Pitt’s new lecture series on climate change begins tomorrow, and the first speaker is one of the nation’s top voices on the subject, Joseph Romm.

Romm is a physicist and author whose feisty blog Climate Progress is a crucial clearinghouse for climate info and perspective, from documenting the acceleration of our vanishing Antarctic ice to debunking the science-free pronouncements of climate-change deniers.

Romm’s free talk is about how climate change — whose effects are already being felt around the world in extreme weather and changing ecosystems — will affect the U.S.

The lecture is titled “To Hell and High Water: What You Need to Know About Climate Change,” a reference to Romm’s 2006 book, Hell and High Water. His latest book is 2010’s Straight Up: America's Fiercest Climate Blogger Takes on the Status Quo Media, Politicians, and Clean Energy Solutions.

The talk kicks off Pitt’s University Honors College Climate Change Series, described in a press release as “a long-term program to educate students, faculty and staff members on issues regarding climate change.”

“There are some challenges to civilization that are of such urgency that every college graduate should understand them, and the implications of research on climate change are among them,” University Honors College Dean Edward Stricker said in the release.

Romm has testified frequently before Congress, and his writings and comments have been featured everywhere from The New York Times to National Geographic.

The talk is at 3 p.m. tomorrow in the J.W. Connolly Ballroom of the University of Pittsburgh’s Alumni Hall, 4227 Fifth Ave., in Oakland.

Reservations are requested. Make yours here.