Spring Campus Climate Challenge Begins

By: Timothy Bleasdale

Posted: 2/22/07

In the now famous film "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore declares that "There are good people in both [political] parties that hold [global warming] at arm's distance because if they recognize it then the moral imperative to make big changes is inescapable."

ConnPIRG agrees. And in recognition of this "moral imperative," they kicked off the Spring 2007 Campus Climate Challenge with a showing of the film. The event drew a diverse crowd ranging from freshmen to graduate students.

"The Campus Climate Challenge is trying to help prevent global warming in any way that UConn can," said Corrie Colwell, a 2nd-semester political science major and one of ConnPIRG's co-coordinators for the Campus Climate Challenge campaign.

The Campus Climate Challenge kick off event also included a promotion for several petitions. One was a photo petition thanking Congressman Joe Courtney for agreeing to sponsor the Safe Climate Act (SCA). According to Colwell and her co-coordinators, Courtney agreed to sponsor the act last night at the urging of ConnPIRG and several other environmental groups. 'Signatories' of this petition had their photograph taken holding a giant comic-book-like speech bubble with a thank you message in it. The photographs will be sent to the congressman later as part of the petition.

Courtney was originally scheduled to hold a question and answer session following the film but was unexpectedly called back to Washington D.C. the night before.

According to Colwell, the group chose to show Gore's film because it presents many facts that are relevant and important to raising awareness of global warming, and does so in an entertaining and stimulating way.

Although the documentary, which has been nominated for two Oscars, has been criticized as being too politically-biased, it has managed to give greater visibility to the shape that the climate change debate is currently taking. It is no longer commonplace to find dissenting voices outright denying global warming. Now people seem to realize the existence of a warming trend while questioning or denying any human correlation.

Sarah Melchior, a 3rd-semester English and philosophy double major, is one such skeptic.

"I don't have a set opinion on the climate change issue," Melchior said. "I think it may be a bit hasty to say global warming is definitely human-caused. I think there needs to be a lot more research than has currently been done. At this point it seems a bit premature to say that there is a causal relationship between humans and climate change, however, these views [pro-human causation] are important because they make people reconsider how they treat the environment, which, in the end, is a good thing."

Melchior, who was not able to attend the event, said she is eager to see the film so she can see the evidence for attributing global warming to human activities.

"At ConnPIRG we do believe that humans are the cause of global warming," Colwell said. "We are dedicated to informing the student population about this and motivating them to do whatever is possible to combat it."

This official stand by ConnPIRG was reflected in the general attitude of the audience.

"Yeah, of course humans are causing global warming," said Thibaut Dall'agnese, an English literature Master's student. "Just go to New York, Boston or any big city and see the haze. It's going somewhere and it's having an affect on the atmosphere."

Melissa Krah, a 4th-semester environmental science major, also agreed.

"I have to go with the overwhelming evidence on this issue, yes humans are causing global warming," Krah said.

Krah pointed out that many skeptics of global warming, including the Bush administration, assert that there is no consensus among scientists that global warming is even occurring.

"The scientists they usually point to tend to be employed by [companies in the energy sector or other groups] that would benefit from their scientists' dissenting opinions," Krah said.

Krah recommends the documentary, calling it well-researched and well founded in science.

"[Gore] covered most of the major consequences of global warming," Krah said. "He simplified things to make it easier for everyone to understand, but didn't misrepresent the issue."

According to Colwell the Campus Climate Challenge has several more events planed for later this semester including an Earth Day event, a global warming debate with other student groups, possibly a concert and a "lights-off day" leading up to Earth Day.