Focus the Nation Tackles the Green Unknown

By Connect Mason Reporter Zahira Khan

George Mason University joined over a thousand colleges and universities, in a nationwide effort, to hold a teach-in on the issue of climate change and energy conservation yesterday.

Faculty members and students from all branches of study and disciplines attended a day-long event at the Johnson Center’s Dewberry Hall packed with speeches by local and international scientists and visionaries at the university’s own version of Focus the Nation.

Here's the recap:

12:-12:20pm – Dr. Alan Merten, President GMU
“George Mason University’s Commitment to a Carbon-Neutral Future"

Merten assures a crowd of audience members that George Mason University is taking the necessary steps to become more environmentally-friendly and is dedicated to examining ways in which the population can contribute to the solutions.

“We are the ones responsible for teaching, and doing research, but we also have to do things right ourselves,” said Merten.

He indicates that since innovating, building new research facilities, and funding experts to work on resolving problems and creating solutions is one of Mason’s primary initiatives, taking “inventory” of challenges that face the institution’s three campuses, is vital.

“Before we talk about what we want to be doing, we better understand what we are doing,” said President Merten.

President Merten jested in describing the campuses, as students sometimes do, by referring to them as “construction sites,” because of Mason’s active commitment in building and therefore having the “lead silver standard for [their] buildings.”

In the wake of recent escalating parking problems, Merten indicates that new transport-efficient sources will be available to the population.

“We’re providing an increased number of public transportation options to members of the George Mason community,” said Merten. “And we will do various things over the next weeks, months, and years to make it more accessible to bicycles.”

He said that students have a responsibility and can play a major role in making a difference at Mason, and that everyone needs to support one another in this global cause.

“We all have to make a commitment to reduce our consumption of energy, water, and heating mechanisms,” said Merten.

12:20-1:15pm – Dr. Barry Klinger, Climate Dynamics Dept.
“Global Warming: The Known, the Unknown, and the Unknowable”

According to Klinger’s presentation, scientists have discovered that the carbon dioxide levels in the earth’s atmosphere have “gone up in the last forty years.”

There are gradual trends, measured by organizations like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that collect data and analyze it in ways which can then be interpreted and understood by the public. In their Climate Change 2007, which was released only two and a half months ago, the IPCC reveals their latest report on the state of the global environment.

Klinger explained some of these climate changes:

1. Radiation from the sun is changing how much heat is falling on the earth
2. Air and sea warming are widespread
3. The ocean is also getting larger

“We have unprecedented changes in [greenhouse] gases due to changes in the climate,” said Klinger.

Klinger explained how greenhouse gases work:

1. Water vapor is the main greenhouse gas
2. Warmer air holds more water vapor
3. Warming from carbon dioxide, etc leads to more water vapor
4. More greenhouse effect leads to more warming

“The Earth is reaching a new (warmer) equilibrium,” said Klinger.

Klinger stressed that the world is getting warmer and will continue to do so unless action is taken in preventing the “tremendous dislocations” that are occurring in the Earth’s various ecosystems due to global warming.

3:00-4:15pm – Lester Brown, President of the Earth Policy Institute
“Mobilizing to Save Civilization”

Brown’s new book Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization begins on the issue of the rise in sea levels.

According to Brown, as ice caps melt and float across the surface of water, they cause a “seismic response” that is like a mini-earthquake, causing people in regions like Bangladesh, China, and India, who have large populations living on the coasts, to lose their homes, their crops, and their terrain.

“Imagine the conflicts, the competition that develops for land as the ocean rises,” said Brown.

The catastrophic results of global warming can be calculated by the heat waves, destructive storms, wild fires, soil erosion and deforestation that disturbs the Earth’s many ecosystems.

“With Plan B 3.0, we’re trying to cut carbon dioxide emissions by eighty percent by 2012,” said Brown.

According to Brown, the increase in consumption of the Earth’s fossil fuels is leading to a climate crisis in itself, saying that putting an end to the need for oil will help reduce global warming, before we reach “peak oil.”

“Once we reach peak oil, no country will get more oil unless another gets less,” said Brown. “The stresses associated with peak oil will be greater than we know.”

Brown listed three main ways to help reduce the harmful effects of global warming:

1. Raising energy efficiency
2. Stop using fossil fuels; instead switch to renewable energy
3. Plant more trees

Brown said that although Texas was one of the major oil-producing states, it is the leading producer of wind-generated energy, adding that China had more than doubled their production of wind energy.

According to Brown, world sales of solar-cells are doubling every two years, with Germany as the world leader. He explained that in China, forty million homes were heating their water with solar water heaters on their roofs.

“Capitalism may collapse because the economy doesn’t tell the ecological truth,” said Brown.

Brown said that Plan B 3.0’s goals were on how to:

1. Stabilize climate
2. Stabilize population
3. Eradicate poverty
4. Restore Earth’s damaged ecosystems

Brown proposed that members of the community become more ecologically-aware and write to their representatives in Congress insisting on an initiative to “reconstruct the tax” by lowering income tax and raising tax on carbon.

“What are we waiting for?” said Brown. “We need to be moving rapidly.”

4:30-5:45pm – Lee Bodner, Executive Director, ecoAmerica
“Climate Change and College Life: Marketing a Green Revolution”

Bodner spoke about the various ways in which advertising for an eco-friendly lifestyle, or product could be done by studying commercials that targeted specific areas of human interest.

“We need people-focused environmentalism,” said Bodner.

Bodner played a series of commercials that touched upon one or more of the main strategies advertisers use to get the attention of their target audience:

1. Be Relevant to Your Audience
2. Connect to them Emotionally
3. Break through the Clutter
4. Be authentic

Bodner explains that to be successful in advocating action against global warming, one has to make the issues relevant to the general public to each in their own way.