Thursday, March 12, 2009
Guest Speaker: Frank DeCoulter
Frank DeCoulter came to class today to talk to us about Global Warmings Impact on California and the world in general. It was really interesting to see the predictions thatwere modeled for the earth's temperatures in just the next 100 years. Although it was interesting, it was extremely alarming because some of these models showed a potential ten degrees farenheit rise in california's average temperature in the next short period of time. This is crazy in comparison to the degree celcius on average that the Earth has rised in temperature overall in the last couple centuries. With only one degree celcius in change, we are seeing drastic repercussions, i can't imagine the repercussions of even five to ten degrees. People don't pay any mind to this... 1 degree, big whoop, right? But its one degree overall average temperature. With this one degree, we are losing 3 times as much ice in the summer as we're gaining in the winter in Greenland, which is just an example of the overall effects. Now water is flowing 8 months out of the year instead of for a short period in the short arctic spring and summer. It was interesting to find out that the warming is unevenly distributed. The Northern Hemisphere warms faster because the north pole is all ocean, no land, and when it is unfrozen, the dark ocean absorbs heat versus the white antarctic ice reflecting light. Also, in the northern hemisphere, theres permafrost that when it melts, releases methane, accelerating warming. This warming is scary. We need to take action, starting with the simple things. We cannot keep up what we're doing... we're releasing fossil fuels into our environment at a rate thats 60,000 times greater than the rate of formation!!! No wonder our environment is warming! As Amory Lovins says, "...humanity has exactly enough time, starting now." We have warning, we've seen the signs, now we need to act to keep our future from reaching or exceeding the scary predictions.
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