People can make a difference in global warming on local level

Colby College professor presents ideas at speech

By Brian Lewis-Jones

Friday, March 9, 2007

photo

Jon Goering

James R. Fleming, Professor of Science and Technology at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, delivers a speech Thursday afternoon at the Hall Center For the Humanities. Fleming spoke about the harmful effects global warming will have on the environment. The lecture was one part of the roundtable discussion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.

Global warming exists as a geographically diverse problem, but James Fleming says “intergenerational warming” may be a more accurate term to describe the escalating crisis.

Fleming, professor of science, technology and society at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, spoke at the Hall Center for the Humanities about the modern view of global warming and the results of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report.

He said that ideas and attitudes in society typically changed faster than the climate, but individuals could alter their lifestyles to make a difference in global warming on a local level. Solutions don’t always come out of big cities and big shots, he said.

“The generation can either be hedonistic and cynical,” he said, “or they can take on this great new challenge.”

The first segment of the fourth IPCC report, which Fleming participated in, was released in Paris at the beginning of February.

Fleming said that global warming wouldn’t stop when carbon dioxide emissions were eliminated; the complex compound would stay in the atmosphere absorbing heat, globally increasing the temperature and causing sea levels to rise. Salt water would likely intrude bodies of fresh water and the temperature in the northern polar region will increase dramatically.

“We’re going to have kids unborn yet going to be breathing our CO2,” he said.

He spoke with Takao Shibata, chancellor’s lecturer at the University and a Japanese diplomat who helped negotiate the Kyoto Protocol, a greenhouse gas reduction treaty between major industrial nations in the early 1990s.

Shibata said global warming was something that affects every person’s way of life. The United States rejected the Kyoto Protocol when it was proposed on the basis that it would disrupt the American economy.

“It is hypocritical on the part of developed countries to discuss this issue,” Shibata said.

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We’re going to have kids unborn yet going to be breathing our CO2.

-James Fleming

However, he said even though the United States was a large contributor to the global warming problem, it could be a large solution to the problem.

“You need to show you’re ready to do something,” he said.

Gregory Cushman, assistant professor of international environmental history, said society was at a tipping point to change its interaction with the environment on a personal level.

“We’re not doomed, but the outlook does not look bright,” he said. This dim outlook, Cushman said, could inspire people to stop doing the same old thing.

“Acting locally isn’t enough, but it’s a place to start,” he said.

Fleming will talk at 3:30 p.m. today at the Hall Center for the Humanities about unconventional methods of deterring global warming.

Kansan staff writer Brian Lewis-Jones can be contacted at bljones@kansan.com.

— Edited by Will McCullough

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