The Climate Reality Project

The Climate Reality Project 

• Lives are shaped by this issue
• Many efforts to erase this issue
• Science exists in a social world 
• Many efforts to restrict science because people don't want the outcome
• Dr. Michael Edelstein of Ramapo College, NJ 
• Scientific AND political issue
• Total convergence on this topic 
• should not be a political issue 
• created by Al Gore, Vice President
•  If we acted on Gore's protocol, we would not have the issues we do today
• Bush blocked the project 
• Amount of Carbon Dioxide in Atmosphere 350 parts per million, can't go past. The tipping point 
• Actually, have sailed past 400
• Can't reverse going over the tipping point. Everything relates to it.  
• Face new challenges as time goes on. 
• Climate mitigation: efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and reduce this issue
• Climate adaptation: How are we going to live with this
• Forces relocation 
• Hydrological cycle: (water cycle) water is always moving. solid, liquid, gas. Always takes its own course. Water shapes the land. Limited and final. Whatever we have is it, always cycling.  
• Systems: Open system, opens up every single thing (bagel and cream cheese example) everything affects everything else
• Matter vs Energy. Matter: anything that has mass or takes up space. Energy: what allows you to do work
• Earth: Closed system regarding the matter, open system regarding energy
• People aren't aware of that idea
• 2 exceptions to the closed system of matter; 1. Earth imported matter. Ex: meteors. 2. Contamination (changing), pH balance. Quantity and Quality
• Open system: Energy comes from the sun. Extreme amounts. Solar radiation in the form of lightwaves passes through the atmosphere. Constant, unlimited source of energy. Most are absorbed from the earth.
• Nonrenewable energy: fossil fuels 
• People can profit from fossil fuels. Solar energy is free energy. 
• (Systems theory) Consequences of relying on fossil fuels; contamination. run out of them
• Troposphere: atmosphere surrounding us 
• Stratosphere: Where weather happens. 
• All the atmosphere is very fragile. 
• Tipping points: Why can't we go back: as glaciers and the atric and Antartic melt, much less ice on earth. instead, have water exposed to radiation. The more ice that melts, more abeto, the more the earth warms, the more ice melts, never-ending cycle. Can't go back because we already past the point 
• Where zone 5, ten years ago became zone 6. Much warmer