Climate Change & Political Issues

• The presentation aims to highlight the facts of global warming and encourage action.

Earth Rise

• The first picture of Earth from space was taken on Christmas Eve 1968 during the Apollo 8 mission.
• The Earth's atmosphere is a thin shell that is being filled with pollutants.
• The "Earth Rise" picture exploded in the consciousness of humankind leading to modern environment movement within 18 months.
• A common picture was taken on December 11, 1972, during the last Apollo mission (Apollo 17).
• The Galileo spacecraft captured a time-lapse picture of Earth's rotation in 24 seconds.
• Tom Dan San created an iconic image by digitally stitching together 3000 satellite pictures taken over 3 years.

The Most Ridiculous Thing

• A sixth-grade student asked if South America and Africa ever fit together.
• The teacher dismissed it as ridiculous, reflecting the scientific consensus at the time.
• Though continents were thought to be too big to move, it is now known they did move apart.
• The well known wisdom: "What gets us into trouble is not what you don't know, but what you think you know that just ain't so" is mentioned.
• The idea that the world is too big for humans to harm is an untrue assumption.
• The atmosphere is vulnerable because it's thin.
• Carl Sagan compared the atmosphere to a thin coat of vanish on a globe.

Carbon Dioxide Levels

• The presenter was inspired by professor Roger Revelle, who measured carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere starting in 1957.
• Charles David Keeling took the measurements in a remote area of the Pacific.
• The presenter noted the significance of the measurements after only a few years.
• The study on air quality shows CO2 levels have a pattern visible in the atmosphere across the entire planet.
• In the northern hemisphere, leaves take in carbon dioxide in spring/summer and release it in fall/winter, causing a yearly fluctuation.
• Carbon Dioxide was measured from 1958 and it was already clear it was increasing by the mid 1960's.
• First hearings on global warming were organized and the professor was asked to be the lead off witness.
• Legislative efforts to address the issue have been largely unsuccessful and the issue keeps going up.

Effects of Global Warming

• Mount Kilimanjaro has lost a significant amount of ice in recent years.
• Glacier National Park is expected to lose its glaciers within 15 years.
• The Columbia Glacier retreats more each year.
• More than 40% of the world's population gets drinking water from rivers and springs fed by glaciers.
• Alps glaciers are disappearing.
• Glaciers are disappearing in Peru and Argentina.
• Patagonia ice is now gone after 75 years.
• Ice cores worldwide tell a story: when snow falls, it traps bubbles of atmosphere.
• the study of ice cores allows analysis of past CO2 levels and temperature.
• The difference with the naked eye can be seen where the US Congress passed the Clean Air Act.

Ice Cores: The 650,000 Record

• CO2 levels have never gone above 300 parts per million in 650,000 years.
• There is a strong relationship between carbon dioxide and temperature.
• The parts of the US that contain modern cities used to have a mile of ice above them.
• CO2 levels are far above the natural cycle and will continue to rise, potentially going "off the chart" in 50 years.
• Ignoring the issue is deeply unethical.
• There has been a failure to cause a real sea change" in how congress reacts.

Children

• The possibility of losing something precious is why climate change should matter.

The 10 Hottest Years

• The hottest years on record have all occurred in the last 14 years.
• The hottest of all in the Earth's record was measured in the year 2005.

It's Natural!

• Europe experienced a massive heat wave that killed 35,000 people as well as record temperatures in India in the same year.
• In the American West, a lot of towns broke records of consecutive days with 100+ temperatures were set, even in New Orleans
• Temperature increases are taking place all over including in oceans, that falls within a natural range of variability.

Ocean Temperature and Storms

• The speaker shows newly released data on current ocean temperatures.
• Warmer oceans cause stronger storms.
• The year also set the maximum all time record for tornadoes in US. It was a year for big hurricanes (Jean, Francis, Ivan).
• 2004 recorded Japan set all time records for typhoons, with a record of 10.
• The science textbooks once said it impossible to get a hurricane hit South America and then Brazil got hit.
• In 2005 Emily made a dent in Yucatan, Hurricane Dennis did damage, including to the oil industry, Katrina, was worse when it then went over warm water by New Orleans.

Winnie's Warning

• Winston Churchill warned England the the world was different and they needed to get ready.
• "The cra of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing, and baffling expedience of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences”.

2000 Election

• There was controversy on 2000 election because there was a debacle in Florida which was too close to call and decided on by Supreme Court to Bush.

Insurance

• Global warming causes more precipitation more often because more water evaporates causing more and bigger storms.
• recovered losses are going up for insurance companies who are noticing this trend.

Effects of Global Warming

• In Mumbai, India, 37 inches of rain fell in 24 hours, by far the largest downpour that any city in India has ever received in the past.
• Global warming paradoxically causes not only more flooding, but also more droughts. .
• Lake Chad dried up complicating local tragedies such as lack of rainfall which has been compounding this.
• Global warming creates more evaporation of the ocean which seeds the clouds and is also a paradox.
• The soil also sucks up moisture

Change and Timescales

• The presenter has farmed from his dad, which is considered special.
• It seems gradual in the course of a human lifetime but in the course of river it is happening very quick.

A Canary in the Coal Mine: The Arctic

• The presenter refers to Arctics in the context of 2 canaries in a coal mine.
• The Arctic is one part of the world that is experiencing faster impact from the global warming.
• The Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, the Earth's biggest, was astonished when scientists saw it cracked half a year ago.

Melting Permafrost

• "drunken trees" ,not related to wind damage or alcohol consumption, is a condition where the permafrost melts causing trees to collapse.
• Buildings and infrastructure built on permafrost are collapsing because of thawing.
• Spring arrives earlier causing the temperature to rise.
• 35 years it was less safe to drive tundra vehicles, from 225 days of the year to below 75 the tundra ground is frozen enough because the temperature rises.

Fastest Temperature Increase Occurs at the Arctic

• Measurements taken since 1957 by a nuclear submarine patrolling the Arctic show a drop off in the quantity, extent and thickness.
• A 40 year study shows in 40 years it has diminished by 40 percent .
• Within the next 50/70 years the amount of summertime will be completely over.
• The Arctic ice cap's ice reflection which keeps 90 per cent of more sun rays for the world to stay cooler.
• It is becoming more absorbed by the ocean.
• Faster heat build up is occurring now with creatures who depend on the ice like polar bears who now drown from finding ice.

Earth's Climate is an Engine

• The scientist states the climate is non-linear.
• Changes are not gradual.
• Worldwide the average annual temperature is 58 degrees Fahrenheit.
• A 5 degree increase translates to only a 1 degree at the Equator but more than a 12 degree change at the poles.
• wind and water patterns that have formed over thousands of years are all up in the air, and they change.
• Some feel that the ocean currents evaporate the heat out over Greenland but scientists are concerned.

Disruption of the Ocean Conveyor

• The presenter refers to disruption of oceans and how this is impacting the North American sea.
• Sea water is much more effective at sucking heat.
• At 5 billion gallons per second, a great chill in the atmosphere causes a great chunk of Canada to get hit by heat from the North Atlantic.
• There is the concern that glaciers near Greenland could cause similar issues.

Politics: Reagan, Bush1 and Kyoto

• Reagan and Bush say they are against taking action as this will be a political nightmare.
• Reagan said trees causes pollution and is the reason there is air pollution in the smokey mountains, and that American's would lose jobs.
• "this is perhaps the greatest hoax that has ever been perpetuated on the American people”

Predator/Prey Disruptions and Misplaced Cities

• Seasons are changing and animals, like migratory birds, will have trouble catching food because of temperature change.
• there are thousands of new types of species that have come because of global warming and ecological changes.
• Pine trees are being devastated after the cold months did nothing
• Mosquitos are now climbing up to hire altitudes.

Infectious Disease

• The presenter talks about infectious diseases and how they keep expanding their ranges, including mosquitos.
• 30 years it was less safe to drive tundra vehicles.

Coral Reefs

• Coral reefs everywhere because of global warming because they have changed in the climate that all sea creatures rely on.

The Second Canary: Antarctic Peninsula Sea Ice

• "Watch out, because this should be the bell for global warming”
• Glaciers now break apart.
• It is a sign that ocean levels are not the only issue.

West Antarctica Land Based Ice

• Presenter focuses that the West Antarctica is going under pressure, this would cause ice levels to go up 20 percent.
• The Greenland size mass is now causing panic and would cause the map of the world have to redrawn.

Impact of 20 Foot Rise in Sea Level

• If water kept rising this is what would happen in Florida, San Francisco, or Shanghai where dozens of millions of people might die instantly.
• Where the World Trade Center memorial is to get built would be under oceans if this happened, can other problems like this we better prepped?
• The climate change is the same as the other which is the same as China.

Civilization and Earth

• Separating from the accurate misleading data is vital.
• Have the courage to respond to climate.
• Witness is being made to change what the Earth is going through!
• Three factors that will shape our future are war, and we will not to mindless. It does take a lot of skill. I also know in which there.
• If frogs were to be in boiling water they'd hop right out of the fire, but Luke water they won't, so we are similar to them.

The Tobacco Industry

• The narrator had close family who died of cancer, and had worked with the tobacco farm with them at a young age, causing him moral issues.
• It is a human nature to take the time to connect to the dots faster.

Three Misconceptions

• People have asked aren't there disagreements on global warming, but that has been zero. Zero zero zero”
• It is just a tool to sow more division.
• There were more than 100s of reports on this topic in the past which were dismissed.
• Some workers were persecuted in the past because what they discovered contradicted something, that goes under fraud.
• You cannot trust the science if someone's salary depended on them to say what they need to not believe.
• Number one, it does not depend on scientists who can see “the world is wrong”
• The 2 side show the two sides of the issue in terms of numbers.
• Final misconception: a lot of people who from denial to dispair which has no working on in the intermediate.
• Final we now, the planet can change the pollution we can save.

States and Cities

• Which part of the world is moving faster and which world parts have been left behind?
• Luckily state is taking the first step and the president can start. The people give themselves to the climate change.
• We're we as Americans capable of trying to do big things when it is difficult?

Rising to the Occasion

• We can and should get involved to change the Earth:
• We ended polio.
• We saved space.
• Each person should invest and help to solve problems or not solve them?

Our Only Home

• Carl Sagen said remember home the one movie you saw about Earth when out on a spaceship, everytihng it has to do in everything is our home.
• Earth is the only thing which has happen!
• Can the world to live together as a civilization.