Climate Change: Challenges and Opportunities

The guest speaker last night, at the Wendy Williamson Auditorium, was Dr. Robert Corell – a Senior Policy Fellow at the American Meteorological Society who is actively engaged in climate change research and the interface between science and public policy.

Titled “Climate Change: Challenges and Opportunities,” his talk addressed how the Arctic region, more than any other region in the world, provides a bellwether, a "canary-in-the-mine" for the world at-large as climate change impacts more directly lower latitudes in the coming decades.

He spoke of how climate change is taking place within the context of many other ongoing changes, including globalization, poverty and hunger, land use changes, rapid growth in the human population, and changes in cultural, governance, and economic conditions. He explained how impacts on the environment and society result not from climate change alone, but from the interplay of all of these changes.

The slide show was very interesting, with graphs, charts, and video clips that highlight what is going on and the research that is being done. Quite a lot of what he said was familiar to me, but he took it that one extra step farther and was up-to-date on the research results, so it was till very informative and interesting.

After the slide show, he invited people from the crowd to ask questions – indicating the microphones set up on either side of the auditorium. I was glad they provided those as typically the audience can barely hear the questions, and the speakers rarely ever remember to repeat them for us.

I must admit that I didn’t understand most of the questions, even though I could clearly hear them – the people asking them had not had time to think things thru and come up with a clear, grammatically correct question. Dr. Corell did a great job at interpreting the true questions and giving concise answers (to the best of his ability, at least).

I had invited a few of my friends to join me at the lecture, so had Elizabeth sitting to my left, and Rikki & Charles sitting on my right. I am looking forward to further discussions with them, to get their take on the event.