Q&A with SCIE113
Recently, Allen and I gave a talk to students in SCIE113. Basically, it was about the value of looking at both the scientific and humanities perspective when talking about global issues. In this particular lecture, we focused on climate change, and true to form, we took a little too long with our presentation and consequently, there wasn’t any time for questions.
And so afterwards, we said it would be great to follow up by students sending on questions. Anyway, we got this great list of questions from the students, but since a lot of these questions are pretty nuanced, we decided it would be easier to just try and answer the questions by recording ourselves talking through them, as opposed to writing out everything.
in any event, here is the sound file:
SCIE113globalissuesanswers by dnghub
Don’t forget if this sort of stuff is generally interesting to you, we actually devote an entire course to this sort of thing (ASIC200). And if you’re the sort that likes to follow along with notes, here is the list of the actual questions we tried to cover.
Getting Involved
– How can I get involved in climate change research? What area or faculty do I need to graduate in?
– What should I do as a believer, individually, of climate change to combat it? What can we do as a country?
– What will it take for the world to change? Do we even have the potential to change?
The Future
– In 20 years, do you think our “golden number” will be even higher? How high do you think it will be in 50 years?
– What weather conditions can we expect in 20 years as the earth continues to heat up?
– What will happen if climate change never gets fixed? Will it end with the extinction of the human race?
– How realistic is the possibility of 350 or even 450, considering the different mindsets of different governing bodies – all of which are platforms that aren’t ideal.
Government & Politics
– Is CO2 really the cause of average temperature increase? Some research indicates that the increase in [CO2] is followed after the increase in temperature.
– Does Canada allocate any of its budgets towards helping solve climate change?
– If thegovernment starts to impose laws and actively working towards this target, how do you think the people will react? Will there be no change?
– How can we change politics to make a change that will allow us to sustain life on Earth? How can we overcome the government and politicians attempting to undermine science?
Alternatives
– Would using other forms of energy change the amount of carbon in the air, if fossil fuel burning were greatly reduced?
– Are there technologies being developed to deal with CO2 emissions? Or are we just waiting on governments?
Other Global Issues
– What are other issues that are happening that need our attention? What other global issues can be examined from these two perspectives?
Terry Project & Personal stuff
– What was the inspiration for beginning the Terry project?
– Why do you like being in such a depressing field of work?
