Communicating and Learning About Global Climate Change: Opening Remarks

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Communicating and Learning About Global
Climate Change Opening
Remarks

• John P. Holdren
• Director, The Woods Hole Research Center
• Teresa John Heinz Professor of Environmental
  Policy, Harvard University
• President, American Association for the
  Advancement of Science
• Global Climate Change Town Meeting
  Annual Meeting of the AAAS
  
  San Francisco, 17
  February 2007

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• The scientific evidence is clear global
  climate change caused by human activities is
  occurring now, and it is a growing threat to
  society. Accumulating data from across the
  globe reveal a wide array of effects rapidly
  melting glaciers, destabilization of major ice
  sheets, increases in extreme weather, rising sea
  level, shifts in species ranges, and more. The
  pace of change and the evidence of harm have
  increased markedly over the last five years. The
  time to control greenhouse gas emissions is now.
• from the Climate Change Statement
  of the AAAS Board, released 2-18-07

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• Global climate change is the most dangerous
  environmental problem humans have ever created.
• It is also the most difficult environmental
  problem humans have ever created.
• But there is much that individuals, firms,
  governments can do to reduce the danger.

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Climate change complex interdisciplinary

• SCIENCE
• what climate is and how it works
• how global climate has been changing and why
• how its likely to change in the decades ahead
• what the impacts are likely to be on farms,
  forests, fisheries, health, property,
  ecosystems
• TECHNOLOGY
• the role of humans their technology in causing
  climate change
• technological options for mitigating climate
  change
• technological options for adapting to it.

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Complex interdisciplinary (continued)

• ECONOMICS
• population growth economic growth as
  climate-change drivers
• costs of abatement, adaptation, and impacts
• consequences of alternative regimes of action
  inaction for economic growth, employment, trade
• POLITICS POLICY
• policy options and their impact on outcomes
• actors and interests in the climate debateand
  the evolution of perceptions interests over
  time
• finding a global climate-policy framework that is
  adequate, equitable, and attainable
• uncertainty and prudence in public policy on
  climate

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Climate change as a teaching opportunity
The physics geometry of Earths orientation to
the sun
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Climate change as a teaching opportunity PHYSICS
Interaction of electromagnetic radiation
with matter
www.livephysics.com
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Climate change as a teaching opportunity
Physics energy flows in the atmosphere
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Physics water, ice, and sea-level rise
Climate change as a teaching opportunity
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Climate change as a teaching opportunity

• CHEMISTRY
• carbon in fossil fuels and combustion
• coal CH
• oil CH2
• natural gas CH4 a bit more
• so, e.g., burning oil entails
• CH2 3/2 O2 ? CO2 H2O

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Climate change as a teaching opportunity

• BIOCHEMISTRY
• photosynthesis
• 6 CO2 12 H2O ? C6H12O6 6 H2O 6 O2
• (Trees are made of CO2 and water!)
• respiration
• C6H12O6 6 O2 ? 6 CO2 6 H2O
• anaerobic decomposition
• C6H12O6 ? 3 CO2 3 CH4

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Climate change as a teaching opportunity
Earth science the carbon cycle
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Climate change as a teaching opportunity
True color MODIS composite image late March 2000
Climate change as a teaching opportunity
Geography remote sensing
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Climate change as a teaching opportunity
Geography land-use deforestation
Mato Grosso State, Brazil, 2004
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Climate change as a teaching opportunity
Earth science winds jet streams
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Climate change as a teaching opportunity
Earth science ocean currents
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Climate change as a teaching opportunity
Earth science how hurricanes work
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Climate change as a teaching opportunity
Earth science climate life over geologic time
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Climate change as a teaching opportunity
Probability and statistics of climate weather
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Climate change as a teaching opportunity
Ecology interaction of organisms with a changing
environment
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Climate change as a teaching opportunity
Geography climate-related health impacts
World Health Organization estimates of
climate-change-related increases in mortality for
the year 2000
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Climate change as a teaching opportunity
Engineering technology for CO2 capture
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Climate change as a teaching opportunity
Geology formations that can store CO2
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Systems analysis / integrated assessment
Climate change as a teaching opportunity
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Climate change as a teaching opportunity
Sociology public-opinion polling
Source National Science Board, Science
Engineering Indicators 2004, Ch 7.
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Climate change as a teaching opportunity
Political science leadership