The first day of Climate Leadership Training focused on storytelling and sharing a personal connection to the threat of climate change.
The second day of Climate Leadership Training focused on climate science. Former Vice President Al Gore took the stage, and opened by giving the latest version of his slideshow made famous in the 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth. He is very clearly a man who has been studying climate change for decades. He spoke eloquently and with passion about the complex science, and explained the impacts of carbon (dioxide) pollution in the atmosphere--how it manifests as melting ice caps, increased floods, droughts, fires and superstorms. He was joined by two leading scientists Dr. Michael MacCracken, Chief Scientist for Climate Change Programs at the Climate Institute, and Dr. Henry Pollack, Emeritus Professor of Geophysics at the University of Michigan, and constantly asked them to weigh in on any statements he made and to elaborate when necessary.
Al Gore at the podium, July 31, 2013
Al Gore with Drs. MacCracken and Pollack
It was interesting to me that climate science has stayed by and large the same since I first took a college course on it in 2000. It has only gotten richer, more in-depth, better understood, and some of the predictions made by complex computer models have actually come true already, such as the flooding of Manhattan. In 2012 superstorm Sandy caused widespread devastation in New York City and New Jersey.
As the day went on AG (as he known around The Climate Reality Project) broke down the slideshow into parts and spoke in more detail about the slides. He also took questions from the audience, and further discussed topics with input from Dr. Pollack and Dr. MacCracken. It was like taking a college course with a very lively and passionate professor--or really a panel of professors. He spoke from 8am-6pm, with just a few breaks.
I debated if I should go into the science in this blog post, but I feel it is more important to first focus on the fact that climate science is not up for debate. 97-98% of the 10,000 climate scientists around the world have concluded that climate change is real and is caused by human activity. Even the American Association of Petroleum Geologists does not dispute "the basic findings of human influence on recent climate change.” Therefore, "no remaining scientific body of national or international standing is known to reject [the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's consensus], (source).
97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global climate change.
Data from Doran et al, (2009) and Anderegg et al (2010). Graphic from Skeptical Science.
An apt analogy that was offered at CLT is this: Suppose you are having chest pains. You surround yourself with 100 of the best cardiologists and ask them what to do. After examining you, 97 or 98 of them say "I think you are having a heart attack. You need to take immediate action to protect your health including diet and lifestyle changes, medication perhaps, and possibly even surgery." However, 2 or 3 of them say "You're probably fine. Don't worry about it." What would you do? Who would you listen to?
Unfortunately, oil, gas and coal companies have waged an expensive, and successful, public misinformation campaign to discredit climate scientists and cast doubts on their findings. For example, in 1992 a coalition of coal and utility companies created the Information Council on the Environment (ICE) and began a campaign to "reposition global warming as theory rather than fact," (source). Exxon Mobil and the notorious Koch Brothers (source), and even Google whose motto is "Do no evil" have also funded climate climate deniers, (source). The media has also been an accomplice in this misinformation campaign by 1) under-reporting it in general, and 2) by referring to the issue as "so-called climate change" and portraying the opinion of the tiny percentage of deniers as equally valid to the overwhelming majority of scientists who conclude that humans are the drivers of modern climate change.
Climate change is real. It's man-made. I, and everyone else who acknowledges the science, wish we were wrong about this. We are already seeing its effects.The choice we have is to act quickly to limit just how bad it will get. It's not too late, but it will be difficult. I'm sorry. Let's get fired up and do something, fast. Silence is no longer an option
Read more about the conference using these links:
Day 1 of Climate Leadership Training
Day 2 of Climate Leadership Training
Day 3 of Climate Leadership Training
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