I'm so happy that this article explained other greenhouse gases besides CO2. I feel that people get lost in global change as being all people's fault for driving too much but there is way more involved than just that. We are learning about these concepts in more detail in Environmental Chemistry, right now. One of the most commonly overlooked reaction involves the CFCs and ozone. I don't know about the majority of people, but I remember ozone depletion being a really big deal when I was in middle school. Then the whole thing just kind of disappeared and now people are all concerned about global change and are forgetting how complicated environmental science -- and especially how complicated atmospheric chemistry is. The take home message is: don't forget to look at the whole picture when deciding how to mitigate climate change!
"Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the next Fifty Years with Current Technologies"
The nice thing about this article is that it combines both concepts of sustainability and climate change. The concepts of sustainability outlive the acceptance of climate change (at least to me). In an optimistic approach, one way to rally more people to think sustainability is to show them why -- global change is a perfect illustrator to convince people why sustainability is a good idea. Things like, reducing, recycling, green buildings and living more simply have all been discussed already without showing how it is linked to global change. In other words, if you can't convince people to be more sustainable for reason like "increasing quality of life," "preserving for future generations," or other 'happy' reasons like that, you can scare them saying "if you don't become sustainable now, then in 50 years you are going to sweat to death" or "in 50 years you will have to walk 50 miles to work everyday." The scare factor can be pretty effective!
Speaking of scare factor...More frequent extreme heat episodes, deadly heat waves, poor air quality, more frequent droughts (aren't we in one??), more frequent down-pours and flooding, lower water levels, stressed crops and livestock...this is not a happy pdf. However, the solutions are very similar to those of the Wheeler article (noted in the above paragraph).
Conclusions from reading
The effects of Global Climate Change can be mitigated but it can not be done passively. One of my frustrations is that people are still asking the question "do you believe in climate change" which to me sounds like the question "do you believe in aliens?" or "do you believe Elvis is still alive?" We are running out of time to keep this debate going. If people refuse to be more sustainable because they don't believe in Global Climate Change, then we really need to work as a community to move them on other reasons to become sustainable (the reason are plentiful!!). This is the way to mitigate Global Climate change in all regions, not just Indiana.
Tonight I listened to the congressional debate that took place on Kirkwood. The Republican candidate was actually trying to refute man-made global warming. It is just so comforting to live in a place where people are educated. Hopefully the voting public won't utilize emotional coping solutions to ignore climate change.
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