MODULE 3: Climate change science

 AGENDA

1. How worried are you about climate change?
2. Background
3. Ethical questions

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HOW WORRIED ARE YOU?

• Poll (see instructions on class screen once poll is opened)

How worried are you about how climate change will affect YOUR life?

How worried are you about how climate change will affect the WHOLE future--for people, for nature?

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BACKGROUND

Greenhouse gases and carbon sinks

• Greenhouse gases (UN video)
• Carbon sinks (Acciona)

Predicting the future

• Climate models (MIT Primer)
• Scroll down to FIGURE 12 and  FIGURE 13 (MIT Primer)

Sea level rise

• Sea level rise - Scroll down to Video 7 (MIT Primer)
• Picturing our future--watch sea level video at top, scroll down to look at images

Other impacts

• Other US effects (NASA)
• Impact around the world and on nature (IPCC 2022 report)

Skeptics

• Among scientists they're in a very small minority.  
• 97% of scientists agree
• Richard Lindzen (MIT) advises Trump to withdraw from Paris Agreement
• His colleagues object 
• Richard Lindzen on Prager U
• His cloud theory

Prevention strategies

1. 

   
   

   Mitigation -- reducing greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming (e.g. switching to renewable energy like wind and solar); limiting the temperature rise (killing the wolf)
2. Adaptation -- making infrastructure changes to limit the impact of global warming(e.g. building dikes that protect low-lying areas from flooding) (building a brick house)
3. Geoengineering -- reversing climate change after it has occurred (e.g. carbon dioxide removal) (another way of killing the wolf)

The Paris Agreement (2015)

1. Sets goal of limiting global warming by 2100 to 2 degrees C. (3.6 F), or preferably 1.5 (2.7 F).
2. Countries communicate contributions to reducing emissions (mitigation)
3. Countries communicate contributions to adapting to climate change (adaptation)
4. They report back every 5 years and make more ambitious plans
5. Ratified by 196 countries -- US left in 2017 (Trump), joined again in 2021 (Biden)

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ETHICAL QUESTIONS

1. How are the ethics of helping future people distinctive or puzzling? (Oct 6 & 9, John Broome)
2. What is the most just way to distribute the burdens of mitigation and adaptation (Oct 13 & 16 Peter Singer)
3. Should we relax about mitigation and focus on adaptation and geoengineering? (Oct 18 & 20, Bjorn Lomborg and others & Debate)

How worried are you?

• Poll results
• Pew survey   
• Montana lawsuit.