In part one of our conference on Global Climate change,  Dr. Cameron Wake and Nancy Cole discuss the human contribution to climate change, the moral imperative of curbing green house gasses, the challenge that China and India pose to the earth’s atmosphere, FEMA’s preparations for the flooding or America’s cities, and the costs that would be associated with not taking definitive steps to reduce our green house gas emissions .

The Massachusetts School of Law’s Educational Forum presents part 1 of a Conference on Global Climate Change. The segment is hosted by Assistant Professor of law Kurt Olson with research professor, Dr. Cameron Wake, PhD. and Climate Change Outreach Director, from The Union of Concerned Scientists, Nancy Cole J.D. Dr. Wake is a research Associate Professor at the Institute for the Study of Earth at the University of New Hampshire.

Educational Video from The Massachusetts School of Law.

The following is a very rough, unedited transcript of the above video, “Global Warming: Global Climate Change Conference”. It was downloaded via YouTube machine transcriptions.

welcome to the educational forum
this program is brought to you by the Massachusetts
school of law we held a conference to
discuss some of the issues facing our world
in regards to global climate change on this
show and the others to follow we take you
to the conference
I am Kurt Olson and i will be your host for
this program to quote from earth under fire
how’d global warming is changing the world
by gary brash
let me state the goal clearly
no politician who promulgated no program initiated
no alliance sealed no machine designed were
built
no land use permitted no product introduced
no law passed no politician elected unless
the action is a step forward to reduction
and reversal of the affect of greenhouse gases
brush published this book in two thousand
seven tragically few governments have taken
steps to meet this challenge among those that
have the united states is conspicuously absent
as many of the leaders of the movement to
address this most monumental challenges have
said action to address the issue will have
to come from the bottom up because politicians
remain blissfully unaware of the gargantuan
challenge facing humankind
at this conference we aim to inform the public
about the nature and extent of the threat
and hopefully to enable citizens municipalities
states and regions to take the actions that
need to be taken to ensure that future generations
will inherit it world in a marginally habitable
state
the scientists on this panel will address
some of these issues in greater depth
the first session of the conference was entitled
it’s just be accepted science our panelists
are dr cameron wake
the research professor with these institute
for the study of birth boatswain’s and space
and the department of course i it’s is at
the university of new hampshire he directs
an active research program investigating regional
climate environmental change through the analysis
of ice cores in instrumental records additionally
as part of the northeast climate impact assessment
doctor wake co lead research detailing past
and future climate changes in the u_s_ northeast
all right let me started telling you what
i’m gonna tell you
three things i want you to take home from
when i say today
first of all climate changes
climate always has changed and climate always
will change for a whole variety of reasons
what’s new today is that humans are now
a driver of that climate change
the second thing is that %um i see this as
spam this whole issue of at global warming
effort in a climate change
as and moral issue
and path for two reasons the first one is
that all that carbon dioxide that we admitted
as we drove here today is going to be in the
atmosphere on average for about a hundred
years
and i really at points to the to the fact
that
our generation my generation my parents’ generation
has reaped all the benefits of cheap fossil
fuel energy
most of the consequences are being put on
our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren
and that’s the moral problem ’cause we’re
giving them
akash huge problem that we freaked all the
benefits from
that it’s also a moral issue on the back of
the fact that there is those who are most
vulnerable today
who have the least capacity to adapt
and you really need look no further
then that all of those images we saw from
new orleans when hurricane katrina hit
it is the people who did not have the resources
to leave
i did not have the resources to protect their
home or they were in the hospital that suffered
the most
and the same is going to be true
with climate change
some of us will be able to adapt if you have
resources you’ll be able to figure out what
to do
but those of those people who don’t have those
resources are gonna suffer the most
and finally
that the third point illegally but today is
that
there is actually tremendous opportunities
here
to %uh
reduced our greenhouse gas emissions in self
or problems that not at once
we can address and the global climate change
issue we can actually develop a whole new
economy
added centered around green jobs and i’ll
point to some specifics
at the end of my talk today of what we’re
thinking about it
%uh in the state of new hampshire
so green jobs the economy we can deal with
energy security
the more energy to reproduce at home the better
off %uh we’re going to be
and then finally there’s a whole issue of
and sort of human health and air pollution
that we can celebrate
at reducing apoptotic that we put in the atmosphere
that are supposed to see that with agree has
gas emissions
that sort of the frame
big picture might try to talk for about twenty
five minutes and and nancy
and i will do the same and then hopefully
will have a %uh robust discussion
alright so eyed and i score pay them climatologist
less
i start with some ice core data
%uh this is that part perhaps the second most
famous
%uh environmental a record of a service of
the year after the model of carbon dioxide
record
and what you’re seeing here
is a record from an ice core extending back
four hundred and twenty thousand years this
is my score drilled in antarctica
still by the russians analyzed by the french
and by %uh the americans
and with that three records here in black
on the bottom you seek attitude changes over
four hundred and twenty thousand years
about that in the blue you see changes in
methane which is the key greenhouse gas
that above that and that you see changes in
carbon dioxide
in the black boxes
i’ve highlighted the areas that we call inter
glacial periods
what you see from this record actually things
really straight act on them
what is that there are these cycles
in earth’s climate that last about a hundred
a hundred and ten thousand years
where we’re in
it’s called there’s little methane in low
carbon dioxide for eighty to ninety two hundred
thousand years
and then there’s more temperatures
higher methane and higher carbon dioxide as
this
cycle of about a hundred ten thousand if that’s
gone back so we’ve had four
what we call glacial integration cycles
over the course of the last four hundred and
twenty thousand years
the second thing at that’s obvious in this
plot
is that
there is an intricately
between
carbon dioxide
methane and temperature
more greenhouse gas warmer temperatures less
screen test gas cooler temperatures
%uh now it’s actually interesting ’cause a
lot of the naysayers for climate change will
show this plot to say well
we have to %uh we now know actually temperature
changes first in that changes greenhouse gases
there’s nothing to worry about it
what’s interesting actually is temperature
does begin to change first because of the
first response to changes in
orbital cycles it change the medicare issue
that we get from this time
but it turns out that half of the temperature
changes actually driven
by a positive feedback loop for an increase
in greenhouse gases
we warm up the climb it
more %uh that we have more carbon dioxide
to consider the ocean we have wetter conditions
more weapons we have more meta name and that
serves as form the temperature
but you cannot
%uh
sort of pull apart
the fact that greenhouse gases play a critical
role
in the temperature
of the planet
we also use a spa stock i score record to
put the current situation that we ran into
perspective
so here’s the carbon dioxide record that i
just showed you from pasta
you’ll see that carbon dioxide have greatly
expanded why access here
you’ll see that
a carbon dioxide has not been about three
hundred parts per million
for the last four hundred and twenty thousand
years threatened its range from a hundred
and eighty
the three hundred parts per million
deeper system
has really contain carbon dioxide in that
range because of a whole bunch
of feedback loop through the biosphere added
that rescue biosphere the marine biosphere
the oceans
%uh
then i wont come humans tax-cut little topic
in
just off the edge of the screen over there
we started monitoring carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere in nineteen fifty seven model charles
keating started collecting those records we
have increased this year to content of the
atmosphere
to an extent this table there that we see
between a shift at a glacial inter gracielle
transition
and that is all the data we really need
to show that humans are dramatically changing
the birth climate system
now others agree saying and when i first came
to new england two decades ago it now
it says that usually issued by parents to
their wayward children saying if you’re not
careful you’re gonna end up where you’re going
and that’s exactly what’s going to happen
with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere if we
continue to rely upon fossil fuels of their
main source of energy
best estimates
about thousand parts-per-million by volume
by the end of the century
if we continue to rely upon fossil fuels and
that is going to result in catastrophic climate
change and i’ll talk to you a little bit about
what anemic catastrophic climate change
conversely if we follow up half way where
we pursue energy efficiency
and we pursue i clean energy
we might be able to stabilize the atmospheric
four hundred four hundred fifty parts per
million
at which time there will be climate change
we have to deal with
but perhaps perhaps not catastrophic climate
change
there was a very influential paper that can
lead this year in beijing’s hansen from a
daughter institute a space studies
who had is now at it basically indicating
that what we need to
stabilize
are green has got her carbon dioxide concentrations
at three hundred and fifty parts per million
his claim is that at four hundred and fifty
parts per million we essentially melt greenland
and a significant portion of antarctica
and sea levels go up by many meters
and and that’s something that we want to avoid
so right now the scientific community actually
isn’t completely clear on exactly what our
target should be
but we’re pretty sure it’s got to be less
than four hundred fifty parts per million
and might be lower than what god levels are
currently
today
%uh we can no longer sort of weight
to solve this problem we have no time we’ve
run out of time
we have to figure out how to solve this problem
%uh right away
and actually picking up on something that
that %uh kurt had said
we are now increasing greenhouse gases as
a at a rate that is above sort of the worst
case scenario that the intergovernmental panel
on climate change that it would be
what two years ago
%um and the issue here is that while powell
western nations out the it not the united
states have decided to do something about
this
china and india are growing at an incredible
rate
%uh there’s one thing i know for sure is that
china in indy are not going to act investing
estate tax
we can’t be sure that if we act that they
lack but we know that they will not act with
an s_ acting
many that sounds a bit like donald rumsfeld
but it’s really important that the united
states have to take the lead on this issue
because we have been traditionally the largest
emitter of greenhouse gases
and fights we have
i think the technology in the wherewithal
and once we decide to solve this problem that
we’ll actually figure out how to solve it
and what better way
act actually grow our economy in the future
and selling all that technology to china
alright %uh a couple of other plots from the
intergovernmental panel on climate change
majesty show you it’s not just the carbon
dioxide story
%uh this is a record going back
thousand-year
we’re looking at nothing which is another
powerful greenhouse gas in the atmosphere
you can see it’s gone up dramatically in the
last %uh
%uh few decades
and in the same furnitures oxide also a very
powerful greenhouse gas also increasing
so we’re really changing
by the content of the atmosphere
wire greenhouse gases important
we’re not going to go through all the physics
of the greenhouse effect it’s pretty simple
as we as you know it gets colder
in new england as winter is approaching
what do we do we put blankets under beds and
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are just
like putting a blanket on the bed it serves
to trap the radiation coming from your body
so you warmer
exactly what greenhouse gases do in the atmosphere
more greenhouse gas wheat wrap more radiation
coming from the earth the planned it warms
up in response
%uh %uh
and it moving out from sort of three d quite
long records add back to something that %uh
a little bit more
out of time frame that we can understand
and this is a paper that’s just come out by
a michael mann you may have heard of the hockey
stick record this is the new version
of the hockey stick
and the real dramatic part of it is off the
screen of the great inside so %um what michael
mann has done is out talk to a whole bunch
of pale climatologist like me and many others
and assembled
it complicit record
of temperature change in the northern hemisphere
bite piecing together ice core records intriguing
records in coral records in instrumental records
to try and understand
how r climates change in this case over the
last thousand years
and what you see is that
he’s taking his records which are in yellow
and green and black
%uh and comparing them to many other authors
who have done a similar after it and you see
that there’s lots of sort of wiggles and variability
but you see some really strong patterns here
it was more work
in the northern hemisphere back in here and
smart have millennium is colder
during this period called little high st
but you can see as they get out of this error
from the scene there is there a human beings
are really changing climate
bc this dramatic increase in the temperature
of the surface of the earth
it’s now warmer than it’s been for the last
house in years
and we actually know why it’s been warmer
and i’ll talk about that
so here is awsome plots that right from the
intergovernmental panel on climate change
%uh global average temperature at top winds
hard to see
global average sea level in the middle and
northern hemisphere snow cover so you can
see that our temperatures are continuing to
rise
we’re seeing sea levels around the globe rise
and we’re seeing our our northern hemisphere
snow cover
%uh decreased substantially
so how do we know actually humans are causing
map
this climate change
well essential effort of the intergovernmental
panel on climate change is that try and identify
this fingerprint
of human activity on the climate system
and the way we do this is first of all
we actually wheat we now have a good idea
of how birth climate has changed in the past
and over the course of the past twenty years
there have been many what we call global circulation
models mathematical models of the births climate
system
that have been developed
%uh that do a good job at recreating
%uh the earth’s climate
there aren’t there models they’re not perfect
but they’re pretty good at recreating earth’s
climate
and what we do it this models as we actually
forced them with different pat with different
processes so widest climate changes changes
’cause the open from the sun had changed the
changes that we have a panic eruptions
it changes because of the greenhouse gases
in the atmosphere it changes could be put
sulfate aerosols in the atmosphere with which
collect
so there’s lots of competing processes
and what we do
is actually
that look at how climate has changed in the
past
and actually a black line here practices in
the previous plot
that’s how climate has changed
and then what we do is we taken
what we know about how these four things have
changed in this case over the last hundred
years
primarily from solar variability in volcanic
eruptions
and remodel
how we think you know we we we put this into
the models and with the output from the model
is how the temperature of the planet has changed
and this sort of god-awful yellow stuff here
is the outwards from from literally hundreds
of different models model runs
running on
%uh sort of fifteen yr eighteen different
ccmc
from groups around the world this is not one
group this is many different groups providing
this
and what you see
is that we force this
%uh with %uh volcanic eruptions and solar
variability
and in this case
all the greenhouse gases we put in the atmosphere
as well as the sulfate aerosol we put in the
atmosphere
because the only after the models passed in
the morning
or court for the last three to four decades
relatively well
they’re not perfect
but they capture that warming
now if you do the same exercise and you don’t
include
the africa janet forcing so here were just
including volcanoes in solar variability
you see
week-old calf network
you cannot explain the warming over the course
of the past three to four decades
financial anybody that finance system
side as a natural verses that for projects
all happening
acceptable for this hearing institute primarily
i had represented costs which is not putting
green has gas in the atmosphere
that is the fingerprint
of human derived climate change and it’s very
clear now we’ve now done this for the last
decade %uh lots of different models lots of
different modelers and the answer is still
the same
we know that she means
how the kozol the warming that we’ve seen
over the last three to four decades
there’s no doubt in the scientific community
of that
we are cutting back climate to change so
we know that from looking just at carbon dioxide
levels in the atmosphere and comparing them
to pay the crimea records
and we know that from this sophisticated
computer modeling exercise that we’ve now
been doing for the last ten to fifteen years
what the i_p_c_ she has done is actually taking
this a step farther and they’ve looked at
sort of all different regions
they can do the same exercise in north america
after path or anyhow failure even look at
the below it
difficult home and you can look at them all
together you get the same response from all
of them
that’s really disfigure print on global climate
change has been a government a panel %uh on
climate change has that come to you
there is afew
responses in the air system that scientist
are have been about that there is a shot
over the course of the past one to two years
which illustrates to affect the persistent
is actually changing far more rapidly
than any scientist predicted
five years ago
most of the %uh in fact all of the estimates
i know of are either reasonable or the earth
science is steadier system
is actually responding more rapidly than scientists
as suspected
in those circumstances do i know of any of
the projections that where she five years
ago where the earth system is responding slower
and i wanna talk abotu with these
the first one is arctic sea ice this image
heartbeats guys
in the arctic ocean
of north america here in russia over here
and then for all indicate a hundred percent
sea ice in the redford ninety percent yes
so this c_s_
on september twenty first in nineteen eighty
as viewed from satellite information so this
is really solid data
now if we look at what the c_i_a_’s was out
last year on september twenty second two thousand
seven
you can see that were missing
as c_n_n_’s inherently notion about alaska
and siberian already neuroscientist five years
ago predicted this
and what’s happening is that
over the core of that we’ve seen warming in
the arctic rescinded a gradual decline in
arctic sea ice
but weeks essentially seen the loss of what
we call multi year cns
which is on the order of
%uh sort of fifteen to twenty feet thick
so as at sea ice has disappeared
the arctic has become much more vulnerable
to a warm summer
and that’s what happened in two thousand seven
we can plot this overtime insists he s going
back to nineteen hundred
the record here we have a really good records
then
brightened me from satellites
when that happens is that mostly from chicago
mission
reading their here you can see
this loaded steady decline of this is the
extent of summer series
are going to draft will six
and in two thousand seven ec a twenty five
percent decrease in sean’s so we’re losing
are arctic sea ice
%uh who cares that arctic sea ice very great
northwest passage opens up
she was going to cost last week and ship it
around the world this year
well we care
because she likes is essentially the air conditioner
for the northern hemisphere
c_i_a_’s his wife
it reflects incoming solar radiation
what you will point to eliminate c_i_a_’s
you expose allusion which is dark
which absorbs far more of the sun’s radiation
as we get caught innovation vicious
positive feedback loop aji lucy ice
the ocean warms up it’s warmer you lose more
c_i_a_’s
you lose more c_i_a_’s
more ocean gets expose
you warm up the ocean quicker
there are no estimates that we will completely
lose arctic sea ice during the summer time
during the summer melting period in the next
five to ten years
no global climate model predicted this five
years ago and even today
the global climate models don’t get it so
the first
system is changing fast there
in our best understanding of it
some people might say well hey we don’t really
understand the system let’s not worry about
it
what scientists are saying is we don’t understand
the system so we better start
%uh another out
sort of dramatic change in the climate system
comes from greenland so
we know that the amount of melts on the grill
in a sheep is increasing
because we have satellite second %uh sense
the difference %uh between dry smo and wet
snow
so you see here this is the amount of built
in nineteen ninety two
here is the amount of built in two thousand
two a significant increase in the amount of
now
and what happens when that water melts on
the surface if there’s enough melt intimate
eventually makes it down to the state
holding hands paul who has
and flown to the bottom of the nation
and that’s a risk that just like the oil in
your engine that allows your pistons to go
up and down
that water serve to lubricate the bottom of
these big places a drain the greenland ice
sheet
and constant the flow faster
what we’ve seen
in terms of the flow rate of i_d_’s bigger
and bigger that places and popular places
that like
would flow from our washington down the merrimack
valley
to newburyport i mean these are
many caught many miles wide hundreds of miles
long and retrain the greenland ice sheet just
like
riverside train the continent
and what we’ve seen as a doubling in the velocity
of those elect lasers over time
visa from the front of this particular das
island waster twisting alone on the west side
agreement
this is the snow visit australia fifty kilometers
inland
and these are the rates of movement on at
least here for different years
feeding back in the eighties and early nineties
inflation was moving it fixed kilometers per
year
which for a glaze here
is really fast at through two thousand three
late-breaking at her workplace too has now
donald in velocity bootstrap complex tasks
which means it’s dumping twice as much ice
into outback and david eventually make since
the atlantic ocean
if this behavior
continues and increases we’re likely to see
sea level rises on the order of a meter to
two meters by the end of the century
five years ago watching out five years ago
dot ten years ago
but nevertheless the allergist
and in the glacial ice build community we
were all worried about the west antarctic
ice sheet
nobody was really worried about what the stability
of the greenland ice sheet we talked about
it
well you really have any measurements this
is
new and shocking because we really didn’t
forecast this change immigrant initially and
it’s now happening and we frankly don’t know
what’s going to happen in the future we do
not have a good models tomorrow the greenland
ice sheet and its response to a warmer climate
we know that this appeared in the past in
the last at least two period
there is very little if anything the nation
but we don’t we can’t science cannot provide
society with a good estimate
of how the behavior of the greenland ice sheet
is gonna change in the future
all right so i want to ask if the little bit
that sort of the global picture is worth talk
a little bit about how climate has changed
across in the northeast which is really become
a focus of my research over the past four
or five years this is one of our initial studies
looking at how r winters as warm
you can see as of the last hundred years of
winter time friday
you can see lots of you to your variability
but the long-term trend is one where we see
to over two degrees fahrenheit warming over
the last century
and that rate of warming actually increasing
over the last thirty three years
%uh we actually looked into this and quite
a bit more detail
and this is a paper that’s just about to come
out in the journal geophysical research
written by my graduate student
and there was might might graduate student
at days has hated me because there’s this
tremendous amount of data and there’s lots
of gas in it and there’s lots of problems
that we just had to figure out the best stations
then we get a whole bunch of work to fill
in
the missing data by looking at what may bring
stations had
but she’s done a really excellent job developing
the death record
of wintertime climate change across the northeast
and then what we did his weakness we looked
at trends in wintertime indicators that we’re
talking but merely that temperature here
%uh trends in wintertime temperature and she
just put out that trend line over thirty year
periods
starting him
that nineteen sixty-five and going to nineteen
ninety four
and then starting in nineteen ninety asstt
nineteen sixty six in linden nineteen
sixty six in the early nineteen ninety five
east thirty year period
and stepping out along
all the way up until we got to nineteen seventy
five
two thousand four
so we’re looking at trends with art discourteous
trends over time
and the reason this is important is ’cause
you never know where to start your record
because maybe a starter cold hearing into
the warm earings levi’s today
which is plotted here it’s everyone are is
a different station
and this is a lacked the proper bonds here
or in northern maine
your word out in pennsylvania and new jersey
and this is the main changing degrees celsius
for decades so for degrees fahrenheit just
double it
but what you see is that almost all of the
station friends over that time
all right you are up
hahaha degree celsius a degree fahrenheit
for decades
over the last four decades almost all stations
in the northeast are showing
this four degree warming over that time period
never arts if representative variability in
that trend by starting and ending the trend
in different years
so this is a really robust result
i took my graduate student three years to
get to that was the same as when we did the
initial study
winters are warming across the northeast
there’s no doubt about it out just to summarize
what this actually mean she also has left
that changes in snow-covered days
but our mean temperature and now i’m breaking
this down by month you can see that our cafeteria
especially in the heart of winter
january and february are getting warmer on
the order of of one point two %uh one to one
point two degrees fahrenheit per decade
we’re looking at sixty seven days per decade
fewer days are still cover enduro we now have
three days left of snow-covered
that we did compared to nineteen seventy
we’re seeing this dramatic change in are wintertime
climb it
and it’s fundamentally length
to the fact that when you have less no week
the ground absorbs much more solar radiation
so were suffering
from the same process here in in the northeast
at the arctic is suffering from with arctic
sea ice
this comes from lake champlain
for %uh over a hundred ninety years they’ve
been tracking
when the ice comes in that lake champlain
was really important early on
because of the northern part of lake champlain
froze they use it for transportation if it
there why didn’t the courses across the ice
so we’ve got this long-term record and you
can see over the course of time that the ice
is coming in later and later today
out what is it two weeks later today
compared to the early eighteen hundreds
but what’s really shocking about this record
if you look at the bottom
israel’s red dots represent years when the
ice did not come in at all
there was no late nights that form
and you can see that of the thirty three times
at the lake is not frozen over the entire
period of record
over fifty percent of those have occurred
since nineteen seventy which is not a random
distribution
that that this system the climate system
in northern lake champlain has flip now the
point where you used to have lake ice and
now you don’t have a case
and that has really important ramifications
for
the climate system %uh certainly for the ecosystem
annoyed freezer doesn’t freeze and its and
perhaps most importantly
to the social system right
kids aren’t going and ice fishing anymore
you captain cousteau mobile they’re on the
lake and if you live out their and you get
your your your income from people who are
going fishing or snowmobiling
it’s not happening anymore
i thought the popular sea level rise and global
sea levels have been rising
in the northeast we are particularly at risk
because our coast is sinking
so in response to these big places the that
laughed at work here eighteen thousand years
ago they laugh
the land lifted
but ect visits with the quite a bit but now
the coast in response to that
is subsiding so are closed the sinking
global sea levels are rising primarily because
the ocean is what is warmer its warmed up
the surface water is last dance
it takes up more space
%uh but %uh these writings he left so we see
about double the rate of sea level rise on
the honored new england coast
compared to global average sea level rise
andy today this is not the huge concern but
when we have a really big storms like we did
year-ago in april
year-and-a-half ago you can see that we have
a major erosion and this is just going to
continue
you know if you on the home cape cod
that’s close to sea level
things don’t look good
so we think that had happened eighteen and
nineteen inches of our relatives sea level
rise on the east coast over the course of
the last been in fifteen years
nancy is the director of climate outreach
for the union of concerned scientists should
keep s use c_f_c_s sound science initiative
wound up and running well
s_s_i_ is a special project designed to help
scientists present accurate
credible information about global warming
and other issues to policy makers into the
media
it grassroots organizing veteran
call now works with scientists around the
country to bring the voice of the scientific
community to bear on critical global environmental
issues %uh my name is nancy call from the
union of concerned scientists
and that
i’ll see a little bit more about the work
that here and i have done together with a
lot of other scientists around the northeast
that step focus of might work
mean my presentation today
so what i’m railing and induced you’ve just
heard a a lot from kamran about sort of %uh
%um both the global picture but also %uh some
historical
information about changes here in the northeast
when i’m gonna do izzy rowen using information
from the northeast climate impacts assessment
that cameras one of the colt league co-authors
on and talk a little bit about what global
warming might mean right here in new in the
northeast do so
weekend
worry allot are not very much about what’s
happening up in arctic but %um i think it
really matters to know that there would be
a lot of changes right here in the northeast
and what that is going to mean to our economy
our environment
and the way of life that %uh that at least
i for one have really come to love
so the northeast climate impacts assessments
%uh
was a collaboration between about fifty independent
scientists
from a lot of different academic and government
institutions around the northeast and the
union of concerned scientists it was v ball
of this %uh effort
was really too
of developing communicate anew assessment
of climate change and associated impacts anti
climate sensitive sectors
in the northeast
so this study covered %uh the area from name
in the spending side from
and sitting in the south to main in the north
so nine states and several different %uh economic
sectors including coastal areas marine forests
anc
winter recreation human health and solutions
so %um
that that bottom line here
is that this research which was released in
this report released about a year ago the
reared up
shows that if global warming continues
and to grow unabated
then the northeast can expect dramatic changes
in climate over the course of the century
was substantial impacts
on key sectors and the character of the entire
region
on the other hand
if the rate of heat trapping emissions is
lower
the projections in this report showed that
many of the changes will be far less dramatic
they won’t be zero
but they’ll be far less serious
so or that
astm basically says to us
isn’t that the emissions choices we’re making
today
the choices that we’re making about
how we get electricity in our homes and businesses
the cars that we drive
%uh %uh the products that we use
%uh those choices today
both here in the northeast n worldwide
will help determine the climate that our children
and grandchildren and hear it from us
and will shape the consequences for their
economy
environment and quality of life
i wanna say right up front
at the story i’m gonna tell is a story
not of what will be
but of what might be
if we don’t change our behaviors
because this global warming is a human cost
problem
the good news is it’s amenable to human solution
so it leave
created this problem-based on the choices
that we’ve made about how we
get our energy from primarily from fossil
fuels
%um then we can change that
that’s the good news
so we need to
reduce our emissions standards karen said
earlier we need to do it
faxed
and we also have to begin to prepare for the
changes that we now know are unavoidable
so there’s a certain amount of global warming
and the associated impacts from now
that can’t be avoided anymore because it’s
be any because by the c_o_ two and other heat
trapping gases that are already up in the
atmosphere and right now we don’t have any
way to get him out of there
so we’re gonna feel the effects of that
and the question really is are we gonna manage
that smartly
or are we gonna pretend that it’s not happening
and face crisis after crests so we need to
really from begin to prepare for the changes
that we can no longer a point
and a lot of the good thing and for us is
that they’re are a lot of choices we can make
today to reduce their emissions enough touch
on a couple of hours
at them i talk
%um and %uh there are certainly things that
we can begin to do to prepare for the change
is coming our way and i’ll mention a few of
those over the course of %uh over the course
of my reporting on the findings
in the first thing we know is that climate
change is already changing across the northeast
annual temperatures are up almost two degrees
in the past forty years
like kevin said winter storm warning fastest
rat very rapidly
small populate life is decreasing
space indicators are arriving earlier that
means things like down when the trees but
when the %uh birds migrate when insects
span
%uh emerge
those kinds of things are happening earlier
and earlier
and extreme heat is becoming more frequent
so these are changes we’re experiencing already
here in the northeast
and these are
%uh these changes can be attributed to the
admissions that our parents and grandparents
put up in the atmosphere during their lifetime
now they didn’t
you know it’s could certainly be argued that
they didn’t understand the consequences of
their actions
i don’t think that week can pretend say that
anymore
if we know that our missions are continuing
to increase in like him and said the recent
most recent evidence suggests that emissions
are rising
at a more rapid rate that even the worst case
scenarios that scientist previously projected
then we have to say okay with these emissions
likely to increase what kind of change can
we expect
over the coming century
now if you’re gonna make assumptions if you’re
gonna make projections about the future
you have to make some assumptions about what
that features gonna look like
and so that’s exactly what they hated intergovernmental
panel on climate change dot is
they have created a number of scenarios called
scenarios that look at how much she owed to
and other heat trapping gases they expect
to be in the atmosphere over the course of
the century
and they look at a bunch of different things
population growth is a big factor of my people
you have
in general and the more energy we use the
more missions week
%um they might look at on energy a cement
look at economic development board types of
economics overhead the industry
%uh heavy industrial economy is a has more
missions them the service sector economy for
example
%um they might look at what assumptions about
how technology might develop in the future
and how quickly it could be
i’m spread around to the rest of the world
so obviously has a lot of different variables
there and so the wayside is deal with that
as they create a number of different scenarios
that mixes those things up
so what the northeast climate impacts assessment
did isn’t used to
different a mission scenarios to try to make
some projections about the future
the first one is the one you see in the dotted
red line on the screen that’s what we call
the higher emissions scenario again these
were created by the i_p_c_ c
the higher emissions scenario assumes i’m
pretty much business as usual they you know
continuing the emissions trends that we see
today so very
continuing to rely very heavily on fossil
fuels
for the rest of the century
that if if that were to happen
we would and the century
at %uh about nine hundred and forty parts
per million deaths yet to annapolis fear
so that’s the files in
figure that camera was referring to
on the other hand if you look at the green
line at the bottom that’s the lower emissions
scenario
that scenario assumes that %um we begin to
see some shifts in technology and less carbon
intensity energy future
%uh and
that one dance that century at five hundred
and fifty parts per million
those are the two scenarios that were used
in this study
and the idea that the scientists had
was that that they shouldn’t bookends
you know if you could kind of a look at that
about the higher mission scenario on the lower
one
and if there were differences between them
then it would shout what difference it would
make a plea do something to reduce our mission
and as you’ll see during the rest of my presentation
there are a number of situations where it
makes a tremendous difference
rather we are on the higher emissions pathway
or the lower
but the one thing i do wanna point out here
is you’ve heard camera and say that many scientists
well
many scientists think that four fifty parts
per million in the atmosphere is
has the highest we should go without at significant
risk
of significant problems
some very prominent scientists are suggesting
we need to stay at three fifty
so already the findings in this report
again in the are are sort of hired and
well we would see is that not too long and
amount of a missions we want to have in the
atmosphere so few times throughout the presentation
of an estate you know remind you again
that what we really need to do is getting
lower then this lower emissions scenario this
should not be
%uh afar for us we need to and to be lower
than that
this first graph shows you the northeast average
annual temperatures so what i mean by that
annual average me
easier averaging day and night you’re averaging
summer and winter here averaging from ancient
pennsylvania located it’s at composite sort
of
grossed level picture
horizontal axis you have
here’s from nineteen hundred twenty one hundred
and on the border collapse as you have temperature
change in fear degrees fahrenheit b
yellow line
represents v lower emissions scenario results
and that sort of red line represents the higher
emission scenario results
and the black line here at the beginning
represents
observations that’s with actually happened
what you can see
he is by the end of the century if we don’t
do anything to get our nation’s under control
we are very likely to see annual average temperatures
over the northeast region increased by up
to twelve degrees fahrenheit
and just to put that in perspective
at the height of the last onstage for example
many scientists believe the difference in
temperature was around nine or ten degrees
so we are talking about
you know of huge
change
contempt
and the other hand
under a lower emissions pathway weekend weak
and %uh keep that temperature increase
to less than half
of the higher mission say right
so already you can see a pretty tremendous
difference
between higher imo
this is a place where you might say well maybe
we really don’t want to go to six degrees
higher annual average temperature and that
would be a real reason why we need to keep
our mission is lower
and even the lower a mission scenario in used
in this study
you noticed that the two emissions in areas
don’t really diverge until about twenty forty
twenty-fifty mid-century
so that vasant clearest picture i can show
you
of what difference it will make whether we
reduce our emissions are not wait we’re setting
the pathway
there’s a certain period of time between now
and twenty four d mid century or so
where the two scenarios track together
and what that picture shows s
is that is warming that’s already unavoidable
heat index hot actually feels to us
so even though the temperatures are projected
to get high
humidity or heat index
is going to get high
so if you look at that map hopefully you’ll
recognize the state of massachusetts
%um the great is the just because
story ke index for the state which is what
it’s felt like for the past thirty or so years
using the same color scheme the yellow is
the lower emissions scenario the red is the
higher
what this graphic shows you is that
again if we stay on a very fossil fuel intensive
pathway
and teams continued to %uh and that a lot
of heat trapping gases
we can expect that by the end of the century
summers in massachusetts
will field
warlike
%uh south carolina
i’m not talking about winter
eric when it might feel nice take a little
break
i’m talking about july and august
in new england feeling like july and august
now feels in south carolina
on the other hand
used to goodness
we can
these changes
so that it feels much more like state maryland
or northern virginia
and south carolina
that’s a significant difference
this is a graphic that will show you for vermont
for new hampshire
and for me
so for those of you from new hampshire
%uh by the end of the century under higher
mission scenarios summers a much more likely
to feel like north carolina
them like the beautiful summers easily experience
one of the things that the studied it
let that very carefully is the potential for
extreme heat in the big cities of the northeast
obviously there are millions and millions
tens of millions of people
who live in the big cities along the eastern
seaboard %uh big
cities are even more susceptible to extreme
temperature because of the heat island effect
%uh and so there’s a
great cause for concern about extreme heat
in that big cities
and so if you look on this graph again %uh
and along that the horizontal axes you’ve
got
time
and the vertical athlete you’ve got days per
year over ninety degrees
and %um the grey box on the far left that
again is your historic reference carry it
so
%uh %uh in the past that used to be a busted
would experience fewer than ten days of the
course of the summer over ninety degrees
by the end of the century
under the higher emissions pathway taking
no action to reduce our emissions
we are looking at more than sixty days every
summer
over ninety degrees
in the past in boston
no under the longer missions pathway you can
see again a tremendous difference
that extreme heat is cut in half
and if you look at
days over a hundred
which are extremely rare
in boston
by the end of the century
twenty four days
over a hundred degrees
substantially less only a quarter
if we do something about reducing our missions
and keeping them
along the lower emissions pathway
the same kind of thing same conquered in manchester
%uh in buffalo
cities by the north end of traditionally been
very cool
are likely to
pretty extreme changes
%uh in extreme heat
for air quality or bad hair days
is caused by a combination of pollution and
temperature
%uh increasingly is going to mean increasing
that air tix
so we’re talking about some pretty significant
heat problems sheet you no health problems
here
%um
not only increase
is in heat stress heat stroke heart attacks
the kind of things
that %uh you know the human body has a difficult
time adjusting to extreme heat
but we’re also talking about respiratory problems
when you combine sophie and pollution so
we’re looking at some very serious threats
to %uh
human health at at least more c_o_ two in
the atmosphere anna longer growing season
and and higher temperatures
yes which kind of plan surreal you really
love that kind of environments
it’s particularly weeds
an allergy allergen producing plants
so there’s a lot of evidence that’s now suggesting
that not only
%uh did the plants grow better but they also
produce more power
sell for those of us who are allergy sufferers
%uh this pictures also
%uh seven
likely that the exchanges in precipitation
i’m particularly
how the %uh rain and snow was delivered
we’re likely to see %uh
increasing winter precipitation
but it will come more in the form a serene
dennis note because it’s the from bridges
knock
and we’re likely to see more frequent an intense
periods of heavy rain
and we’ve experienced a number
of those kind of extreme
arena precipitation particularly rain events
over the past several summers as exhibited
by this %uh picture here in new hampshire
on cameras also talked a little bit about
sea level rising need to talk about %um impacts
to coastal areas which of course is that
fundamental part of
of the northeast
they’re likely to be
%uh more frequent flooding like
that picture at the bottom which was taken
i think in revere shall see
more coastal erosion
at the top bright pictures taken from the
new jersey coast line
and also
%uh wetland inundation and expected loss so
they’ll be some significant %uh
changes along the coastline and a lot of different
ways
n c level is increasing and storm surge is
is getting larger the barrier islands that
sort of islands off the coast that provide
a lot of protection both for wetlands and
for
scum
%uh on the other side of that
barrier islands there etc increasing risk
this is a breakthrough of the %uh
%uh barrier island for the chatham
%uh that happened from the bigger restrict
a protein fat in sap
at boston new york
all of those cities there right on the coast
federal emergency management agency or fema
develops as system called the hundred year
flood which is just a term that they used
to un
%uh help
%uh city planners prepare infrastructure
herb changes so that they can’t kind of understand
%uh you know what what might be a kind of
worst-case scenario
be if there were %um storm surge in and flooding
in boston and the other big cities
but this graphic shows you
sod boston
some of that this is back there
a so some of the big landmark areas in downtown
boston commonwealth avenue newbury street
copley t
%uh the esplanade
the job can’t act hour that sort of area of
boston
%uh in what it might looked like
and sea levels rise and storm surges increased
so what you see in the past year and %uh
%uh that’s sort of dark blue lines
right now that is the hundred year flood zone
but as of course sea level rises the hundred
year flood zones
panoramic so what you see
with a project that hundred year flood zone
in twenty one hundred
very frequent
%uh flooding
very substantial parts
of what is now bust
the sea level rise projections that were used
in this trip
court were based on the most recent like pcc
report
%uh and at that time the high pcc did not
include projections about changes projected
changes in greenland
melting because
i wanted to do it
the fine commit further too much is uncertainty
so they didn’t make any projections
but over the past couple of years that science
has %uh progressed
and like %uh
cameron indicated earlier there’s now
%uh a lot of evidence suggesting that sea
level rise will be substantially higher than
ninety cc projected
and so what using those new sea level rise
projections what we might expect is that what
i described as a possible hundred your flat
in twenty one hundred will actually be high
tide
it’s extremely unlikely
that this is going to happen i mean boston
will
%uh in massachusetts will take pains that
protect the city
as as best as they can and there’s a lot of
engineering solutions and other things
they can be done to help protect
this incredibly valuable part of the boston
landscape
but he just ask you to think about if in this
part of boston the scene high tides that look
at this look like this
kinds of investments will have to be made
by the state of massachusetts by the city
of boston by the people of the u_s_
to protect boston from this kind of damage
so when anybody says to you uh it’s gonna
be expensive to reduce our emissions into
the change our energy system
miami think about
how expensive this is going to be
and how what this is gonna look like in new
york city which is almost as bad
and what this is gonna look like all up and
down the coastline of the east coast
so there are tremendous cost associated with
nothing
doing anything to reduce our emissions and
we’ll talk about that very much
but i’d think that’s a really important part
of this
discussion
now
%uh is what kinds of expenses were talking
about
to protect ourselves from a changing climate
and what will happen if we don’t
‘em we are expecting to see substantially
more drought conditions so you’ve got this
really
terrible things setting up of
a set of more frequent and more rain in the
spring and in the fall of two hundred dry
spells
right when you needed growing
bella certainly all these changes in temperature
precipitation are certainly going to mean
impacts that agriculture
so climate change will bring some new opportunities
more c_o_ two hundred growing season might
in fact i mean that some crops that camp currently
be grown in the northeast could in in fact
the grown in the northeast
but there’s a
hall new set of risks and costs that also
go along with this
weeds and passed
that comet currently been limited had not
moved into the northeast because it’s been
too cold here
are now finding their way farther and farther
north
%uh a more variable climate %uh which makes
it hard for up for any approx farmers for
example to be able to
%uh make it through the seasons
and of course additional costs like irrigation
in areas that used to be rain fed agriculture
one of the interesting things i think for
massachusetts is to consider that many of
our phd %uh very lucrative specialty crop
required cold winters
so all these things you didn’t value about
winter before hopefully
prophet you will now
but a lot of of like apples and and grapes
in %uh
primaries
require a certain chilling requirement in
the winter in order to flower and fruit in
the summer
and %uh by the end of the century
i’ve mid-century
mhm it seems a bit
in the truth
highest
cranberry producing areas of the northeast
the chilling requirements are likely to be
unmet a substantial amount of the time
celtic turns out that and new jersey which
is that sort of brown spots
on the bottom and of course southern massachusetts
are the two big cranberry growing areas in
and the northeast
and by even as early as mid-century less than
eighty percent of the years under the higher
admission scenario will be called enough in
the winter
to support cranberry growth in massachusetts
new agin massachusetts about cranberries
and i think about forrest a lot of that looked
out of this
beautiful window and i might drive up here
so under current conditions which is the map
you see the air
you can see that much of the web main is dominated
in large part by iron bed very deep spruce
forests of the northern woods
and that much of arm
massachusetts and new york and firm
on and new hampshire
%um are you know that
their hardware it’s the
the %uh the naples then %uh beaches in the
bridges that give us a beautiful fall color
lower emissions scenario
you can see that certainly much of that environment
will be missing out of massachusetts but a
lot will be left in vermont new hampshire
and western massachusetts but no no
hired mission scenario we lose very very much
of the
suitable conditions for about twenty three
is that we live
and the same thing with winter recreation
you heard cam and saying how fast winters
are changing that this graphic simply shows
its is
%uh in
in the historic period of the amount of the
northeast that would we could expect at least
an inch of snow for at least thirty days of
the course of the winters you can see it’s
most of the region
but by the end of the century
%uh under the higher emission scenario there’s
basically snow left in very few parts of the
region
but i said at the beginning wasn’t that
i wanna emphasize again
the story that i just called
is this story not of what will be
of what might be
and rather is what actually happens
is up to us
it is very literally
the future is in our hands
right now
so we need to reduce our emissions as tony
blair states the blunt proof about the politics
of climate for
which is that no country will want to sacrifice
its economy in order to meet this challenge
but all economies know that that only sensible
long-term way of developing is to do it on
a sustainable basis
thank you for joining us today we hope you
have been influenced by what we presented
to you today