Country: Canada – City: Ottawa ON – Address: 50 Sussex Drive Ottawa ON
Description:
Our Restless Earth: Going To Extremes With George Kourounis
Storm chaser and RCGS Explorer-In-Residence George Kourounis shares some of his insights from decades of travelling the globe, documenting extreme forces of nature & natural disasters. He’ll be sharing stories from years of pursuing violent tornadoes, driving into the eye of hurricanes, to climbing down inside vast pits filled with burning gas or boiling lava. His hair-raising stories and spectacular images showcasing how our planet is in a state of constant change and how the direction some of those changes are now taking, both in Canada and globally.
About George Kourounis:
George Kourounis is a Toronto-based explorer, storm chaser & TV presenter who has spent 25 years documenting extreme forces of nature and natural phenomena worldwide including tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes, floods, and the effects of climate change.
He holds the title of Explorer-In-Residence for the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, National Geographic Explorer, and served as the Canadian Chapter Chair of the Explorers Club.
Best known for having hosted the TV series “Angry Planet” he also co-hosted “Storm Hunters” for The Weather Network and is a regular on-camera contributor for “Strange Evidence” & “What On Earth?” on Science Channel and “Mysteries From Above” on Smithsonian Channel. He’s appeared in programs for National Geographic, Discovery, Netflix, and more, and is frequently invited to comment about global weather & natural disasters by CNN, BBC, CBC, and other news outlets.
George earned a Guinness World Record for being the first person to ever set foot at the bottom of the Darvaza “Doorway To Hell” flaming gas crater in remote Turkmenistan. He has documented changes to melting permafrost in Siberia, sea level rise in Tuvalu, shifting tornado & hurricane patterns in North America, wildfires in Australia, and melting polar ice.
In 2014 he was awarded the Stefansson Medal from the Explorers Club Canadian Chapter “For outstanding contribution to science and to public education by documenting extreme environments through filmmaking.” In 2020 was awarded the Leif Erikson Exploration Award from the Exploration Museum in Iceland, and was named One of Canada’s Greatest Explorers by Canadian Geographic magazine.
He frequently is asked to speak at events which have included 5 TEDx talks, the Global Exploration Summit in Lisbon Portugal, and the United Nations Environmental Emergencies forum in Oslo, Norway.
Main objectives:
To showcase how our planet is in a state of constant change and the impacts of these changes, both in Canada and globally.
Event language: English
The event will be: Online
Link (for online events): Access the presentation through this link https://youtu.be/uyIEls9glUE
Reference person: Paul VanZant – Role or function: Chair – Canadian Geographic Education – Reference organization: Canadian Geographic Education
Those who organize are: Geography Educators K to 12
Estimated starting time (local time): 12:00:00 PM EDT
Expected duration: 1 hour
Event program: Progam will go live at 12:00 PM EDT
