Presentation: Impacts of Climate Change on Nature
On Friday, March 26, 2011 I gave a public talk at my institution titled Climate Change is Not Being Nice to Mother Nature to a group of mostly college-aged people. Although I spoke about the various far-ranging impacts of climate change, I focused on the impact on humans and especially the impact on New Yorkers. It is always important to focus one’s presentation to the audience at hand. Read on for a summary of the presentation as well as links to a few others I have created.
The main take-home points from Friday’s presentation include:
- Humans are warming the planet by dumping too much carbon into the air and oceans.
- Virtually all scientists agree.
- Climate change is increasing risk in the following areas: national security, health, and economics.
- Many species are vulnerable to climate change, not the least of which, humans.
Three other presentations I have given recently appear below. All are .PDF documents that have been converted from PowerPoint slideshows. Feel free to ask for any particular slide if you are creating your own presentation.
On Friday, September 24, 2010 I gave a public presentation on The Little Ice Age (LIA). Click to view the presentation (PDF format). Much of the historical information comes from my Little Ice Age in Europe Web page published quite a few years ago. The LIA (a general cooling of the climate between the years 1150 and 1460 and a very cold climate between 1560 and 1850) brought dire consequences to its peoples. The colder weather impacted agriculture, health, economics, social strife, emigration, and even art and literature. Increased glaciation and storms also had a devastating affect on those that lived near glaciers and the sea. So how does the climate change experienced during the LIA compare to what lies ahead?
Climate Change: What is the Role of Humans?
Designed to bring awareness about climate change for Earth Day (April 22, 2010), this presentation features images from my Global Warming: Man or Myth? Website and also from Climate Change: What Does It Mean for Our World? by Katharine Hayhoe, Research Professor at Texas Tech University. This presentation is currently being displayed in the lobby of Suffolk County Community College’s (Ammerman Campus) Smithtown Sciences Building in Selden, NY.
Global Warming: Separating Fact from Fiction
A public presentation from November 2009 that explains many of the most popular falsehoods and misleading statements that attempt to show that there is no human-caused global warming. The vast gulf between what scientists are saying and what Americans are hearing is primarily a result of the oil-funded front groups, lobby efforts, and political ideology.
Global Warming: Man or Myth? 
I’m beginning to think we should be a lot more explicit about “too much” CO2.
A comment from Prof Iain Stewart in an episode of “How Earth Made Us” struck me. Each year we burn 3 million years worth of fossils. He didn’t say it but I thought – and what exactly are we thinking of doing to compress 3 million years per year of natural processes of sequestering that extraordinary quantity of CO2 released?
adelady
March 30, 2011 at 6:28 pm
[…] warming poses serious threats to human health and the environment. We are already facing impacts, which are likely to get worse, […]
Tell White House: EPA Authority Over CO2 Must Not Be Compromised « Global Warming: Man or Myth?
April 1, 2011 at 8:59 am
[…] publicly presenting a talk regarding the impacts of climate change on nature and humans titled: Climate Change is Not Being Nice to Mother Nature. In this talk I describe the impact of climate change on oceans, Arctic mammals, birds, fish, […]
It’s the Spiders, Stupid! « Global Warming: Man or Myth?
May 9, 2011 at 8:28 am