Climate and humor unite to inform

By Sarah Welsh-Huggins ’12

For the record, Richard Alley, Evan Pugh Professor of Geosciences at Penn State, member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, does a fantastic imitation of horse farts.

If there was one thing that the audience of Tuesday’s “Why We Need Energy, Why Burning All the Fossil Fuels Is Not the Best Idea, and What We Can Do Instead” expected from this lauded climatologist, it was likely not his wry humor and energetic wit.

From his opening definition of sustainability to his careful answers of audience members’ questions, Dr. Alley delivered a captivating, informative presentation, filled with humorous and quirky images.

Today, he said, we use fossil fuels one million times faster than nature created them. “The easy stuff really is going fast,” Alley said. Imagine the CO2 emitted each year by vehicles in the U.S. as horse ploppings: In one year every road would be covered an inch deep in manure.

Though debates about climate change’s validity can be controversial, “he did an excellent job of presenting the best available science and explaining how data can be cherry-picked and manipulated to fit one’s preconceived personal view of the world,” Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering David Brandes said.

Alley addressed misconceptions about global warming with a graph that depicted the dramatic increase in global temperatures since his birth in 1957, despite the earth’s regular fluctuations in temperature.

Critical of the disbelievers of climate change, Alley explained how natural and anthropogenic activities together have led to increases in CO2. Global warming largely comes from people who have “winter, air conditioning and bulldozers,” he said. “The losers are poor people in hot places and people who haven’t been born yet.”

Despite his dire diagnosis for the earth’s climate, Alley’s presentation had an underlying sense of hope for the future. He recognized that his field is filled with uncertainties and projections that change frequently, but suggested that transitions to renewable energy sources energy would be both sustainable and economical.

Positive, yet realistic, Alley ended his talk with an assertion that it is possible to make a difference.

An extended question and answer session followed his presentation, in which questions ranged from the time scales of societal approaches for change to whether it will take a major crisis to change people’s opinions about climate change.

Emily Melvin ‘12 was surprised by how many questions were directed at Alley’s optimistic outlook. “I agree with Dr. Alley that there will be costs to our society if we do not put an end to our high usage of fossil fuels,” she said. “But this doesn’t mean that if we don’t all have battery-powered cars by next year it will be the end of society.”

One of Alley’s most poignant remarks came after a question about whether it is already too late to resolve the challenges of climate change. After a disclaimer of his Methodist faith, Alley related the story of being asked by a conservative Christian about global warming “Won’t the second coming take care of all this?” With a touch of humor, but also earnestness, Alley responded that, as a devout believer, he would have a hard time saying to Jesus Christ, “I knew you were coming, Lord, so I trashed the joint.”

Religion and climate change science often appear on opposing sides of ideological debates, but, Alley said, stewardship of the earth is engrained in all of us.

Despite the many barriers and the long term consequences of climate change, Alley concluded, “We really can have a world with icebergs and rainbows.”