Global Warming: What Do We Know and What Should We Do?

(PEI series Pt 2)
Speaker: Richard C. J. Somerville, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego.
Discussant: Elizabeth Harman, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Princeton University
(Oct 7, 2008 at Princeton University)

In 2007, an international group of experts completed a definitive assessment of recent research on climate change science. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calls warming of the climate system "unequivocal" and attributes most of the observed recent global warming to human activities, with a confidence level of 90% or more. As human activities continue to modify the climate system, what will the implications be for rising sea level, hurricanes, and water supply? This talk first summarizes key scientific findings and then examines policy options. Worldwide emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change continue to increase each year. Nations will accept constraints on their freedom to emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases only when they are satisfied that they are being treated justly and equitably. Ethical concerns underlie the differing rights and obligations of both developed and developing countries. Intergenerational equity requires people today to consider the planet that their descendants will inherit. The prospect of intentional geoengineering to counter human-caused climate change also raises profound questions of equity and ethics.

This is part two of a 5-part "Ethics and Climate Change" series sponsored by the Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI) and the University Center for Human Values.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• uchannel
• princeton
• environment
• climate
• change
• global
• warming
• academic
• lectures
• ethics

[anoniab]

"Nations will accept constraints on their freedom to emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases only when they are satisfied that they are being treated justly and equitably."

And the US is not being treated justly. They expect us to bear the cost - nevermind the science is far from settled, and there are so many surface stations placed next to heat sources, the readings are skewed. Man produces such a sm amt of CO2, there is no way that we are influencing the climate.

[JonThm]

The world started COOLING in 2005. Get outside more, if it is allowed where you are!

[1charzard1]

Holy shit this video is to long