Climate Change: A Scientist and a Lawyer Walk into a Seminar:
Youtube on May 1, 2020:
My first excursion is The title of the presentation is “Climate Change: A Scientist and a Lawyer Walk into a Seminar” (Link Here). The speaker of the presentation’s names are Alice Chistaman and Brittany Right and she is representing the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. This video was published on May 1, 2020 and I watched on December 2 , 2023. The presentation is split up into two parts. The first part is the science side of the effects of climate change and the lawyer focuses on the human side. The science side introduces climate change and the greenhouse effect and then points to its impact on the Chesapeake Bay area. Some of the important effects are water temperatures have increased in the bay and in its connected streams and rivers which causes less oxygen for aquatic animals, resulting in less of them. Furthermore, cold water plant species like eel grass are dying off in the bay due to the water being too warm. Additional water changes include increase in pollutants and salinity which affects all aquatic life. The bay has also seen its sea level rise up to 3 times the global average due to natural causes on top of the glaciers melting as a result of global warming. Storms and flooding have increased in the area as well. The scientist’s segment ends on a positive note on practices being done in the bay area that help decrease global warming and increase bay qualify for example forest-buffers and utilization of no-till farming. The lawyer’s section focuses on what the Chesapeake Bay Foundation is doing legally to combat climate change and pollution in the Chesapeake Bay area. There have been struggles to get environmental laws passed for example The Clean Power Plan proposed in 2019 would’ve required power plants to rely more on renewable and clean energy to generate electricity. Instead, the Affordable Clean Energy Rule was passed which actually led to an increase of greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, the Safe Affordable Fuel Efficient (SAFE) Vehicle Rule loosened environmental and fuel efficiency restrictions on cars which increased greenhouse gas emissions. Delaware and Maryland still hold stricter fuel efficiency regulations despite SAFE. The Chesapeake Bay FOundation has been involved in lawsuits with the EPA over both SAFE and the Affordable Clean Energy Rule.
Overall, I do find the main points convincing. The speakers mainly provided facts and didn’t really implement their opinions. The information presented was clear and concise and more importantly included relevant information about what will likely happen in the near future if the current path is continued. However, a problem I spotted was the use of the fallacy of suppressed evidence when the lawyer was talking about SAFE and left out the fact that although SAFE increases carbon emissions, the previous standards were impossible for auto manufacturers to keep up with and thus SAFE had to be implemented so cars could be produced.
Making Sense Of Climate Change 3: The Beginning of the Age of Humans:
Youtube on March 3, 2017:
My second excursion is Making Sense Of Climate Change 3: The Beginning of the Age of Humans Which is presented by scientist Bert Drake and SmithsonainSERC (Smithsonian Environmental Research Center) (Link Here). The video was published on March 3, 2017 and was viewed on December 7, 2023. The speaker starts out by identifying to the audience that CO2 levels correlate with global temperatures and ties that into current/future importance by explaining that this will cause glaciers to melt which will raise sea level by 3-6 feet by the end of the century, causing problems for around the 50 cities that are located at major river deltas. He then introduces a theory that the Anthopocene started in 1950 and then introduces a theory that it started around 10,000 years ago. The speaker starts explaining the second theory to the audience by showing that the Earth is in a cycle of changing from hot and cold due to changes in the Earth's orbit to the sun which causes increase and decreases in radiation which has a direct correlation to global heat. The speaker claims the phenomenon follows the pattern of sharp temperature increases followed by slow gradual decreases. However, in 8000 BC this trend broke and temperatures kept rising even after they spiked which is because around this time is when agriculture was created. Agriculture led to mass deforestation and mass increases in human population which snowballed into increases in CO2 levels which lead to increased temperatures. The speaker poses the question: Did rising atmospheric CO2 at the end of the last ice age trigger the adoption of agriculture and the beginning of the Anthropocene? He claims that yes it did because increased CO2 levels allowed plants to become more efficient, citing large differences in plant size when exposed to different levels of CO2. Thus, the increased CO2 levels allowed plants to be mass harvested.
I did find the main argument convincing because it followed a reasonable line of reasoning and had facts and statistics to back it up. A major problem I have with the presentation is that the first theory of the Anthropocene starting in 1950 wasn’t really explored. He introduces the theory and some pretty solid evidence to support it however spends most of his time on the second theory which does seem like the correct theory however the first one wasn’t really given a chance to prove its case. An example of a statistic that helped the speaker gain credibility was, the graphic of legume plants clearly demonstrated how plants with higher CO2 levels were larger and created more products. One complaint I have about this point though is that other reasons as to why plants could have been more successful after the last ice age were not discussed for example the increase of radiation from the sun would have increased temperature but also photosynthesis. Although it is known that CO2 is the real factor, these other factors could’ve been discussed as well. One thing I really liked that the speaker did was point out a fallacy that people who counter global warming use. He stated that conservatives like the idea that climate change started a while ago because that information can be used to draw the conclusion that climate change is natural and not human caused which would be an example of the appeal to consequence fallacy. One last thing I liked was his reference to Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel which I like not only because we are both named Jared but because I watched the documentary and it is one of the most interesting things I’ve ever watched.