Everywhere Else.”

In his 2018 book, Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth, Frank writes that we are not necessarily the collective villains in the story of climate change, “but we may collectively become losers.”

His current work focuses on life in the universe, the search for “technosignatures” of other exo-civilizations along with climate change and the “Astrobiology of the Anthropocene”.

He suggests that it is logical to believe that there have been countless civilizations similar to ours throughout the universe and throughout time. They, too, must have confronted challenges to their existence. Whatever we can learn about these exo-civilizations and their survival (or demise), even if it is only theoretical, may be able to help us cope with our own climate crisis here on Earth

A self-described “evangelist of science,” he is committed to showing others the beauty and power of science, and exploring the proper context of science in culture. Light of the Stars received praise from the New York Times, NPR and Scientific American. He has written two other books, The Constant Fire: Beyond the Religion and Science Debate, and About Time: Cosmology and Culture at the Twilight of the Big Bang.

Frank is a regular on-air commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered and was co-founder of National Public Radio 13.7: Cosmos and Culture blog which ran for seven years and garnered millions of distinct views. He is also a contributor to the New York Times, The Atlantic and other media outlets. He currently runs the 13.8 blog on BigThink.com. He was also the science consultant for Marvel's 2016 movie, Doctor Strange starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Tilda Swinton.

Frank has received a number of awards for his scientific and outreach work. Light of the Stars won the 2019 National Honors Society Best Book in Science. In 2020 he was given the American Physical Society’s Joseph A. Burton Forum Award. In 2021 he was granted the Carl Sagan Medal for excellence in public communication by the American Astronomical Society. You can find out more about his work at his website, https://www.adamfrankscience.com/