The Focus the Nation week-long environmental education event concluded Thursday night with a teach-in featuring two panels of experts on climate change.
Looking past the basic scientific evidence behind climate change, panelists tackled political, psychological, and religious issues that shed light on climate change as a real and pressing issue during audience-directed question-and-answer sessions on the top floor of the International Affairs building.
The group agreed that the acceptance of climate change as a global problem is rapidly becoming the norm, thanks to the widespread media on the issue. When asked about the people who still dispute the problem of global warming, Lisa Goddard, a climatologist for the International Research Institute for Climate and Society said, “To some degree, not to be really harsh on this, it is a matter of ignorance ... there’s a very long list of pretty solid evidence that climate is changing.”
Environmental law professor Edward Lloyd emphasized the point shared by several panelists that the global problem lacks government support under the Bush administration. “I think until Jan. 21, 2009, we are not going to have help from the federal government,” he said.
Steve Cohen, the executive director of the Earth Institute and a former employee of the Environmental Protection Agency, stressed that things need to change, and that the responsibility ultimately falls on young people. “I’m counting on students, like the people in this room, and all over the country, to change perception in this country, and I think it’s happened,” he said.
The event, organized by the Earth Institute, the new Columbia Climate Center, and a group of concerned students, concluded a week of action on climate change associated with the national Focus the Nation campaign. Thursday night’s event was one of the most well-attended, according to student organizer Acadia Roher, BC ’10. Most of the other events were student-based, but the teach-in attracted professors
and community members as well.
A group of students in Columbia’s Climate and Society MA program were impressed by the event. “I don’t know what the target audience was, but I thought they covered all their bases well,” said masters student Colin Kelley.
shane.ferro@columbiaspectator.com