In the now famous film "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore declares that
"There are good people in both [political] parties that hold [global
warming] at arm's distance because if they recognize it then the moral
imperative to make big changes is inescapable."
ConnPIRG
agrees. And in recognition of this "moral imperative," they kicked off
the Spring 2007 Campus Climate Challenge with a showing of the film.
The event drew a diverse crowd ranging from freshmen to graduate
students.
"The Campus Climate Challenge is trying to help
prevent global warming in any way that UConn can," said Corrie Colwell,
a 2nd-semester political science major and one of ConnPIRG's
co-coordinators for the Campus Climate Challenge campaign.
The
Campus Climate Challenge kick off event also included a promotion for
several petitions. One was a photo petition thanking Congressman Joe
Courtney for agreeing to sponsor the Safe Climate Act (SCA). According
to Colwell and her co-coordinators, Courtney agreed to sponsor the act
last night at the urging of ConnPIRG and several other environmental
groups. 'Signatories' of this petition had their photograph taken
holding a giant comic-book-like speech bubble with a thank you message
in it. The photographs will be sent to the congressman later as part of
the petition.
Courtney was originally scheduled to hold a
question and answer session following the film but was unexpectedly
called back to Washington D.C. the night before.
According to
Colwell, the group chose to show Gore's film because it presents many
facts that are relevant and important to raising awareness of global
warming, and does so in an entertaining and stimulating way.
Although
the documentary, which has been nominated for two Oscars, has been
criticized as being too politically-biased, it has managed to give
greater visibility to the shape that the climate change debate is
currently taking. It is no longer commonplace to find dissenting voices
outright denying global warming. Now people seem to realize the
existence of a warming trend while questioning or denying any human
correlation.
Sarah Melchior, a 3rd-semester English and philosophy double major, is one such skeptic.
"I
don't have a set opinion on the climate change issue," Melchior said.
"I think it may be a bit hasty to say global warming is definitely
human-caused. I think there needs to be a lot more research than has
currently been done. At this point it seems a bit premature to say that
there is a causal relationship between humans and climate change,
however, these views [pro-human causation] are important because they
make people reconsider how they treat the environment, which, in the
end, is a good thing."
Melchior, who was not able to attend the
event, said she is eager to see the film so she can see the evidence
for attributing global warming to human activities.
"At ConnPIRG
we do believe that humans are the cause of global warming," Colwell
said. "We are dedicated to informing the student population about this
and motivating them to do whatever is possible to combat it."
This official stand by ConnPIRG was reflected in the general attitude of the audience.
"Yeah,
of course humans are causing global warming," said Thibaut Dall'agnese,
an English literature Master's student. "Just go to New York, Boston or
any big city and see the haze. It's going somewhere and it's having an
affect on the atmosphere."
Melissa Krah, a 4th-semester environmental science major, also agreed.
"I have to go with the overwhelming evidence on this issue, yes humans are causing global warming," Krah said.
Krah
pointed out that many skeptics of global warming, including the Bush
administration, assert that there is no consensus among scientists that
global warming is even occurring.
"The scientists they usually
point to tend to be employed by [companies in the energy sector or
other groups] that would benefit from their scientists' dissenting
opinions," Krah said.
Krah recommends the documentary, calling it well-researched and well founded in science.
"[Gore]
covered most of the major consequences of global warming," Krah said.
"He simplified things to make it easier for everyone to understand, but
didn't misrepresent the issue."
According to Colwell the Campus
Climate Challenge has several more events planed for later this
semester including an Earth Day event, a global warming debate with
other student groups, possibly a concert and a "lights-off day" leading
up to Earth Day.
