Stephen Schneider interview (1/2): Crisis of Life. Biodiversity Climate Change Tipping Points

http://crisisoflife.net One of Stephen Schneider's last interviews. He was one of the world's leading climatologists and an outspoken advocate of global treaties to reduce greenhouse gases.

Together with other climatologists and Albert Gore, he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

Sadly, he died on 19 July 2010, exactly one month after this interview was recorded on 19 June in Taipei, Taiwan. We interviewed Stephen Schneider as part of our Crisis of Life interview series in which we get relevant scientists to talk about the biodiversity crisis in plain terms.

For more information, visit http://www.crisisoflife.net and follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter.

In part ONE of the interview, Stephen Schneider answered the following questions:
- Would you describe how you imagine the world will change within the next few decades? (0:40)

- We know that systems, such as the climate system, can be pushed for a while, and it seems like not much is happening. But once a threshold is crossed,
the system tips to another state. Could you elaborate on this? (4:00)

- One of the potential tipping points could be the effect of ocean acidification on ocean ecosystems, for example, coral reefs. Would you elaborate on this secondary effect of atmospheric greenhouse gases? (6:20)

- Because the risks of global change are so large, is it not immoral to base our decisions on purely economic cost-benefit analyses? (10:40)

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Climate Change
• Biodiversity
• Stephen Schneider
• Interview
• environment
• ecology
• greenhouse gases
• effects of global warming