Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 10/4/2022
EASTHAMPTON – Dr. Carsten Braun, a Westfield State University (WSU) professor of geography, planning and sustainability, recently presented “Climate Change: What You Need to Know.” The Sept. 26 online workshop hosted by the Emily Williston Memorial Library in Easthampton, in partnership with Voices for Climate in Granville, was part of Climate Week activities at local libraries.
Braun said he believes climate change does not have to be complicated or intimidating. He teaches the subject along with physical geography and sustainable energy to freshmen at WSU, who he says are mainly pursuing other majors, but who need science requirements.
“I might be the last scientist they ever know,” he said, adding that his main goal is to have students come away with a positive image of science, and to realize the role that science has to play in a democratic society.
Braun began his talk by boiling down the current status of climate change science into 10 words that he attributed to Tony Leiserowitz, Yale School of the Environment: “It’s real. It’s us. It’s bad, experts agree. There’s hope.”
He said climate change is real, and it has been detected. It’s us; greenhouse gases caused by human consumption of fossil fuels are the greatest contributing factor. It’s bad; the climate has been measured since 1850, and is heating up according to a consensus among more than 90 percent of scientific experts. Finally, there is hope; there are solutions right now that can help.
“Our science is imperfect, our puzzle isn’t complete, so we will never make perfect predictions of the future. By far the biggest uncertainty is human behavior,” Braun said.
Braun said it is OK for people to not be too worried about climate change.
“What we really want to talk about are consequences and solutions,” he said, pointing out that most of Western Massachusetts is not very vulnerable to climate change, with its temperate cycle of cool winters and warm summers in the middle latitudes, and because it is far enough from the coast that sea level rise won’t impact the area directly.
“In general, we are quite wealthy and privileged and can cope. Compared to globally, we are in a good position to cope – nothing compared to other parts of the world,” Braun said.
Braun discussed worst-case and best-case scenarios of climate change projected for Western Massachusetts. The worst would be a warming of 10 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century, while the best is a warming of 5 degrees by the end of the century. One would mean Massachusetts having a climate like that of Washington, D.C., with one week each year of over-100-degree weather; the other means a Florida-type climate, with a whole month over 100 degrees.
“If we choose bold action, we can limit it to eight days. The point being, we have a choice,” Braun said. He also talked about climate justice, how “the rich get richer and the poor get their byproducts.”
“The most vulnerable who have contributed the least to the problem are the most impacted. The whole issue of impact needs to be viewed through social justice,” he said, adding that the developed world, including North America, Europe, Russia and Australia are the greatest contributors to greenhouse gases, with the areas of greatest vulnerability, such as Africa and parts of South America, contributing the least.
Braun said the same pattern is revealed nationally and regionally, with the most vulnerable people being impacted.
“Looking at urban canopies, where trees are located, in terms of income, the wealthy have more trees, more cooling; poorer areas, less trees. Impacts are not evenly spread across the country or across society.”
Braun said there are reasonable and promising solutions to global warming.
“The future hasn’t happened yet. It’s important to tell people, especially students, that we have a choice,” he said, adding that those who do have choices and who have a voice need to take the lead on action, because millions of people on the planet are in survival mode and do not have a choice.
Showing a clip from the Solutions Project at thesolutionsproject.org, Braun said it could be possible to have 100 percent renewable energy in all 50 states by 2050 with the existing energy solutions of today.
“In the United States in 2021, we’re wasting two-thirds of the energy we’re using. That is a huge problem. In all of the counties of the world, the basic percentage is the same; they only use one-third of the energy created,” Braun said.
He said according to research done by the Solutions Project, “in 30 years, we could live in a country that’s 100 percent clean, with all energy created by wind, water and solar, just by scaling up what we already have.” In Massachusetts, that would be about half the energy coming from offshore wind, 30 percent onshore wind, and the rest solar and some percentages from other systems.
“What’s fascinating about this, it’s already doable,” Braun said.
He said another organization, Project Drawdown at www.drawdown.org, looks at the whole issue holistically, with energy as a part of the solution, along with reduced food waste and a plant-based diet, among others.
Braun said as individuals, people can also take the advice of Canadian climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe and just talk about climate change. “Only 14 percent of us are talking about it,” he said, citing Hayhoe’s book, “Saving Us,” and her TED talk, which can be viewed at www.ted.com/speakers/katharine_hayhoe.
Braun’s talk was the first in a three-part series. The second presentation, “What Will Drive Our Climate Future?” features Gary Yohe, a Huffington Foundation professor of economics and environmental studies at Wesleyan University, and a senior member of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 3. That presentation will also be on Zoom.
Yohe will explore the limitations of what scientists do know and don’t know about climate change, and how people can still make proactive decisions to “abate” or “adapt.”
The third part, “Taking Action: Exploring Ways to Tackle the Climate Crisis,” is at 7 p.m. Oct. 17, via Zoom, and will be a discussion facilitated by Voices for Climate, a Granville-based grassroots group dedicated to creating non-partisan, science-based community conversations about the changing climate.
John Meiklejohn of Voices for Climate, one of the organizers of the series, said they want these talks to bring people together to elaborate on some of the ideas that have been raised, and to talk about climate change in terms of hope for the future.
Meiklejohn also quoted from a book he is reading by Jane Goodall called “The Book of Hope”: “Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up.”
To register for either of the upcoming forums, visit tinyurl.com/cpw-saving-us.