Recently I have watched one of the TED Talks from the collection of “Climate change: Oh, it's real.” This presentation called “New thinking on the climate change crisis” was performed by Al Gore, see the link below.[1] I really liked the presentation as it was intelligible and persuasive and the facts which Al Gore used were all I agree with, and which are in compliance with The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)[2] and with other knowledge I have gained within and also beyond courses here at the UNL I have taken. I posted this TED Talk on my Facebook wall as I think that the ideas about climate change are worth spreading. My friend, who studies economy, immediately, reacted and started to criticize the video and mainly the speaker Al Gore. His first argument was that it is not reasonable to trust Al Gore on climate change as he has a vast financial interest in the movement of carbon trading. I did not known about Al Gore a lot, so I have discovered more information about him after my friend had pointed out this issue; I had not associated this presentation with Al Gore´s past political engagement nor with his present-day engagement in energy-saving technology. Nevertheless, my friend then again started that people are doing big bug from it and that some people promote this issue to earn billions from this claimed problem and that the IPCC was held just for the reason to prove the existence climate change, so that people would believe it and that we are just manipulated sheep, that there are still roughly 31000 scientist that believe that climate change is only natural and is happening accordance with activity of the Sun, and so forth. My friend did not have enough objective and scientifically proven facts and data, and he obviously did not understand what climate change is (he was confusing climate change and global warming), he was evidently against any political and economic manipulation arising from this issue.
However, the point of this story is that a
thought has arisen in my mind: “To whom would (majority of all) people listen
so that they believe that climate change caused as well by humanity is really
taking place?” I don´t want to speculate where they get information about
climate change, but if they get some, how do they deal with it? Al Gore was the
Vice President of the United States and received a Nobel Peace Prize for his
work in climate change activism, isn´t that sufficiently qualified person they
should believe. On the other side, I would understand my friend doubting about
Al Gore past politician career and todays venture capitalist interest, people
tend to not to believe politicians and wealthy people. But would people rather trust unknown scientist
occupied by geology or climatology? Would they rather trust some famous person,
to somebody who is not qualified for such conclusions? How serious natural
disaster has to happen so that more people (mainly from developed
industrialized countries) would become more interested in this issue and start
to take it seriously? I also watched another TED Talks called “Why must I speak
out about climate change” presented by James Hansen[3],
director of The NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, he is not that
publicly known, I must confess that I liked his speech more. But, would the
general public stop for a moment or two and have a think about it? I wish they
would.
To conclude, the issue of climate change is
very challenging, some people would have to step outside their comfort zones,
e.g. not to drive nice but fuel inefficient cars or stop driving car
completely. People don´t like significant changes, but that´s exactly what solving
of a wrong approach to our planet, natural resources, fauna and flora need. I
think that universities, where researches about climate change are mainly done,
should promote and inform the public wherever and whenever they can. Firstly,
they should promote the transfer from today´s another waste generation institution
to ecologically friendly universities. Because where else than in the school
people should start to learn about seriousness of this issue, and then spread
it between their friends, children, parents and grandparents.
To answer the question in the article '“To whom would (majority of all) people listen so that they believe that climate change caused as well by humanity is really taking place?”, I believe that there needs to be a collaboration between people in the public eye such as Al Gore and people in the field and labs such as scientists and conservationists. People are skeptical of politicians and public figures when they talk about these events, wondering what is in it for them. As for scientists and conservationists who have been studying the climate change, they don't have the same accessibility to the spot light. I feel if people from these different backgrounds could pair up, the awareness on climate change can explode- and mass amounts of people can be reached with studied and researched information!
ReplyDeleteYou're dead on when you say people will have to step outside of their comfort zones when it comes to the issue of climate change and making our own, different change. The reason we are where we are is because we were constantly striving to use technology to make us more comfortable (or all too often, more lazy) and therefore to do something about climate change is to do the exact opposite of what "we" all have been striving for for so long. I think it's important to seek real solutions on how to communicate in a way people will desire to make a change, not feel forced.
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