Week Three: Past and Present Climate

It was great to have Troy as a guest lecturer in class this week to help explain the science of climate change. His energetic style and passion for the topic comes through in his lecture/discussion style and I really appreciated his approach of 'crossing things off the list' when it comes to other potential reasons the globe is warming (the sun, Earth's orbit, volcanoes, etc...). 

But I thought the most interesting part of the discussion was when we talked about using individual weather events that negatively effect people to prove or disprove climate change. I can absolutely see his point about not using something like Hurricane Katrina to show how the climate is changing. Dramatic and drastic events like that are easy to point to, but when they don't happen again or with what we humans deem some regularity, it does provide deniers to make the claim, 'Where is your global warming now?' However I also feel like if we don't make the connection between human life and climate change, it will be easier for people to sit back and not make any of the changes that are necessary to mitigate and adapt to our changing climate.

My feelings on this come mostly from watching ‘Sun Come Up’ and the profound impact that film had on me. I know about climate change, I try to change my habits to help contribute less to climate change, but it was that film that first really showed me this is an issue now. People are already having to adapt in dramatic ways and if we don’t do a better job of changing our lifestyle, more and more people will be facing the hard decisions the Carteret people have already made.